The 2084 Precept (18 page)

"You mentioned killing as a sport
before."

"So I did, Jeremy, I apologize. But please
don't consider that I was exaggerating. All kinds of human beings
do it. Only recently in fact, the elected honorary president of the
World Wildlife Fund itself, King Juan Carlos of Spain, proudly
appeared in colorful photographs together with his slaughtered
elephant. And by the way, we don't call these killing jaunts
'killing jaunts', Jeremy. We call them 'safaris', it sounds
nicer."

I finished the last of my coffee. "So to
summarize, Jeremy, no we are not
all
like this. A small
minority fights to save a few of the creatures. They have also set
up 'rehabilitation homes' for the animals their fellow-humans have
tortured, mistreated or abandoned—a plentiful supply of these as
you may imagine—and they are always generally trying to do their
best."

"Well, I am pleased to hear that,"
interjected Jeremy, "although at the same time I have difficulty in
coming to terms with the revolting horrors you have depicted, and
which make protective care attempts a necessity in the first place.
An extraordinary planet in this sense, absolutely extraordinary.
For my own particular species, in fact for any of the universe's
intelligent species, it is a fairly sickening tale—an abominable,
repulsive and immoral tale—and I will need to reinforce my
memorized notes with plenty of research or my professor might query
the reliability of my facts. He might accuse me of distorting the
truth, of factual exaggeration in order to enhance the dynamics of
my thesis. But if I may say so, Peter, you personally
do
have views, that much is clear from several of your comments, and
it would seem to me that you find these activities to be
exceedingly abhorrent, is that not so?"

"Yes Jeremy, it is. But again, my views are
irrelevant. It is the facts that count. I cannot change the human
race. I cannot change the way things are, and so my views don't
worry me. The subject doesn't depress me either, except perhaps in
an abstract way while describing it all. And so it doesn't prevent
me from enjoying life. There you are, that is the way I am."

"Interesting, interesting. Well, I think I
can say you have given me enough of a broad overview, so how about
we call it a day? Or would you like another coffee, a spot of lunch
perhaps?"

Spot of lunch? No thank you very much, got
to be joking, enough is enough, no coffee either, back into
reality, that's what I need, out into the sun where normality
reigns, normality such as it is of course. The main thing was to
remove myself from this white asylum-wall environment. I checked my
watch. Just past midday. Great. End of the story, goodbye Mr.
Parker,
vaya con Dios
. Maybe I'll head straight off to
Germany, still make it home before midnight.

"No thanks, Jeremy," I said. "It's been a
pleasure. 'Interaction with Other Species'. An interesting subject,
I hope I was helpful. Ignore my views, my views are incorrect ones
often enough. Just stick to the facts and you'll be O.K."

I stood up, stretched, I could do with a
cigarette. Two, in fact.

"Our next meeting," he said. "I'll need time
for the research on this one and in any case you are travelling
back to Germany for a few days and, if I recall correctly, you have
a meeting in London on the Monday. So how does Wednesday of next
week sound to you? My agenda is rather full for that morning, so… 2
p.m. perhaps? Or would you prefer the Thursday?"

Keep him happy, no need to create waves.
Peace on earth and leave quietly, that's the plan. But a last bit
of fun would not be amiss, it wouldn't do any harm, would it? Isn't
that what I came for in the first place?

"Jeremy," I said, "if I decide to continue
with these meetings, and I understand that I am under no obligation
to do so, they are going to cause some considerable disruption to
my life. Right now, I don't know whether I will be loaded up with
work next week here in the U.K. or whether I will be starting off
on a new assignment in Spain. But either way, I shall be working
full blast, and to have to absent myself from work when I shouldn't
could have undesirable effects. I earn a considerable amount of
money in my business and I like to conduct it professionally, as I
am sure you do yours."

I paused, I looked at him. He looked back at
me. He was thinking. Maybe he was even thinking the word 'money'?
He thought some more.

How much?" he said.

"I am not a bargaining man, Jeremy. I am not
an Arab in his marketplace. Not my type. To adequately compensate
me for the risks involved, my remuneration would need to be
increased to €800,000 from the €500,000 previously offered."

Let's see how his tiny fantasy world deals
with this one. An intriguing little exercise. Interesting, does no
harm, just how much of his illusory money is he willing to throw
around?

He continued to look at me, drank some
coffee, placed his elbows on the table, looked at me some more, and
did some more thinking.

"Peter, I am not a bargaining man either.
Irrespective of how much you earn, I consider your risks to be
minimal and I cannot accept the amount you mention. Nevertheless,
as I would prefer to retain your services, something of which you
are well aware, I would for that reason alone be prepared, for the
period of time involved, to raise our agreed fee to a total of
€600,000. And as I judge you to be a reasonably honorable person, I
would also be prepared to transfer this additional sum of €100,000
to you immediately, today in fact. In return, however, there would
need to be a change in our contractual conditions. Namely, your
right to resign before our meetings are completed would be
canceled. And the penalty for breaking this new condition would be
the return the two advance payments already made. This is a take it
or leave it offer. I too trust that you understand
my
reasons for this."

No, Jeremy, I do not understand your reasons
for anything, anything at all, you are a mobile madhouse, I have to
leave, I could get infected.

"O.K., Jeremy. I made an offer, you made an
offer. No bargaining. I accept your fee and the change in
conditions. Next Wednesday at 2 p.m. will be convenient to me. See
you then?" I said.

Exercise completed. Another mythical
€100,000. Like Bitcoins in a way. Wherever I'll be next Wednesday,
it won't be here. I gave him a nice smile, and got to my feet.

He also smiled, stood up, we shook hands, he
accompanied me through to reception, a couple of staffers were
there chatting and drinking coffee but not the dreamy Ms. Goodall.
Maybe she was at lunch, what a pity. He said goodbye, thank you for
your time, have a good trip, and I was gone, out of the door, down
the stairs and out into the street. Some cloud, some sun and some
people, normal ones no doubt about it.

Whew! What an absolutely fascinating
experience. And no weird happenings, no strange occurrences, no
fending off of maniacal assaults, everything as formal and as
un-embarrassing as a talk with your doctor. Assuming that the talk
is not about prostate or erectile dysfunction problems of course. I
imagine those must be quite embarrassing talks. But who cares, for
me that's far away in the distant future, or I might die before I
ever get there. Or I might be one of the 20% who live to be a
hundred and never notice a thing.

The cab could wait. I needed a cigarette. I
lit one up, considered whether to go back to Germany today or leave
it until tomorrow. I checked the time. 12.40 p.m. Early enough. And
I'm not too tired…let's go.

I finished the cigarette, hailed a cab in
the Strand, back to the hotel. Went straight to the garage, hung up
my jacket in the back of the car and drove out using the prepaid
ticket given to me by Little Miss Ugly. Lit up cigarette number
two.

* * * * *

I wound my way down into Knightsbridge,
along Kensington High Street to Hammersmith and into Fulham Palace
Road. Crossed the river via Putney Bridge and into Putney High
Street, traffic packed as usual including Sundays but you usually
only lose about 10 minutes.

So it was today. Up Putney Hill and after
that it was a fairly free run getting out of London and continuing
on down to the M25. This is London's ring road, the last I heard
still the longest city bypass in the world, 188 kilometers. Heavy
traffic but not a real problem until there is an accident and then
it clogs up for forever and a day. No accident today.

You might say this route out of London is a
bit of a detour if you're going to Dover. But in my experience it
has always been the most reliable route. In any case, it is best
never to become involved with the horrors of the South Circular
route which some navigation systems will lead you into. You would
regret that, terribly in fact.

My car is an Audi R8 V10 5.2 Automatic. It
is an expensive car but it still cost me less than €100,000 for a
14-month old one. Its top speed is around 320 kilometers per hour
although the dash shows more. Of course, you can’t safely use that
speed, even in Germany. But the speed limit in this country is a
pathetic 112 kilometers per hour. And I chugged along in the fast
lane at around 125, safe enough. Actually, perhaps I shouldn’t call
this speed limit pathetic. In the first place the whole country is
obnoxiously over-populated, and in the second place they can't
afford to build a road system capable of safely handling the
resulting volumes. It's just the way it is. My R8 gets looked at,
not because it's a left-hand drive, but because it's just a fine
looking car and the English don't have any of their own anymore,
fine or not. Their Jaguars, their Land Rovers, their Rolls Royces,
their Bentleys and even their Minis are all owned, technologically
modernized and produced by foreign owners nowadays. And the Rileys,
the Triumphs, the Rovers, the Austins, the Morrises, the Hillmans,
the MGs and everything else of yore have simply been eaten up by
the YDIYDS monster—
'You don't innovate, you don't survive'
.
The English—or the Brits, if you prefer—couldn't hack it, too busy
worrying about which football shirts and tracksuit bottoms to wear
each day I suppose. Or which football games to go to. Or which
darts tournaments to watch. Or snooker tournaments. Or which pub
has the right TV channels so that you don't have to go anywhere to
watch something while you drink your beer.

But I am prevaricating on subjects of no
interest. Trivialities. Let the Brits get on with it I say, it’s
their country and nothing to do with anybody else. And the Northern
Irish too. They do not come under the heading of either English or
Brits. They are, if you wish to put them into a group, UKs.

But I was enjoying the drive. Every now and
then the clouds allowed the sun to shine through. I branched off
onto the M26. This road leads you onto the M20, it takes you
through a few remaining sections of the green England of yore,
pleasant on the eye, a stretch without industrial estates by which
I mean none that you can see, and it took my mind off the snail's
pace I was being obliged to maintain.

Along past Folkestone, along the cliffs and
down into Dover. I tanked up the car and drove past the castle up
on its hill and arrived at the port at about twenty past three. I
checked P&O and Sea France (the latter went belly up in 2012
and their ships were bought by the company operating MyFerryLink,
but I still call it Sea France) for the next ferry. P&O it was.
I bought the ticket and drove through to the loading area. The
trucks were already boarding and a few minutes later so were we,
the cars and the buses.

They are pretty well organized. They need to
be. This port processes around 13 million passengers, 3 million
cars and buses and about 2 million trucks per annum. This volume of
traffic became significantly lower than it used to be however,
except for the trucks, ever since the building of the Channel
Tunnel, which I don't use.

It took a while for them to cast off, and
then we were out of the harbor, into the English Channel—as the
English call it—and with the coast of France already visible in the
distance. I don't take the Channel Tunnel for two reasons. Firstly,
there is a limit as to what security precautions are possible and
the day the terrorists, your choice which ones, decide to bring
down millions of tons of ocean onto the travelers in the tunnel, is
not something I wish to be a part of. Being a good swimmer would
not be of any help. And being a bad swimmer, which is what I am,
would also not help. Secondly, I like to breathe some sea air, it's
supposed to be good for you, I can eat on board the ferry without
losing travelling time, and I can do some shopping if I feel so
inclined.

And so I did just that. I breathed in some
sea air while smoking a couple of cigarettes to compensate, I ate a
meal of sausages, mash and mushy peas—can't get that on the
continent—and I bought a bottle of single malt for my neighbor,
Frau Müller, and a bar of chocolate for Mr. Brown. No IHT on board,
logical, it's not a paper the Brits would read anyway. But no
problem, I wouldn't really have had the time for it today.

I found my way to the main bar for a coffee.
It was loud and full of English, or Brits, or UKs, most of them
swigging beer and talking a language which sounded to me like a
collection of Greek truck drivers trying to speak Turkish. England
is a country where orthoepy no longer exists. It was difficult to
understand what they were all shouting about: murdered grammar,
pronunciation a collection of guttural grunts, no word separation,
and the usual generous sprinkling of 'fucks' and 'fuckings'—the
latter without pronouncing the 'g' of course—spread over everything
like a salad dressing. It always brings to my mind the sufferings
of the small village of Fucking in Austria, whose town road-sign is
subject to regular theft by the well brought-up Brit tourists.