Semilion checked his watch and lit a cigarette. It was time.
He left Selina and Priya in the care of Mark Rolinger, hastened to the ground floor, unlocked the door beneath the stairs, and stepped carefully down into the library. Above his head he held a solar lamp, its crisp white light illuminating the brick walls to excess.
The library was nothing but a single bookcase, though it was crammed to the rafters with stuffed binders and aged papers. In the middle of the room were a sturdy wooden table, a battered leather chair, and a large square radio set, lined with large bulbs and a single dial.
He took a sheaf of paper and pen from a drawer before sitting in the chair. He leant over and switched on the radio before slipping the headphones on, tapping ash from his cigarette on the tiled floor.
One of the bulbs flickered, its orange filament crackling, though he leant toward it and gently turned it until it burned as brightly as its partners. Dense bursts of static squealed in his ears as he turned the dial. Broadcasts flickered and tuned in before he moved on. A sermon, a brass band, military pips and indecipherable code, then the tone of John Camberwell.
‘... Ballycotton Shipping Report, transmitted from Belfast. This is the Ballycotton Shipping Report, transmitted from Belfast...’
The statement repeated for a full five minutes before a minute of tones sounded. A half-hour of meteorological forecasts followed, describing the conditions of the entire globe. Semilion took notes, frowning and shaking his head in despair, scribbling erratically as though he were concluding some ground-breaking mathematical calculation.
At the end of the half-hour there followed another minute of periodic tones before static filled the headphones. He flicked the radio off, the bulbs slowly waned.
His ears were raw, and he unburdened them gently, laying the headphones on the table and leaning back in the chair.
‘How's it looking?’ His wife was standing at the foot of the stairs. Semilion continued to stare at the page gravely, hoping he could forecast the future in the numbers.
‘Not very good, dear,’ he sighed, flapping the page and throwing it on the table.
Saran stepped lightly over to him and placed her hands on his shoulders. ‘Tell me,’
He pulled the page back and cast a hand over it. ‘Look. Variable three or four, visibility good…’
‘European governments are doing well,’ Saran said, disappointed.
‘Right down to Malaga... And Germany: ‘Variable three or four, becoming westerly five for a time later in the North.’ So, there’s a lot of woodland out of bounds still... Egypt, ‘Visibility: Good,’ has a long way to go but, well, all that's an aside...’
‘And Britain?’
‘Britain!’ Semilion circled a line of text. ‘Wales is fully claimed: ‘Rough or very rough, occasionally high’. The Isle of Wight, Jersey, Guernsey.... All reclaimed and under quarantine.’
‘And Wessex?’
‘It's unclear, he said from Exmouth there's a South-easterly wind. Fifteen knots...’
‘I don't remember any mention of Exmouth last month.’
Semilion exhaled. ‘There wasn’t.’
Saran crouched beside him. ‘Fifteen miles in one month?’ She took the page from him and scoured it. Her brows knitted with concern, she took in the page and laid it back on the table.
‘Do you think there might be something wrong with the information?’
‘I don't know, dear.’
‘Speak to Guliven before he leaves in the morning. He has to get word to the Camberwells. He has to get more detailed information.’
‘I know, dear.’
She took the page again. ‘And what's this about a storm-front moving in over Exmoor?’
He had hoped she wouldn't notice the detail. She looked at him probingly, though his hesitation was answer enough. She almost laughed, ‘It's not even a wind? It's a storm-front?’
‘Saran, it might be something else entirely.’
‘Nothing good, though! He wouldn't have said 'storm-front' if it were an enchanting flourish of buttercups spreading our way, would he!’
She stepped into the corner of the room, thinking deeply. ‘What are you going to do?’
‘What is there to do? Kelly might have helped us but he's gone.’
‘And Guliven? You're sure he won’t do it?’
Semilion looked at her through his brow. ‘Don't be ridiculous. He has a family. Would you do it?’
Saran snorted. ‘Well, you better think of something fast. You and your precious procedures are running out of time.’
She paced across the tiles to the foot of the stairs. ‘Maybe it's time the Lundians' took control of things. If you're going to be the end of us, maybe they should take up the reigns.’ she left the statement hanging in the air like an odious threat, before she left Semilion to his own thoughts.