'Yes, Ms Telman?'

'Why haven't we turned round yet?  The car's back there.'

'It is forbidden.  The signs.  See.  It is forbidden.  Up here we may turn.  I will turn there.'

'Okay, okay.'

'Now what's happening?'

'We're slowing down.  We're turning up a side-street…we're turning down another street…and another…and back on to the main street.  Yeah, heading back towards the Audi.  Looks cool.  Looks cool.'

'What fucking Audi?'

'My hire car.  Right.  We're here.  I'm getting out.  Thank you.  No, I can…Ah, thank you, thank you. Vielen dank.'

'Ms Telman.'

'Thank you, Hans. Wiedersehen.'

'Goodbye, Ms Telman.'

'Yes, thank you.  Drive carefully. 'Bye… Luce?'

'Yeah?'

'Thanks.'

Call me really fucking paranoid, but I left the hire car at Montreux, took a taxi to Lausanne and used cash to buy a ticket on a TEE to Milano via the Simplon tunnel (good dinner, pleasant talk to a terribly camp and charming textile designer and his gruffly butch partner; relaxed).  Cash again to buy a tourist ticket on a delayed Alitalia 747 to Delhi via Cairo; upgraded once we were in the air using my non-company Amex (stewardesses less glamorous and more efficient than last Alitalia flight a few years ago; coffee smelled tempting, but avoided).  First so empty I could have got up to any amount of shenanigans, if there had been a willing partner.  Slept — instead — very well indeed.

In Delhi, going through the formalities, I tried calling Stephen.  The phone just rang and rang and rang, the way phones do when the person at the other end is there, hasn't got their answer-machine or voicemail switched on, but can see your number and name on their phone's display and just doesn't want to talk to you. 'Stephen, don't do this to me,' I whispered. 'Pick up the phone.  Pick up the phone…' But he didn't.

I tried elsewhere.

'Mr Dessous?'

'Telman?  What in the hell is going on?'

'You tell me, Jeb.'

'Was it that bastard Hazleton?  Is he the Couffabling son-of-a-bitch you were talking about?'

'I really couldn't say, Jeb.'

'He's called an EBM for Wednesday in Switzerland.  Know anything about that?'

'Sorry, Jeb, what's an EBM?'

'Extraordinary Board Meeting.  Shows how often we have them if somebody like you doesn't know what they are.'

'Good.'

' "Good"?  What do you mean, "Good"?'

'It's good you're having an EBM.'

'Why, dammit?'

'Mr Hazleton may have a pleasant surprise for you all.'

'Oh?  It isn't to get you kicked out, then?  There's an ugly rumour you assaulted Adrian Puddinghead or whatever the hell he's called.'

'Poudenhaut.  Actually it was more his car I assaulted.'

'What?  What did you do?'

'I used a search engine.'

'Telman, will you just tell me what the hell is going on?'

'I'm taking up the post in Thulahn.'

'Good.'

'Not necessarily.'

'What does that mean?'

'I think the plan we have for Thulahn may be too radical.  Too destructive.'

'Oh, you do, do you?  Well, I'm sure we'll thank you for sharing those thoughts with us, Telman, but it isn't up to you what we do in Thulahn.  You'll be there in a purely advisory capacity, understand?  You might get bumped up to L-Two, but that still doesn't mean you're on the Board.  Am I making myself clear?'

'Abundantly, Mr Dessous.'

'Right.  So, we'll see you at Château d'Oex on Wednesday.'

'Ah, probably not.'

'What do you mean, "probably not"?  I'm telling you to be there.'

'I'm sorry, Mr Dessous.  I can't.  I'll be in Thulahn.'

'Cancel it.'

'I can't, sir.  I've already assured the Prince I'll be there,' I lied. 'He's expecting me.  Could you possibly, like, un-order me to be in Switzerland?  That way I won't be disobeying a direct command.  There's some delicate negotiating to be done in Thulahn.'

'Jesus!  Okay.  Get your ass to Thulahn, Telman.'

'Thank you, Jeb.'

'Right, I gotta go, see how that idiot nephew of mine's doing.'

'Why, is there something wrong?'

'You haven't heard?  He got shot.'

'What?  Oh, my God.  When?  Where?'

'Yesterday, New York City, in the chest.'

'Is he all right?'

'No, he isn't all right!  But at least he's not dead.  Probably isn't going to die, either, just cost me a fortune in hospital bills.'

'What happened?'

'The posters.'

'The posters?'

'Yeah.  I saw one.  Can't believe I didn't spot it myself.'

'What?  I don't understand.'

'You know that dumb-ass always wanted his name above the title?'

'Yes?'

'So the posters for his play say, "Dwight Litton's Best Shot".'

'Oh, good grief,' I said.

'Yeah.  Some crazy asshole took it literally.'

EPILOGUE

I don't know.  What is it that really matters to all of us?  We're all the same species, the same assemblage of cells, with the same unarguable needs for food, water and shelter.  The trouble is that after that it gets more complicated.  Sex is the other big drive, of course, the one after the absolute necessities.  You'd think we all need love, in some form, too, but maybe some people can get along without it.  We are individuals, but we need to co-operate.  We have family and friends, allies or at least accomplices.  We always think we are right, and — search as I have — there is no evil under the sun that somebody somewhere won't argue is actually a good, no idiocy that hasn't got its perfectly serious defenders, and no tyrant, past or present — no matter how bloody — without some bunch of zealot schmucks to defend him or his reputation till the last breath in their bodies — or preferably somebody else's.

So.  Why am I doing this?  Because it seems like the right thing to do.  How do I know it is?  I don't.  But at least I don't have to tell lies to myself to justify what it is I am doing; I don't have to think, Well, they're not really humans, or, They'll thank me later, or, It's us or them, or, My country right or wrong, or, History will vindicate me.  None of that sanctimonious bullshit.

I'm doing what I'm doing because I think good will come of it in the long run, and that almost nothing bad will come of it in the short run anyway, so even if I'm wrong maybe I can change my mind.  Though I doubt I will.  Either way, nobody's going to die.  Nobody is going to suffer.  Maybe I'll live to regret it, and it's possible some others will too, but even then I'll try to take as much of the hardship on myself, what little of it — I hope — there may be.

This makes it all sound far too selfless.  Actually there's a lot of self in this.  All the same, part of me is recoiling in horror at all this.  Part of me is thinking, You're going to do WHAT? What is this shit?  Because in one way of looking at it, this is just another example of the same old sad self-sacrificial martyrdom crap I've lamented in my gender throughout my life.  We have spent so many generations thinking of others, thinking of our families and thinking of our men, when all they do in return is think of themselves.  Just in the last few generations, finally able to control our own fertility, have we been able to act more like men and contribute more with our brains than our bodies.  I loved feeling that I was helping to make a case for my half of the species being worth more recognition than that due to a womb alone.  And yet here I am going back on all that, or seeming to.

But what do we really want?  Freedom, I guess.  And I demand the freedom to do what seems right to me from first principles, and not the freedom always to behave selfishly, or always to do what a man would do in the circumstances, or always to do the opposite.