Savant by Nik Abnett Page B

you,” said Strazinsky.
    “Take your point,” said McColl. “I’d be surprised if you didn’t get a pat on the back at the end of all this, though. It sounds like you played it down the line.”
    “Let’s get through whatever this is, first,” said Strazinsky, “before we start some kind of mutual appreciation society.”
    “Yeah,” said McColl, wearily.
    “Code Yellow,” said Strazinsky.
    “Code Yellow,” said McColl. “It doesn’t look like they’re going to lift it, does it?”
    “It doesn’t look like it, no,” said Strazinsky, “not if that interview was anything to go by.”

 

    Chapter Sixteen
     
     
    T OBE TOOK UP the pen for his wipe-wall, and stood at the far right hand corner of the room, closest to the window.
    “It was the same,” he said.
    “Tobe works in his office, not in his room.
    “Tobe always works in his office.
    “What is the probability of Tobe working in his office?”
    He held On Probability , in his left hand, scrutinising the cover. It was a soft edition with graphics on the cover, of probability trees with fractions and percentages shown, in various type-sizes and fonts. He read the information on the front and back, and then looked at the book, quizzically. The information was wrong; it was jumbled and unclear, and misleading. Perhaps all the information in the book was wrong.
    “Metoo,” he said.
    A minute later, when there was no reply, Tobe stepped out through his bedroom door.
    “Metoo,” he said, again.
    This time, he heard the door of the garden room opening and closing, so he stayed where he was, on the threshold to his room. Metoo did not go into Tobe’s room when he was there. The door was always open, but Tobe still thought of it as his private domain when he was in the flat.
    “Yes?” asked Metoo.
    Tobe handed her the book, which she opened, and began to look at, thinking that he wanted to share an idea with her, which he still did, occasionally.
    “The cover,” said Tobe. “Why is the cover wrong?”
    Metoo flipped the book closed, her thumb acting like a bookmark somewhere in the text, and glanced at the cover. She looked from the cover of the book to Tobe, baffled.
    “How is it wrong, Tobe?” she asked.
    “The maths,” said Tobe.
    Metoo looked back down at the cover of the book. She had not thought of it in terms of the mathematics; it was simply a graphic illustration that this was a maths book, and, in particular, a book about probability. She felt herself tense slightly as she realised that this was another edition of the book that Tobe had been looking for in his office.
    “OK,” said Metoo, “the maths is wrong. The cover of this book isn’t meant to have real maths on it. It wasn’t designed by a mathematician it was designed by... well... a designer.”
    “But the maths is wrong.”
    “Yes. The maths on the outside of the book is wrong, but the maths on the inside of the book is correct.”
    “Why?” asked Tobe.
    Metoo thought for a moment. She didn’t want to cause Tobe any anxiety, but she knew that Service needed something from her. She must make things as easy and normal as possible to get them all through whatever it was that was happening to them.
    “A mathematician made the inside of the book, because he understands maths. A designer made the outside of the book, because he understands books,” she said.
    Tobe thought for a moment.
    “Inside, the book is the truth? Outside, the book is lies?”
    “I suppose so,” said Metoo, touching his arm, and smiling at him as she handed the book back. “Is that all right?”
    Tobe took the book from Metoo. He folded the back cover and the front cover away from the inside, grasped their outside edges together in his left hand, holding the body of the book in his right, and tore the covers off, so that only the spine and the pages of the book glued to it still remained. He handed the front and back covers of the book to Metoo. She took them.
    “All books?” he