This Other Eden Read Free Page A

indeed, which was of course something of a red
rag to the bullies. It was bad enough, the bullies reasoned, putting up with
someone who was such a dork, without that dork having the gall to be cleverer
than they were.
    Occasionally,
in his younger days, Judy had considered having a physical rebuild, or at the
very least getting his face done. But as he grew up he came to rather resent
the idea of paying a surgeon to attack his body simply because people did not
find it attractive. Besides which, he could not have afforded a really decent
operation. The cosmetic surgery industry had become fearful of creating a world
filled with semi-identical, plasticized, doll-like figures. They had therefore
introduced a system which they called ‘financial discrimination’, which meant
that only very rich people could turn themselves into semi-identical, plasticized,
doll-like figures.
    Therefore
Judy remained as nerdy as the day he was born and suffered the consequences. It
was probably because of this discrimination that a clear sense of what was
right grew strong in Judy’s heart, and he determined that he would spend his
life fighting intolerance and injustice. To this end, he employed his
considerable intellect to win himself a place with the FBI, reasoning that he
would certainly find plenty of intolerance and injustice in the FBI.
    He was
right. Nothing changed. Judy irritated the nastier element amongst his new
colleagues no less than he had irritated the bullies at school and college. He
continued to look stupid and talk smart, a combination almost guaranteed to
bring out the bully in anyone who was even remotely so disposed. During his
training the oafs and toughs continued to beat him up as they had always done.
He was shouldered aside on the firing range and wet-towelled in the showers.
Many of his colleagues were, of course, nice to him, but a kind smile does
little to mitigate the pain of being held down and given a Chinese burn, or of
having a Magnum .44 suspended by a piece of string from your scrotum.
    The
passage of years had not tempered Judy’s sense of injustice and the resentment
he felt at being constantly dismissed remained undiminished. Therefore, when
the coastguard on the polluted cliff top called him a nerd, he drew himself up
to his full height, which was either five-five, or five-five and a half,
depending on which leg he put his weight on, and prepared to confront yet
another nerdist.
    ‘My
name is Judy Schwartz,’ he said. ‘I am an FBI agent and I demand that you take
me with you on to the bridge of this stricken tanker. Otherwise I shall devote
the rest of my life to finding out who your mistress is and then revealing her
identity to your wife.’
     
     
     
    Dead
hand at the tiller.
     
    The little coastguard
helicopter stood with its engine idling on the roof of the ship’s bridge, while
Judy, two coastguards and the local chief of police went inside and surveyed
the scene.
    ‘Well,
he sure saved us a lot of trouble,’ said the police chief.
    ‘Did
the decent thing, I reckon,’ a coastguard added.
    They
were referring to the captain of the stricken tanker who was dead, killed,
apparently, by his own hand. There he sat, slumped across his bloodied charts,
a bottle in one hand, a revolver in the other and his brains in the wastepaper
basket on the other side of the room.
    It was
déjà vu for Judy. He had seen this scene before, on another bridge in another
storm. In the midst of a different disaster he had seen a ship’s master dead
over his charts. Dead before he could explain why he had allowed his ship to
get so close to shore in such inclement circumstances.
    Outside
on the enormous deck, which was listing at an angle that made standing up
extremely difficult, the crew were being winched to safety. Apart, that is,
from the captain, who was dead, and the second in command, a competent looking
woman named Jackson. She was standing near the bridge, awaiting any further
instructions from the