First Horseman, The Read Online Free Page A

cardboard. She was angry with the situation, herself, the professor, the course, the university. She was angry with the world. She continued typing:

    I really do not think I could look at myself in the mirror if I experimented on animals. Animals are no more machines than I am, and what is done to them in the name of science is horrible.

    ‘Horrible’ sounded lame. She found a better word with the online thesaurus. She scanned the new line: ‘What we do to them in the name of science is vile.’ Reading the sentence back, she felt a rush of release.

    Animals might treat each other badly in nature, but I do not see that as an excuse to act viciously towards them too. Unlike creatures in the wild, I do not have to tear my fellow beings to pieces in order to survive. I can try to wrap all sorts of clever arguments around why I am dropping out but the real reason is that I believe treating animals as you treated that mouse is an awful kind of bullying, predicated on a level of callousness that verges on inhumanity.

    She read the lines back. Was she suggesting that the professor was a vile, callous and inhumane person? She closed her eyes and thought. She was too upset to write to him just now, she told herself. She should delete the message and answer the email tomorrow. By then she’d be able to write in a less emotional and more balanced way.
    She didn’t want to make an enemy of the professor, especially as she needed another subject for her doctorate. She sighed. She had made two catastrophic choices: to do the course and to leave it. Her next idea had better be a good one or she’d mess up her whole life.
    She opened her eyes and clicked. ‘Oh, God,’ she moaned, realising she’d clicked ‘send’. She opened her ‘sent’ folder and groaned again. ‘You idiot,’ she cried. She opened the message and read it again. Perhaps the prof wouldn’t take it the wrong way. Fat chance, she thought. It was easily the rudest message she had ever sent.
    She prayed Cardini was as bloodless as his reputation suggested. Robots didn’t take umbrage. She wondered if she had an email-recall function, and tugged at her long chestnut hair with her left hand as she searched for it. Eventually she gave up. To hell with it, she thought, getting up. I meant every word. She headed for the kitchenette. A mint tea would calm her down.

8
    Jim got up off the grass. Pierre, in his perfect cricket whites, was running towards him. The boy was growing into a giant. Only two years before he had been a couple of inches shorter than Jim, but now he was a couple of inches taller than his benefactor. ‘Hey, Jim,’ called Pierre. ‘I’m so glad you came to see me play. I’ll show you a trick or two.’
    Jim smiled at Pierre with pride. They had cheated death together in the DRC under Nyiragongo. They had been thrown together in the mountain jungle, Jim the hapless mining investor and Pierre the child soldier and defiant victim. They were both tenacious survivors, now bonded like brothers. Jim had adopted the boy and brought him to Britain, after making sure his family was provided for in the Congolese chaos.
    Kings and dictators sent their pampered princelings to this school yet despite his deprived and violent childhood Pierre had managed to get along. Still, there was something outlandish about his size and athleticism that made him seem older and much bigger than his peers.
    Now Jim hugged him. ‘We’re straight to the airport after the match.’
    ‘You going to come home with me?’
    ‘Not this time,’ said Jim. ‘I’ve got to see some people about a few things. We can go together at the end of term and take a look at the mine.’
    ‘Deal,’ said Pierre, grabbing Jim’s hand and shaking it. ‘Got to go now and play.’
    ‘Good luck.’
    Pierre laughed. ‘Way!’ he said looking back to Jim. ‘They’re going to need the luck.’ He loped off, his stride long and fluid.
    Jim had caught a whiff of a new English inflection in