That wasn’t true, of course, for the conference began immediately they had left the nursery. It decided nothing, but it had two sequels. The next day, without telling George, Jean took her small son to the Colony’s child psychologist. He listened carefully while Jeff repeated his story, not in the least over-awed by his novel surroundings. Then, while his unsuspecting patient rejected seriatim the toys in the next room, the doctor reassured Jean.
“There’s nothing on his card to suggest any mental abnormality. You must remember that he’s been through a terrifying experience, and he’s come out of it remarkably well. He’s a highly imaginative child, and probably believes his own story. So just accept it, and don’t worry unless there are any later symptoms. Then let me know at once.”
That evening, Jean passed the verdict on to her husband. He did not seem as relieved as she had hoped, and she put it down to worry over the damage to his beloved theatre. He just grunted “That’s fine,” and settled down with the current issue of Stage and Studio. It looked as if he had lost interest in the whole affair, and Jean felt vaguely annoyed with him.
But three weeks later, on the first day that the causeway was reopened, George and his bicycle set off briskly towards Sparta. The beach was still littered with masses of shattered coral, and in one place the reef itself seemed to have been breached. George wondered how long it would take the myriads of patient polyps to repair the damage.
There was only one path up the face of the cliff, and when he had recovered his breath George began the climb. A few dried fragments of weed, trapped among the rocks, marked the limit of the ascending waters.
For a long time George Greggson stood on that lonely track, staring at the patch of fused rock beneath his feet. He tried to tell himself that it was some freak of the long-dead volcano, but soon abandoned this attempt at self-deception. His mind went back to that night, years ago, when he and Jean had joined that silly experiment of Rupert Boyce’s. No one had ever really understood what had happened then, and George knew that in some unfathomable way these two strange events were linked together. First it had been Jean, now her son. He did not know whether to be glad or fearful, and in his heart he uttered a silent prayer:
“Thank you, Karellen, for whatever your people did for Jeff. But I wish I knew why they did it.”
He went slowly down to the beach, and the great white gulls wheeled around him, annoyed because he had brought no food to throw them as they circled in the sky.
17
Karellen’s request, though it might have been expected at any time since the foundation of the Colony, was something of a bombshell. It represented, as everyone was fully aware, a crisis in the affairs of Athens, and nobody could decide whether good or bad would come of it.