“He thinks,” I said to Josella, “that I’ve got a bee in my bonnet over triffids.”
“He’ll learn—I’m afraid,” she replied. “It’s queer that no one else seems to have seen them about.”
“These people have all been keeping pretty much to the center, so it’s not very surprising. After all, we’ve seen none ourselves today.”
“Do you think they’ll come right down here among the streets?”
“I couldn’t say. Maybe lost ones would.”
“How do you think they got loose?” she asked.
“If they worry at a stake hard enough and long enough, it’ll usually come in the end. The breakouts we used to get sometimes on the farms were usually due to their all crowding up against one section of the fence until it gave way.”
“But couldn’t you make the fences stronger?”
“We could have done, but we didn’t want them fixed quite permanently. It didn’t happen very often, and when it did it was usually simply from one field to another, so we’d just drive them back and put up the fence again. I don’t think any of them will intentionally make this way. From a triffid point of view, a city must be much like a desert, so I should think they’ll be moving outward toward the open country on the whole. Have you ever used a triffid gun?” I added.
She shook her head.
“After I’ve done something about these clothes, I was thinking of putting in a bit of practice, if you’d like to try,” I suggested.
I got back an hour or so later, feeling more suitably clad as a result of having infringed on her idea of a ski suit and heavy shoes, to find that she had changed into a becoming dress of spring green. We took a couple of the triffid guns and went out into the garden of Russell Square, close by. We had spent about half an hour snipping the topmost shoots off convenient bushes when a young woman in a brick-red lumber jacket and an elegant pair of green trousers strolled across the grass and leveled a small camera at us.
“Who are you—the press?” inquired Josella.
“More or less,” said the young woman. “At least, I’m the official record. Elspeth Cary.”
“So soon?” I remarked. “I trace the hand of our order-conscious Colonel.”
“You’re quite right,” she agreed. She turned to look at Josella. “And you are Miss Playton. I’ve often wondered——”
“Now look here,” interrupted Josella. “Why should the one static thing in a collapsing world be my reputation? Can’t we forget it?”
“Um,” said Miss Cary thoughtfully. “Uh-huh.” She turned to another subject. “What’s all this about triffids?” she asked.
We told her.
“They think,” added Josella, “that Bill here is either scary or scatty on the subject.”
Miss Cary turned a straight look at me. Her face was interesting rather than good-looking, with a complexion browned by stronger suns than ours. Her eyes were steady, observant, and dark brown.
“Are you?” she asked.
“Well, I think they’re troublesome enough to be taken seriously when they get out of hand,” I told her.
She nodded. “True enough. I’ve been in places where they are out of hand. Quite nasty. But in England—well, it’s hard to imagine that here.”
“There’ll not be a lot to stop them here now,” I said.
Her reply, if she had been about to make one, was forestalled by the sound of an engine overhead. We looked up and presently saw a helicopter come drifting across the roof of the British Museum.