The Chosen Seed Read Online Free PDF Page B

close enough that Cass could smell the mint on his breath. At least he brushed.
    ‘He’s the one, though: the key figure – the leader, if they have one. Although Castor Bright seems to have stepped into his shoes. It’s hard to get photos now. I don’t go out, not any more. And they’re more careful.’ Stuart Cornell’s eye twitched and he turned away from the board. He picked up a bottle and found two glasses behind a stack of box-files and poured them both a drink.
    ‘They want to take my papers. My evidence. They always say they’re from the council, but I know better.’ The old man tapped the side of his nose.
    The glass looked clean enough and Cass figured he had enough antibiotics racing round his system to cope with any unwelcome bacteria. He needed the drink – he felt almost breathless. Here was someone else who knew aboutMr Bright and the strangeness that surrounded him. He took a long sip of the whisky. What would Dr Cornell have thought if he’d seen how Mr Solomon had died? Most likely that would have completely tipped him into madness …
    He looked closely at the old man. There was no glow in his eyes, not even a flicker of silver like he’d seen in Hayley Porter’s mother’s. Whatever the gold and silver lights meant, they were no part of Dr Cornell’s life.
    They want to take my papers . Cass was pretty sure he knew who the professor meant by they : the same they his dead brother Christian had been referring to in the note he left Cass: THEY took Luke. They was the Network. Whichever way life twisted and turned, it always came back to Mr Bright and the Network. He smiled grimly to himself. Looking at the mess here, in Dr Cornell’s case, it might well be the council.
    ‘Why were you so fascinated with my father?’ he asked.
    The professor sat in his chair beneath the pictures of the men who held both Cass and him in their thrall and sipped his drink. ‘Why are you so fascinated by my fascination?’
    The eyes were sharp. This was going to be trickier than Cass had first expected, when he’d arrived and seen the state of the place. Dr Stuart Cornell was not the nutjob he’d first imagined, nor was he totally delusional. And he was obviously capable of insightful thought. But he was paranoid – though Cass knew he had good reason to be – and what he didn’t want to do was push the man over the edge.
    ‘Was it because of his association with this man?’ Cass pulled out one of his own pictures, the photograph of his parents with Castor Bright. ‘The man you have all over your wall?’ His photo had been taken in South Africa, before he was even born. Cass had found it in the envelope Christian had left for him at their parents’ house. In the picture, thethree were standing under a sign that read THE SOLOMON AND BRIGHT MINING CORPS.
    Dr Cornell scrabbled for the picture, but Cass held it firm. A slightly manic light had gone on in the man’s eyes and Cass doubted he would ever give the photo back if he handed it over. He compromised, holding it close to the professor’s face and letting him study it before putting it back in his pocket.
    ‘Nothing is true,’ Dr Cornell said finally, leaning back in his chair. ‘The world is on its head.’
    ‘What do you know about Mr Bright and the Network? Why are they so interested in my family?’
    ‘They’ve really played you, haven’t they?’ Dr Cornell laughed slightly. ‘I’ve been watching.’
    ‘But who are they ?’
    Dr Cornell raised his glass, then lowered it without drinking and got to his feet. He started pacing in the small cleared area. The agitations were clearly returning.
    ‘Things have changed. Since that one disappeared.’ He jabbed a finger at the image of the stranger between Mr Bright and Mr Solomon on his wall. ‘The whole world’s changed, can’t you feel it? So many advances, and yet a sense that it’s all crumbling, don’t you think?’
    Cass shrugged slightly as Dr Cornell stared at him for a