“Midnight,” said Norman. And he stroked at his chin. “Perhaps I will invite the vivacious Yola here for the evening. In fact, I definitely will.” And he took out the e-mail address that he had scribbled down earlier in the telephone box.

Norman looked at it thoughtfully.

“E-mail,” said Norman, and there was some degree of doubt in the tone of his voice. “I know of it, naturally. And my computer is wired into the telephone socket.”

Norman considered his fingers. The electrical burns had all but healed up now. “There shouldn’t be much to this e-mail business.”

Norman turned the “open” sign to its “closed” side, bolted the shop door and then sneaked away to his kitchenette-cum-computer-workstation area. The machine was still humming away. He’d never got around to switching it off.

“But that’s good for computers,” said the shopkeeper, seating himself before the screen. “Or at least that’s what I’ve heard.” He reached forward to tap at the keyboard and then took to howling in pain.

The keyboard was very hot indeed.

Norman left his seat and returned at length in the company of a pair of gardening gloves, which he donned.

“To continue,” he said, and he tapped at the keyboard.

A logo appeared upon the screen, a gorgeous sepia-coloured Victorian-style logo, all noble heroic figures in Grecian garb and British Bulldogs and lions and scenes of industry and Queen Victoria’s head. And the words “BABBAGE NINETEEN-HUNDRED SERIES” in Times Roman lettering. And lots of those little icons and tool-bar jobbies all around the edge of the screen.

Norman moved the brass mouse about and a little arrow moved upon the screen in time to his movings. Norman clicked upon a random icon. The Babbage logo disappeared and Norman found himself confronting a big list of items, which appeared to be that of the computer’s potentialities.

“Hmm,” went Norman, “interesting. But where would the e-mailing bit be?” And he did the scrolling thing he’d learned when going through the Babbage plans. The list moved up the screen, on and on and on it went. Norman stopped at intervals, read things aloud, scratched at his wig in wonder and scrolled on.

“If I didn’t know better,” said Norman, when much further scrolling had been done and the list showed no signs whatsoever of coming to an end, “I would say that this is all some kind of formula. And not just any formula, but some kind of magical formula. Most odd. Although …” Norman cocked his head upon one side. “No,” said he, “this is too absurd even to contemplate.” He cocked his head upon the other side. “It couldn’t be. It surely couldn’t be.”

Norman did a bit of scrolling back. A lot of scrolling back. “They are,” he said. “They really are.”

He drew himself closer to the screen, as close as the radiating heat would allow, and studied the list more carefully. They were the names, they really were. And beside them the formulae, the equations, the numerical equivalents. “They have to be,” he said and he did rackings of the brain. Bits and bobs came back to him about a science fiction story he’d read many years ago. He couldn’t recall the author’s name, but he felt certain that the story had been called “The Ten Million Names of God”. Or possibly it hadn’t, but that was what it had been about – this theory that God had ten million different names and as soon as mankind had worked out all of them, that would be it for mankind, or mankind would ascend to the status of the angelic hosts or something similar. And there had been this fellow who had been working all the names out with the aid of a computer program. And when he’d finished, the sky had gone out and the world had come to an end. Or something. Norman could not remember exactly what.

But this, surely, was such a list.

The names of God. With their numerical equivalents …

Which, when all put together …

“Would give you The Big Figure,” said Norman, “The Big Figure that I was originally searching for that would be the answer to everything – which was the reason why I assembled this computer in the first place.”

Norman sat back upon his kitchen chair, now in a state of considerable confusion. How could this be?

Coincidence? This was surely well beyond all that.

What, then? Fate? Act of God?

Norman did some more wig-scratching. There had to be an answer. Assuming that he was right. Norman applied his gloved fingers to the gently steaming keyboard.

“REVIEW PRESENT END OF LIST,” typed Norman, for he could think of no better way of putting it.

The names and numbers whirled up the list, on and on and on until finally settling. Norman viewed the last name on the list. And as he did so, another one typed itself beneath it, and then another.

“Those names are …” Norman paused. “Modern names,” he said, with considerable emphasis. “Which means …” He sat back once more. “Which means that the computer program that’s cataloguing the names is still running. It’s been running ever since I first turned on this computer. It must be downloading all the modern names through the Internet connection. Which means …” Norman did further rackings of the brain.

And would probably have gone on to perform many further further brain rackings had not an event occurred that was of such singularity and drama as to cause him considerable distraction and derail whatever trains of thought might have been emerging from the tunnels of his mind.

There was a sudden rush of force, a fearsome pressure that toppled Norman from his chair and sent his wig a-winging it away. And there was a light. A really bright light. And into Norman’s kitchenette came something as from nowhere, swelling, expanding, then crashing and smashing.

And then the lights went out for Norman and things went very dark indeed.

Norman awoke to a short, sharp shock: a glass of cold water thrown into his face.

“Awaken, fiend!” a voice commanded.

“Fiend?” said Norman. “What?”

“Look into the face of your nemesis.”

“Hold on there,” cried Norman, floundering about. “Don’t hurt me.”

“Hah! The fiend grovels. He shows no bravery now.”

“No, he don’t, gov’nor. Gawd pickle me plums if he does.”

Norman peeped through trembling fingers. Two figures stood over him, a man and a boy: a portly, well-dressed man and a ragged, ill-washed boy.

“Who are you?” whispered Norman. “Where did you come from?”

“As if you do not know,” said the portly man.

“As if you don’t,” said the ragged boy.

“I don’t,” whimpered Norman. “I truly don’t.”

“We know you, sir,” said the portly man. “You are the King of Darkness, the Evil One himself, and so must be destroyed.”

“No,” wailed Norman. “I’m not. I’m truly not. I’m just a shopkeeper.”

“Prepare to die. I would strongly suggest that you commend yourself to your maker and beg his forgiveness for your numberless transgressions.”

“But I haven’t, I mean, sometimes, but only a bit …” Norman now found himself looking into the muzzle of a pistol. “No,” he howled. “Don’t shoot me.”

“It is better than you deserve. But first …” The gun barrel swung away from Norman. There was a deafening gunshot. Norman’s computer exploded.

“You shot my computer.” Norman made feeble attempts at rising.

“Stay down,” the portly man commanded.

“But you … I mean … You … I mean … Why?”

“Articulate, ain’t he, gov’nor?” said the ragged lad. “Gawd taint me tadpole if he ain’t. And he ain’t.”

“Why … Who … What?” whimpered Norman. And he pointed feebly to the What? in question.

It was a goodly sized what, a big, Victorian goodly sized what, and it now filled much of Norman’s kitchenette. It was like unto a large overstuffed leather armchair mounted upon brass runners and surrounded by all manner of wondrous brass equipment, and involving a good many valves. The whole thing was surmounted by a kind of helicopter-blade arrangement.