Shaking his head, My Master laughs. “No, I’m perfectly serious. We had one piece of work, a test-piece, writing the program for solving an equation by iteration. It meant breaking down the steps and individually punching the cards. It took me hours. Then my ‘friend’ decided to nudge my elbow and I dropped the lot. They scattered everywhere…. I had to do the whole thing again.”

“Couldn’t you just sort them back into order?”

He rolls his eyes to the heavens. “Imagine trying to sort out a pack of playing cards, but there’s no pictures, just holes in the cards giving you a code for what the picture is…”

I burst out laughing. “It puts my problems into perspective, doesn’t it?”

“Indeed, it does,” he says, smiling, then his face turns serious. “Listen, Charlotte. I came down here because there’s something I need to talk to you about…”

He sounds worried.

“Master?”

“I’ve been talking with Will Stanton. He’s concerned that with you giving evidence against the traffickers, but some of them still being at large, you may be…. at risk....”

“I know that. But I took it on board when I agreed to help…”

“Yes, but….” He is clearly uncomfortable about what he has to say. “……. they would like you to stay close by for the moment, so you can have protection.”

His meaning begins to penetrate. “Close by? You mean, here? They don’t want me to go back to the University?”

“That’s right.”

“But I can’t not go back. I’d miss lectures. I’d get behind on my work…. After everything I did to get there….”

“We’ll sort out some other arrangements,” he says. “I don’t want you away from here until this whole thing is sorted out, one way or another.”

“But Master, I got to go back.”

“No, Charlotte. You don’t. I don’t want you to go. And you’re not going, for now at least. And that’s the end of it. I expect you to obey me in this….”

I look away, swallowing hard.copy right hot novel pub