ATDTDA (20): The arms tycoon beamed as if from a distance, 557-559

[Paul Nightingale]

Viktor Mulciber assures Root that he isn't "in the wrong business". Well,
what is Root's business, mathematics, gambling? The setting is an arms fair,
and "the suddenly desirable weapon" is juxtaposed to another kind of desire,
Kit's "lately-intensifying fascination with the Nipponese peach", although
he/it/she are immediately dropped in favour of the Q-weapon. The reference
to Ganesh Rao's party piece ("today metamorphosed into an American Negro")
indicates business as usual among the mathematicians: the action in Ch38, eg
Miles and Thorn discussing the future, now appears in parenthesis, and the
Q-weapon, for the mathematicians, represents no more than a problem to be
solved. Barry Nebulay, followed by Ganesh Rao feature as experts performing
for Mulciber. Root, in an exchange with Mulciber, juxtaposes love to fear:
Mulciber refers to possession of "a Time-weapon", but it might be said the
mathematicians, as experts, fear irrelevance.

Arms reps have come from far afield to Ostend. However, "Piet Woevre[has]
had the jump on them all along ..." etc (558). Taking "actual possession" he
is "surprised and disappointed to find it so small" (558-559). Given its
potential for destruction, this weapon should at least be recognisable, it
seems: yet, within its "sleek leather case" it is perfectly disguised. And
note the case's manufacture, "shaped exquisitely by ... maskmakers" (559).
So the section begins with mathematicians transformed into weapons experts;
and ends with a weapon that looks like (effectively disguised as) something
else.