A for Andromeda

Six Alert

For all that, he went to Thorness in the spring—he said, to visit Judy, but in fact from morbid curiosity. He kept away from the computer block but Judy and Bridger, separately, told him what was happening. A new bay added to the building was filled by Dawnay with elaborate laboratory equipment, including a chemical synthesiser and an electron microscope. As well as Christine, she had several postgraduate students of her own at work on the project, and all the money she could reasonably need. Reinhart and Osborne between them had got substantial backing.

“And what about you?” Fleming asked Judy.

They sat on the cliff-top, inside the camp, above the jetty.

“I go round with the seasons.” She smiled at him tenderly but warily. She was shocked by the change in him, by his blotchiness and general deterioration, and the look of utter defeat that hung about him. She longed to hold him and to give herself to him. At the same time she wanted to keep him away at the distance of their original friendship, which seemed to her the limit to which she could honourably go so long as she was acting a part of which she was ashamed. She had even tried to resign her commission when she heard he was coming back, but it had not been allowed. She knew too much by now to be released, and far too much to be able to tell him the truth.

Bridger had stayed in the camp, working all winter, and had made no suspicious move; but Kaufmann’s car had been seen several times in the neighbourhood and the tall, improbably-dressed chauffeur had been watching arrivals and departures at the station and on at least one occasion had telephoned Bridger. After this Bridger had looked more unhappy than ever and had taken to having copies of the computer’s output retyped for his own use. Judy had not spotted that, but Quadring had. Nothing had come of it, however. The white yacht had not reappeared, and indeed could hardly have been expected to during a winter of gales and blizzards and wild storm-swept seas. Early in the spring Naval patrols were stepped up and reinforced by helicopters, and the yacht, if it ever had anything to do with it, was scared away. But if security was increasing, so was the value of the information, and there was a general feeling among Judy’s superiors that the stakes were rising.

Judy, having nothing to do but watch, had time—as usual—on her hands, and it suited Quadring to have Fleming covered. So she sat on the top of the cliff with him, pretending to be happy to see him and feeling bitterly divided against herself.

“When are you going to hold a press conference?” was his next question.

“I don’t know. This year, next year, sometime.”

“All this ought to have been referred to the public months ago.”

“But if it’s a secret?”

“It’s a secret because it suits the politicians. That’s why it’s going the wrong way. Once you take science out of the hands of scientists and hand it over to them, it’s doomed.” He jerked his shoulder at the compound. “If that lot isn’t doomed already.”

“What are you going to do about it?” she asked him.

He gazed down at the waves breaking a hundred and fifty feet below them and then turned and grinned at her for the first time in a very long while.

“Take you sailing,” he said.

It was one of those early false springs which sometimes come unexpectedly at the beginning of March. The sun shone, a light breeze blew from the south-west and the sea was beautiful. Fleming assumed that Judy had nothing else to do and they sailed every day on the bay and up the coast as far as Greenstone Point and down to the mouth of Gairloch. The water was freezing cold but the sands were warm and in the afternoons they used to beach the boat in any likely-looking cove, splash ashore and lie basking in the sun.

After a few days, Fleming looked healthier. He grew more cheerful and seemed able to forget for hours at a time the cloud that hung over his mind. He obviously sensed that she no longer wanted to be made love to and fairly soon fell back into the role of affectionate and dominating big brother. Judy held her breath and hoped for the best.

Then, one hot and glinting afternoon, they pulled into a tiny bay on the seaward side of the island, Thorholm. The rocks rose sheer behind, reflecting the heat of the sun back on to them as they lay side by side on the sand. All they could see was the blue sky above. The only things to be heard were the heavy, gentle sound of the waves and the calling of sea-birds. After a while Fleming sat up and pulled off his thick sweater.

“You’d better take yours off, too,” he told her.

She hesitated, then pulled it off over her head and lay in her shorts and bra, feeling the breeze and sun playing on her body. Fleming took no notice of her at first.

“This is better than computers.” She smiled with her eyes shut. “Is this where Bridger comes?”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t see no birds.”

“I can see one.” He rolled over and kissed her. She lay unresponsively and he turned away again, leaving a hand on her midriff.

“Why doesn’t he go round with you?” she asked.

“He doesn’t want to barge in on us.”

She scowled up into the sun.

“He doesn’t like me.”

“It’s mutual, isn’t it?”

She did not answer. His hand moved down to her thigh.

“Don’t, John.”

“Signed a pledge for the Girl Guides?” He sounded suddenly cross and peevish.

“I’m not being prissy, only...”

“Only what?”

“You don’t know me.”

“Hell! You don’t give me much chance, do you?”

She got up abruptly and looked about her. There was a cleft in the rocks behind them.

“Let’s explore.”

“If you like.”

“Is that a cave there?”

“Yes.”

“Let’s go and look.”

“We’re not dressed for it.”

“Aren’t you formal?” She smiled at him and pulled on her sweater, then threw him his. “Here!”

“They go hellish deep into the cliff. You need caving gear, like pot-holers.”

“We won’t go far.”

“O.K.” He hoisted himself to his feet and shook off his bad temper. “Come on.”

The cave widened inside and then tapered off as it went deeper into the rock. The floor was sandy at first and strewn with stones. As they went further in they found themselves scrambling over boulders. It was cold and very quiet inside. Fleming brought a torch from the boat and shone it on the rock walls ahead of them; patches of seeping water glittered in its light. After a few dozen yards they came to another chamber with a large pool at the far end. Judy knelt down and gazed into the water.

“There’s a piece of cord here.”

“What?” Fleming crouched beside her and looked down over the pool’s lip. One end of a length of white cord was knotted and held down by a boulder at the edge while the rest of it ran down into the water. Fleming pulled on it: it was quite taut.

“Is it deep?” Judy peered down the beam of the torch but could see nothing but blackness beneath the pool’s surface.

“Hold the torch, will you?”

Fleming took both hands to the cord and pulled it slowly up. On the end was a large thermos-type canister weighted with stones. Judy shone the torch on to the lid.

“It’s Dennis’s!” Fleming exclaimed.

“Dennis Bridger’s?”

“Yes. He bought it for picnics. It has that mark like a zig-zag on it.”

“Why should he leave it?” Judy spoke more to herself than Fleming.

“I don’t know. Better ask him.”

Judy opened the lid and felt inside.

“For goodness sake!”

“It’s full of papers.” She pulled some out and held them under the torch. “Do you recognise them?”

“It’s our stuff.” Fleming looked at them incredulously. “Copied. We’d better take them back to him.”

“No.” Judy put the papers hack in the flask and fastened it.

“What are you going to do?”

“Leave it where we found it.”

“But that’s absurd.”

“Please, John. I know what I’m doing.” She picked up the canister and threw it back into the water, while he watched sulkily, holding the torch.

“What are you doing?” he demanded, but she would not tell him.

When they got back to camp they found Reinhart there. He buttonholed Fleming outside the office block.

“Can you spare me a minute, John?”

“I’m not here.”

“Look, John,” the Professor looked hurt. “We’re stuck.”

“Good.”

“Madeleine’s managed a D.N.A. synthesis. Cells have actually formed.”

“You must be proud of her.”

“Single cells. But they don’t live, or only a few minutes.”

“Then your luck’s in. If they did live they’d be under the control of the machine.”

“How?”

“I don’t know how. But they’d be no friends of ours.”

“A single cell can’t do much damage.” Judy had never heard Reinhart openly pleading before. “Come anyway.”

Fleming stuck his lower lip out obstinately.

“Go on, John.” Judy faced round to him. “Or are you afraid they’ll bite you?”

Fleming hunched up his shoulders and went with the Professor.

Judy walked straight into Quadring’s office and reported.

“Ah,” said Quadring. “That makes sense. Where is he now?”

They phoned the computer room, but Bridger had just left.

“Tell the F.S.P. boys to find him and tail him,” Quadring told his orderly. “But he’s not to see them.”

“Very good, sir.” The orderly swivelled his chair round to the switchboard.

“Who’s on cliff patrol?”

“B Section, sir.”

“Tell them to watch the path down to the jetty.”

“Are they to stop him?”

“No. They’re to let him go out if he wants to, and tell us.” Quadring turned to Judy. “His friend phoned him to-day. They must want something urgently to run a risk like that.”

“Why should they?”

“Maybe they’ve a deal on. We listened, of course. It was mostly pretty guarded, but they said something about the new route.”

Judy shrugged. This was beyond her. Quadring waited until the orderly had telephoned the field security corporal and gone out to deliver his message to the B Section commander. Then he led Judy over to a wall-map.

“The old route was via the island. Bridger could take stuff there and dump it without having to check out of camp. When needed it could be picked up by the yacht. One of Kaufmann’s colleagues probably has an ocean-going job that can anchor well off and send a boat in to rendezvous with Bridger.”

“The white one?”

“The one you saw.”

“Then that’s why—?” It was a long while since the shooting on the moor, but it came back clearly to her as she looked at the map.

“Kaufmann had to have someone to tip off Bridger and keep in touch with the yacht. He used his chauffeur, who used the car.”

“And shot at me?”

“It was probably he. It was a silly thing to do, but I expect he thought he could lose the body in the sea.”

Judy felt herself turn cold inside her thick sweater.

“And the new route?”

“What with the weather and us, they can’t use the yacht any more, so they can’t get to the island. Bridger still uses it as a hiding-place, as you’ve found out, but he’ll have to bring the stuff back and smuggle it out of the main gate, which is riskier.”

Judy looked out into the cold dusk that was falling on the warmth of the day. Low square roofs of research buildings jutted blackly from the darkening grass of the headland. Lights shone in a few hut windows, and above them the enormous arch of the sky began to dim and disappear. Somewhere Dawnay was working in a lighted underground room, dedicated and unaware of the consequences of what she was doing. Somewhere Fleming was arguing with Reinhart about the future. And somewhere, alone and miserable and perhaps shaking with hidden fear, Bridger was changing into oilskins, fisherman’s jersey and wading boots, to go out into the night.

“You’d better put on something thicker,” said Quadring. “I’m going too.”

It was warm in Dawnay’s laboratory. Lights and equipment had been on for weeks and were slowly beating the air-conditioning.

“It smells of biologist,” said Fleming as he and Reinhart walked in.

Dawnay was peering down the eyepiece of a microscope. She glanced up casually.

“Hallo, Dr. Fleming.” She spoke as though he had been out simply for a cup of tea. “It looks a bit like a witch’s soup-kitchen, I’m afraid.”

“Anything in the broth?” Reinhart asked.

“We’ve just been preparing a new batch. Like to stop and see?” The microscope had an electronic display tube, like a television screen. “You can watch on there if anything should happen.”

“New culture?” asked one of her assistants, fitting a needle to a hypodermic syringe.

“Take some from there, and watch the temperature of your needle.”

Dawnay explained her progress to Fleming while the assistant took a small bottle from a refrigerator.

“We do the synthesis round about freezing-point, and they come to life at normal temperature.” She seemed perfectly friendly and untouched by what Fleming thought.

The assistant pierced the rubber cap of the bottle with the hypodermic needle and drew up some fluid into the syringe.

“What form of life have they?” asked Fleming.

“They’re a very simple piece of protoplasm, with a nucleus. What do you want—feelers and heads?”

She took the syringe, squeezed a drop of fluid out on to a slide and clipped the slide on the viewing plate.

“How do they behave?”

“They move about for a bit, then they die. That’s the trouble. We probably haven’t found the right nutrients yet.”

She put her eye to the microscope and focused up. As she moved the slide under the lens they could see individual cells forming—pale discs with a darker centre—and swimming about in the screen for a few seconds. They stopped moving and were obviously dead by the time Dawnay changed to a higher magnification. She pulled the slide out.

“Let’s try the other batch.” She looked round at them with a tired smile. “This is liable to go on all night.”

Soon after midnight Bridger was seen leaving his chalet. The cliff patrol watched him go down the path to the jetty. They did not challenge him, but telephoned through to the guard-room from an old gun emplacement at the top of the path. Quadring and Judy had joined them by the time Bridger pushed out from the jetty. His outboard motor sneezed twice, then spluttered steadily away across the water. There was some moonlight, and they could see the boat moving out over the bay.

“Aren’t you going to follow him?” asked Judy.

“No. He’ll be back.” Quadring called softly to the sentries. “Stay up top and keep out of sight. It may be a long time.”

Judy looked out to sea, where the little boat was losing itself among the waves.

The moon went long before dawn, and although they were wearing greatcoats they were bitterly cold.

“Why doesn’t he come back?” she asked Quadring.

“Doesn’t want to navigate in the dark.”

“If he knows we’re here...”

“Why should he? He’s only waiting for a spot of daylight.”

At four o’clock the sentries changed. It was still dark. At five the first pearl-pale greyness began to appear in the sky. The night duty cook clanked round with containers of tea. He left one in the guardroom, another at the main gate, another at the computer building.

Dawnay pushed her glasses up on to her forehead and drank noisily.

“Why don’t you pack it in, Madeleine?” Reinhart yawned.

“I will soon.” She pushed another slide under the lens. There was a tray half-full of used slides on the table beside her, and Fleming sat perched on the corner, disapproving but intrigued.

“Wait.” She moved the slide a fraction. “There’s one!”

On the display tube a cell could be seen forming.

“He’s doing better than most,” said Reinhart.

“He’s getting pretty big.” Dawnay switched the magnification. “Look—it’s beginning to divide!”

The cell elongated into two lobes which stretched and broke apart, and then each lobe broke again into new cells.

“It’s reproducing!” Dawnay leant back and watched the screen. Her face was puckered with fatigue and happiness. “We’ve made life. We’ve actually made a reproductive cell. Look—there it goes again... How about that, Dr. Fleming?”

Fleming was standing up and watching the screen intently.

“How are you going to stop it?”

“I’m not going to stop it. I want to see what it does.”

“It’s developing into quite a coherent structure.” Reinhart observed.

Fleming clenched his fists upon the table. “Kill it.”

“What?” Dawnay looked at him in mild surprise.

“Kill it while you can.”

“It’s perfectly well under control.”

“Is it? Look at the way it’s growing.” Fleming pointed at the rapidly doubling mass of cells on the screen.

“That’s all right. You could grow an amoeba the size of the earth in a week if you could feed it fast enough.”

“This isn’t an amoeba.”

“It’s remarkably like one.”

“Kill it!” Fleming looked round at their anxious unyielding faces, and then back at the screen. He picked up the heavy container in which the tea had been brought and smashed it down on the viewing plate of the miscroscope. A clatter of metal and glass rang through the hushed room. The viewing panel went dead.

“You young fool!” Dawnay almost cried.

“John—what are you doing?” Reinhart moved forward to stop him, but too late. Fleming pulled the splintered remains of the slide out of the microscope, threw them to the floor and ground his heel into them.

“You’re mad! All mad! All blind raving mad!” he shouted at them, and ran to the door.

He ran out through the computer room, along the entrance corridor and on to the porch. There he stood for a minute, panting, while the cold air hit him in the face. To come into the open at the pale beginning of day, after a night in the concentration of Dawnay’s room, was like waking from a nightmare. He took several gulps of air and strode off across the grass to the headland, trying to clear his brain and his lungs.

In the distance, he could hear an outboard motor.

He changed direction and walked furiously towards the spot where the path from the jetty reached the top of the cliff. The sound of the boat came steadily nearer in the growing light, drawing him like a magnet; but at the cliff-top he stumbled upon Quadring, Judy and two soldiers who were lying in wait on the grass. He drew up short.

“What the devil’s going on?” He gazed at them wildly and uncomprehendingly.

Quadring stood up, binoculars swinging from his chest.

“Get back. Get away from here.”

The motor had stopped. The boat was gliding into the quay below them. Judy started to scramble to her feet, but Quadring motioned her down.

“Go away John, please!” she said in an agonised voice.

“Go away? Go away? What the hell’s everyone up to?”

“Be quiet,” ordered Quadring. “And keep back from the edge.”

“We’re waiting for Dennis Bridger,” Judy said.

“For Dennis?” He was in a state of shock and only took in slowly what was happening.

“I’d push off,” Quadring advised him. “Unless you want to witness his arrest.”

“His arrest?” Fleming pivoted slowly from Quadring back to Judy as the meaning dawned on him.

“You are all mad!”

“Keep back and keep quiet,” said Quadring.

Fleming moved towards the edge of the cliff, but on a nod from Quadring the two soldiers took an elbow each and pulled him back. He stood pinioned between them, frustrated and desperate. Cold sweat trickled down his face, and all he could see was Judy.

“Are you in on this?”

“You know what we found.” She avoided his eyes.

“Are you?”

“Yes,” she said, and walked away to stand beside Quadring.

They let Bridger get right to the top of the path, lugging the heavy canister from the cave. As his head came up over the edge, Fleming shouted to him:

“Dennis!”

One of the soldiers clamped his hand over Fleming’s mouth, but by that time Bridger had seen them. Before Quadring could get on to him, he dropped the canister and ran.

He ran fast for a man in sea-boots, along the path at the edge of the cliff. Quadring and the soldiers pounded after him. Fleming ran after them, and Judy after him. It was like a stag-hunt in the cold, early light. They could not see where Bridger was going. He got to the end of the headland, and then turned and slipped. His wet rubber boots flailed at the grass at the edge, and then he was over. Five seconds later, he was a broken body on the rocks at the sea’s edge.

Fleming joined the soldiers on the cliff-top, looking down. As Judy came up to him he turned away without speaking and walked slowly back towards the camp. He still had a splinter of glass from the microscope in his finger. Stopping for a moment, he pulled it out, and then walked on.