Project Hades

2

Monday 31st October. 0012.

Jones, with Clare Baines, was hurried in through the gate and past the surface buildings of the sprawling base—Jones thought he recognised a softball field—and then taken down a flight of steps into an underground facility, a steel cave that echoed with shouts and sirens, and a deeper mechanical groan, the aftershock of the detonation. It was pretty obviously a nuclear bunker, Jones thought. They were led down corridors and pushed at last into a blank-walled holding room. Buck Grady took up a position by the open door, his hand resting on his holstered revolver.

Jones sighed. “Well, this is turning out to be a jolly Halloween night. Anyone got a pumpkin?”

Grady said, “Don’t push your luck, Jones.”

A senior Air Force officer approached—a commodore, Jones recognised—accompanied by the tweedy figure of Tremayne, and an American officer.

“Ah, Tremayne!” Jones called. “So who’s this chap with the fruit salad all over his chest?”

“That is Air Commodore Godwin, who’s in command here, and you’d better rein in those jokes of yours, Jones.”

The American said, “And my name’s Joseph Crowne, Major, US Army. Senior American officer here. And you are, sir?”

Clare said, “This is Doctor Chapman Jones—”

“Of Defence Secretariat 8, Ministry of Defence.”

Godwin said, “And what are you doing here?”

“I’m going to find out exactly what you’re up to here, Commodore Godwin,” Jones said. “And, if necessary, put a stop to it.”

Tremayne bristled. “By what authority?”

And Godwin said calmly, “Sergeant Grady. Draw your weapon.”

Buck hesitated. “Sir, his credentials do check out.”

“Just do it, soldier.”

Buck glanced at Crowne.

“Do as he says, Sergeant.” Buck took his revolver from a holster.

Clare said, “Commodore Godwin. That’s not necessary. I’m a police officer. This man is in my custody.”

“I’ll tell you why it’s necessary. Here we have a man who has just declared his specific intent to disrupt the operations of my base.”

“And I am a copper who sees a gun being drawn.”

“Little girl, you are out of your depth. Stand aside now or share his fate.”

Jones said, “You don’t need to do this, Clare.”

“I’m not going anywhere.” Clare stood her ground.

Godwin snapped, “Then take them both down to a holding cell.”

Again Buck hesitated. Crowne said, “It’s all right, Sergeant, do as he says.”

“I’m sorry, Doctor Jones, Clare,” Buck said. “Let’s go.”

Jones called over his shoulder, “I can see we’re going to have some interesting chats, you and I, Commodore!”

Tremayne was saying, “You’ve exceeded your authority, Commodore. I’m going to report this to my own superiors at the ministry.”

“Do what you like. I’ve got work to do.”

Thelma Bennet had never ridden a motorbike in her life. As they plummeted along a darkened road she clung to Winston’s back like a child to its mother.

Winston called over his shoulder, “Fifteen minutes to Newcastle. You all right back there, Thelma?

“Not really! How come you learned to handle a police motorcycle?”

“Clare’s given me a few joy rides. Mind you, she’ll kill me for pinching this.”

“You are close, you two, aren’t you?”

“Oh, she’s much too good for me.”

“Don’t ever think that. And did Clare teach you how to hot-wire it too?”

“Not exactly.”

“You’re a complicated person, Winston.”

“It’s life that’s complicated. Woah!”

The bike swerved drastically, avoiding an oncoming truck by inches, and Thelma gasped.

“Sorry.”

“Where are we going first?”

“Home. Gateshead, over the Tyne. I’ve got some toilet rolls to pick up. And you can meet my mum.”

Outside the base, there was little disorder. But the protesters had not dispersed, Phillips saw; gradually sobering up, they gathered in little knots, blowing on their hands.

Buck Grady approached, drawing on a cigarette.

“Ah, Sergeant Grady.”

“Sir. Everything under control out here?”

“After a fashion. Listen, I couldn’t scrounge a ciggie, could I?” Phillips took a cigarette from Buck’s pack, found a match, and lit up. “Ah, that’s good. Gave all mine away to pacify the locals. Just farmers, mostly, fuelled by the local witches’ brew. But they’ve a right to be concerned, haven’t they, Sergeant? It’s the sense of powerlessness, you see. Even though the project is under nominal British control.”

“Not everybody welcomes us Yanks over here.”

“Yes, well, I remember enough of Hitler’s war not to share that view. There is one thing, Sergeant. Those two civilians in there.”

Buck said, “I’ll make sure they come to no harm.”

“Well, that’s good of you. Good night, Sergeant.”

“Yeah. Let’s hope the rest of it is as peaceful as this.”

Jones paced, footsteps echoing. He and Clare were in a prison cell. There was no other word for it. “A neat aluminium cube. A very space-age prison. But the lock in that door wouldn’t have stopped Charlie Peace, I shouldn’t think.”

“You’re under arrest, you know. Try anything like that and I’ll cuff you.”

“You would, too, wouldn’t you? Look, I’m sorry about this, Constable Clare. You don’t deserve this. At least they ought to give you your own slopping-out bucket.”

“Try to relax. And stop pacing.”

“I’m all too aware of time draining away for that.”

A key rattled in the lock. Tremayne entered. The door was slammed shut behind him and locked.

“Ah, what’s this, room service?

“You know, you’re not as funny as you think you are, Jones. But I must apologise—especially to you, Constable. You were absolutely in the right to make your stand.” He sat on the edge of one of the room’s two bunks. “But you don’t understand what’s at stake here, Jones.”

Jones said, “And is it important that I do understand?”

“I don’t know, frankly. I don’t know what you’re doing here.”

“The man from the Ministry’s UFO desk, you mean?”

“Well, quite. I don’t understand how a man of science like you can be involved with such flim-flam.”

“I do regard myself as a man of science, regardless of my murky occupation.” He glanced at Clare, who clearly knew less than Tremayne did. “Yes, Defence Secretariat 8 is best known as the military’s front desk for UFO reports—which of course is how we came to hear of the present odd business. I’m a sort of consultant, but Miss Bennet is a career civil servant, you know, and I would prefer it if you showed her the appropriate respect, by the way, Tremayne; she was seconded to DS8, which you can imagine is something of a blot on your curriculum vitae—and yet, drawn by the lure of the truth, she is working hard.

“You say this is all flim-flam. But observations of anomalies outside the normal realm have a pedigree that long predates science itself—as I’m sure you know. There are what we might call UFO reports in the Bible—read Ezekiel, chapter one! This area itself has its own pedigree. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles noted sightings of ‘fiery dragons’ as far back as the eighth century—the activities of our ‘Grendels’ all those years ago, do you think?

“Even the great minds who founded the Royal Society in 1660, an institution devoted to ‘experimental philosophy,’ set up a secretive Section to deal with what they called paradoxes. You may not understand a thing, but at least you can list it. Consider Linnaeus, the father of modern biological taxonomy—all that business of kingdoms, classes, orders, genera, and species. Well, when he carved up the natural world he added an extra class, called the Paradoxa, for all those elusive creatures he couldn’t prove didn’t exist, such as unicorns, dragons, phoenixes, and satyrs—and pelicans! That was the spirit. Though he was wrong about the pelicans.

“Of course the priority now is national security. So DS8 has quietly tapped into the Royal Society’s archive, and other sources. But this is all hush-hush, for the view is that if a minister were ever to admit to the existence of UFOs or other spooky phenomena, the government would fall sharpish.”

“Hmm. And it is ‘spooky phenomena’ that has drawn you to Aldmoor, is it?”

“Yes. Specifically what Winston Stubbins calls ‘Grendels.’ But I have a sense that it’s no coincidence I’ve stumbled across this Project Hades of yours. Perhaps you’d better tell me about it, Tremayne.”

“A new generation of thermonuclear weapons,” Tremayne said simply. “More powerful, more compact—and cleaner. They are currently under test in underground facilities all around the free world.”

“Yet more bombs and bigger than ever? To what end?”

“First I want to demonstrate the utter horror of these weapons. The bigger the bang the better for that. But I also want to show the weapons’ potential for good. Have you heard of a man called Edward Teller?”

“Ah. Project Ploughshare?”

Clare said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Using atomic bombs for engineering purposes, Clare. You could blast out new canals. Blow oil reserves out of the ground. That the sort of thing you have in mind, Tremayne?”

“Geographical engineering, we call it. You could even ride into space, hurled to the planets by atomic fire. Men are fools who must be shown the destruction they are risking—and the power for good of the technology in their hands.”

“Oh, you’re the fool, Tremayne. Project Ploughshare is nothing but a grab for power and money by a cynical cabal of politicians and technologists. You’ve been seduced. And are you quite sure everybody down here shares your radioactive vision? Godwin, for instance?”

Tremayne stood. “I’m disappointed, Jones. Given your own exotic calling, is your mind really so closed? I can see I’m wasting my time. Guard!”

Once they were locked in and alone once more, Clare sighed. “Well, that went well.”

“Yes. He’s easily offended, isn’t he? We didn’t even get a cup of tea.”

“Now what?”

“Well, there’s no use sitting here. You and I need to have a serious chat, Constable Clare…”

Winston’s home was a nondescript city terrace. Winston unlocked the door. “Mum? It’s only me. I’ve got a visitor.”

A woman came downstairs, overweight, limping, in a faded print dress and worn slippers. She was no more than forty-five or fifty. “What time of night do you call this? And who’s this? Not your probation officer again.”

“Oh, Mum. This is Thelma Bennet. She’s a friend. We’re here on business.”

“Oh, aye. Nice to meet you, Thelma.”

“And you, Mrs. Stubbins.”

“Call me Hope. I bet you’re gagging for a cuppa. I’ll get the kettle on.”

“Can you manage?”

“I’m all right on me stick, love.” She went down the short corridor to the kitchen, leaning heavily on a metal Health Service walking stick.

Winston ran upstairs. “Mum, where’s my rucksack?”

“Where you put it. What do you want that for?”

“My toilet rolls.”

Hope sighed. “Him and his bog rolls. Once I went and used one. He raised the roof. And it left ink smudges on me bum cheeks.”

Thelma said, “He’s a remarkable boy.”

“Ay, he’s a good lad. Had a rough time of it. He never knew his father. Mind you, I only just did, if yer kna what I mean! A GI broke my heart for the price of a pair of silk stockings. Wouldn’t mind, but they were laddered. Never saw the bleeder again.”

“Oh, dear.”

“I had a funny old war, me. Lost me heart to the Americans and me left leg to the Germans, but gained a son. I had to fight to keep him from being taken off me for adoption, mind.”

Winston came clattering downstairs. “Right, got it. Sorry about Mum. She always tells my whole life story to whoever comes in the door. Do you mind wearing the rucksack, Thelma? Ta ta, Mum.” He kissed her on the cheek.

“What, you’re off? What about your tea? I’ve got some nice gateau.”

Thelma said, “I am sorry, Mrs. Stubbins. We are a bit short of time.”

Winston had already kick-started the motorbike. Thelma hurried to climb aboard.

Jones sat on a bunk, leaning against the cold, hard metal wall. “I was impressed by the way you stuck up for Winston when Buck Grady was teasing him. Then you tried to protect me, when Godwin’s toy soldiers waved their guns around.”

“It was the right thing to do.”

“But not everybody would have done it. Why did you become a police officer, Clare?”

“I was a prefect at school. I used to break up fights instead of start them. I always hated seeing harm done to people. And I hate seeing messes.”

“Messes?”

“Chaos. Things breaking down. That’s what crime is, isn’t it? Society breaking down, even just a little bit. I like putting things back together again.”

“Good for you.”

“You’re buttering me up.”

“Well, so I am. Look, Clare, you made one significant choice when you stood by me. Now I have to ask you to make another choice.”

“What choice?”

“You’ve seen how things are fixed here. Tremayne’s atomic landscape-gardening scheme is loony enough. But unfortunately it’s in the hands of Commodore Godwin, who, on first impression, I am finding difficult to trust.”

“I know what you mean.”

“And on top of that we have the peculiar danger Winston has highlighted. Something stirring in the Earth.”

“You’re asking me to help you break out of here, aren’t you?”

“I badly need to find out what’s going on here—and quickly.”

“You’re under arrest, you know.”

“Goes without saying. How long do you think it would take you to get through that door?

She grinned, drew something from her pocket, reached to the lock, and there was a click. “Not long.”

“Lead the way, Constable Clare!”

The university campus was deserted, a place of blocky buildings and long shadows. Thelma checked her watch: one a.m.

Winston said, “I think this is the library.” He wrapped his scarf around his fist and smashed a ground floor window.

“Winston!”

“Do you mind climbing in through the window?”

“I’ve done worse.”

He knocked out more glass, and they helped each other through. Winston said, “We need to find the geology section.”

Thelma looked around for signs. “Natural sciences—this way.” Their footsteps echoed on the polished wooden floor. “Now tell me where you learned to open windows like that.”

“Ay, well, my mum hasn’t always been proud of me.”

“I imagine you got picked on at school, not having a father around.”

“Ay. But I wasn’t the only one. My problem was I got bored.”

“Bored?”

“Always asked too many questions. Got put down in the bottom stream. Then I got expelled altogether. I got in with some bad lads. Ended up in borstal for a bit.”

“Oh, Winston.”

“I was too bright to let myself get put back in there. But I learned a canny few tricks inside. Now I work down the mines. I just switch me head off when I’m down there.”

“I don’t think the system has served you very well.”

“I’m not complaining. You make your own luck. Over here—geology.”

“All right. You get started here. I’ll see what I can dig up on the sightings around Lucifer’s Tomb. Professionally, I used to be a historian. I’ll be more use doing that. We’ve got half an hour before the next ninety minutes is up. We won’t make it back to the base, but we should at least call in before then.” She walked off, searching. “Mythology, mythology…”

Jones and Clare crept along steel-walled corridors, peering through windows and open doors. The bunker was filled with the sound of laughter, cartoonish music, and the click of pool balls.

Clare said, “I don’t believe it, Doctor Jones. They’ve actually got a cinema down here. It’s like a bit of America.”

“Who’d have thought it, eh? Well, I think we’re getting an impression of the layout of this bunker. Living quarters, stores, and facilities to the west. The central block is command, control, communications. Then there’s the tunnel to the east that seems to link to the old mine shafts under Lucifer’s Tomb.”

“Where they placed the bomb.”

“Quite. I imagine there’s a whole series of tunnels out to various sites… What I’m really interested in finding is their records. Tape reels and punched cards. Which I would imagine would be underneath the command centre, in their main computer room… This way, I should think.”

“I just can’t get over how big this place is. I mean, I’m a copper and I knew nothing about all this. Even the wire fence isn’t on the maps.”

“I’m afraid in this post-war world, Britain is neither as sovereign nor as free as its citizens would like to believe. Ah, now what’s down here?” He had found a hatch in the floor. He used a coin, a threepenny bit, to twist back a couple of bolts and lifted it to reveal metal stairs down to a brightly lit chamber. He led the way down.

Clare, following, said, “Crikey, it’s cold down here. Like a meat locker.”

“The computer centre. All atmospherically controlled. Look at all these great blocks, like Stonehenge monoliths.”

“What are we looking for?”

“Seismic records. And they’ll be in these tape cabinets. Come on, you start that end and I’ll start this.”

Thelma, her arms laden with books, found Winston working in a puddle of light at a table.

He looked up. “Wow, what a pile.”

She dropped the books on his table. “I wish I’d taken up your mother’s offer of a cup of tea. How are you getting on?”

“It’s brilliant, Thelma. I’ve never been let loose in a place like this. Full of books and learning. I’m like a pig in muck.”

She sat down. “You know, I had very few students with your promise.”

“You were a teacher?”

“I researched history at university. Oxford. Teaching was part of the job.”

“Do you live down there, Oxford?”

“Used to. I gave it all up to work with Doctor Jones. It was a rather unusual challenge. I don’t mind about the research. But the students—yes, I miss the students. Working with you is bringing it all back. Now come on, we’d better crack on. How do you work these little desk lights?”

In the computer centre, Jones pulled out wire-framed reading glasses and peered into a screen. “I knew it. I just knew it. Look at this, Clare.”

“Doctor Jones, I think you should see this—”

“No, no, whatever it is can wait. Look at that magnificent periodicity!”

Clare walked over. “All right, you win. What am I supposed to be looking at?”

“This! Can’t you see? It’s all quite clear. Look at the frequency spikes! There, do you see, and there?”

“Just tell me what it means.”

“The scientists here have been monitoring the Earth hereabouts—recording seismic echoes.”

“Just as Winston does.”

“Quite. And just as he has found anomalies, so have they. Here they are in their own records. But they haven’t recognised them for what they are.”

“What anomalies?”

“For a start, Winston’s right about that ninety-minute pulsing. See, here and here and here—the same pattern recurring, ninety minutes apart. Something really is orbiting through the basement rocks.”

“Orbiting?”

“But there is a deeper periodicity. See this peak here, here, and here?”

Clare counted the peaks. “If each of these is ninety minutes—that’s about a day.”

“Well done, Constable Clare. But it isn’t quite a day, and that’s significant. What do you know about the structure of the Earth?”

“It’s round.”

“Hmm. I suppose that’s a start. Look, Clare, Earth is a ball of rock—molten most of the way down—magma. The solid crust is only a shell, like the skin of an apple.”

“An apple?”

“Yes—with a worm at its centre! The Earth’s core is a ball of iron the size of the Moon. Like a planet within a planet. And it turns with its own ‘day.’ ”

“And the seismometers pick up these signals in line with the core day?”

“Precisely. Every core day, something comes swimming up from the heart of the Earth—and it noses around here. Almost curiously. Giving off seismic signals as it does so.”

“You make it sound alive. What can swim through rock?”

“Hmm? Oh, something made from denser rock, of course. The point is that these visitors from the abyss began coming here as soon as this base was dug out.”

“Do you know what these things are?”

“I have a very good idea, yes.”

“And now that the bomb has gone off—what will they do?”

“I suspect we’ll find out at the end of the current ninety-minute cycle.” He glanced at his watch. “In less than thirty minutes from now. What was it you wanted to show me?”

“I found something under the carpet. Another hatch.”

“A hidden hatch! Curiouser and curiouser!”

For Tremayne the galley point, with its small electric kettle, tea caddy, and unwashed army mugs, was a mercifully human island within Godwin’s command centre.

Godwin paced. “No, we haven’t found Jones and Baines, if you want to know.”

Tremayne sipped his tea. “Oh dear. Poor old Commodore.”

“It’s no joke, Tremayne.”

“Oh, have a cup and calm down. We’ve had a good night, haven’t we? The bomb test went well; we gathered good data. I’m actually thinking of taking forty winks.”

Godwin said, “The night isn’t over while those two are roaming around like rats.”

“Rats? Odd word to use about your fellow countrymen. You did grow up around here, didn’t you?”

Godwin glared at him. “What if I did?”

“There’s not a trace of it in your accent. I’ve been looking you up, Godwin.”

“Why?”

“Because we must work together. I’m notoriously incurious about people, you know. I focus on the job in hand. But you—well, you aren’t turning out to be the sort of chap I expected.”

“And what sort of ‘chap’ am I?”

“Grammar school boy, redbrick college, then the Air Force.”

Godwin sneered. “All very different for you, I imagine. What was it—Harrow and Oxford?”

“Winchester and Cambridge, actually, but that’s the idea. Never in the forces myself. Worked on radar research during the last lot.”

“What an easy ride you’ve had.”

“Hmmph. If you think a short-sighted, brainy kid has an easy ride at any English public school, you’re wrong. But is that what you’re all about, Godwin? Envy? Do you resent being posted up here to this backwater—especially as you’ve been sent home? You were quite high up in the War Office, weren’t you, before Suez? When I mention your name it’s that debacle that people talk of first.”

“Some of us call it a betrayal.”

“Ah, yes, our last imperial adventure, debagged when the Yanks wouldn’t back us. I suppose you quite enjoy lording it over a base full of Americans now, do you?”

“This is absurd. I’ve work to do.”

“You should talk more, Godwin. Then you wouldn’t explode as you do. Calm, calm, bang… calm, calm, bang. I’ve seen it in you, you know.”

Godwin walked away stiffly. “Call me if there are any developments.”

“Calm, calm, bang!”

Thelma closed her book. “I think that’s enough. Oh, my eyes. Well, I’ve found records of ghostly apparitions over Lucifer’s Tomb going back twelve hundred years, to Saxon times. What about you?”

Winston riffled through a heap of paper. “I’ve been cutting out the seismic records from these bound volumes. We can’t carry the whole books back. I feel like a vandal. But look at all the detail in these signals!”

“They almost look like speech traces.”

“Yes. There’s information in there. But it’s got more intense in the last few years.”

“While the Americans have been building the base.”

“Looks like it. What do you think it all means?”

Thelma said, “I don’t know. I hope Doctor Jones will be able to figure it out. Time’s nearly up anyhow. We’d better call him.”

The room shuddered, a deep rumble. Thelma heard windows crack, and books fell from the shelves.

Winston was wide-eyed. “I wasn’t expecting that—not here.”

“We’d better get out of here. Come on, let’s get packed up.”

The room hidden under the computer room was another metal-walled box, as brightly lit as those above, and cluttered with equipment.

Clare pointed. “Look at these pipes, Doctor Jones. And these cables.”

“Yes. It’s clearly tapping off the base’s circulation system, air, water. And the cables must hack into the computer suite. You could hide down here and take the place over, and nobody would know about it—until too late. A secret control centre. How predictable. How depressing.”

“Take the place over to do what?”

“Well, I’m not sure about that, Clare, not yet. But the fact that this is a nuclear base, and we have these rows of control consoles and that immense wall map of the world—these things do not fill me with a warm and fuzzy glow.” He glanced at his watch. “We’ve got ten minutes left of the ninety. Now listen to me, Clare. Just in case I don’t make it out of here.”

“Don’t talk like that.”

“There are a lot of nervous people running around with guns, and anything could happen. I want you to remember a few things. Tell Winston he was right about the ninety-minute orbits—and all the rest, in fact. Maybe he’ll be able to get through to Tremayne. And tell Thelma one word. ‘Magmoids.’ ”

“What does that mean?”

“Thelma won’t know either. But she might, conceivably, be able to find out through DS8’s resources.”

“I don’t know what you’re on about. And you’re not dead yet. What now?”

“I don’t think we’ve got any choice.” He found an intercom microphone on a console, snapped a switch, and leaned forward. “Hello, hello? We surrender! Got that, Godwin? Come and find us. We need to talk!”

The next tremor came as Thelma and Winston, on the police motorbike, fled down a city street. Smashed glass and broken bricks rained around them.

Winston said, “Look at that, it’s stove in Fenwick’s shop window. There’ll be hell to pay for that. You all right?”

“This rucksack’s pulling my shoulders off. Look, don’t worry about me, just look for a phone. We have to talk to Jones.”

“There’s one down this alley, I think—”

“Look out!”

An avalanche of bricks and glass spilled over the road before them.

Buck Grady marched Jones and Clare into the Hades command centre. Godwin waited with Tremayne at his side. Major Crowne hovered in the background, looking as uncertain as ever. Jones tried to conceal his own nervousness.

Godwin snapped, “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t have your heads blown off right now.”

Crowne stepped forward. “Take it easy, sir.”

Jones said, “Yes, Commodore—take a deep breath and tell us all why you’ve installed some kind of secret control centre beneath the computer room!”

Tremayne said, “ ‘Secret control centre?’ What on Earth—”

“Why doesn’t it surprise me that you don’t know anything about it, Professor? I fear your wonderful dreams of ‘geographical engineering’ are in danger of being hijacked.”

Buck was watching the monitors, green traces flickering across cathode ray screens. “Sir. Major Crowne. Look at this. Seismic signals up all over the place.”

Tremayne pushed forward. “Let me see that. He’s right, by God.”

Godwin said, “Aftershocks from the detonation, that’s all.”

“Oh, don’t be absurd, man. Look here, and here. The timing’s all over the shop. This has nothing to do with aftershocks. It’s some different phenomenon entirely.”

“I told you to expect this,” Jones said. “We’ve had ninety minutes’ grace since your irresponsible nuclear detonation. Ninety minutes, granted us by orbital mechanics.”

Tremayne said, “Orbital mechanics? What are you talking about, man?”

“There’s something inside the Earth, Tremayne. Not just rock and iron—something more. Something alive. It was sleeping. Now you’ve woken it up. And it’s about to rise up—”

Without warning Godwin punched him in the mouth. Jones staggered back, the pain exploding.

Crowne cried, “Commodore Godwin!”

Tremayne said, “Calm, calm, bang, eh, Godwin?”

Jones gasped for breath, trembling, and he looked at the blood on his hand. “Well, Cassius Clay would have won the gold medal twice over with that one. Is that your only response, Commodore? Violence?”

Tremayne said, “But what would you have us do, Jones?”

“I’d evacuate the base, for a start—”

Godwin snapped, “This base stays manned if I have to lock the doors myself. All this is an irrelevance. The project is everything. And the project will continue.”

“Yes, but what project? Whose project?”

Buck said now, “Umm, actually—look at this. The seismic signals are dying away. Things are calming down.”

Godwin said, “Well, well. So much for your prophecies of doom, Jones?”

“That’s absurd. Let me see that. Oh, get your hands off me, Sergeant! Tremayne? What do you make of this?” He waved a heap of paper, summarising the seismic results he’d retrieved below.

Tremayne flicked through the sheets and compared them with the oscilloscope traces. “Locally, yes, the signal is dying. But look at this spike over here.”

“Yes, that’s it. There’s the ninety-minute response all right. But the epicentre isn’t here as I expected. It’s about thirty miles southeast.”

A telephone jangled. Grady picked it up and listened. “Doctor Jones. It’s for you!”

Godwin said, “Oh, good grief—”

Jones snatched the phone. “Hello? Hello!”

Thelma’s voice, relayed through a small speaker, was barely audible. “Jones? Is that you?”

“It’s a dreadful line. Where are you?”

“We’re in—” She was interrupted by a series of beeps. “Oh, for heaven’s sake—have you got another sixpence, Winston? We’re still in the city. We’ve got the data you wanted. It’s all kicking off here, Jones. Earth tremors, damage to the buildings, cracked roads—”

Tremayne said, “Jones. Look at this map. That epicentre. Thirty miles southeast. That’s the city. Newcastle.”

Jones said, “Oh, my word. That’s it. They aren’t targeting the base. They’re attacking the nearest population centre. Thelma, can you hear me? You’ve got to get out of there. Never mind the data. Just get out of the city, get out!”

There was a roar, distorted by the phone line. “Jones? I think—” The line went dead.

“Thelma? Thelma!”