by Fred Hoyle
'My hands throb. What has happened?'
'We're running away,' he said, caressing her hair. 'We started running two nights ago when we bust up the computer.
Remember?'
She frowned and shook her head. 'Computer? What computer? I can't remember anything.'
'It'll come back,' he assured her. 'Don't worry your head about it.' He got up and crossed to the table, glancing at the manuscript. 'Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,' he read aloud. 'This is a rum do. I hoped for a shepherd, but we've found a sheep. Wonder how he manages to make a living with this stuff?'
He was interrupted by the click of the latch and he stood away from the table. Preen returned with a couple of steaming bowls on a tray. He grabbed a stool and placed the tray on it alongside Andre. 'Condensed tomato, I'm afraid,' he said apologetically.
'That'll be fine,' Fleming said. He took a spoon and began feeding Andre, who sipped hungrily at the thick, red liquid.
'What's the name of this island?' Fleming went on to Preen.
'Soay?'
'It's just off Soay and very much smaller.'
'Then you're on your own ?'
Preen nodded. 'And at your mercy.' Hastily he apologised.
'That was crude of me. But you were a surprise, you know.
Anyway, I'll leave you and your friend to enjoy the soup.
Might I enquire your name?'
'Fleming, John Fleming.' He did not volunteer Andre's.
'I ask only out of courtesy,' said Preen mildly. 'Since I'm your host. You'll have to stay here, naturally. There's nowhere else to go. That's why I chose this island.'
'But why isn't really answered, is it?' Fleming suggested.
Preen hesitated, looking embarrassed. 'I came because it's safe, or comparatively so. I used to protest against the Bomb and so forth, but I got tired of exposing lunacy and decided it was more sensible to opt out.'
Fleming gulped down the last of his own soup. 'That makes three of us,' he grinned. 'But when the bombs drop and you're the last oasis of life and learning how are you going to ward off the pirates, all frightened, starving, and full of radiation sickness?'
With an air of conspiratorial triumph Preen walked over to a heavy old chest which served as a window seat. From it he removed a short automatic rifle.
'Splendid,' laughed Fleming. 'We'll sleep safe tonight. I take it that we can all doss down somehow and get some sleep? It's been a busy day.'
Preen showed unexpected resources. He had his own bed in the shelf alcove beside the fire. From another cupboard he produced heavy wool rugs. Andre was tucked in, the fire was made up, and Fleming wrapped himself up and lay down on the floor beside the sofa. Preen shot the bolts on the door and turned out the paraffin lamp. Fleming vaguely heard the indeterminate noises of his host undressing and going to bed before a sleep of utter exhaustion swept over his brain and body.
It had been three hours before the continued absence of Geers and Fleming aroused misgivings, and a Marine Commando launch went to the islet to investigate.
By the time action could be taken to locate the fugitives night had fallen and the weather had become almost impossible.
Geers, ill with his miserable wait on the island and sick with apprehension about the repercussions in London, sat at his desk drinking a hot toddy and blusteringly ordering Quadring and Pennington to do something. But he could not put off for very long the unpleasant task of phoning Whitehall with the news of the latest debacle.
The Minister of Science took the call himself. He remained completely silent while Geers babbled on about the bad luck of the whole business in general and the unforgivable treachery of Fleming in particular. The great man's silky comments before he hung up were worse than the most sarcastic reprimand.
'Most unfortunate,' he said softly. 'You have my complete sympathy in a situation where you seemed to be surrounded by incompetents and traitors. You may leave it to me to put the best construction on it to the Old Man. He's unusually disturbed about all this, which is so uncharacteristic. Not going to Chequers. Staying at No. 10. And you know how he loathes the place since it's been done up. I do hope I can get his P.A. Such an excellent buffer when the P.M.'s in one of his captious moods. Well, goodbye. Keep in touch.'
The Minister did get the P.A. He could be more forth right with him. 'Just had a call from Thorness, Willie,' he said. 'They found the girl, and then the bloody fools promptly lost her. Now Fleming appears to have abducted her. So romantic, isn't it? Geers has bawled futile orders to every R.A.F. and Navy station from Carlisle to Scapa. I suppose masses of ships and planes and little men with radar sets are now rushing about like mad. Met. reports Gale Force 9, and storms of both the moisturised and electrical variety.
The pursuers won't have much luck, and I don't feel this is a situation where praying for miracles would be listened to.
But officially, Willie, I'm asking that you'll tell the Old Man that we're leaving no stone unturned, exploring every avenue. You know, the usual pap. Oh, I've decided to send Osborne back to Thorness so we get some coherent facts, and also to broach something else that's cropped up. He put up a bit of a black so he'll be all the more anxious to please. He's a sound chap at heart.'
Osborne was sent for in the early hours of the morning and despatched to Thorness at first light by air. He was in Geers' office by noon. The Director had grabbed a few hours'
sleep on a make-shift bed in the night duty officer's room.
For the first time in his life he was conscious of looking dishevelled and grubby. He had disliked Osborne from the start. The fact that the man was still entrusted with a job which was nothing less than a check-up on his own efficiency made him dislike him still more.
'No news from the searchers, of course,' questioned Osborne, taking a chair without invitation.
Geers shook his head. 'We'll just have to wait and hope.
It's my fault,' he mumbled. 'I should never...'
'It doesn't really matter whose fault it is,' said Osborne kindly. 'It's happened. How's Madeleine Dawnay?'
Geers looked at him suspiciously, wondering about this new topic. 'Much better,' he replied. 'The electrical burns she got from the computer weren't in themselves particularly bad. It was using that damned enzyme formulated from the machine. Or rather some error her morons made in compounding it. Fortunately Madeleine had the mental power to check and see the mistake. From then it was easy: a miracle cure which will revolutionise our burns units and indeed all plastic surgery. One last priceless benefit from that machine the vandals have smashed.'
'I'm glad - about Madeleine, I mean,' said Osborne. He paused thoughtfully. 'There's nothing more for her to do here, is there? Now the computer's wrecked?'
Geers shrugged. 'Nothing much left for any of us,' he said.
'I wonder where the devil Quadring's got to? He should have some news of what's happening. Good or bad.'
Osborne ignored this. 'We've had a request for her from the Azaran Government.'
'Who?'
'From Colonel Salim, in fact. The Azarani ambassador.'
'No, I mean who have they asked for?'
'Dawnay, whom we've been talking about,' said Osborne impatiently. 'A formal request passed to us last night via the Foreign Office. They want a biochemist.'
'What the hell for?' Geers demanded. Then, resignedly: 'It's up to her, if she wants to go. I've other things to worry about.'
'Ask her,' Osborne replied. 'And either you or she can phone the Ministry. Don't defer a decision too long. These little oil states have protocol. Mustn't suggest discourtesy by ignoring their enquiry.'
'All right,' grunted Geers.
The phone rang and he snatched it from the cradle. He listened to the brief message and then replaced the receiver, smiling with relief and satisfaction.
'They've located some wreckage. Splintered wood and so on. Registration number on one piece. It's the boat Fleming took; no doubt of that. No sign of bodies so far. Take some time for them to
come up, of course. They hadn't a hope in hell.' There was no tinge of regret in his voice. Geers was not mourning the presumed death of two colleagues.
'Whereabouts was the wreckage?' Osborne enquired.
Geers glanced at some figures he had jotted on his memo pad during the phone call. 'They give Victor Sugar 7458 as the approximation.' He went to the wall map of the Thorness rocket lanes and prodded with a finger at a spot on the grid lines.
'About there. A little south from Barra and east from South Uist. Shoal water. Only someone as crazy as Fleming would have risked it in such bad visibility. But the Navy will go on looking, just as a routine formality.'
The two men sat in silence for a time. 'I'll see if the canteen can manage some lunch,' said Osborne. Geers nodded.
He made no move to accompany him.
It was a day of abnormally high temperature for so early in the year. The air was saturated with moisture and the mist turned to a steady rain over the land. Out at sea visibility went from bad to worse. Even for Western Scotland, the weather was breaking every kind of record. Fleming normally ignored the climate, but now he found it oddly in tune with the melodrama of the crisis at Thorness.
Clambering around the island, he heard the occasional impatient whoop-whoop of a destroyer's siren and the regular throb of dieseled launches cruising slowly. Once or twice raucous voices cursed cheerily as the search parties tried to find some humour on their boring, pointless task.
He had told Preen he needed exercise and would collect firewood. He had said nothing about the possibility of a major search for Andre and himself. Preen was patently anxious not to enquire too closely into what the whole escape was about, though Fleming suspected that a man who had been a C.N.D. marcher would not have ignored Thorness or the possibility that a man and a girl fleeing for their lives on a winter's evening might be connected with the place and with nefarious reasons for getting away from it.
But Fleming was not really worried about Preen. The streak of anarchy in the man's make-up practically guaranteed that he would not pompously blether about a citizen's duty and so forth. By almost fantastic good fortune they had found a well-nigh perfect ally.
Fleming was far more preoccupied about Andre. He suspected that even her formulated constitution, free from the defects of heredity which were the birth-wrong of every human being, could not battle against the poisonous sepsis in her hands. Somehow he would have to get skilled help for her.
All that day the patrol boats cruised off the island. Late in the afternoon the mist thinned sufficiently for a couple of R.A.F. helicopters to nose around. Fleming was outside when he heard them. Alarmed, he ran back to the cottage.
He grabbed a couple of green logs which were smoking on the fire and doused them in a rainwater butt at the back door.
'The choppers may sweep over here,' he explained quickly to Preen. 'Though I doubt it; a bit tricky to mess around in lousy visibility at zero feet with this hunk of granite in the way. Still, there's no future in arousing their curiosity with a smoking chimney.'
Preen mumbled something incoherent and retired to the ingle nook with an obscure volume of Middle English texts to annotate. He had done his best to suppress his misgivings about the continued presence of his visitors, but he left Fleming in no doubt that he would be glad when they were gone.
Andre was sitting placidly on the sofa. She had gone out with Fleming after the makeshift lunch Preen had devised and walked a few steps. The effort had quickly tired her, and she seemed afraid of the loneliness. Fleming carried her back to the cottage.
He was getting more and more worried about her; not only was she physically exhausted and in severe pain but her mind seemed to be more or less a blank. He had noted how she seemed to be unable to make any spontaneous effort except for the basic ones of walking, drinking, and eating.
Preen had rustled up some boiled sweets and when he had offered her the tin she had simply stared at it, not recognising their purpose. Fleming had put one in his own mouth and sucked it noisily before she got the idea.
Now, with one ear alert for the sound of the helicopters, Fleming sat beside her, his arm protectively along the back of the sofa and his hand touching her shoulders. 'What do you remember of all that's happened?' he asked gently.
She gave him the look of a bewildered child. 'It's all jumbled,' she murmured. 'I ran. Then I fell. In water.'
She tried to clasp her hands and drew in her breath sharply at the stab of agony.
Fleming got up, rummaging on the mantelshelf above the half-dead fire for some scissors Preen kept there among a conglomeration of useful articles. 'I don't think these rags I put round your hands last night were a very good idea.
There's a lot of suppuration. I'll have to cut them away.'
With almost feminine gentleness he began to cut into the material, trying to ease it off. He bent over her hands so she could not see them, and he talked quickly to help her ignore the pain.
'Before the running - you remember nothing?' he asked.
She spoke hesitantly, not only because she was searching for memories but in the effort to prevent herself crying out at the throbbing darts of agony. 'There was a camp, a kind of camp, with low concrete buildings and huts. We were there, and lots of other people.'
Fleming had got most of the matted linen off one hand.
What was revealed wasn't pretty. 'The machine?' he asked.
'Do you remember a machine?'
'Yes,' she said, nodding to herself. 'It was big and grey.
There was always a low hum, and often a lot of clicking.
Those were the figures emerging. Everything was in numbers.'
She frowned and her mouth puckered, as if she was going to cry with frustration. 'It's the numbers I can't remember.'
'Good,' said Fleming. 'We can get along without the numbers. They don't mean anything any more to you or anyone. Those numbers were evil; they...'
He stopped abruptly. The bandage on the other hand had come away easily - too easily. A whole crust of matter came with it. Underneath there wasn't pink, healing flesh, but the ominous purple of necrosis. He could not recognise gangrene, but he had some idea about septicaemia. He bared Andre's arm past her elbow. The sleeve of her dress could not be pushed further up. The arm was swollen, and the main artery stood out dark on the white skin.
'Preen,' he said quietly. 'Just come over and look at this, will you?'
Their host unwillingly laid down his book and walked across. He glanced down and then abruptly shut his eyes, swaying a little with nausea.
'My dear!' he whispered, 'how can you stand it?'
Fleming got up and took Preen across the room to the window. It was quiet outside, with the familiar mist eddying back in whorls from the sea. No helicopter engine marred the silence.
'I hate asking you for another favour,' he said, 'but could I borrow your boat?'
'Why?' Preen demanded suspiciously. 'Where do you want to go with it?'
'To the mainland.'
'It isn't seaworthy enough.'
'All right, to Skye then,' said Fleming impatiently. 'I could arrange a meeting on Skye.'
'You want to find a doctor, I suppose? Bring him here? That poor girl's hand...'
He swallowed down another surge of nausea.
'Not a doctor, something better. I'll not bring anyone here; I promise you.'
Preen rather sullenly agreed to loan the boat. Once the decision was made he was anxious for Fleming to go. The sooner he went the sooner he'd be back. And then perhaps he could see some possibility of getting rid of his visitors so that he could be left alone in peace.
He accompanied Fleming down to the little beach where his launch was kept under the shelter of a leaning rock. A jerry-can of petrol stood close by. While they prepared the boat for sea. Preen tried to apologise once more for his attitude.
He said he would do his best to look after the girl.
'Fine,' said Fleming with more optimism than he actually felt.<
br />
'I shouldn't be gone more than twenty-four hours at the very most. Now, if you can brief me on the course for Skye.'
Preen gave a landsman's vague instructions. 'The current and what wind there is are always north-west. If you keep heading that way you'll pick up the light buoys at the entry to Loch Harport in under half an hour. I always beach at the end of the loch, where there's a little hamlet with a general shop.'
'How far from there to Portree?'
'Over the hills not above ten miles; much longer if you manage to go by road, but you might get a lift in daylight.'
Fleming glanced at his watch. 'I'll walk,'
he said. 'My torch still has plenty of life in it. Should make it well before dawn.' He did. He hung around the outskirts of the little town until people were moving around and it was safe to go to the airport without attracting attention. He got a snack there after checking that the next flight for Oban wasn't due to take off for half an hour.
Then he went to a phone booth. Thorness was an unlisted number and the local exchange was manually operated. He thought he noticed a hesitancy when the operator repeated the number and asked what number he was calling from. It was a risk he had to take. Unless the local police were very quick off the mark and unless Quadring was even quicker in alerting them he'd be away on the plane before anything happened.
He knew, of course, that calls to Thorness were monitored at the station as a matter of routine. In the present crisis this was doubly certain. He had to hope that the tapping was just the usual tape recording for checking later, and not some super snoop who sat in a cubicle eavesdropping on everyone.
Rather to his surprise the call went through in under a minute. He recognised the P.B.X. operator at the station.
'Professor Dawnay,' he murmured as quietly as he could.
'Professor Madeleine Dawnay. Sick quarters.'
'She may be in her room. I'll check.'
The operator's voice was in the usual impersonal and efficient tone. Fleming listened closely for any tell-tale click of an extension coming into circuit. There was none.
'Dawnay.'