Andromeda Breakthrough afa-2

by Fred Hoyle

  'It is no use bearing old grudges,' he said, removing the cigarello. 'One does what one has to do for the superiors one works for. One does as they order. But at the same time one tries to do good.' There was a whine in his voice as he uneasily watched his visitors.

  Neilson stood up, clenching the edge of the desk. His knuckles were white with the pressure he put into the grip.

  'You killed my son,' he said with deceptive quietness. 'He was shot before the eyes of his mother and myself at your order. If I'd had the means and if you weren't still essential to fly me out I'd have killed you the moment I entered this office.'

  'Please.' said Kaufman.

  'How did Gamboul die?' Fleming snapped.

  'The balcony of her house. It fell. I was there. I saw it. She was mad, completely mad. I couldn't save her.'

  'Did you try?'

  'No,' the German yelled. 'I could have dragged her inside when the building started to fall. But I didn't. I chose to save - '

  ' - Your own skin?

  'The world!' Kaufman stood up and faced them defiantly across the desk. He saw a faint derisive smile on Fleming's face and no smile at all on Neilson's, and before either man could move he had dodged round the chair and darted to a small door that led to a private staircase. He tore it open and then backed away. Yusel was standing there, expressionless, with a small curved Bedouin knife in his hand. Kaufman moved back to the desk. 'You cannot get in my way like this!' His voice rose. 'I am doing business fairly. I'm trying to help you all!'

  Fleming moved nearer the window. 'The weather is holding up,' he said. 'The plane should get through on time.

  Before it arrives, you'll provide the help you talk about.

  You'll confirm your orders for Professor Neilson's flight.

  You'll make quite certain that it flies to London. That's the last thing you'll organise here. Get on with it.'

  Kaufman hesitated, then nodded. He picked up a pen and reached to a side drawer in the desk as if to take a note-heading.

  He moved amazingly quickly. In a split second he had leaped up, a gun in his hand, and moved backwards to the outer door.

  'This is not your game, gentlemen,' he taunted them. 'You should not try it.' Then he turned and ran for the stairs.

  Fleming and Neilson were close on his heels, but he gained his lead as he leaped recklessly downstairs. Fleming saw Abu look up and start running towards the foot of the staircase.

  Fleming's shout of warning coincided with the bark of the pistol shot. Abu crumpled in a heap. Such was the onrush of Kaufman's flight that he was unable to stop in time, and he fell headlong over his victim's body.

  Before he could rise Neilson was on him, quickly followed by Yusel. Fleming's thought were for Abu and he knelt down and lifted the Arab in his arms. The head fell backwards, blood vomiting from the mouth. Fleming could not be certain whether the staring eyes were sightless or trying to send him a message. Very gently he let the body rest prone on the floor.

  Neilson was insanely pummelling into Kaufman. 'Leave him,' Fleming shouted. He went up to the weeping, yammering German. 'We're not going to kill you,' he said. 'There's a murder charge for you to answer in Geneva and in other places, if the courts aren't all destroyed.'

  'I do not make these things happen,' Kaufman whined. 'I have to obey.'

  Fleming turned away, unable to stomach any more. 'Keep hold of him, Yusel,' he ordered. 'Get him down to the airport.

  Take his gun. He'll give you no trouble.'

  'Wait!'

  They spun around and saw Dawnay standing in the entrance.

  'What are you all doing here?' she asked. Then she saw Abu's body. Fleming explained, and then allowed her to lead him back upstairs to the main offices.

  'You come too,' she commanded Neilson and Kaufman.

  Yusel had gone out and now returned with a white robe with which he covered the body of his dead cousin. They all went into Gamboul's room and Dawnay sat at Gamboul's desk with Kaufman facing her and guarded by Yusel. Fleming wandered uneasily over to the window, but she called him back.

  'John,' she said. 'It's not as simple as you may think: we haven't finished with Herr Kaufman yet.'

  She looked up into Kaufman's bruised and dejected face.

  'To whom did you report in Vienna?'

  Kaufman did not answer at once, but when Dawnay shifted her gaze from him to Yusel he changed his mind.

  'The Board of Directors,' he said sulkily.

  'To whom you reported Gamboul's death?'

  'Yes.'

  'And who is taking over here?'

  Kaufman glanced away for a moment. 'I am.'

  'But you are not a director.'

  He drew himself up with a return of assurance: 'I am temporarily in charge.'

  'Until?' Dawnay asked. There was another pause.

  'You'd better tell us the easy way,' said Fleming.

  'Or perhaps,' Neilson added, 'you'd rather I broke your neck.'

  'There are three directors coming on the plane today, from Vienna,' Kaufman addressed himself entirely to Dawnay, as if to a judge whom he might expect to be lenient.

  Dawnay looked only mildly surprised.

  'Three?'

  'They should have come before!' He began to speak quickly, with mounting passion. 'Fraulein Gamboul was not equal to it. It deranged her, but she would not have anyone else. We have been ridiculously understaffed for so great a project; but she had considerable influence with the Chairman.'

  He gave a knowing, leering wink. 'She was an attractive woman. But now it is different; I have put it all on proper business footings. We will have directors, and executives and assistants - they are bringing many today.'

  'Are they ?' said Dawnay with interest.

  'Oh yes. And any kind of reinforcements we need. So - '

  He turned triumphantly to Fleming and Neilson, but Dawnay cut him short.

  'So we shall have to put you all under guard,' she said calmly. 'That can be arranged for. Meanwhile, as soon as the aircraft is in, you'll help us send a Telex in your own code to Vienna.'

  'To say what?'

  'That they have arrived safely and that all is well and you need no further help. You will also give us the names and full particulars of your chairman and other directors in Europe, and all addresses and telephone numbers you can find here in the office.' She turned to her American colleague. I'll give you a report to take to London, Professor Neilson, and as much of the anti-bacterium as I can. They should be able to get you there by nightfall.'

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CLEAR SKY

  THE Prime Minister received the emergency committee in his private study on the first floor of 10 Downing Street.

  Although he had insisted on the fact being kept secret, he had been in bed for two days. His doctors diagnosed the trouble as cardiac asthma, which was as good a description as any for the strain felt by everyone of more than middle age as breathing became more and more difficult. The news of Dawnay's miracle in Azaran had now reached Whitehall, but its effects were still unfelt.

  However, he insisted on rising to greet the Minister of Science and Osborne when they arrived.

  'Glad you made it,' he wheezed. 'Are things still bad?'

  'A nightmare, sir,' said the Minister. 'All the low ground beyond Hammersmith is flooded; the roads are under water.'

  He began coughing.

  'It's no good for us, this business,' said the Prime Minister.

  'We'll be the first to succumb. Which will solve many a political problem. We shall soon have the youngest cabinet in history, called The Survivors.'

  The Minister of Science managed a polite laugh. 'One worrying matter, sir, is that London Airport is flooded out.

  Gatwick's been unserviceable for some time, of course. And Civil Aviation isn't too happy about Hurn. I'd like your authority to get the R.A.F. to clear Lyneham for a priority landing. With at least two helicopters standing by for a run direct to us here. Hyde Park is still fairly clear des
pite the feeding centres and casualty stations.'

  'This means you have more news, Bertie,' said the Prime Minister. 'I do wish you could restrain your sense of melodrama.'

  'We've picked up a signal from Azaran sir,' Osborne interposed. 'Professor Neilson's on his way. He and Professor Dawnay have taken over from a Herr Kaufman, who we believe was involved in the security leak at Thorness.'

  'Quite so, Osborne,' said the Prime Minister with an amused smile. That was an old wound now and, like Osborne's other wounds, it was healing over and being forgotten.

  Osborne had more than redeemed himself since then.

  'Thorness. But the anti-bacterium?'

  'He's bringing all he can carry, sir. Not much because of the flight difficulties these days, but enough to distribute to about a thousand breeding centres.'

  'Through the international organisation?'

  'Yes, said the Minister of Science. 'I may say, Prime Minister, that the will to co-operate has been magnificent.

  Japan suggested moving every oil tanker still afloat into mid-ocean, straddling marine currents like the Gulf Stream. The Soviet Union has completely cleared five state chemical plants. Fifty per cent of the United States oil refineries are now cleaned and waiting. Here the Royal Engineers expect to have every gasometer on the coast patched up and ready by Saturday; the dairy and petroleum firms have had all their road tankers commandeered and marshalled at the various centres we decided on.'

  'Good,' wheezed the Prime Minister. 'Let's hope, dear boy, that it's happening in time for some of us. You will want to confer with Neilson, of course, when he gets here. Afterwards, send him round here. I shall want to discuss his plans.

  Then a broadcast, the people deserve a few words of encouragement and hope.'

  But it was not until the following night that the Prime Minister felt justified in telling the world that hope was returning. Throughout the previous twenty-four hours there had been frantic activity. The thousand activated test tubes Neilson brought seemed pathetically few when allocation began. A hundred of them were first distributed to British breeding centres. To save time the chemists concerned were briefed verbally by Neilson. Multi-language instructions were then prepared while Army Signals contacted all nations concerned to report details of samples and estimated time of arrival.

  The R.A.F. and the United States Air Force handled transportation. A little slice of history was made as a U.S.

  long-range reconnaissance jet dropped towards Moscow's military airfield with Russian fighters doing welcoming victory rolls around her.

  In a gesture to the almost unknown man who had had the titular responsibility of saving the world thrust upon him the Prime Minister insisted that the broadcast should open with the statement by the President of Azaran.

  The radio link was difficult and tenuous, but over most of the globe it held.

  'For many centuries we of Azaran have been considered a backward people,' came the soft sing-song tones of the President. 'But now, if we can bring salvation to the rest of the world it will be our privilege and joy. Already over our own country the weather is improving, and the air once more satisfies our lungs. This, we pray and believe, will spread to all the stricken peoples of the earth.'

  A resourceful radio station operator had dug up a recording of the Azarani national anthem. Its plaintive discord surged out and faded.

  Then the Prime Minister made his historic broadcast, from London. 'Strains of a newly synthesised bacterium, which we have received from Azaran, can be the means of banishing the evil which has inflicted itself on mankind. With the help of the scientists, in whose hands our fate now lies, the governments of all nations are doing all they can. Already strains of the bacterium are being bred in the United Kingdom and pumped into the sea. First batches have arrived in the laboratories of our sister nations in the crusade against annihilation. More are coming from Azaran and will be distributed as fast as is humanly possible. With a concerted effort in every quarter of the globe we may hope the content of the sea will change, and we will breathe our native air again.'

  The Prime Minister leaned back in his chair, exhausted.

  Speaking had been a great effort and he rested while translations of his speech were broadcast in the five working languages of the United Nations. Then he called for his car.

  He turned to the officials gathered around him and spoke in a voice which was hardly more than a whisper. 'I would like to see, gentlemen, if those promises I've made are reasonable.

  They tell me there's a breeding plant down at the London docks.'

  A police car escorted the Prime Minister's limousine through the darkened City past Tower Bridge. It nosed a way through piles of debris, detouring round many a barricaded street, until it pulled up on an old shabby wharf.

  A sullen drizzle was falling, a respite from the interminable storms and gales. Two raincoated men were standing at the water's edge, watching a man in a police launch. They started when they recognised the bent elderly man beside them as the Prime Minister.

  'We're testing for nitrogen content, sir,' one of the men explained. 'Anti-bacteria were pumped into this water six hours ago.'

  'How's it doing?' asked the Prime Minister.

  'Fine, sir. Come and look.'

  In the headlight of the police launch the filthy river water looked black and sullen. But while they watched a bubble formed and burst. Nearby two more bubbles formed.

  'It's happening right across the river, sir. Been noticeable for the last two and a half hours. It's the nitrogen being released as the new bacterium kills off the old one.'

  Another car drew up on the wharf. Osborne, alerted by the Premier's P.A., had brought Neilson to the site. The Prime Minister greeted them quietly with a smile and a half-raised hand.

  'The cure is not, I hope, as bad as the disease,' he enquired of the American.

  Neilson shook his head. 'No sir. The anti-bacterium does not survive the conditions it creates; Professor Dawnay has tested this fact very thoroughly. It has only one enemy, one source of food, the bacteria emerging from Thorness. Once it has exhausted the supply of those it languishes and dies itself.'

  'Just as an antibiotic destroys germs and then is itself destroyed,' put in Osborne.

  'Except that in this case we think that the end will be more complete - '

  The Prime Minister interrupted Neilson with another smile. 'I see you have it under control.'

  He stood a little longer, watching the bubbles come and go. 'Thank God! Thank God!' he whispered as he returned to his car.

  Conditions in Azaran were completely transformed within twenty-four hours of Neilson's arrival in Britain. Aircraft from a dozen nations flew in scientists and technicians to help Dawnay and to organise transportation and communications.

  A U.N. stand-by force was put on call but, by the President's wish, was only to enter Azaran in the event of a threat from Intel. Dawnay had engineered herself complete freedom.

  But the whole entity of Intel was collapsing quietly and completely. The N.K.V.D., Interpol, and the F.B.I., working together on the report which Neilson had taken to London, raided and closed the main offices in Vienna and in Zurich and Hong Kong; and the names revealed in the documents they captured caused consternation in a dozen chancelleries.

  By general agreement among the great powers, no pressure was brought to force dismissal and arrest, but all the consortium's trading licences were withdrawn. There were a couple of suicides and a whole series of resignations on health grounds, hardly noticed in the world-wide drama of retreat from chaos, and what was left came rapidly to a standstill, leaving empty trading posts all over the world without credentials or trade, and useless unclaimed millions in safe deposits in Swiss banks. In Azaran, the main centre of anti-bacteria production and the computer which had evolved it were left respectively in the hands of Madeleine Dawnay and her associate, John Fleming, who had both become world-famous characters overnight.

  The atmosphere of super-effic
iency and the constant flattery bestowed on Dawnay and himself repelled Fleming. He wanted no part of it; nor, indeed, was there anything for him usefully to do. He avoided the eager, enthusiastic groups who gathered in the makeshift canteen. He evaded invitations to parties which were soon organised in Baleb.

  Soon after he had seen Kaufman into Interpol's custody, Fleming had suffered an experience which he found he could not dismiss from his mind. He had collected the handful of personal things in Abu's desk and driven to Lemka's village, glad that an officer of the President's personal staff had gone earlier to break the news of Abu's death to her.

  It was very quiet inside the ruined courtyard of the house.

  A line of washing fluttered in the wind. The baby's cot stood in the shade of a crumbling wall. A spiral of smoke eddied away from a cluster of faggots in a makeshift grate. He called and waited until Lemka appeared at the shattered doorway at the sound of footsteps.

  'I came to say -' Fleming began.

  'Do not tell me that you are sorry,' she interrupted, moving to the clothes line and keeping her face averted. 'And do not tell me it was not your fault.'

  'I didn't want to involve your husband,' he muttered.

  She turned round angrily. 'You involved us all.'

  'I liked him, you know. Very much. I came to see what I could do,' he pleaded.

  She was fighting back her tears. 'You've done enough.

  You've saved the world - from your own muddle. So now you think it is all right. How can you - all of you - be so arrogant? You don't believe in God. You don't accept life as His gift. You want to change it because you think you're greater than God.'

  'I tried to stop... ' His voice trailed away.

  'You tried, and we suffer. The girl - your girl - was right when she said you condemn us. Why don't you go back and listen to her?'

  'She is dying.'

  'You kill her too?' She looked at him more with pity than with hatred. He could not answer. He laid the little parcel of Abu's possessions at the foot of the child's cot and walked away.

  Back at the compound, he stole like an interloper by a roundabout route to his own quarters. He took out the computer print-out and his own calculations from a drawer and began studying them.