Operation Pax
Page 27
‘They know that you got this telephone message out – giving the address of this place?’
The woman nodded. ‘They know that.’
‘Then they must certainly be packing up. But why did a crisis come yesterday?’
‘It is obscure. But there have been several misfortunes – calamities. One is very technical, and I have been able to find out little. But some preparation of great intricacy – one vital to what goes on here – has become impure, and so is nearly all gone inert. The little that is left will be similarly useless in a day or two. And there is even some hitch in starting the long process of synthesizing it again. I suspect that some – how would you say? – entscheidend–’
‘Crucial.’ Jane pounced on the word at once.
‘–that some crucial formula is not available. Then, there was a death. One of the Assistant Directors – the only one with whom I have had dealings – died. It is my thought that he was killed.’
‘Capital.’ Remnant nodded briskly. ‘One less to deal with.’
‘And the man who first persuaded me to come here – a man called Squire – has been in trouble. I believe it is thought that more than once he has acted rashly in finding people who might be obliged to stay here – to stay here and to submit to things. And I think too that there was an escape. It may have been an escape of such a person.’
‘It sounds a pretty full day. And the result is that something is being hurried on?’
‘I fear that it is so. There are to be two or three swift experiments. It is a matter of using quickly, and while it is still potent, the substance–’
‘I understand.’ Remnant was dragging a small table to the middle of the room and perching a chair on it. He was clearly determined that action should begin without delay. ‘But what are these experiments? What does the whole thing aim at?’
‘It is a scientific conspiracy. They call it Operation Pax.’
‘Operation Pax?’
‘The aim is to find a means of neutralizing the combative – the aggressive – component in the human personality, and perhaps of spreading this, like a disease, through whole populations. They call that the General Pacification.’
Remnant received this in silence. But Jane spoke up at once. ‘Would that be a bad thing?’
‘It is the question I asked. At first it seemed to me that here was something perhaps of great benefit to mankind. I soon saw that it was the intention of these men to use their achievement in evil ways. They planned the means of making whole peoples – whole nations – helpless, impossible to arouse. These would be mere cattle – mere sheep – while others would remain wolves, lions, beasts of prey. And they would sell this instrument of power. More – they would be this power. For somewhere in this organization, in some inner circle to which I have not penetrated, there is a lust for power, an unlimited ambition, that is very terrible.’
Remnant was testing his means of climbing again to the shattered skylight. ‘Certainly a very considerable project,’ he said. ‘What we call a tall order, Dr Tatistchev. But, only half an hour ago, we have seen it under way ourselves. Now we’re going to stop it.’
‘But surely–’ Jane hesitated. She was struggling for clarity amid the fantastically vast issues which had suddenly opened around her. It was like being a swimmer unexpectedly submerged deep in a whirlpool to escape which it was vital to strain every nerve and muscle. ‘Surely it is like the other great discoveries of science – very powerful for either good or evil? Surely it is a matter of how it would be used?’
Anna Tatistchev nodded gravely. ‘Fräulein, so I too thought. But it is not so. Gar nicht! For the process is not a modification, but a destruction. It would create not another sort of men, but something less than men.’
‘Quite right. It’s pure devilry.’ Remnant spoke absolutely. He sounded not at all like a man whose intellectual vigour had been inadequate to support the discourses of the Stockton and Darlington Professor. ‘Every creature born into a world like this needs every scrap of aggressiveness, or whatever you call it, that he can summon up. Most of us might use it better than we do. But the thing itself is ours; it’s a need and a birthright; and the chap who’d steal it must have it turned against him overwhelmingly. That, as it happens, is our job now. I haven’t overmuch of it myself, but–’
Jane again found herself laughing. But this time it was not in the least hysterically. ‘What you have will do to be going on with. And we’d better be going on with it. Let’s climb out.’
‘Then out we go. But there’s something more to find out first.’ Remnant turned to Anna Tatistchev. ‘Do you think they have other places besides this?’
‘I think they have.’
‘Well, now – they must be packing up, you know. They simply must. That escape, your telephone message, things we’ve done this morning if by now they’ve discovered them: these things are their marching orders. But you think the active villainy is going on still?’
‘I am sure it is. There are two reasons. One is the using to the best advantage of what little remains of the substance of which I have spoken. And that is why I fear for Rudi. It was only early yesterday that I came to suspect this of a child’s being required. It is believed that with a child certain effects may be more lasting and complete than any achieved so far. And they have taken my boy to the island! I beg that you and your friends should act quickly.’
Remnant nodded in brisk reassurance. ‘As it happens, we haven’t any friends here yet. But we, ourselves, are going to act now.’
‘Got sei Dank! Then you will be in time. It was only within this half an hour that they took him. And they will have to put him to sleep. There is a certain harmless drug which must act – I think for perhaps an hour – before the thing is done… But you must hasten very much, because of the other.’
Jane caught her breath. ‘The other?’
‘A young man. For him too I think they intend the injections. And then, if they had to abandon this place, they would take them both away. For these are crucial experiments. And it might be a long time before the substance is prepared again.’
‘Have you seen this young man? Do you know his name?’
‘His name – no. He has not told it to me. But I have seen him and two or three times spoken. He is tall and fair, and his complexion – I do not know the word–’
Jane was trembling all over. ‘You mean–’
‘It is sommersprossig.’
‘Freckly… It’s Geoffrey!’
The little prison-like room swam round Jane, and she sank down on to the bed. Remnant strode across to it and gave her an uncompromising shake. ‘Steady on. This is the best news we’ve had yet. The chap’s alive. And we’ll have him joining in the kicking in no time.’
Anna Tatistchev too had come over to Jane and taken her by the hand. ‘He is your husband?’
‘He is going to be.’
‘Nothing has happened yet. He is well. His danger too is great, but your friend will save him.’
‘It’s horrible – abominable!’ Jane sat up straight. ‘He has been kept here for weeks in this frightful peril, and nothing has been done.’ She turned to Remnant. ‘For God’s sake put your fist through the rest of the place – quick!’
‘Come along, then. Up we go.’
Jane climbed on the table. She hesitated. ‘You spoke to him? Did he speak of how he came here, or of – of things outside?’
‘I was told that he was a very bad dipsomaniac, segregated here, and for whom there was little hope. Then I suspected that he was really imprisoned. Several times we spoke through a door before I had a glimpse of him. He told me that he had come here disguised, and for adventure – pretending to be homeless and friendless – because he had stumbled on the suspicion that the clinic was criminal. And they held him. I told him of how my own suspicions had grown, and of how I too now knew all the evil. We have talked hurriedly – secretly – of the danger, and of some plan. But then they took him to the island.’
‘I think not.’
‘Then, just for a time, you’d better stop. We’ve started a distraction at the front of the house that must be keeping the bulk of these people busy. With luck Miss Appleby and I can break in to this place on the island and take whoever is on guard there by surprise.’
‘You are brave people. Have you arms?… Yes? Then go. I will wait, since you ask me. But there is one other thing of which I was to speak. It is the second reason why they will press on with what they have wished to do, even if they feel that soon they must abandon this place. It is the active evil spirit… I do not know the words for it.’
‘I think I see.’
‘Since yesterday I believe it has become a madness, a fury. Such a plan as theirs aims at wealth and power. But it springs simply from an illness of the mind, a compulsion to destroy. And if things go badly, and their ambitions are checked, then they will destroy blindly, rather than not destroy at all. So they are very dangerous.’
Remnant nodded. ‘In fact there’s a strong case for getting in on a little destruction first. That’s just my notion.’ He put his hands up to the shattered skylight and heaved himself to the roof. ‘We’ll be back in no time.’
Anna Tatistchev nodded. ‘Gott gebe!’ She sat down quietly on the side of the bed.
Jane Appleby was already at the extreme edge of the long roof. Remnant hurried after her. Fortune, he thought, had thrown him up against two very good sort of women for an affair of the sort on hand.
9
Jane was staring at the temple. It had a sufficiently forbidding look. ‘Ought she not to have come with us? She’s the child’s mother, after all.’
Remnant shook his head. ‘For the moment, only business considerations count. We’ve got two guns – the one from Cline’s drawer, and one I took from the chap I slugged… Got a pocket?’
‘Yes.’
‘Ever fired a revolver?’
‘Quite often. But only at targets, I’m afraid.’
Remnant grinned. He seemed to have leisure to regard this as a capital joke. ‘Good enough. Here you are.’ He handed Jane Cline’s weapon. ‘Right shoulder if you want to be humane. Tummy if you’re feeling nasty.’
‘I see.’ Jane shivered slightly. ‘I can imagine circumstances in which I shall feel very nasty indeed.’
‘They won’t happen. We’re a step ahead of all that. Things are going along quite nicely. It’s a matter of impetus, you know. First thing they teach you about assault.’
‘And I can imagine other circumstances in which I should find you insufferable, Mr Remnant… How do we go?’
‘Straight across the bridge, Miss Appleby. Take your shoes off.’
Jane obeyed without asking questions.
‘Good woman. We go across the lid, so to speak. And it’s tin. Don’t want to make a row. Twenty fires in that highly respectable drunks’ home wouldn’t draw the whole high command away from this affair in front of us. So follow me, and don’t speak until you’re spoken to.’
Jane compressed her lips. There were moments when she found Roger Remnant very hard to take. His own shoes were off and strung round his neck. From the roof on which they stood to the upper surface of the tunnel-like bridge was an easy drop, and he made it in absolute silence. Jane dropped down beside him. They went forward on tiptoe. The surface was of corrugated iron. Walking delicately, it was not easy to keep a sure balance. But in less than a minute they had reached the other end.
Remnant came to a halt and stood quite still, frowning. Jane saw that the next problem was a hard one. On either side of them the sheer wall of the temple went off in a blank, smooth curve, and below them it dropped clear into the water. Remnant’s voice came softly in Jane’s ear. ‘No good taking a swim. Bad splash. Bad for the guns. We don’t know what’s on the other side. This is perhaps the only entrance – and it may be sheer like this all the way round.’ He paused, rapidly appraising again the whole situation. ‘Have to go up.’
Jane looked up. The proposal seemed blankly impossible. What confronted them was a steeply pitched pediment – presumably an ornamental feature crowning the doorway now concealed by the bridge – which rose until it almost touched the curved cornice of the building. Remnant put out his hand to it. ‘That or nothing,’ he murmured. ‘We can just get on the outer face of the pediment; it’s not too steep to crawl up – at least I don’t think so. How to get off it and on top of the cornice is the headache. But there isn’t sudden death below; only a filthy ducking. I think I can take you. Follow me.’ He edged himself on to the pediment, belly downwards, and crawled up its smooth incline. ‘Not bad’, he whispered back. ‘Pediment projects beyond the cornice a good six inches. And there’s a lightning conductor to help. We can do it. Come on.’
Jane came on. Her head was clear, but her recollections immediately afterwards confused. Somehow they had done it. They were lying in a sort of broad lead gutter behind the cornice. Beyond this again the curve of the dome.
‘We’re perfectly hidden here. Lie still. I’m going right round.’ Remnant breathed the words in Jane’s ear and set off at a crawl. He had become, she realized, suddenly very cautious. He disappeared round the curve of the dome, keeping wholly prone in the gutter. His progress in this fashion could not be rapid; to Jane it appeared an age before his head and shoulders emerged from behind the answering curve of the dome on her other hand. She thought inconsequently of Sir Francis Drake, home after circumnavigating the world.
‘The temple doesn’t cover the whole thing. There’s quite a bit of ground on the other side, and the island runs out in a little tongue, with a much smaller temple at the end of it. That means there’s probably another entrance to this big one, facing that way. But, ten to one, it’s pretty massively locked up. I’m going up again. Better do it from the other side, where there’s less chance of being seen.’
This time they both crawled half round the dome. Peering over the cornice, Jane presently saw the vacant stretch of island that Remnant had described. The second temple was very much smaller: an oblong affair, again with Doric columns. Jane, a severely educated child, at once saw that it was a miniature version of the Theseion at Athens. But Remnant was paying more attention to what was above him. ‘Only a step up to the drum’, he said. ‘But the first part of the dome’s more difficult. However, it’s ribbed. I’ll go up and have a look.’ He rose, spread-eagled himself between two of the ribs to which he had pointed, and worked himself upward. As the ribs converged and the pitch lessened the going got easier. Presently he set himself astride a single rib and kneed himself to the top. Within a minute he was sliding down a rib and had come to rest beside her again. It was an expert roof-climber’s job, and Jane guessed that if he was unfamiliar with the lecture rooms of the colleges of Oxford he was tolerably familiar with their towers and pinnacles. ‘Any good?’ she whispered.
‘What have you got on under that skirt and jersey?’
By this time Jane was schooled into finding nothing that Roger Remnant said at all odd. ‘Nylon.’
‘A lot of it?’
‘Well quite a lot.’ Jane was apologetic. ‘It’s getting on in October.’
‘Stockings?’
‘Nylon too.’ This time Jane was yet more apologetic. ‘Economical, really.’
‘I want the whole lot.’
‘The whole lot?’
‘Listen – it’s as I thought. The lantern up there screens a circular opening at the top of the dome.’
‘An eye.’
‘Very well – an eye. And it looks straight down on a sort of small circular hall–’
‘A cortile.’
‘–with rooms opening off all round. I think we can
make something that will take me down.’
‘If you mean out of my nylon, then I’m going down too.’
‘We’ll see about that. Look – I’ll nip round here a bit and see what I can contribute.’ Remnant grinned. ‘Not that I can really compete. But a pair of braces will give us a final useful three or four feet.’
He was gone. It was not a commodious spot in which to undress, but Jane made no bones about it. The garments when lying in a heap at her feet seemed absurdly tenuous. She picked them up and crawled with them farther round the drum. The sensation of a skirt and woollen jersey next to her skin was mildly disconcerting. Remnant was waiting for her. He took the things one by one. ‘Absolutely splendid. Marvellous stuff. Take an elephant. Unfortunately it needs a bit of time. You can fill it in by finding your way about that gun.’
Jane obediently found her way about the gun. Remnant worked with concentration and extraordinary care. Every drop of impetuosity seemed to have evaporated from his personality. She suddenly knew that her confidence in him was complete.
He had finished. ‘You saw how I went up?’
‘Yes.’
‘Could you do it?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then up you go first. If you slip, go slack and spread eagle. You won’t come really fast, except right at the end here. And – listen – when you do get up and peer over, the floor will seem the hell of a long way down. But it isn’t as far as it looks.’
‘I understand that.’
‘Then off you go.’
The woollen jersey tickled horribly as she sprawled and kneed her way upwards, and the scratching of the tweed skirt was worse. But the climb itself was a good deal easier than she had expected, once the first thrust of the dome was conquered. In a few minutes she was under the lantern with which this freakish building was surmounted: and a moment later Remnant was beside her.
‘A bit conspicuous up here, so we don’t want to waste time. And there won’t be much of this admirable rope to spare, so we mustn’t waste that either… But here’s the lightning conductor again. Saves us a couple of feet. There – it’s fixed. You can go up and down ropes?’