by Bob Shaw
“You started this, Lucas. At least be man enough to go through with it without crying.” Vicky lit a cigarette as she spoke, her eyes hard and triumphant behind a writhing mask of smoke.
“All right, Vicky,” he managed to say, and for a moment he could almost see the antibomb machine interposed between them. “I promise I’ll go through with it.”
CHAPTER 5
“If you have something on your mind, domestic or otherwise, which is affecting your work — why don’t you tell me about it?” Arthur Boswell, head of missile research and development at Westfield’s, put on his gold-rimmed spectacles and looked closely at Hutchman. His eyes were very blue and very inquisitive behind their flakes of glass.
“There isn’t any special problem, Arthur.” Hutchman faced the older man across an expanse of rosewood desk and wondered if he should have admitted to some kind of a personal crisis if only to make the next few days in the office a little easier.
“I see.” Boswell let his gaze travel nostalgically around the big office, with its twenty-year-old photographs of missile firings on the paneled walls. “You haven’t been looking at all well, lately, Hutch.”
“Ah… no.” Hutchman too glanced around the office, wishing he could think of something useful to say, but his mind kept dwelling on the idea that missile photographs were incongruous in the atmosphere with which Boswell was trying to surround himself. They should have been brown prints of stick-and-string aircraft, dating from Asquith and Lloyd George, with fragile, organic-looking wings. “As a matter of fact, I haven’t been sleeping properly for some time. I suppose I ought to see the quack and get some pills.”
“Sleep’s important. You can’t manage for long without it,” Boswell pronounced. “Why can’t you sleep?”
“No special reason.” Back to square one, Hutchman thought. Arthur has something on his mind.
“I’m considering giving you an assistant, Hutch.”
“There’s no need for that,” Hutchman said in sudden alarm — the last thing he wanted was a stranger billeted in his office. “I mean there’s no point in it. I’ll be through the work in a couple of weeks and it would take a new man that long to brief himself properly.”
“Two weeks,” Boswell appeared to sieze on the definite statement. “We couldn’t give it much more. The board want to reach a definite decision about Jack and Jill next month.”
“Two weeks is all I need,” Hutchman assured him. He left Boswell’s office with the self-imposed deadline singing in his ears and hurried upstairs to the less sumptuous environs in which most of the R and D staff worked. Two weeks would be just about enough time in which to make the world’s nuclear powers aware of the existence of his machine provided he worked quickly and made no wrong moves. I will work quickly, Vicky, and I’ll make no mistakes. Just for you.
A task he had to get on with immediately was writing out a summary of his maths and a specification for the machine. These would have to be copied several hundred times then mailed out to a list of institutions and individuals across the world. A minor difficulty was that the mailings would have to be scheduled to allow for varying delivery times to different countries, so that all would reach their destinations at roughly the same time. And a major difficulty was that as soon as the envelopes were opened, a lot of people — powerful, ruthless people — would want Hutchman killed. The only way to forestall them, he realized, would be to maintain a high degree of secrecy. Up till now he had assumed that the secure drawer of his desk was a safe enough place to keep his original notes and schematics, but there were those in the company who considered Westfield’s security an elaborate joke. Hand all our secret plans to the Russians, the saying went, then they’ll be five years behind us.
A prey to fresh unease, Hutchman discovered he could not even remember locking the drawer. He speeded up his pace until he was almost running along the corridor, and burst into his office. Don Spain was standing at Hutchman’s desk, his gray-jowled face intent as he riffled through the papers in the secure drawer.
“Ho there, Hutch,” he said hoarsely, grinning. “Where do you keep your pencil sharpener?”
“Not in there,” Hutchman snapped, and almost as an afterthought added, “You prying little bastard.”
Spain’s grin disappeared. “What’s the matter with you, Hutch? I was only trying to borrow a sharpener.”
Hutchman went to the inner door to Muriel’s office and slammed it shut. “That’s a lie,” he stated flatly. “And the reason I know it’s a lie is that you’ve been though my desk so many times you could find the sharpener in the dark. No, Spain, the truth of the matter is that you’re a creepy, prying little bastard.”
Brick-coloured smudges appeared in the gray of Spain’s cheeks. “Who do you…?”
“And if I ever find you in this office again I’ll squash you.”
A look of incredulity flitted across Spain’s face, followed by one of anger. “Don’t get carried away, Hutch. I’ve no interest in your bloody scrawls, and I’m not going to let a big drink of water like you talk to me as…”
Lifting the varnished pebble paperweight from his desk, Hutchman made as if to throw it. Spain ducked aside with comic agility and vanished into Muriel’s office. Hutchman sat down at his desk and waited for his nerves to settle. He had wanted to do that for years, but perhaps it would have been better to hold himself in check a little longer. His little display would be widely reported by Spain and Muriel throughout Westfield’s just at a time when he wanted to blend into the background.
He inspected the secure drawer and was relieved to find that his mailing list of government departments, politicians, and influential scientists was close to the bottom and folded in such a way that Spain would probably have passed it by. From now on he would keep all his paperwork on his person, but what about the machine itself?
Hutchman slumped in his chair and stared through the office windows, scored diagonally by occasional raindrops, at autumncoloured trees. The machine, which was barely portable, could not stay at the Jeavons. To blackmail the nuclear powers, to convert megadeaths to megalives, he would have to set the machine up in a secret place. It would not matter if it was traced eventually, because his would only be the first — once the knowledge of how to build it was disseminated others would be produced from time to time, in hidden rooms. And nobody would be able to risk owning baubles of gray metal. Ever again, Vicky. Ever again.
Hutchman stood up and regarded his image in the glass partition, allowing himself a moment of paranoic indulgence. The shadow man he was looking at, the tall figure with sculptured black hair and long dry hands thrown into prominence by a stray beam of light, was the Lucas Hutchman the rest of the world saw. That Lucas Hutchman — keep on referring to yourself in the third person, Hutch, classical symptom — was going to take on the whole world single-handed. And one day that man’s wife would understand, finally, when it was too late. And that man’s wife would know her own guilt.
Disturbed at the pleasure the game gave him, Hutchman sat down abruptly and shuffled through his notes and sketches. They were all done on Westfield graph paper but that could be rendered anonymous by trimming the name from the top. The trouble was that his scribbles might be impossible for a foreigner to decipher — and it would be better if his handwriting did not appear anywhere in the folio. He went into Muriel’s claustrophobic office and, ignoring her wary gaze, took a sheaf of plain copy paper from her desk without speaking. It took him almost an hour to write out the entire maths for a neutron resonator and to detail his version of the hardware, using block letters throughout.
As soon as the job was finished he put the paperwork into his briefcase, and began to think about a suitable hiding place for the machine. Somewhere along the south coast, perhaps? He looked at the classified phone directory, found six names of estate agents in Crymchurch, and began calling them in alphabetical order. The second one was able to offer him a cottage in Hastings. Hutchman reached for his scrap pad to write down
the address and discovered he had left it on his bookcase. He swore impatiently, then jotted the information on the side of a new green eraser.
“This sounds as though it could be just what I’m looking for,” he told the girl at the other end of the line. “I’ll call at your office later today.”
He told Muriel, by way of the intercom, that he was going out on private business for an hour, and took his briefcase out to his car. It was warm for November but a despairing sky was sagging between the tops of trees and buildings, and rain was falling with the quiet assurance that it would continue for the rest of the day. As he drove into Crymchurch water droplets crawled along the side-windows like frantic amoebae. Hutchman parked in the town center then went to an office-equipment supplier and bought a used copying machine and a supply of paper for £60. He paid in cash, using the money Vicky had given him to replenish their current account, and avoided giving his name. With the copier stowed in the back of his car he walked slowly along the glistening main street looking for the office of the estate agent he had telephoned. It was the third he reached and in the window was a photograph of the house. It was a terrace house, to rent on a winter-only basis. Hutchman estimated that Hastings was about sixty miles away — a ninety-minute drive — which would be about right for his purpose. It was convenient enough to let him install the machine there without suspicious absences from home, yet far enough away so that he could hide efficiently when the time came. He went into the agent’s office and in less than half an hour had rented the house until the beginning of April, claiming he was a writer who wanted to get away in solitude to complete a book. Again he gave a false name, paid the full rental in advance by cash, and came out with two new keys and the unfamiliar address written on a scrap of paper in his pocket.
His next call was as Woolworth’s, where he bought several hundred cheap envelopes of a kind which were on sale all over the country. At the general post office he bought sheets of airmail and inland stamps, and put them into his briefcase. A check on the time showed him it was close to his lunch hour so he went into one of his favorite inns in Crymchurch. Joe’s was a dismal little place which scorned the midday soup-and-coffee trade but supplied hot Irish whiskey exactly the way he liked it. Seated in a dim corner, with the sweet aromatic drink at hand, he took a sheet of paper from his case and began to compose a letter.
He started with the words, “To whom it may concern.” They were dismayingly unoriginal, but Hutchman considered them relevant. He had two more whiskies while finishing the draft letter, then read it over.
“This letter is the most important that you will ever read.
“Its contents are of supreme importance to the security of your country, and to the welfare of the entire human race.
“When you have read it you will be personally responsible for ensuring that the proper steps are taken.
“Your own conscience must decide what those steps are.
“The documents accompanying this letter are:
“a.A mathematical proof that it is possible to build a neutron resonator based on a cestron laser. The radiation will be self-propogating and will have the effect of artificially stimulating neutron flux in all concentrations of fissionable material approaching critical mass. In other words, activation of the device will cause virtually instantaneous detonation of every nuclear bomb on this planet!
“b.A schematic showing one simple form of neutron resonator which can be built in a matter of days.
“Read the following paragraph carefully:
“THIS MACHINE IS ALREADY IN EXISTENCE. IT WILL BE ACTIVATED AT NOON GMT ON 10TH NOVEMBER 1988. YOU MUST NOW ACT ACCORDINGLY!”
To Hutchman’s critical gaze, the letter was reminiscent of one of the injunctions he often received from book clubs, but he was satisfied that it would serve its purpose. All the salesmanship that was required would be carried out on his behalf by the closely written pages of maths. They would present his credentials to every member of the world fraternity of mathematicians who were capable of working on that plane, who would in turn influence others, who would in turn… The letter itself, he realized suddenly, was a form of neutron resonator. One which would produce a chain reaction on the human level.
Arranging a hiding place for the machine had been easier and quicker than he had expected, creating a feeling that everything was moving along with supernatural smoothness. On impulse, Hutchman went to the public telephone in a whitewashed alcove at the rear of the inn, rang Westfield’s, and got through to Muriel. Her voice was blurred and he guessed her mouth was full of the chocolate wafers she invariably ate at lunchtime in the company of other secretaries who gathered in her office to discuss pop singers.
“Sorry to interupt the proceedings at Culture Corner,” he said, “I just wanted to let you know I won’t be back in the office today. Handle anything that crops up, will you?”
“Where will I say you are?” Her voice was clearer now, but resentful.
“Say I’m at the seaside.” He thought of the red-brown beach at Hastings and wished he had not mentioned the seaside. “No, you’d better tell the truth — I’ll be doing some research at the Morrison Library.”
“Doing some research at the Morrison Library,” Muriel repeated in a dull monotone which openly signaled her disbelief. By this time a suitably edited version of his row with Spain would be going the rounds and Muriel, although she disliked Spain, would have seized on it as another example of how Mr. Hutchman had changed for the worse. It occurred to him that he had better be more careful with Muriel.
“That’s it,” he said. “See you in the morning.”
She hung up without replying. He hurried back to his car and drove through the afternoon grayness to the Jeavons Institute. The stone building was vaporing introspectively in the rain and nobody appeared to notice as he parked in the inner quadrangle. It took him twenty minutes to separate the machine into its major components and transfer them with their shielding to the car. By the time he had finished his shoulders and arms, toughened as they were by regular archery practice, were aching. He drove out through the archway, still without having encountered a soul, and headed south for Hastings.
The drive took rather more than his estimated ninety minutes, and he spent another ten locating the house he had rented at 31 Channing Waye. It turned out to be a reasonably well-preserved “two-up-and-two-down” in a short row of identical dwellings. The sea was visible at one end of the steeply sloping street. Hutchman felt strangely self-conscious as he put a key into the lock and opened the door of the alien little house he had just acquired. It was legally his, yet he felt guilty of trespass. He walked along the short hall and glanced into the downstairs rooms, noting the sparse furniture which was just sufficient to satisfy the rent-control regulations concerning the letting of houses. The house was cold, lifeless. Filled with an oddly sexual excitement, he went upstairs and found the rear bedroom to be completely empty except for a single bentwood chair painted gooseberry green. The narrow window looked out at a blank wall which ricocheted his thoughts back like bullets.
I may die in this room! The idea leaped into his mind unbidden, bringing with it a depression which countered the shame-tinged arousal the atmosphere of shabby secrecy had inspired in him. He clattered down the stairs and began carrying the machine into the house. The shielding seemed even heavier than before but the distances were short and within ten minutes he had the entire set of components laid out on the floor of the bedroom. He considered beginning the assembly, then decided in favor of an early start back to Crymchurch. At this stage he had to give priority to letting the world know the machine existed.
“David’s asleep, and I’m going out for a couple of hours,” Vicky said from the doorway of his study. She was wearing a rustcoloured tweed suit he could not remember seeing before and her face beneath the carefully applied make-up was taut. A deep sadness gripped Hutchman and he knew that, in spite of everything, he had been hoping she would be satisfied with the blow sh
e had already dealt him.
“Where are you going?”
“I may go and visit mother.”
“You may go and visit your mother.” He laughed drily. “All right, Vicky — I get the message.”
“That is… if you aren’t planning to go out,” she said casually, ignoring the implication of his remark. “I’ll stay in and mind David if you’re going out.”
Hutchman glanced at the stacks of white paper he had put through the copier. “No. I’m not going out.”
“That’s all right then.” Vicky gave him a speculative look and he guessed she was wondering how he had managed to grow strong. On best form, he should have been on his knees to her, weeping and pleading, groveling. And he would have done it — that much he had to admit — except that she had made the mistake of overkilling him. One adultery or a dozen, one megaton or a hundred. Hutchman could not plead for his life, because he was already dead.
“I’ll see you later,” Vicky said.
Hutchman nodded. “Give my regards to your mother.”
CHAPTER 6
He was relieved, on waking up, to find himself bathed in the special honey-coloured radiance which, he was convinced, the sun emits only on weekend mornings. The effect he surmised to be either objective — fifty million Saturday-conscious Britons influencing the weather by the power of thought — or groupsubjective as the same fifty million people created a telepathic blanket of pleasure because the working week was over. In any case, Hutchman was glad he was not required to go into the office because he had to begin mailing those of his envelopes which were destined for the most remote parts of the world. He had decided to split them into small batches and mail them at different postboxes over as wide an area as he could cover in one day. The area would be confined to the southeast corner of the country, which was less satisfactory than going right up to Scotland, but it would encompass something like a third of the population. And it could be argued that a person living in the north would have deliberately chosen the southeast area to throw investigators off the scent.