by Fred Hoyle
The military coup organised by Salim had been based on three actions - to close all frontier roads and ports, take over control of the capital, and to secure the Intel establishment.
The Intel action, was, of course, a formality, thanks to Janine Gamboul.
The first clue Fleming had as to what was happening came from Abu Zeki. The two men had quarrelled for the second time. Abu had proudly told Fleming that the destruction of the missile equation sheets had been futile because the punched master tape was intact. He had gone on to boast of the power and might his country would have with the defence devices the computer could design.
'Already we are grasping that power. Even now Colonel Salim's troops are taking over our protection.'
'From the President?' Fleming asked.
'The President's a tired, senile old man. He's finished.'
'And Intel?'
'They're taking over with Intel,' Abu Zeki replied. He saw Fleming glance towards the empty sensory bay. 'If you're looking for the girl she's not in the building. She is in our custody.'
Fleming hurried from the building and ran across to the residential area. Two armed guards stood before the door of Andre's quarters. He tried to push between them but they did not budge.
'They'll not let you in; I'm afraid they no longer trust you, Dr Fleming,' said a familiar voice.
He wheeled round. Kaufman was walking slowly towards him, grinning. 'Anyway, the girl is not here,' the German went on. 'She is being cared for. Meanwhile Mademoiselle Gamboul wishes to see you.'
'Where?' Fleming grunted. 'And when?'
Kaufman's smile disappeared. 'Now,' he said. 'You will come with me.' He led the way to his car.
They drove to Salim's house. There were no soldiers there and no servants met them as they went upstairs. Kaufman opened a door and motioned to Fleming to enter. The door closed and he was left alone.
He walked round the familiar room where he had first met Salim, and then wandered out on the balcony. It was a few moments before he moved to the far end where some cane furniture stood around a table. On the table were bottles of whisky and glasses. He felt he needed a drink.
His approach to the table took him past a sun screen and alongside a chaise-longue. He let out an involuntary shocked gasp.
Janine Gamboul was sprawled on her side, her head drooped over the edge and her arm hanging limply to the floor. Her face looked pale as wax, except for the red line of her lipstick and dark pencilling of her eyebrows, and her eyes were half open and glazed.
Fleming's immediate reaction was that she was dead. He bent down and put his hand under her head, lifting it back on to the chaise-longue. She moaned.
Then, as he pulled her arm against her body he saw the glass on the floor. He sniffed it: it smelt of whisky.
He was just about to leave her when she opened her eyes fully and laughed. She hauled herself up with difficulty into a half-sitting position and waved clumsily at him.
'You thought I was dead?' she giggled. 'I'm not, as you see. I told Kaufman to ask you here. I wanted to talk.' With studied effort she put her feet on the ground and stood unsteadily. 'Lemme get you a drink.' She staggered the few paces to the table.
She slopped some whisky into two glasses and then gaped around. 'No siphon,' she muttered thickly. 'Been drinking it neat, but you like soda - yes? Salim must have it in his room.' She managed to pick up the two glasses and waveringly started for the door from the balcony. Fleming stood motionless, watching her.
She stopped and half turned. 'What are you looking at me like that for?' she said thickly. Then, with an arch smile, 'It's no use getting ideas about me; not till I've learned more about the other woman, your woman .... '
She started off once more, putting the two glasses down on a heavy sideboard while she swayed over the cupboard beneath.
There were two siphons there but apparently it was too great an effort to lift one out. Instead she bent down with the glasses in turn and squirted in the soda. Fleming, who had moved no nearer than the doorway, did not see how deliberately and accurately she half-filled one glass from each.
She was humming a little French love song as she swayed towards him. She gave him one glass, and fell into an easy chair with the other.
'Tell me all about your girl friends,' she murmured, looking at him over her drink.
'Hasn't Abu Zeki told you all you need to know?' he said sullenly.
She giggled. 'Oh, something quite fantastic. So absurd that of course I believe it - and want to know more. A votre sant!' She raised her glass.
Fleming hesitated and then sipped his drink. The bite of the whisky on his palate made him feel better. He decided to play along for a little while. She was still acting drunkenly, her speech slurred and her body limp. It made her more attractive than usual.
'What have you against us?' she asked. 'The smell of commerce? The dirt that's supposed to stick to money?'
'Partly,' he grunted.
'We haven't such a bad record in this country,' she continued.
'There was nothing here till we came. Now that Salim's taken over we can progress still more.' Her eyes were bright with excitement. 'Perhaps we shall become fabulous and great, like medieval Venice or the East India Company.
Anyway soon no one will be able to compete with us. The whole world will be at our feet.'
'Or at hers,' he observed, sipping again from his glass.
She leaned forward. 'Hers?' she repeated. 'Why don't you tell me about her? There is something she alone knows? Something she will do?'
Her eyes were fixed on him, unblinking, malevolent. He had a ridiculous feeling that she was mesmerising him. To break it he looked away and gulped the rest of the whisky.
As he put the glass down he knew the drink had been drugged. His legs felt weak and he couldn't stop his mind wandering purposelessly into vagaries about the past. He groped for a chair he couldn't properly see and slumped in it.
Immediately Gamboul was across and standing over him.
'Now you'll tell me,' she ordered.
He talked hesitantly at first, sentences unfinished, subjects trivial and unconnected; but by the end of half an hour she had learned the whole story.
She sat looking at the half-conscious Fleming sprawled awkwardly in his chair for a long time after the questioning.
She wondered if this enigmatic but highly desirable Englishman had somehow outwitted her and faked his reaction to the truth drug. She dismissed the idea as absurd; she knew all there was to know about its effects.
She picked up the house phone on Salim's cleared desk and gave an order for Fleming to be taken back to his quarters.
For herself she called for a car to be brought round.
Twenty minutes later she arrived at Andre's quarters. The door was open and only one guard was near. She asked him in Arabic where the white girl was, and the man answered that she had come out and gone to the building opposite.
Frightened, he added that they had not been ordered to use force to prevent her moving within the station.
Gamboul went to the computer building. Abu Zeki was not there; only two guards walked ceaselessly up and down the main corridor. She saw Andre sitting quietly before the sensory screen in the communication section.
'What are you doing here?' Gamboul asked suspiciously.
Andre smiled at her. 'I am waiting,' she said tonelessly.
'For you. You are the logical choice.' She looked intently at the darkened screen. 'What have you forced Dr Fleming to tell you ?'
'You -you know about that?' Gamboul exclaimed.
Andre nodded. 'It is all predictable. No doubt you could not believe all he said. But I will show you. Sit beside me. Do not be frightened. There is no need.'
Gamboul pulled across a chair. Andre gave her a reassuring nod and then placed her hands on the sensory controls.
The screen produced a dot of light which expanded and faded. Then came a vague, misty imagery in halftones.
'What
is that?' Gamboul whispered.
Andre's voice was flat and mechanical. 'Watch,' she said.
'I will explain. It is where the message comes from. Soon you will know what has been calculated for you to do.'
Far into the night the two women sat before the screen, the frail, slight figure of Andre taut and somehow proud; Gamboul, motionless, transfixed, as her eyes tried to assimilate the strange figurations which hovered, cleared and grew misty on the screen, while her brain absorbed the low murmur of Andre's interpretation.
Abu Zeki was the only person, apart from the uninterested guards, who saw them there. Recognising Gamboul, he turned away. The woman intimidated him, and he disliked her. In any event, he had heard of her intimacy with Colonel Salim. It would not be wise to get involved with the new dictator's mistress.
He went to his quarters and lay on his bed. He knew he would not be able to sleep properly, the time was too momentous. He thought happily about the brave new world that had been born at the moment the state radio announced the change of government. Yet there was a niggling premonition of disaster at the back of his mind. He recognised that this was the result of his talk with Fleming. He liked Fleming; liked the way he saw through the trappings of a problem to the heart of it. Abu wanted to learn to be like that.
Deliberately he forced his mind to shift to pleasanter things - his wife, his baby son. But it was no good. The low hum of the computer seemed to permeate the very air. He dozed
***TEXT MISSING***
The hum. So it was still operating. He sat up and looked at his watch. The luminous hands showed 3.30. If the women were still there they had been working for at least eight hours.
He got up. Already the eastern sky had a pinkish tinge. He ran across the compound to the computer block. A guard, asleep on his feet, started with fright. Abu identified himself and the man lolled back against the wall.
Inside the block the lights were bright, and the air was heavy and warm after the sharpness of the night air from the desert. Abu crept forward slowly. The two women were still there, staring at the screen. Andre's voice was so low that he could not make out what she was saying even when he stopped a few feet behind them.
'Mam'selle Gamboul,' he said. 'What is happening? Miss Andre, it is I - Abu Zeki.'
For all the notice they took he might have been a voiceless ghost. He felt a prickle of fear and crept quietly away.
Outside he stopped and breathed deeply the fresh, lovely air. He felt better and it cleared his mind. He realised what he must do next.
He ran to Fleming's quarters. A guard outside, wide awake, barred his way. The soldier called over his shoulder and the door opened. Kaufman came out.
'I must see Dr Fleming,' Abu said.
Kaufman grunted that he could come in. Fleming was sprawled, fully clothed, on his bed. A couple of chairs facing each other showed where Kaufman had been resting while watching him.
Abu shook Fleming roughly by the shoulder. 'Doctor Fleming,' he begged, 'you must come right away!'
Fleming groaned, opened his eyes, and screwed up his face. 'What time is it?' he mumbled.
'Nearly four.'
Fleming sat up with a start. He fought off a bout of dizziness.
'The doctor has had a little drug,' Kaufman explained.
'He will be all right presently.'
Fleming got gingerly to his feet. 'What's the matter, Abu?'
he asked, ignoring the German.
'I do not understand what is happening,' Abu said: 'Mm'selle Gamboul came to the computer yesterday evening.
She was with the girl. I went to bed. They are still there - in the communication unit. I spoke to them, but they took no notice. They did not seem to know I was with them. They were watching the display tube.'
Fleming ran his fingers through his hair. 'Oh my God! I should have guessed.' He crossed to the door. Kaufman moved in front of it, his plump hand round the handle.
'I have orders,' he said uneasily.
Fleming braced himself for a show-down. Hastily Abu intervened. 'He must come,' he shouted at Kaufman; 'he is needed for the computer.'
Kaufman looked doubtfully from one to the other. He was bewildered. The computer was everything. His job was above all else to serve it.
'If he must, he must,' he grumbled. 'But I will escort you,'
he said to Fleming. 'My orders are to watch you.'
'Hold my bloody hand if you want,' snarled Fleming; 'but for God's sake let's go.' He turned to Abu. 'Go and wake Professor Dawnay,' he ordered. 'Tell her to come over to the computer block right away.'
The air and the short walk did him good. The fuzziness in his brain cleared and he soon felt he had proper control of his limbs. He slammed through the swing doors and loped towards the computer section. Immediately a guard pointed his automatic rifle at him. Kaufman took a step to one side.
Fleming stopped, the muzzle against his chest. Down the lighted corridor he could see Gamboul rising from her chair.
A different Gamboul. She was meekly listening to something Andre was saying. Then she nodded and came towards them.
Kaufman moved behind Fleming and gripped his arms, pinioning them against his body. Gamboul passed them all as if they did not exist. Her head was tilted back and there was a vaue smile on her lips.
Fleming struggled to free himself. 'Stop her,' he yelled.
'For God's sake don't let her get out of here.'
He struggled violently, but Kaufman held him. 'You will stay with me!'
Gamboul had passed through the entrance hall and there was the sound of her car moving off before Madeleine Dawnay came hurrying in.
Kaufman released his grip on Fleming and nodded to the guard. 'They may pass.'
Fleming ran to the console and bent over Andre. She glanced at him and then leaned back, lost in reverie. Dawnay came up. She Was alarmed at the death-like pallor of the girl.
'What is it, John?' she asked. 'What's happened?'
Fleming grasped the back of the swivel chair and pulled Andre round so that she could not avoid his gaze.
'What have you done?' he whispered.
She smiled serenely. 'What had to be done,' she murmured.
'Mademoiselle Gamboul knows what to do.' Her lip curled almost contemptuously. 'She was not afraid when I showed her the meaning.'
Suddenly her strength and assurance left her and she crumpled up like a sick, helpless child.
Dawnay bent over her. 'She's desperately ill, John,' she said gently. 'Let's get her to the sick bay.'
Fleming snapped an order to Kaufman. Frightened and servile, the German came forward, lifting Andre by the shoulders while Fleming took her feet. They carried her to the sick bay, where Dawnay ordered them outside while she and the nurse got the girl to bed.
Kaufman tried to talk to Fleming, anxious for reassurance; he sensed that he was somehow involved in a disaster and would be blamed for it. Fleming ignored him and the German walked away disconsolately.
When Dawnay came out she drew Fleming away from the door. 'She's weak, terribly weak,' she whispered, 'as if she'd been making some enormous effort. But she's falling asleep.
The nurse will tell us if there's any change. Come across to my room and I'll make some coffee.'
While the percolator was heating Dawnay asked if there was any news from outside. 'Colonel Salim's taken over completely, I suppose?'
'I don't know much,' said Fleming wearily. 'I was drugged last night - by the Gamboul woman. Made me tell her about Andre. Probably the same drug as they used on you in London. Afterwards she must have come straight here to the computer and found Andre waiting for her.'
'But why?' Dawnay demanded.
Fleming sighed. 'The computer has selected Gamboul as the boss. I thought it would choose Salim, but this is cleverer.
Through her the machine will take power.'
'How?'
'I don't know. Somehow the machine communicated to her what Andre couldn't put into words for me. I suppo
se it managed to give Gamboul the sort of appalling, momentary flash of revelation saints and prophets are said to have. It's all so damnably logical and inevitable. Like Andre's always saying, the whole thing's predictable.'
The coffee was bubbling. Dawnay poured out two cups and handed one to Fleming. 'I've never had quite this feeling before,' she said. 'Of everything closing in.'
He laughed shortly. 'You know I have. And I also proved that appealing to someone, Osborne for instance, or taking destructive action, didn't really help.' He stirred his coffee violently, splashing it in the saucer. 'Now the computer's won. The whole thing's out of our hands - for good. We're finished.'
Appropriately, as if for effect, a gust of wind moaned across the compound and scratched grittily against the outside walls. Dawnay went to shut the door while sand spattered against the window.
She stopped, seeing Abu Zeki running across to them. He stood panting when he arrived, getting his breath. 'Dr Fleming,'
he got out at last. 'Colonel Salim is dead.'
Fleming nodded, as if he felt no surprise. 'And all his army stooges?'
Abu licked his lips. 'I don't know,' he said. 'I don't really understand. The army guards have gone from here. There are just the Intel wardens and orderlies. But they are now armed. I cannot understand.'
Fleming stood up and stared out of the door. 'I'll tell you what's happened,' he said. 'Gamboul's taken control. She either had Salim murdered or did it herself. She is perfectly capable of killing, even if an exterior force didn't tell her to.
There can't be hitches in this plan, so if Salim's coup has failed it isn't a mishap but a stage in the general scheme.
What about the old man?'
'The President, you mean?' Abu asked. 'He is still in his palace. The message announcing Colonel Salim's death came from him, personally.'
Another gust of wind swept through the compound. Fleming bent his head and sand stung his eyes. He turned and shut the door. 'The President will be the lady's front man.
She'll pull the strings and he'll twitch. We'll all be her puppets soon.'
Dawnay slowly drained the last of her coffee. 'John,' she said thoughtfully, 'it's very strange.'
'Strange? What's strange about it? Gamboul's doing just what she's compelled to do. Part of the programme.'