by Fred Hoyle
'Dusseldorf.' Kaufman repeated the one word and the muscles of his face tightened.
Gamboul ignored him, listening to the tape. 'At this moment great storms are raging over the Atlantic, sweeping towards Europe. We need your help to check the course of events.'
The voice was drowned in a welter of noise. Gamboul switched off the recorder. 'That's where we began jamming,'
she explained.
'What I want to hear from you, Kaufman, is how they know that we are concerned with it.'
Kaufman looked blankly at her. 'Dusseldorf,' he repeated.
'It was my home. My old father...'
'We are supposed to have a good security service,' snapped Gamboul. 'And you are in charge of security, Herr Kaufman.'
He roused himself as if from a dream. 'We have done our best,' he said stubbornly.
Gamboul shrugged. 'It's no matter now. As soon as Dawnay has the new strain of bacteria we will make ourselves safe here. After that we will make it available to others - on our own terms.'
'And meanwhile,' said the German slowly, 'the rest of the world wait and die? You do not care? You think other people are not caring?'
She failed to notice the hatred in his eyes. 'The world must wait,' she agreed. 'I know what has to be done. Others don't.'
Kaufman was still looking fixedly at her. At long last she felt a little uneasy under his gaze.
'Remember, Herr Kaufman,' she said. 'You and I are not other people.'
CHAPTER ELEVEN
TORNADO
True to her word, Janine Gamboul arranged priority for any order Dawnay gave. The resources of Intel were such that even in the chaotic conditions of Europe the materials were located, purchased and brought to Azaran by air. Even more remarkable was the speed with which young and brilliant chemists were found, specialists in bacteriology or the molecular construction of nucleic acids. Two were newly graduated students from Zurich, one a girl chemist from the research department of Germany's biggest drug firm. Questioning by Dawnay showed that they had come quite voluntarily, tempted not merely by the lavish salary but for the chance of doing what they had been told was an exciting new channel of research, in what they hoped was a less tempestuous part of the world. They had no idea of the true purposes of Intel, or of the potential nightmare that lay behind the weather disaster. The public everywhere still hoped that the worst would soon blow over.
Dawnay told her helpers the facts of the situation as it was; but she omitted the theories about the origin of the bacteria.
She worked them to the limit of endurance. They caught the sense of urgency and became her devoted servants. She was at work when they turned up in the morning, and was still there when they wearily went to their rest in the evening.
Results began to show sooner than Dawnay had dared hope.
Precisely ten days after they had begun in earnest the first droplet of synthetic bacterium was sprayed on a minute copper screen and placed in the electronic microscope. It was a dramatic moment as Dawnay adjusted the magnification, her assistants standing around her. Up to 500,000; then to a million. One and a quarter million. It was there: a many sided formation, spiked, symmetrical. And it wasn't an inert crystal. It lived.
Silently she motioned to her staff to look. One after the other they shared in the triumph. Life, infinitely tiny, had been created.
Almost diffidently Dawnay had to bring herself and her assistants back to reality. This was really no more than a scientific curiosity. The real test lay ahead. The bacterium had to be bred in its billions - enough to fill a test tube. And then it had to be sent into battle against the organism which was its pre-destined enemy.
The precious and all too few droplets were sprayed into a dozen different culture soups. For six long hours there was nothing to do but wait. Tests showed dead bacteria in nine of the tubes; the other three had reached maximum saturation.
From these three, larger cultures were started. They all flourished. It was past midnight when Dawnay decided the real test could begin.
Dawnay drew a test tube of opaque bacteria-sodden sea water from the tank. It was sealed with a sterile rubber stopper. An assistant filled a hypodermic from the culture and handed it to Dawnay. The needle pierced the rubber stopper and the fluid produced a tiny swirl as it flowed into the opacity.
'Now another wait,' said Dawnay. Only a slight tremor in her voice indicated the tension she felt. 'So let's have some coffee.'
She had not told anyone outside the laboratory how close she believed she was to success, dreading the risk of anticlimax.
But Abu Zeki, drawn by the blaze of light from the laboratory windows, came over when the waiting period was almost over.
'Come in,' Dawnay said, 'you're in time to share in a success or help us find excuses for a failure.'
'It's working?' he asked hopefully.
Dawnay laughed uncertainly. 'In theory, yes. In practice - well, we'll know in a moment.'
She crossed to the bench where the test tube had been clamped inside a sterile cabinet. Gingerly she withdrew it and held it to the light as the others grouped around her.
Two-thirds of the water was clear and sparkling. She kept it aloft, staring, and even as they watched a few tiny heads of freed gas rose jauntily to the top of the tube.
Dawnay shook herself, bringing herself back to reality.
'It's been in the tube for precisely sixty-three minutes,' she murmured. 'Now we will test it in the tank.'
No need for sterility precautions or niceties of measurement now. Two tubes of culture were poured into the tank, and they all gathered round again to watch. Gradually little pools of clear water appeared, while fat, lazy bubbles appeared on the surface, burst, and were replaced by new bubbles.
'That's the nitrogen being released,' Dawnay said. 'The air pressure's altering.'
It was true. The barograph needle was moving up slowly but steadily.
'You haf done it!' exclaimed the girl from Zurich.
'We've done it,' Dawnay corrected. 'The rest is simply mechanics. Producing on a large enough scale. We must get an hour or so's rest and then check growth rates, the effects of temperature and salinity.' She turned to Abu. 'They'd better start planning mass production. Go and see Gamboul or Kaufman. Tell them I must have an interview as soon as possible tomorrow - I mean - this morning.'
She had no need to go into Baleb to see Gamboul. The Intel chief came to her, arriving at Dawnay's quarters while she was snatching a hurried breakfast. Gamboul asked merely for instructions, as if she were a secretary.
The result was that an hour later the Intel short-wave radio system was transmitting a long stream of orders to the cartel's headquarters in Vienna. Bulk chemical supplies of phosphates, proteins, and amino acids were to be sent by plane and ship irrespective of cost or country of origin.
Engineers were to be recruited to work on the Azaran oil installations, clearing the tanks of petroleum and making them ready as breeding tanks. Old pipelines were to be adapted, and new ones laid, to pump the anti-bacteria straight into the Persian Gulf.
The message was merely acknowledged. There were no queries, no promises nor excuses. That night the first squadron of transports flew to Baleb with engineers and cargoes of chemicals. Two of them had crashed in a violent air storm over the eastern Mediterranean and a third blew up when a miniature whirlwind caught it just as it was touching down. The rest got through.
The air lift went on the next day without respite, and the first ocean freighter, hurriedly loaded at Capetown, radioed her estimated time of arrival.
A week after the original test the first bulk supplies of anti-bacteria were poured into the sea at ten points on the Azaran coast, carefully selected after a study of tidal currents. The effect was noticeable within twelve hours.
Fleming, who had been allowed to go with Dawnay to the coast, stood at the edge of the water, where the desert sloped down to make long golden beaches, and watched fascinated as the great nitrogen bubbles came b
ursting to the surface of the waves. Even the storminess of the sea could not hide them, and in his lungs he could feel a tingling freshness of regenerated air.
He and Dawnay drove back on the third day. 'Now we must try to smuggle out some of the stuff with Neilson,' she said. 'This is all very fine, but it's merely local, and as you see, the weather remains quite unaffected by such a minor activity.'
'No hope of Intel sending it?' Fleming peered through a windscreen opaque from a sudden downpour of hail and storm rain.
'Not a chance,' Dawnay replied. 'They won't release it to anyone except on their own terms. And what those terms are they haven't yet said. But I can imagine.' Her words were drowned in a scream of wind which made the car shudder.
'The weather's worse,' she said, and there was a streak of alarm in her voice. 'I wonder if we're doing right, after all.
You see what's happening, John?'
He nodded, leaning forward to see the blurred image of the road. 'We're treating the sea around here and nowhere else. Millions of cubic feet of nitrogen are being released. It's building up a cone of high pressure in a localised zone; everywhere else the pressure's dam' nigh a vacuum, and the original bacteria will be sucking in the nitrogen as fast as we can pump it out. We'll never win this way, all we'll do is breed hurricanes.'
'God, how futile and helpless it all makes one feel,' muttered Dawnay.
For an hour Fleming drove on in silence, concentrating on keeping the car going in a land which was just a kaleidoscope of rain, mud, and wind.
Some ten miles from Baleb the wind dropped, though the rain continued. The air was abnormally clear, giving an illusion that objects were nearer than in fact they were.
'Look at that!' Fleming jerked his head towards the mountains along the horizon.
They stood out sharp and clear, lighter in colour than the purplish black clouds swirling above the crests. And right above them rose an immense spiral of greyish cloud, the top mushrooming and changing shape all the time.
'Tornado centre,' said Dawnay. 'We're in the calm area around it. Let's hope to God it doesn't move this way.'
'That funnel is right over Abu's village, I think,' muttered Fleming. 'His family must be getting it badly, unless they saw the clouds building up and got to the caves where Neilson is.'
But only Lemka had reached the cave when the tornado struck. She had clambered up the mountain with her daily basket of food for Neilson. He refused to let her go back when he noticed the abnormal calm and saw the clouds racing together towards the south.
At first Lemka protested. Her mother and the baby would be terrified by the storm. Besides, Yusel had promised to come with information about getting Neilson out with some contraband bacteria. But when the full fury of the tornado drove them into the recess of the cave she subsided into frightened silence.
'He'll be all right, and your family,' Neilson insisted with a cheerfulness he did not feel.
But things were not all right with any of them. Yusel had arrived at Abu's house shortly after Lemka had left with the food for Neilson. He had intended to set out earlier, hoping to accompany his sister because he had some good news for the American: he could smuggle a message to London the next day.
In his excitement he had not been very careful about his trip. He had not seen, through the rain and sandstorms, a car following a mile behind his.
Consequently he was absolutely unprepared when the door of Abu's house burst open and Kaufman pushed in with a couple of soldiers. Without orders, the soldiers pinioned Yusel and soon had him gagged and trussed in a chair, his arms and legs tied to it with rope.
While Lemka's mother cringed against the wall, holding the baby, Kaufman began methodically slapping Yusel's face with the back of his hand. The blows were not unduly severe, but they were relentlessly repeated, first on one side of the head, then on the other. Yusel grew dizzy, then half-conscious.
Kaufman stepped back, breathing heavily. The look on the old woman's eyes above her veil made him uneasy. There had been people many years before who had looked like that - people who had perhaps cringed a little but whose spirit had still defied him. 'Take the old woman and the child out of here,' he growled.
As soon as a soldier had pushed the woman and baby into the kitchen Kaufman ungagged Yusel. 'Now for some sense from you,' he said, giving him another slap across the face to restore his senses. 'I'm a reasonable man and I do not like to use force, but you must realise the unpleasant things which could happen. They won't if you answer a simple question.
Who have you brought into the country?'
Yusel looked up at him with glazed eyes. He gulped and hesitated; Kaufman hit him again. Yusel's brain reeled. His head slumped forward and began to lose consciousness. One of the guards revived him with a small, painful jab with a bayonet and Kaufman repeated his question.
'Professor Neilson,' Yusel muttered.
Kaufman drew in his breath sharply. 'Neilson!'
'The father,' mumbled Yusel. 'The father of the young scientist...'
Kaufman closed his eyes in relief. For a split second he had had a vision of a ghost. 'Why have you brought him?' he snarled. 'Where is he?'
Yusel sat silent. He watched Kaufman's hands clench into fists and slowly rise to shoulder height. He bent his head in shame and fear. 'He's in a cave above the temple,' he whispered.
'More,' ordered Kaufman.
Once he started talking, Yusel found it easy to go on.
When he faltered Kaufman hit him again or a soldier prodded him with his bayonet, until they had the whole story.
Kaufman grunted with satisfaction and turned to the soldiers. 'One of you take him down to the car. Keep him tied up. And you' - he turned to the second guard - 'come with me. We'll get this American.'
He walked outside, accompanied by the soldier. It was still calm, but there was a weird humming sound to the right, its note dropping steadily into a roar of wind. Eager to get to his quarry, Kaufman did no more than glance towards the spiralling mass of blackness sweeping along the distant mountain crests at the far end of the range.
The tornado hit them when they were within sight of the temple. Half drowned by an avalanche of water, unable to stand erect in the wind, they slithered forwards to the slight shelter the great fallen marble columns provided. And there they both lay shivering and in mortal fear, until the storm passed as abruptly as it had started.
'We'll get back,' panted Kaufman, 'before another storm.
See if our comrade and the prisoner are still all right. I will go and see what's happened to the old woman and the child.'
He had some vague idea of holding them as hostages, but when he got back to the village the house no longer existed.
the flat stone roof had shifted in the wind and brought the walls down. Kaufman looked through the gaping hole where the window had been. He turned away abruptly: the crushed body of a woman was not a pleasant sight ....
He found the soldier tinkering with the car. Water had got on the ignition leads and it was half an hour before they got the engine started. Yusel lay gagged and bound at the back. Kaufman spent the time standing around, looking up at the temple, then at the ruined house which was the tomb of the old woman and presumably the child. His mind was filled with fear and, though he would not let himself admit it, something like remorse.
The engine of the car coughed to life and began to run smoothly, Kaufman got in beside the driver. 'As fast as you can go,' he ordered, 'before another storm catches us out in the desert. And drive straight to the residence of Mm'selle Gamboul. I'll take our prisoner. Mm'selle Gamboul will want to question him herself.'
They made it just as the sky again darkened to the blackness of night. As he alighted he could hear the scream of a second tornado approaching from the far side of the city. He ran for the shelter of the house, leaving Yusel in the car.
Gamboul was seated at her desk as usual. Her face was a blur in the gloom. The electricity had failed, and the heavy curtains had been
torn away from the windows where the little intricately shaped panes had been blown out.
She looked up as Kaufman came close to the desk. 'Ah, there you are,' she said impatiently. 'I want you to get out to the compound as soon as the storm eases and phone Vienna.
Tell them that we're in charge now and they must take orders from us.'
He showed no surprise. 'I shall not phone Vienna,' he said slowly and deliberately. 'There are some things you can't make a deal in, and this is one of them. I have been out in it. And I've important news.'
She stood up and approached the window, moving to the side in case more glass was blown out. 'You're afraid, you too, are you?' she sneered. 'Everyone is afraid of responsibility, of taking risks. This afternoon I visited the girl. She is dying, that one. And raving as she dies. She told me that the computer was wrong, that the message did not tell me this.
But I know, Herr Kaufman, I know! The power and the knowledge are all in my hands. No one else's.'
Kaufman crossed the room and stood beside her. Somewhere in the town a fire had started. Despite the rain, the wind was whipping it into a small holocaust.
'Reports of everything you have done for the past month have been smuggled out of the country,' he said. 'There is a man who has been here for some time. He is waiting to take a specimen of the bacteria to London.'
She wheeled on him. 'You will stop him, of course,' she warned.
He shook his head. 'I shall not.' His voice was almost gentle as he went on, 'You are not sane. You would lead us all into destruction.'
'You poor little man.' She showed no anger, only contempt.
'You are like all the rest. You have not the imagination to see. Come here!'
Abruptly she walked to the glass door leading to the balcony and turned the handle. She had to lean against it with all her weight to force it open against the wind.
'Come!' she repeated. 'Come and see the elements at work.
Working for me!' He stayed stubbornly where he was.
'You are frightened?' she laughed. 'There is no need. It will not touch us. It cannot.'