Seven
Analysis
General Vandenberg by this time had his allied headquarters accommodated in a bomb-proof bunker under the Ministry of Defence. His functions as co-ordinator had gradually expanded until he was now virtual director of local air strategy. However little they liked this, Her Majesty’s Government submitted to it in the face of an international situation growing steadily worse: the operations room next to his private office was dominated by a wall-map of the world showing traces of an alarming number of orbital satellites of unknown potentiality. As well as the American and Russian vehicles, some of which certainly carried nuclear armament, there was an increasing traffic put up by other powers whose relations with each other and with the West were often near sparking-point. Public morality thinned like the atmosphere as men and machines rose higher, and year by year the uneasy truce which was supposed to control the upper air and the spaces above it came nearer to falling into anarchy.
Vandenberg, through the Ministry of Defence, now had call on all local establishments, including Thorness. He rode gently but with determination, and watched carefully what went on. When he received reports of Bridger’s death, he sent for Osborne.
Osborne’s position was now very different from what it had been in the early days of Bouldershaw Fell. Far from representing a ministry in the ascendant, he and Ratcliff now had to bow before the wishes of the war men, contriving as best they could to keep some say in their own affairs. Not that Osborne was easily ruffled. He stood before Vandenberg’s desk as immaculate and suave as ever.
“Sit down.” Vandenberg waved him to a chair. “Rest your feet.”
They went over the circumstances of Bridger’s death move by move as though they were playing a game of chess; the general probing, and Osborne on the defensive but denying nothing and making no excuses.
“You have to admit,” said Vandenberg at the end of it, “your Ministry’s snarled it up good and hard.”
“That’s a matter of opinion.”
Vandenberg pushed back his chair and went to look at his wall-map.
“We can’t afford to play schools, Osborne. We could use that machine. It’s built on military premises, with military aid. We could use it in the public interest.”
“What the hell do you think Reinhart’s doing?” Osborne was eventually ruffled. “I’m sure your people would like to get your hands on it. I’m sure we all seem anarchistic to you because we haven’t got drilled minds. I know there’s been a tragedy. But they’re doing something vitally important up there.”
“And we’re not?”
“You can’t suddenly stop them in their tracks.”
“Your Cabinet would say we can.”
“Have you asked them?”
“No. But they would.”
“At least—” Osborne calmed down again—“at least let us finish this present project, if we give you certain guarantees.”
As soon as he was back in his own office he telephoned Reinhart.
“For heaven’s sake patch up some sort of a truce with Geers,” he told him.
Reinhart’s meeting with the Director was depressingly similar to Osborne’s with Vandenberg, but Reinhart was a better strategist than Geers. After two grinding hours they sent for Judy.
“We’ve got to strengthen the security here, Miss Adamson.”
“You don’t expect me—?” She broke off.
Geers glinted at her through his spectacles and she turned for understanding to Reinhart.
“My position here would be intolerable. Everyone trusted me, and now I turn out to be a security nark.”
“I always knew that,” said Reinhart gently. “And Professor Dawnay has guessed. She accepts it.”
“Dr. Fleming doesn’t.”
“He wasn’t meant to,” said Geers.
“He accepted me as something else.”
“Everyone knows you had a job to do,” Reinhart looked unhappily at his fingers. “And everyone respects it.”
“I don’t respect it.”
“I beg your pardon?” Geers took off his glasses and blinked at her as if she had gone out of focus. She was trembling.
“I’ve hated it from the start. It was perfectly clear that everyone here was perfectly trustworthy, except Bridger.”
“Even Fleming?”
“Dr. Fleming’s worth ten of anyone else I’ve met! He needs protecting from his own indiscretion, and I’ve tried to do that. But I will not go on spying on him.”
“What does Fleming say?” Reinhart asked.
“He doesn’t talk to me since...”
“Where is he?” asked Geers.
“Drinking, I suppose.”
“Still on that, is he?” Geers raised his eyes to display hopelessness, and the gesture made Judy suddenly, furiously angry.
“What do you expect him to take to, after what’s happened? Bingo?” She turned again, with faint hope, to Reinhart. “I’ve grown very fond of—of all of them. I admire them.”
“My dear girl, I’m in no position...” Reinhart avoided her eyes. “It’s probably as well it is out in the open.”
Judy found she was standing to attention. She faced Geers.
“Can I be relieved?”
“No.”
“Then may I have a different assignment?”
“No.”
“Then may I resign my commission?”
“Not during a state of National Emergency.” Geers’s eyes, she noticed, were set too close together. They stared straight at her, expressionless with authority. “If it weren’t for your very good record, I’d say you were immature for this job. As it is, I think you’re merely unsettled by exposure to the scientific mind, especially such an ebullient and irresponsible mind as Fleming’s.”
“He’s not irresponsible.”
“No?”
“Not about important things.”
“The important things at this establishment are the means of survival. We’re under very great pressure.”
“To the military, all things are military,” said Reinhart icily. He walked across the room and looked out of the window, his little hands clasped uneasily behind his back. “It’s a bleak place here, you know. We all feel the strain of it.”
For some time after this outburst Geers was unusually agreeable. He did everything he possibly could for Dawnay, rushing through new equipment to replace what Fleming had damaged and generally identifying himself with what she was doing. Reinhart fought hard to retain his foothold and Judy went back to her duty with a sort of glum despair. She even screwed up her courage to see Fleming, but his room was empty and so were the three whisky bottles by his bed. With one exception, he spoke to no-one in the days that followed Bridger’s death.
Dawnay had gone straight back to work, with Christine to help her with the relatively simple calculations needed from the computer. Within a week they had another successful synthesis, and they were watching it, late in the evening, in the repaired microscope, when the door of the laboratory was pushed open and Fleming stood unsteadily inside.
Dawnay straightened up and looked at him. He wore no jacket or tie, his shirt was crumpled and dirty and he had seven days’ growth of stubble round his jaw. He might have been on the verge of delirium tremens.
“What do you want?”
He gave her a glazed stare and swayed a step forward into the room.
“Keep out of here, please.”
“I see you’ve new equipment,” he said thickly, with a fatuous twitching smile.
“That’s right. Now will you leave us?”
“Bridger’s dead.” He smiled stupidly at her.