Her face was blank and drained and she began to sway as she had done on the day when Fleming first made her stand between the terminal plates. She held on tightly to the wires, her fingers inching slowly up them. Then she touched the bare cores.
It all happened very quickly. Her body twisted as the full voltage of the current ran through it. She began to scream, her legs buckled, her head fell back and she hung from her outstretched arms as if crucified. The lamps on the display panel jammed full on, glaring into her distorted face, and a loud and insistent thumping started from the other room.
It lasted about ten seconds. Then her scream was cut off, there was a loud explosion from the fuse-panel above her, the lights went dead, her fingers uncurled from the naked wire and she fell heavily into a crumpled heap on the floor. For a moment there was silence. The creature stopped thumping and the humming of the computer stopped as if cut with a knife. The alarm bell rang.
The first person on the scene was Judy, who was passing the building when the alarm on the wall of the porch clanged into life. Pushing open the door, she ran wildly down the corridor and into the control room. At first she could see nothing. The strip lights in the ceiling were still on, but the control desk hid the floor in front of the control panel. Then she saw Christine’s body and, running forward, knelt down beside it.
“Christine!”
She turned the body over on to its back. Christine’s face stared sightlessly up at her and the hands fell limply back on to the floor: they were black and burnt through to the bone. Judy felt for the girl’s heart, but it was still.
“Oh God!” she thought. “Why do I always have to be in at the death?”
Reinhart was back in London when he heard the news. When he reported it to Osborne, he got a different response from what he expected; Osborne was certainly worried by it, but he seemed preoccupied with other things and took it as one blow among many. Reinhart was distressed and also puzzled: not only Osborne but everyone else he met, as he moved in and out of Whitehall offices, appeared to have something secret and heavy on their minds. He thought of going to Bouldershaw Fell, which he had not visited for a long time, to try to get away from the feeling of oppression that surrounded him, but he found immediately that the radio-telescope had been put under military control and was firmly sealed off by Ministry of Defence security. This had happened without warning during the past week while he had been at Thorness. He was furious at not being consulted and went to see Osborne, but Osborne was too busy to make appointments.
Christine’s post mortem and autopsy reports followed in a few days. The Professor was at least spared the ordeal of explaining to her relatives, for both her parents were dead and she had no other relations in the country. Fleming sent him a short, grim letter saying that no major damage had been done to the computer and that he had a theory about Christine’s death. Then there was a longer letter telling him the blown circuit had been repaired and that the computer was working full out, transferring a fantastic amount of information to its memory storage, though what the information was Fleming did not say. Dawnay telephoned him a couple of days later to say the computer had started printing-out. A vast mass of figures was pouring out from it, and as far as she and Fleming could tell this was not in the form of questions but of information.
“It’s a whole lot more formulae for bio-synthesis,” she said. “Fleming thinks it’s asking for a new experiment, and I think he’s right.”
“More monsters?” Reinhart asked into the telephone.
“Possibly. But it’s much more complicated this time. It’ll be an immense job. We shall need a lot more facilities, I’m afraid, and more money.”
He made another attempt to see Osborne and was summoned, to his surprise, to the Ministry of Defence.
Osborne was waiting in Vandenberg’s room when he arrived. Vandenberg and Geers were also there: it looked as though they had been talking for some time. Geers’s brief case was open on the table and a lot of papers had been splayed out from it and examined. Something harsh and unfriendly about the atmosphere of the room put the Professor on his guard.
“Rest your feet,” said Vandenberg automatically, without smiling. There was a small strained pause while everyone waited for someone else to speak, then he added. “I hear you’ve written off another body.”
“It was an accident,” said Reinhart.
“Sure, sure. Two accidents.”
“The Cabinet have had the results of the enquiry,” Osborne said, looking down at the carpet.
Geers coughed nervously and started shuffling the papers together.
“Yes?” Reinhart looked at the General and waited.
“I’m sorry, Professor,” said Vandenberg.
“For what?”
Osborne looked at him for the first time. “We’ve got to accept a change of control, a general tightening-up.”
“Why?”
“People are starting to ask questions. Soon they’ll find you’ve got this living creature you’re experimenting on.”
“You mean the R.S.P.C.A.? It’s not an animal. It’s just a collection of molecules we put together ourselves.”
“That isn’t going to make them any happier.”
“We can’t just stop in the middle—” Reinhart looked from one to another of them, trying to fathom what was in their minds. “Dawnay and Fleming are just starting on a new tack.”
“We know that,” said Geers, tapping the papers he was putting back into his brief case.
“Then—?”
“I’m sorry,” said Vandenberg again. “This is the end of your road.”
“I don’t understand.”
Osborne shifted uneasily in his chair. “I’ve done my best. We all fought as hard as we could.”
“Fought whom?”
“The Cabinet are quite firm.” Osborne seemed anxious to avoid details. “We’ve lost our case, Ernest. It’s been fought and lost way above our level.”
“And now,” put in Vandenberg, “you’ve written off another body.”
“That’s just an excuse!” Reinhart rose to his small feet and confronted the other man across the desk. “You want us out of it because you want the equipment. You trump up any kind of case—”
Vandenberg sighed. “It’s the way it goes. I don’t expect you to understand our viewpoint.”
“You don’t make it easy.”
Geers snapped his brief case shut and switched on a small smile. “The truth is, Reinhart, they want you back at Bouldershaw Fell.”
Reinhart regarded him with distaste.
“Bouldershaw Fell? They won’t even let me in there.”
Geers looked enquiringly at the General, who gave him a nod to go on.
“The Cabinet have taken us into their confidence,” he said with an air of importance.
“This is top secret, you understand,” said Vandenberg.
“Then perhaps you’d better not tell me.” Reinhart stood stiffly, like a small animal at bay.
“You’ll have to know,” said Geers. “You’ll be involved. The Government have sent out a Mayday—an S.O.S. They want you all working on defence.”
“Regardless of what we’re doing?”
“It’s a Cabinet decision.” Osborne addressed the carpet. “We’ve made the best terms we can.”
Vandenberg stood up and walked across to the wall-map.
“The Western powers are deeply concerned.” He also avoided looking at Reinhart. “Because of traces we’ve been picking up.”