“Another one has died,” she said savagely. Andre shrugged and Judy felt a terrible urge to hit her. “Professor Dawnay’s fighting for her life. And the boy.”
“Then they have a chance,” the girl said, tonelessly.
“Thanks to Dr. Fleming. Not thanks to you.”
“It is not my business.”
“You gave Professor Dawnay the formula.”
“The machine gave it.”
“You gave it together!”
Andre shrugged her shoulders again. “Dr. Fleming has the antidote. He is intelligent—he can save them.”
“You don’t care, do you?” Judy’s eyes felt hot and dry as she looked at her.
“Why should I care?” asked the girl.
“I hate you.” Judy’s throat felt dry, too, so that she could hardly speak. She wanted to pick up something heavy and break the girl’s skull; but then the telephone rang and she had to go to the main gate to meet Reinhart.
The girl sat quite still for a long time after Judy had gone, gazing at the control panel, and several tears—actual human tears—welled in her eyes and trickled slowly down her cheeks.
Judy took Reinhart straight to Fleming’s hut, where they brought him up to date.
“And Madeleine?” the old man asked. He looked tired and uncertain.
“Still alive, thank God,” said Fleming. “We may save two of them.”
Reinhart seemed to relax a little, and looked less tired. They took his coat, sat him in a chair by the radiator and gave him a drink. He seemed to Judy much older than she had ever known him, and rather pathetic. He was now Sir Ernest, and it was as if the act of knighthood had finally aged him. She could imagine how far in the past his youthful friendship with Dawnay must seem, and could feel him clinging on to her life as though his own were in some way tied to it. He took his drink and tried to think of the next thing to say.
“Have you told Geers yet?”
“What would Geers do?” asked Fleming. “Just be sorry it wasn’t me. He’d have me thrown out of the compound, out of the country, if he could. I’ve been saying since I was in short pants that this thing’s malicious but they all love it so. How much more do I have to prove before I convince anyone?”
“You don’t have to prove any more to me, John,” said Reinhart wearily.
“Well, that’s something.”
“Or me,” Judy said.
“Oh fine, fine. That makes three of us against the entire set-up.”
“What did you think I could do?” Reinhart asked.
“I dunno. You’ve been running half the science in this country for a generation—the good half. Surely someone would listen to you.”
“Osborne, perhaps?”
“So long as he didn’t get his cuffs dirty.” Fleming thought for a moment. “Could he get me back in to the computer?”
“Use your head, John. He’s answerable to the Establishment.”
“Could you get him down here?”
“I could try. What have you in mind?”
“We can fill that in later,” said Fleming.
Reinhart pulled a rail-air timetable out of his pocket.
“If I go up to London to-morrow—”
“Can’t you go to-night?”
“Sir Ernest’s tired,” said Judy.
Reinhart smiled at her. “You can keep Sir Ernest for garden parties. I shall get a night flight.”
“Why can’t it wait a few hours?” Judy asked.
“I’m not a young man, Miss Adamson, but I’m not moribund.” He pulled himself to his feet. “Give my love to Madeleine, if she’s...”
“Sure,” said Fleming, finding the old man’s coat and helping him on with it.
Reinhart moved to the door, buttoning himself as he went. Then he remembered something. “By the way, the message has stopped.”
Judy looked from him to Fleming. “The message?”
“From up there.” Reinhart pointed a finger to the sky. “It’s stopped repeating, several weeks ago. Maybe we shall never pick it up again.”
“We may have caught the tail end of a long transmission,” Fleming said quietly, weighing the implications. “If it wasn’t for that fluke at Bouldershaw, we might never have heard it, and none of this would have happened.”
“That had crossed my mind,” said Reinhart, and gave them another tired smile and went.
Fleming mooched round the room, thinking about what had been said, while Judy waited. They heard Reinhart’s car start and drive away, and at the sound of it Fleming came to rest beside Judy and put an arm round her shoulders.
“I’ll do whatever you want,” she told him. “They can court-martial me if they like.”
“O.K., O.K.” He took his arm away.
“You can trust me, John.”
He looked her full in the face, and she tried with her eyes to make him believe her.
“Yes, well—” he seemed more or less convinced. “I’ll tell you what. Get on the blower to London, privately, first thing in the morning. Try to catch Osborne when the Prof’s with him and tell him he’s bringing an extra visitor.”
“Who?”
“I don’t care who. Garter King at Arms—the President of the Royal Academy—some stuffed shirt from the Ministry. He doesn’t have to bring the gent, only his clothes.”
“An unstuffed shirt?”
He grinned. “Hat, brief case and rolled umbrella will do. Oh, and an overcoat. Meanwhile you get an extra pass for him. O.K.?”
“I’ll try.”
“Good girl.” He put his arm round her again and kissed her.
She enjoyed it and then leant back to ask him, “What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know yet.” He kissed her once more, then pushed himself away from her. “I’m going to turn in, it’s been a hell of a day. You’d better get out of here—I need some sleep.”
He grinned again and she squeezed his hand and went out, light-footed, singing inside herself.
Fleming undressed dreamily, working out plans and fantasies in his mind. He fell into bed, and almost as soon as he turned the light out he was asleep.
After Reinhart’s and Judy’s departure, the camp was quiet. It was a dark night; clouds were blowing in from the north-east, bringing with them a current of cold air and a prospect of snow, and covering the full moon. But the moon shone through for a few moments at a time, and by its light a slim, pale figure let itself out of a window at the back of the computer block and began to move, ghost-like, across the camp. None of the sentries saw it, let alone recognised it as the girl Andre, and she made her way stealthily between the huts to Fleming’s chalet, her face set and a double-strand coil of insulated wire in her hand.
A little light fell from the window into Fleming’s room, for he had drawn back the curtain before he went to bed. He did not stir when the door opened very quietly and Andre inched in. She was barefoot and very careful, and her hands were sheathed in a pair of thick rubber gloves. After making sure that Fleming slept, she knelt down by the wall beside his bed and inserted the two wires at one end of her coil into a power-point on the skirting, wedged them tight and switched on the current. She held the other end of the coil out from her, the two wires grasped separately between thumb and finger an inch or so down the insulation and the bare live ends extended, and stood up and advanced slowly towards Fleming. The chances of his surviving a full charge were slight, for he was asleep and she could count on being able to keep the contacts on him for long enough to stop his heart.