'Where is Madeleine Dawnay?' Fleming demanded.
'At the Intel research station,' Salim explained, 'where you will be taken. It is very comfortable, up to the best oil company standards. We may be poor, but we are not barbarians.'
He drew himself up proudly. 'But I must nevertheless point out that you are in no position to refuse to co-operate.' He looked thoughtfully at Andre, sitting quietly, complete puzzlement on her face, as she glanced from Salim to Fleming and back again. 'We will keep the young lady here to ensure your cooperation.'
Fleming sprang to his feet. 'No!'
Salim hesitated. He looked towards Gamboul, who nodded. 'All right,' he said. 'We'll leave the young lady with you .'
Janine Gamboul put down her empty glass. 'We have talked long enough. I'll take them to the research station,'
she told Salim. 'My car is waiting.'
When Fleming, his hand on Andre's elbow, passed through the swing doors of the computer building which Gamboul held open, he stopped almost as if he had been hit in the stomach.
The hall was uncannily like that at Thorness, except that the khaki-clad armed guard inside had a swarthy face instead of the cheerful ruddiness of the sentries he had got to know so well in Scotland.
The air was the same - the cool lifelessness of air-conditioning.
Through the grey painted door to the computer section the similarity was accentuated. Here was the heavy, indefinable smell of electricity, the pervading hum of a myriad active circuits, the inhuman personality of a room built entirely of control panels.
And there, down two steps it stood - the familiar rectangular mass of steel panelling with its control desk and cathode ray screens.
He moved forward slowly, still holding Andre's elbow.
Several young Arabs were working on the machine. In an odd, outlandish way they reminded him of the British technicians he had supervised two years back at Thorness. They were even talking to one another in English - as if it were the natural language for science.
Gamboul called one of them.
'This is Abu Zeki,' she said. 'Dr Fleming.'
Abu Zeki's eyes gleamed with pleasure. He seemed a sensitive and likeable young man, with delicate Arab features and crew-cut which gave him a curiously beat-generation look.
He too was obviously a 'modern man'. 'How do you do sir?'
he said. 'I've heard much about you, of course. I am to be your senior assistant. I hope I shall be of use; anyway I can pass on your instructions to the staff.' He looked proudly along the control panel of the computer. 'We are going to do great things with this.'
'You believe that, do you?' Fleming said quietly.
'I'll show you around,' Gamboul interrupted, and led them along the endless bays of wiring.
She knew her way remarkably well. She accurately identified every section of the huge machine, though Fleming noted that it was the second-hand knowledge of the layman who was concerned with what things did rather than how they did them. The layout was slightly different from what he had built at Thorness, but the input, the output and the huge memory circuits were basically the same.
They returned to the wide gangway in front of the control unit. 'Construction was completed some time back. It was fully programmed. But nothing happened. That is why we need you. It presents no problems to you so far as operation is concerned?'
'Probably not,' Fleming admitted. 'The layout is superficially different. But in essence it is identical.' He gave a mirthless laugh. 'It should be. It has been built from instructions in the same message. You know what happened to the Thorness job?'
Gamboul shrugged her shoulders. 'We're not interested in what went wrong there. We want this one to go right. We want to build up a centre of production unsurpassed in the world and free from interference, political or otherwise. This machine is to be Intel's brain.'
Fleming felt mesmerised by the baleful quietness. He dreaded to see once again the ominous section which made this computer unlike any other man-made brain - the heavy brass terminals nestling in their plastic insulation guards.
He turned to Abu, standing deferentially nearby. 'Where is your high voltage output?'
Janine Gamboul looked at him suspiciously. 'Why do you ask? What is its purpose?'
'There are two high tension leads extraneous to your control panel. Or there should be.'
Abu nodded. 'There were, yes,' he agreed. 'We led them into the end compartment. We did not understand their purpose.'
He led them down the passageway and slid the grey panel on its smooth runners. Fleming stared at the harmless looking metal shapes. Hateful memories crowded into his brain. He turned to Andre, but to his relief she seemed quiet and unstirred by interest.
'Dr Neilson considered they were for sensory communication with the memory circuits,' Abu said. 'So that the operator could have direct contact with the computer's positive calculator relays. He worked out that it should be done visually through this display.' He nodded towards a battery of aluminium-sprayed cathode ray screens which were ranged above the terminals.
'I remember!'
Fleming turned at the sound of Andre's voice.
Her eyes were alight with excitement. Fleming felt suddenly sick. Things seemed to be moving remorselessly and inevitably beyond control.
He moved close to her. 'You know what this is?' he whispered.
'It's what we were running away from.'
She did not turn to him. She seemed transported and her eyes remained on the control panel. 'Don't be afraid,' she murmured. Fleming could not decide to whom she was talking.
He whipped round on Gamboul. 'Just blow the whole thing up. Now.'
She looked at Andre, and then at Fleming. She began to smile, not concealing her contempt. 'Destroy it?' she exclaimed.
'We shall control it.' Her tone changed. 'Now I will show you to your quarters. They are very comfortable. Your old colleague is most anxious to meet you once more - Professor Dawnay.'
She led them from the computer building into the cruel heat outside. A soldier immediately came forward and in obedience to a few words in Arabic from Gamboul, escorted Fleming and Andre to a row of bungalows shaded by a few palm trees. Andre was still dazed and walked without speaking.
Madeleine Dawnay was sitting in a deck chair on a tiny, browned patch of grass. Her face was already tanned though she looked gaunt and thin in her tropical clothes. She greeted them both with unaffected joy.
'My dear,' she said taking both of Andre's hands in hers, 'I'm so happy to see you. Your maidservant has been told exactly how to look after you.' She turned to John. 'So you're here.'
He did not offer any greeting. 'I'm here because I was hijacked,' he said quietly. 'I shan't try to get out yet awhile because of what I've just been shown. But as for you, Madelelne, I'm damned if I can see how you can voluntarily work for this lot.'
Dawnay refused to be offended. 'It's no use sticking labels on them, my dear. The circumstances are so different. I must say I was alarmed at first. I suspect Salim drugged me in London. I don't know why.'
'To find out where I was. You were the only person I told, and they turned up immediately.' .
She was deeply upset. 'I'm sorry,' she said miserably, 'I'd no idea.'
'How did they get you?' Fleming asked.
'By asking me nicely. They've got a most interesting agricultural problem. They want to be self-supporting with food. They've tried all the usual ways of fertilising barren land. But they realise they need a really new, wholly scientific conception. I hope- I think- I can help.'
Her unquestioning faith in the goodness of science had always worried him. Their easy comradeship had been strained when she had seen no risks in the first success with her life-synthesis experiments. She was caught in the same unbalanced enthusiasm now.