He went past the sentry and paced up and down the sandy waste ground which lay around the buildings. Then he made for Dawnay's quarters.
Madeleine was surrounded by maps of the country, making notes of the geological factors. She seemed glad to abandon her work and gossip.
He told her of Andre's confidence and how he believed that she was just deceiving herself; the computer would dominate her as before.
She regarded him thoughtfully. 'I don't think so, John,'
she said. 'At least, not unless you drive her back under its spell. If you're hostile and suspicious you'll alienate her.
You've built up ties between the two of you - ordinary human emotional ties. Those are strong influences.'
He looked away. 'What I want to know, Madeleine, is what's happening to her - physically?'
'What you've seen for yourself. Some sort of deterioration of muscle control. I'll have her examined if you like. But if, as I suspect, it's some motor deficiency in her nervous system there's nothing we can do about it.'
'Oh my God,' he said harshly. 'The poor kid.' He was silent for a moment. 'It may be part of the programme which planned her: to chuck her aside when her job's over.'
'There's the possibility that it's my fault,' Dawnay said. 'I made her - seemingly with built-in deterioration.' She controlled herself and smiled. 'Really you have no choice, John.
You'll have to trust her as she has trusted you over these past weeks. Let her alter the computer in the way she plans and let her work with it.' She hurriedly bent over her maps so he could not see her uncharacteristic tears. 'From what I've seen of her muscular movements it won't be for very long. Let her final days be happy and useful. She may even get you out of here.'
Fleming went to see Andre in her quarters - another small, neat air-conditioned room like his. She was sitting eating a meal off a tray. He was as appalled by the way she talked about her work as by the difficulty she found in conveying food to her mouth; but he was relieved that her speech had not so far become disjointed. The deterioration was not affecting her vocal muscles nor, thank God, her brain.
When she had eaten he took her arm and they walked the short distance to the computer building. Despite the fact that they were on a smooth path she stumbled once or twice.
Once before the computer console she seemed to regain all her powers. Automatically she took control and the computer immediately came to life, the clicking of relays providing an accompaniment to the ceaseless sullen hum.
Oscillographs were soon pulsating and the main screen portraying a coherent pattern.
Fleming stood in the background with Abu Zeki, watching Andre seated at the console, her head tilted to watch the screen above her. At last, satisfied, she swivelled round on her chair and smiled triumphantly.
'It is done,' she said. 'The computer is fully operational.'
Abu turned to Fleming incredulously. 'This girl, Dr Fleming. She has done this? Just in a matter of minutes?'
Fleming took him back to the duty office. He sat down at the desk. 'I'm going to ask you to accept that what I'm telling you now are facts,' he began. 'The girl can communicate with the computer, picking up the electro-magnetic waves and interpreting them, re-transmitting her orders in the same way.' He paused, 'You don't believe me, of course?'
'Perhaps I must believe; but I do not understand,' Abu confessed. Fleming liked the young Arab scientist. There was honesty, inherent decency, about him. He believed that the man could be an ally. He told him that Andre was a man-fabricated being, constructed in order to forge a link with the computer, even if that had not been the intention of her human mentors.
Abu listened attentively, but he politely protested that the method of communication between her and the machine was still inexplicable.
'Look,' Fleming said, 'we have eyes and ears and noses because they're the best instruments for picking up information in our sort of world. But they're not the only ones even ordinary humans like you and I have. There are senses we haven't developed and senses we've let atrophy. The girl has another sense we haven't - and that's what she is using. To give information to the machine and to receive it.'
'How will she use it?' Abu asked.
Fleming shrugged. 'God knows, Abu Zeki, God alone knows.'
Both men started at a slight sound by the door. They had not noticed that Andre had come quietly into the office.
'How do you want me to use it?' she demanded.
She did not wait for their answer. With hesitant steps, growing quicker as she progressed, she returned to the sensory console.
Abu, when he had time to digest the information Fleming had given him, was immediately anxious to use it. A young man like thousands of others in Azaran, he had been more fortunate than most in that his father had worked on the oil plant. The company had provided educational facilities for the workers' children. Abu had grabbed the opportunity. An imaginative English teacher had realised the boy's potentialities, helping him with spare time tuition.
When Abu was sixteen the new regime had emerged and the idealistic President had announced a state scholarship programme. Abu Zeki had been among the first twenty youths selected. He had emerged the only real success of the scheme.
Naturally Abu was grateful. He was also patriotic. The chance to work on the construction of a computer which surpassed any in the world had thrilled him. The presence of Europeans to direct his activities had not seemed anything but reasonable. He had been told that Intel was sponsoring the enterprise. What Intel was he neither knew nor cared.
The basic fact was that this was an Azaranian project to better the country. Abu believed that not only was his own career rosy with promise but that he was working to ensure that life for his baby son would be even more wonderful.
He had been in despair when the computer failed to work, feeling that he was somehow to blame since Neilson had disappeared. Now, all that was in the past. In cooperation with this cynical yet likeable Englishman and his girl friend, the product of some weird and wonderful scientific gimmickry, he could repay the trust his President had put in him.
From the files in the records office Abu took several sheets of calculations. They had been passed over to him by Dawnay for processing by the computer. There had been nothing to do but file them until it was operational.
He mentioned what they were to Fleming.
'Give them to the girl,' Fleming said wearily. 'Let her feed the data in her own way.'
Abu gave Andre the sheets of figures and busied himself in the office. He went through blue prints and circuit diagrams. His brain did not register any detail. He was forcing himself to do something while he listened anxiously to the rapid clicking of the machine.
It was twenty minutes before the output printer motor whirred and the circuit light glowed red. From the slot the print began to emerge, jerking slowly to the left and then abruptly to the right as line after line of equations was typed.
Abu stood mesmerised, reading the figures on the jerking paper. The motor sighed to silence and the circuit light went out. The calculations were complete. He tore off the paper and rushed to Fleming in the record office.
'Some of Professor Dawnay's calculations,' Abu said. 'This is the result Of handing the project to Miss Andre. It's quite extraordinary!'
He crossed to another filing cabinet, a locked one. He withdrew a bulky file of papers, sorted through them, and went off to talk to Andre. By the time he returned the output printer was beginning to work again.
Fleming, still lounging at the desk, occupied with his thoughts, looked up lazily. 'More stuff,' he said. 'What is it?'
Abu kept his back to Fleming. 'I'm afraid I'm not allowed to tell you, Dr Fleming.'
'Look!' Fleming paused, trying to curb his anger. 'What am I supposed to be here? In charge, or what?'