The nurse made her comfortable and then Dawnay explained the situation, showing her the test tubes and pointing out that the most opaque sample came from the Minch.
'What is the Minch?' Andre asked.
'The channel off Thorness, where all this started,' Dawnay said harshly.
'It is impossible. It does not make sense. It has nothing to do with the message.' She looked from Dawnay to Fleming, bewildered and wary. 'The message has a different plan.'
Dawnay snorted. 'There won't be any different plan if this engulfs us. Think, girl, think!'
'There is nothing about it in the computer,' Andre insisted.
Fleming took a step forward. 'Not now, maybe,' he said thoughtfully. 'But there's something vaguely familiar about this bug. I'm sure there is. How far have you got with your analysis, Madeleine?'
Dawnay said nothing, but went to her desk and picked up a file. 'As far as I've got has been coded in binary. Is that of any help ?' she asked.
He took the file, walked to the window, and sat on the sill while he studied the figures. He laid the file aside. 'It confirms my hunch, memory, or whatever it is. It reads terribly like something I already know.'
'Then it's something you started,' Andre interrupted.
He looked round in surprise. 'That I started?'
'At Thorness. That's why this machine has no memory of it.' She paused and lay back, as if trying to summon up some strength. 'How many times did you try to destroy the other computer before you succeeded?' she asked.
'Several.'
'After one of those times the computer decided to hit back.
With this bacterium.' Her eyes became cold and hostile, giving Fleming an empty feeling of despair. 'You have a great force sent to help you and you turn it against you. You won't listen to me. You won't listen to anyone. You condemn your whole race because you won't accept. There is nothing you can do now. It will engulf you!'
There was a sort of inhuman resignation in her tone.
Fleming turned away, making for the door. He felt sick to his soul.
For a day or so afterwards he avoided everyone. Intel had provided its internees with a first class library and subscriptions had been taken out for the world's technical journals.
He read in a desultory sort of way, his brain hardly registering the information. The journals were all back numbers; interference with communications since the storm cycle had increased had cut off all but essential supplies, although some Intel transports still plied between Azaran and Europe.
He heard the hum from the computer and guessed that the thing had drawn Andre to it, no doubt on orders from Gamboul. He could imagine what the machine was working on - rocket interceptors of the kind that had been its first official triumph at Thorness. There was a ghastly this-is-where-I-came-in flavour about the whole thing. He wondered a little how the formulae were being handled once the output printer had produced the equations. Without proper interpretation they were just gibberish even for skilled electronic engineers. But, of course, there was Abu Zeki.
Fleming readily accepted that the young man was as good as any highly-paid boffin in his particular line of country; it wasn't surprising really. The Arabs had invented the whole basis of mathematics as modern civilisation knew it.
Fleming pondered a lot on Abu, not just Abu the first-rate product of a technological age, but Abu the man. He was innately decent, kindly and blessed with imagination.
His patriotism was fiery and nationalistic, but he did not let his emotions completely stifle his reasoning.
Fleming swung off the bed where he had been sprawling, his mind made up, and picked up his room telephone. In a losing battle one ally was better than none at all. He would ask Abu to fix some time when they could talk without interruption.
The operator told him Dr Abu Zeki was in the computer block. Fleming had no wish to go there and see Andre slowly dying as the machine sucked the last use out of her. He asked to be put through, not caring that the call would probably be monitored.
'Hello, Abu. Fleming. I wondered, with the weekend coming up, whether we could have a chat? Maybe I could meet your family? I'm afraid my tame guard would probably have to come too.'
'Why yes, Dr Fleming, I'd be honoured to be your host.'
Abu sounded guarded. 'It will be good for you to meet the ordinary people of Azaran. My home is very simple, I'm afraid, but you will be welcome. Please stay overnight.'
They fixed a time to leave on Saturday at midday, when Abu was off duty till Monday morning. Deliberately Fleming phoned through to Kaufman's office to request permission for a social visit. The German was out but a secretary took the details. The pass was brought to Fleming's quarters that evening. No one queried the reason.
Abu was the proud possessor of a little Italian car, and his home was only twenty-five miles from the Intel station. But, as he explained while they sped along the highway past the airport, his contract demanded that he live on the site except at weekends.
'My wife doesn't like that, but she has her mother with her,' Abu went on. 'With the baby to look after, Saturday soon comes round.'
It was as though he were talking about Surbiton, Surrey, or White Plains, New York. But the similarity soon ended.
The road petered out into a wide track of rolled stones and then to a little more than a sandy track. Abu dropped his speed when the little car laboured with its unaccustomed load of three men. The guard, sitting in the occasional seat at the back, cursed in Arabic about the bumps, but he seemed glad to be away from the compound, even though the wind sent sand whirling grittily into the car.
The track began to wind with a gradual gradient. The terrain became more stony. Ahead the low range of mountains, rocky hills really, grew more defined despite the sporadic sandstorm. Fleming had often looked at them because of their fascinating, ever-changing colours at different times of the day. In early morning they were pink, changing to white when the sun climbed higher. By midday they were always blurred by heat haze; in the evening they towered black and vast.
Abu pointed to a small collection of rectangular, flat-roofed dwellings lying on a tiny plateau immediately below a fault in the range.
'That is my village,' he said, 'or at least the one where I have made my home. People have lived here since long before your Christ. Look!'
Fleming followed the direction of Abu's glance. The rock face bore traces of enormous bas-reliefs - formalised animals and serried ranks of bearded warriors. None was perfect, rock falls jagging into the sculpture.
'Persian,' Abu explained. 'English archaeologists were here many years ago; more recently the Americans. All have gone now, of course. What they were really interested in was the temple. You'll see it round the next bend.'
Dwarfed by the rock face, the temple was just a ruin, a few pillars still standing amid a mass of rubble. Abu said that the pillars were Roman, but the site had yielded remains of several civilisations and religions - Assyrian, Persian, and a few tablets of Egyptian origin. 'As you know, Azaran has been a vassal of many empires,' Abu said. 'Now of none!'
He bumped off the track and down what was little more than a donkey path. His wife was standing outside the tiny house, a pretty woman, little more than a girl. Although, she wore Arab costume she was unveiled.
She lowered her eyes when Abu introduced Fleming, but her welcome was warm, and in perfect English. 'Lemka was at Cairo University, among the first girl students under Colonel Nasser's new scheme,' Abu said proudly.
'You are hot,' Lemka said to Fleming. 'Please come inside out of the terrible wind. It is cooler. Perhaps you will have some of our wine.' She glanced towards the car and saw the soldier leaning against the shady side of the vehicle.