He was looking at me, trying to size up my reaction to his words. I could not make up my mind if he was mad or not, but there was something vaguely endearing about him as he stood there, hunched, speculative, like an overgrown schoolboy in his corduroy bags and his old turtle-necked sweater.
'I'm quite serious,' he said. 'The energy is there, you know, when it leaves the body on the point of death. Think of the appalling wastage through the centuries; all that energy escaping as we die, when it might be used for the benefit of mankind. It's the oldest of theories, of course, that the soul escapes through the nostrils or the mouth-the Greeks believed in it, so do certain African tribes today. You and I are not concerned with souls, and we know that our intelligence dies with our body. But not the vital spark. The life-force continues as energy, uncontrolled, and up to the present… useless. It's above us and around us as we stand talking here.'
Once again he threw back his head and looked at the stars, and I wondered what deep inner loneliness had driven him to this vain quest after the intangible. Then I remembered that his wife had died. Doubtless this theoretical bunk had saved him.
'I'm afraid it will take you a lifetime to prove,' I said to him.
'No,' he answered. 'At the most a couple of months. You see, Charon 3, which I didn't show you, has a built-in storage unit, to receive and contain power, or, to be exact, to receive and contain Force Six when it is available.' He paused. The glance he threw at me was curious, speculative. I waited for him to continue. 'The ground work has all been done,' he said. 'We are geared and ready for the great experiment, when Charons 1 and 3 will be used in conjunction, but I need an assistant, fully trained to work both installations, when the moment comes. I'll be perfectly frank with you. Your predecessor here at Saxmere wouldn't cooperate. Oh yes, you had one. I asked your chief at A.E.L. not to tell you-I preferred to tell you myself. Your predecessor refused his co-operation for reasons of conscience which I respect.'
I stared. I was not surprised at the other fellow refusing to cooperate, but I did not see where ethics came into it.
'He was a Catholic,' explained MacLean. 'Believing as he did in the survival of the soul and its sojourn in purgatory, he couldn't stomach any idea of imprisoning the life force and making it work for us here on earth. Which, as I have told you, is my intention.'
He turned away from the sea and began walking back the way we had come. The lights were all extinguished in the low line of pre-fabs where presumably we were to eat, work, sleep, and have our being during the eight weeks that lay ahead. Behind them loomed the square tower of the disused radar station, a monument to the ingenuity of man.
'They told me at A.E.L. you had no religious scruples,' went on MacLean. 'Neither have the rest of us at Saxmere, though we like to think of ourselves as dedicated men. As young Ken puts it himself, it comes to the same thing as giving your eyes to a hospital, or your kidneys to cold storage. The problem is ours, not his.'
I had a sudden recollection of the youngster at the bar, pouring out the orange juice and calling himself a guinea-pig.
'What's Ken's part in all this, then?' I asked.
MacLean paused in his walk and looked straight at me.
'The boy has leukaemia,' he said. 'Robbie gives him three months at the outside. There'll be no pain. He has tremendous guts, and believes wholeheartedly in the experiment. It's very possible the attempt may fail. If it fails, we lose nothing-his life is forfeit anyway. If we succeed…' He broke off, catching his breath as though swept by a sudden deep emotion. 'If we succeed, you see what it will mean?' he said. 'We shall have the answer at last to the intolerable futility of death.'
When I awoke next morning to a brilliant day and looked from my bedroom window along the asphalt road to the disused radar tower, brooding like a sentinel over empty sheds and rusted metal towards the marsh beyond, I made my decision then and there to go.
I shaved, bathed, and went along to breakfast determined to be courteous to all, and to ask for five minutes alone with MacLean immediately afterwards. I would catch the first available train, and with luck be in London by one o'clock. If there was any unpleasantness with A.E.L. my chief would take the rap for it, not I.
The dining-room was empty except for Robbie, who was attacking an enormous plateful of soused herrings. I bade him a brief good day and helped myself to bacon. I looked round for a morning paper but there was none. Conversation would be forced upon me.
'Fine morning,' I observed.
He did not answer me immediately. He was engaged in dissecting his herring with the finesse of an expert. Then his falsetto voice came at me across the table.
'Are you proposing to back out?' he asked.
His question took me by surprise, and I disliked the note of derision.
'I'm an electronics engineer,' I answered, 'I'm not interested in psychical research.'
'No more were Lister's colleagues concerned with discovering antisepsis,' he rejoined. 'What fools they were made to look later.'
He forked a half-herring into his mouth and proceeded to chew it, watching me from behind his bi-focal specs.
'So you believe all this stuff about Force Six?' I said. 'Don't you?' he parried.
I pushed aside my plate in protest.
'Look here,' I said. 'I can accept this work MacLean has done on sound. He has found the answer to voice production which we failed to do at A.E.L. He has developed a system by which high-frequency waves can be picked up by animals, and also, it seems, by one idiot child. I give him full marks for the first, am doubtful about the potential value of the second, and as to his third project-capturing the life-force, or whatever he calls it, as it leaves the body-if anyone talked to the Ministry about that one, your boss would find himself inside.'
I resumed my bacon feeling I had put Robbie in his place. He finished his herrings, then started on the toast and marmalade. 'Ever watched anyone die?' he asked suddenly.
'As a matter of fact, no,' I answered.
'I'm a doctor, and it's part of my job,' he said, 'in hospitals, in homes, in refugee camps after the war. I suppose I've witnessed scores of deaths during my professional life. It's not a pleasant experience. Here at Saxmere it's become my business to stand by a very plucky, likeable lad, not only during his last hours, but during the few weeks that remain to him. I could do with some help.'
I got up and took my plate to the sideboard. Then I returned and helped myself to coffee.
'I'm sorry,' I said.
He pushed the toast-rack towards me but I shook my head. Breakfast is not my favourite meal, and this morning I lacked appetite. There was a sound of footsteps outside, on the asphalt, and a head looked in at the window. It was Ken.
'Hullo,' he said, with a grin, 'what a wonderful morning. If Mac doesn't need you in the control room I'll show you round. We could take a walk up to the coastguard cottages and over Saxmere cliff. Are you game?' He took my hesitation for assent. 'Splendid! It's no use asking Robbie. He'll spend the morning in the lab gloating over specimens of my blood.'
The head vanished, and I heard him call to Janus through the kitchen window alongside. Neither Robbie nor I spoke. The sound of munching toast became unbearable. I stood up.
'Where will. I find MacLean?' I asked.
'In the control room,' he answered, and went on eating.
It was best done at once. I went the way I had been shown the night before, through the swing door to the lab. Somehow the operating table under the centre light held more significance this morning, and I avoided looking at it. I went through the door at the far end, and saw MacLean standing by Charon 1. He beckoned me over.
'There's a slight fault in the processing unit,' he said. 'I noticed it last night. I'm sure you'll be able to fix it.'