"Of course," Helen said.
"Well, I had a feeling he'd been connected with the dealers. They're the only group of criminals powerful enough to hide a man and help him change his identity. I guessed that he had probably come from their hideout, though this was all conjecture, you understand. The police investigated him and could find nothing to indicate it, though they agreed with me."
"So, in fact, unless it can be established that the P-bombs are part of the old stock, there is nothing to connect him with the dealers?" Helen said, trying hard not to show her disappointment.
"I have already been in touch with the laboratory analyzing the bombs. They tell me they are old stock-you would have discovered that soon, anyway, at the next Committee meeting. Obviously we can't tell the public that."
"Obviously," said Helen, "though it might have strengthened my own case in the House slightly."
"Not to any important degree."
"What's this committee?" Alan asked curiously.
"We call it the One Hundred Committee, after a slightly less effective British anti-nuclear group which existed in the middle of the twentieth century.
Actually there are only ten of us. The Committee is pledged to locating every single nuclear weapon left over from the old days and seeing the offenders punished where possible. We work, of course, in close collaboration with the highly secret ARP-the Arms Removal Police. Our work has been going on for years.
Helen is the secretary and I am the chairman. Other important politicians comprise the remaining eight."
"Very worthy," said Alan. "Are you effective?"
"We have been in the past, though our job is becoming more difficult since the dealers work together, pooling their resources. They would welcome an opportunity to sell what they have-perhaps Helen has already told you."
"Yes, she has. But it occurred to me that you could offer to buy the dealers out now. Surely it would be better to pay their price and have the arms without waiting for a crisis to decide you?"
"That's our main bone of contention," Helen put in. "Uncle doesn't agree with buying them now. I want to do that."
"The fantastic price these brigands would demand would beggar the Solar nation,"
Simon Powys said gruffly to his grandson. "We must do it in secret and justify the expenditure at the same time. It would be impossible. I feel they'll overstep the mark at some stage, then we'll catch them."
"The expenditure's worth it!" Helen said. "We could recuperate from poverty, but survival in a nuclear war…"
"If we caught the Fireclown, then," Alan said slowly, "it might give us a lead to the arms dealer."
"Possibly," Powys agreed, "though he might not admit to it. Secondly, he might not even know who the dealers are. They are naturally extremely cautious.
However, they are certainly going to take advantage of the trouble the Fire-clown has caused. The man must be caught-and destroyed before he makes any more trouble!"
"Grandfather!" Alan was shocked. The death penalty had been abolished for more than a hundred years.
"I'm sorry-I'm extremely sorry, Helen. You must forgive an old man's tongue.
These concepts were not quite so disgusting when I was a young man. Certainly 'we must imprison or exile the Fireclown."
Alan nodded.
"It's funny," he said, "that the Fireclown should preach a return to nature; that, in fact, science leads to mankind's destruction, and yet he should be planning that same destruction-or at very least is a tool of those who would welcome it."
"Life," said the old man with the air of a philosopher, "is full of that sort of paradox."
CHAPTER EIGHT
"I'LL see you home," Alan said lightly as they left the apartment.
"That would be nice," she said.
They walked slowly through the gardens, repaired and beautiful again. The starlight was augmented by soft beams from the roof structure which had the appearance of many tiny moons shining down, each one casting a single, exquisite beam. The Top had been well designed. To live here was the ambition of every young man and woman. It gave people, thought those at the Top, something to aim for.
"If only I could speak to the Fireclown personally," Helen said wistfully. "Then at least I'd be able to form a better idea of what he's really like."
Alan preferred to say nothing.
They reached the door of her apartment on the sixty-third level and went in.
Familiar smells greeted him, smells which he always associated with Helen-fresh, slightly scented, of soap and oils. It was strange, he reflected, that women's apartments always seemed to smell better than men's. Maybe it was an obvious thought. He noticed he was breathing a little more quickly, slightly more shallowly.
Neither recognized by outward expression the thought that was in their minds, yet each was aware of the other's emotions. Alan was slightly fearful, for he remembered the conflict between them as well as their old happiness and realized that Helen probably did, too.
"Would you like a nightcap?" she invited.
"I'd prefer coffee, if you've got it." Unconsciously, he had given her her opportunity. He was torn now, half afraid of what seemed likely to happen.
She came over to him as he sat down in a comfortable chair beside a small shelf of book-tapes.
She leaned down and stroked his face lightly.
"You look dreadfully tired, Alan."
"I've had a hard day." He smiled. He took her hand and kissed it.
"I'll go and get the coffee," she said.
When she came back she had changed into a pair of chaste pyjamas and a robe of thick, dark blue material. She had a tray of coffee-real coffee from the smell.
She put it down on a table and drew up a chair so that the table.was between them.
Helen, he thought. Oh, Helen, I love you. They were staring at each other, both wondering, perhaps, if this reunion would take on the same pattern as their previous affair.
"We're wiser now," she said softly, handing him his coffee. "It's a Powys trait-we learn by our mistakes."
"There are. always different mistakes to be made," he warned her. It was the last attempt to retreat from the situation and allow her to do the same, as gracefully as possible.
"That's experience," she said, and the fears were forgotten. Now they looked at one another as if they were new friends.
When they made love that night it was entirely different from anything either had ever before experienced. They treated one another delicately, yet passionately, as if a return to their earlier, less self-conscious love would plunge them back into the turmoil of four months before.
In the morning Alan's arm was aching painfully from having cradled her head all night. He raised her head gently and propped himself on his elbow, tracing the Softness of her shoulder with his fingers. She opened her eyes and seemed to be looking at him like a respectful stranger. Presumably there was a similar expression in his own face, for he felt he shared her emotion. He kissed her lightly on the lips and pushed back the bed clothes, swinging himself out of the narrow bed.
He sat slightly hunched on the edge, studying his head and torso reflected in the mirror opposite.
"I've got an idea where the Fireclown is," he said suddenly.
She was half asleep and didn't seem to hear him.
He didn't repeat himself then but went into the kitchen to make coffee. He was feeling rather tired now and his legs shook a little as the machine came alive and produced two beakers of hot coffee. He transferred the coffee into cups and took them back.
She was sitting up.
"What did you say about the Fireclown? You know where he is?"
"No, but we might be able to guess." He told her about overhearing the trio in the passage.
"Why didn't you tell me about this yesterday?"