Andromeda Breakthrough Read online

  'But it could be given our purpose,' she said urgently. 'One that we communicated to it. Or at least, one I communicated.

  I can do it, John.'

  'I suspect you can. That's why I've tried to keep you away from it.'

  'You can't,' she said quietly. 'It is the reason why - I'm here.' She stretched her hand and brushed it against his. 'If you want to use the computer you'll have to trust me.'

  He turned to look at her, his eyes searching into hers. 'I think I'll go for a stroll around the compound,' he said abruptly. 'You get some rest. You aren't fit yet. And don't think too much about all this.'

  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 pap
ers, 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?'

  'I'm sorry,' Abu said with sincerity. 'But I have my orders.'

  Fleming looked at him levelly. 'What have you given it?'

  he asked again. But Abu stared back at him with gentle obstinacy.

  'It is work which Mam'selle Gamboul wishes done. I am not at liberty to discuss it.'

  'Then I'll stop it.'

  'I'm afraid you won't, Dr Fleming.'

  Abu nodded towards the nearest sentry, who was watching them with a sour, bored interest. Fleming turned on his heel and stalked out.

  Outside the office another sentry was leaning against the pillar, shading himself from the glaring sun. The soldier abruptly stepped forward and snapped to attention.

  Fleming glanced across the compound and saw Janine Gamboul walking beside an elderly bearded man and talking quickly and brightly. Abu came out and stood beside him.

  'Who's that with the glamorous Gamboul?' Fleming asked.

  'That is our President.' Abu's eyes were alight with pride.

  'He must have been visiting Professor Dawnay's laboratory.

  Her assistant told me that she's working on something quite new: a protective membrane to prevent water evaporating from the soil, but letting the oxygen and nitrogen molecules through so the land could breathe. It's a marvellous idea. It will make the desert blossom.'

  'And no doubt about to take a leap forward.' Fleming nodded to the record sheets from the computer which Abu still held.

  'I wonder if the President will be coming here,' said Abu hopefully.

  But the President did not visit them. He glanced across to the computer. Gamboul said something. He nodded and disappeared into the headquarters building.

  The afternoon siesta had put the town to sleep when Gamboul drove to Salim's residence. She found him taking his ease on the stone balcony, looking out over the quiet square and the acres of shabby roofs with a few minarets which made a dun-coloured pattern into the shimmering haze. He was in uniform, as he liked to be.

  She threw down her wide-brimmed hat and crossed to the table where bottles and a bowl of ice stood.

  Salim did not trouble to get up. 'Been doing your duty?' he murmured.

  'I've taken the old fool round the establishment,' she answered, busy mixing her drink. 'That will keep him quiet for a bit. He was most impressed with the Dawnay woman.

  Naturally,' - she gave a brittle laugh - 'I didn't take him into the computer building, though he asked what was happening there.' She sipped her drink, frowning as Salim made no effort to offer her a chair. 'I'm going inside; it's cooler, and there may be somewhere to sit.'

  He heaved himself to his feet and followed her through the bead screen to the spacious room he used as an office. Across one wall was a detailed map of Azaran. Little flags of various colours were pinned here and there. Gamboul glanced at it with lazy curiosity and then stretched herself on a sofa. She was growing tired of Salim.

  He came close, looking at her body in its thin and too tight dress. 'Who's the girl you had brought over with Fleming?'

  he demanded.

  Gamboul hunched her shoulders. 'I don't know. Abu says she is highly intelligent. Kaufman's report merely says she was connected with the Thorness computer. They used quite a number of females up there. Dawnay for example. Kaufman thinks the girl was connected with the destruction of the machine and Fleming's shielding her. Presumably they're lovers.'

  Salim was disturbed. 'Have her watched closely,' he ordered. 'We don't want to risk sabotage. And you'd better get out of Fleming who she is. I'm sure you could manage that.'

  She smiled at him, running her hand down her hip and thigh. 'I don't think I fancy Dr Fleming.' As if the subject bored her she got up and crossed to the map.

  'What is all this playing around with little flags?'

  Salim stuck his thumbs in his belt and stood solid and sure in front of the map. 'The flags mark troops I can rely on.

  Roughly, an infantry battalion here, in Baleb, and a squadron of armoured cars. Some motorised units on the frontiers and the main army barracks at Quattara. Also the majority of the air force units.'

  'To do what?' she asked.

  'To support me. Us.' He corrected himself. 'The computer must be safe. It belongs to Intel, and Intel holds the concession from the President. And I am not yet the President.'

  Gamboul studied his face. 'Is that what you want?' she asked.

  Salim returned to the balcony to look over the city. His eyes lifted to the lovely old palace which stood on a slight eminence to the right. 'The President is a soft man,' he murmured.

  'A tired man. He fought for independence, but now he thinks he can rest. He could be influenced - by any liberal-minded bumbler.'

  Gamboul was close beside him, her body touching his.

  'Like the Dawnay woman?' she suggested.

  'Dawnay?' The idea seemed new to him and of no consequence.

  'Anyone could persuade him to interfere with your work, and then you and I would lose control. We must prepare for that eventuality. Why do you think I came back?'

  'You're planning a coup d'etat!' she said, surprise and admiration in her expression. 'And I didn't know.'

  He turned and put his hands on her shoulders. 'You're with me, aren't you, Janine?'

  She leaned forward until her body was pressed hard against him. 'I thought you knew,' she whispered. 'When will it be?'

  He looked out across her shoulder to the rooftops. 'For Arabs time is a servant. When the time is right I shall act.

  Perhaps two days; a week. Not more.'

  At Fleming's insistent request Madeleine Dawnay asked for a doctor to come and see Andre. The efficient and smooth-running staff organisation of Intel said that they would have a neurologist in the compound within twenty-four hours.

  He arrived the following morning. He was an Arab, who diffidently mentioned to Dawnay that he held a degree in neuro-surgery from the Radcliffe Infirmary at Oxford and had continued his studies at Johns Hopkins.

  His examination of Andre was long and thorough and Dawnay was impressed.

  She answered the knock on the door of the neat little sick bay and found Fleming outside. You can't see her yet,' she said, coming out to join him on the verandah. 'The doctor's still busy. Taking a lumbar puncture of a spinal fluid check.

  But his preliminary diagnosis is much the same as ours. Her muscular system's going more and more wrong. Maybe some gland has packed up, or her nerve set-up is different from ours, needing a blood nutrient that was there when she was built but is now depleted.'

  'You mean it wasn't in the blueprint?' he suggested.

  Dawnay shrugged. 'It isn't being made now,' she said shortly.

  'Could we synthesise it?'

  'I wouldn't know where to start. Back home I might get advice and help .... '

  'So what happens ?' he asked harshly.

  'She'll lose the use of her muscles progressively. It'll show in her limbs most obviously, but one day it'll be the pectoral muscles and then the heart.' She turned to look at the closed door. 'That's what the doctor is explaining to her now. I asked him to. Her calmness broke quite suddenly. 'I made her! I made her to suffer this!'

  He gripped her arm. 'Madeleine. You didn't do it deliberately.

  And what about me? Who started it all with the design of the computer? Who prevented her dying more or less peacefully in that cave?'

  Dawnay did not respond. She went on staring at the closed door. Presently the doctor came out. He looked across at the two of them, and then away as he crossed to the visitors'


  block.

  'She ought to be properly nursed; sent away,' Fleming said.

  Dawnay gave a mirthless laugh. 'You can see them allowing her to leave here. She's produced my crop formula. They know how useful that will be. There will be other things for her to do for them.'

  'There is another thing, already,' said Fleming, remembering what Abu Zeki had told him at the computer.

  'What?'

  'I don't know exactly,' he said thoughtfully. 'I only hope what I think it is is wrong.'

  As if to contradict him, six jet fighters abruptly screamed across the sky, climbing fast from the airfield. They watched the machines become dots in the blueness of the shimmering canopy of sky. Dawnay wiped her face. 'I'd better talk to the doctor, John. You have a word with Andre. Be gentle with her.'

  He knocked softly on Andre's door, waiting for an answer, almost dreading to go in. A pretty little Arab nurse came and opened the door, silently standing aside to permit him to enter.

  Andre was sitting beside the austere iron bedstead, wearing a housecoat. The brightly coloured flowers of the pattern accentuated her extreme pallor. She was leaning back with her head turned sideways so that her long fair hair hung across her cheek. Fleming guessed that she had been crying.

  The nurse brought a small, hard chair, and Fleming sat down.

  'Andre; Andromeda,' he murmured. 'There may be some answer.' He saw the hair move as she gave a slight shake of the head. 'We've done so much together,' he insisted.

  He put his fingers gently on her chin and pulled her face round. She reacted weakly, jerking away and covering her face with her hands. 'Don't!' she begged. 'Do you think I want to die? That it's nice to know I'm doing what you want? To end existence just like you ended the existence of the other computer?'

  The words hurt him badly. 'It's not what I want,' he said, trying to keep his voice under control. 'I'm frightened for you. And sorry for what I've done. I want to get you away from here, and all it means.'

  'Away?' she repeated, wonderingly. 'But why? I've done what Dawnay asked; she has her data. And I've done what you asked; I've changed the computer's decision circuits...'