Andromeda Breakthrough Page 7

  CHAPTER FOUR

  SQUALL LINES

  The attendants in the Palais des Nations at Geneva told one another that there had not been such a smoothly running international conference for years. Russians nodded cheerfully as their interpreters repeated the heart-felt views of an American delegate. Even the French were inviting ideas for co-operative effort. In fact, the whole thing was almost boring.

  The reason was that the subject under discussion was the weather. Everyone could agree that it was undeniably bad.

  As gales blew indiscriminately over East and West, and abnormally heavy rainfall was prevalent throughout the Northern hemisphere, no sensitive nationalist could find an excuse for blaming his neighbour.

  A few nations, imaginative enough to realise that weather control was within the realms of possibility, had sent scientists as well as meteorologists to Geneva in the hopes of getting some agreement about methods and policy before haphazard experiments began. Britain was among them. That was why the Ministry of Science had despatched Osborne as an ex officio delegate.

  Osborne had gone, disturbed, in mind. Despite interdepartmental briefs which had been circulated to draw attention to climatic phenomena for which there was no precedent, this weather conference seemed really of just academic interest - one of those United Nations' activities which kept a lot of people happy and did no one any harm. Osborne wondered whether the trip had been arranged as a preliminary to a transfer to some innocuous department like Met.

  as the result of the suspicions of his complicity in the Thorness business.

  The minister had been remarkably considerate about the whole thing. Security officers were still interviewing personnel, and Osborne's assistant had become very nervous and timid. Osborne had brightly insisted that if they both stuck to the story that the assistant had accompanied him to Thorness on that momentous night all would be well. It was perfectly normal for a senior official to go around with his P.A. Rather unwillingly the assistant agreed to stick to his story. Osborne suspected that real pressure by the sleuths, or the simpler method of putting the young man on oath, would exact the truth. It was another reason why he would have preferred to remain in Whitehall to watch for a weakening of his assistant's resolution and to give moral support.

  Once in Geneva, he decided to make the best of it. Whatever foulness the winter was producing elsewhere, in the Alps it just meant more than the usual amount of snow. Heavy night falls were followed by brilliant sunshine with clockwork regularity. The lake lay ice-blue in the brightness; the famous fountain spurted high in the sky, its spray in rainbow colours. The clean, snow-cleared streets were alive with delegates and their relatives enjoying themselves between sessions.

  When he looked through the tall windows of the rooftop cafe at this pleasant scene he thoroughly regretted the time spent in the close and over-heated conference room. But Professor Neilson's paper had not been without interest.

  These Americans certainly got down to bedrock when there was a problem to be solved.

  Osborne had left before the discussion began - with its inevitable pointless questions which were really statements. He was lazily watching his cafe filtre drip into the glass when a woman approached his table. She was not young, but looked intelligent and pleasant.

  'Mr Osborne?' Her accent was American.

  Osborne stood up. 'Yes,' he answered. 'I don't think I know - '

  She smiled. 'I'm Professor Neilson's wife.' They shook hands and Osborne pulled out the adjoining chair. She sat down.

  I'm afraid you've missed your husband's paper,' he began.

  'He's just finished reading it. Everyone was most impressed.

  He'll be out soon; the discussion should be almost over.'

  She did not seem to be heeding what he said. 'Mr.Osborne,' she said quietly, 'I think my husband would like to talk to you. Not about the conference.' She glanced towards the door where a crowd of delegates were moving around the foyer. 'If you could possibly wait till he comes. I'd rather let him tell you what it's about.'

  'Of course,' Osborne said. 'Meantime, may I order you something?'

  She nodded. 'Some coffee, please.'

  When Neilson arrived he looked round carefully, then sat down and addressed himself without any preamble to Osborne.

  'I suppose my wife has left it to me to tell you. I badly want to talk. I'll come to the point. How much do you know about an outfit called Intel?'

  Osborne took time to decide on his answer. 'They're a big international trading consortium. Very big.'

  'Sure,' agreed Neilson, 'they're big. The thing is: are they reputable ?'

  'I don't really know,' Osborne said cautiously.

  'Mr Osborne,' said Mrs Neilson. 'This morning we had a cable from our son. We haven't seen him for two years. All the cable said was "Will meet you at the cafe Nicole in Geneva one evening this week, Intel permitting." It's the first clue that he was even alive we've gotten since the Christmas before last.'

  'But you knew more or less where he was and what he was doing?' Osborne suggested.

  Neilson gave a short laugh. 'He went after a job in Vienna two years back. A postcard said he was okay and not to worry. That's all.'

  'What sort of job?' Osborne asked.

  'Well, I guess that as he graduated from the Massachusetts Institute with a Ph.D. in electronics, it'd be a job in that line.'

  'I believe Intel have an office here, or certainly in Zurich.

  Have you enquired?'

  'Of course,' Mrs Neilson replied. 'They said they knew nothing about the staffs at the firm's offices outside Switzerland. That's why I persuaded my husband to ask you for information.'

  'But why?' Osborne demanded.

  'Because you're a friend of a friend of my son's,' Neilson said. 'John Fleming. Jan brought him home a couple of times when Fleming came to the Institute on an exchange setup with the Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge. They were great buddies. And, of course, we know Fleming became a key man in your Ministry's programme.'

  'I don't think there's anything I can do to help you,' said Osborne woodenly. 'We've lost touch with Professor Fleming .... ' He paused, embarrassed, and then went on hurriedly, 'but I'm not returning to London till the day after tomorrow. Perhaps I could meet your son? If he says in his cable that he's coming this week it must mean either this evening or tomorrow.'

  The Neilsons were grateful. They invited him to have dinner with them at the cafe that evening, and, if Jan didn't turn up then, the following evening as well.

  That evening Mrs Neilson insisted on going to the cafe by seven. 'I'll sit in the front part,' she told her husband; 'then he'll be sure to see me. We can go into the dining room later.'

  She ordered a kirsch and was taking the first sip when he materialised out of the dusk and sat down beside her without speaking; a pale, serious young man, very much on edge. She was shocked by the way he had aged and got so lean; and by how nervous he seemed. He kissed her on the cheek, but he pulled his hand away when she tried to clasp it.

  'Please don't make us conspicuous, Mom,' he muttered.

  'I'm sorry if that hurts you. But - well, you see, I've good reasons,' He stubbed out a half-smoked cigarette.

  'Surely, son,' his mother said, trying to smile. 'I understand.

  But at least you're here. I can look at you. It's been so long.'

  The love in her eyes hurt him. 'Mom,' he began, hunching towards her across the table. 'I've got to talk, and I may not have much time. You see, I'm on the run. No,' he tried to smile, 'I'm not a criminal. The shoe's on the other foot. The crooks are after me.'

  He paused when a waiter came for his order. He sent the man away for a large Scotch, and then started to talk, hurriedly and a little incoherently, as if time was running out.

  Soon Neilson arrived with Osborne. The two men had met just outside the cafe Neilson greeted his son with delight, thumping him on the back and grinning happily. 'We'll celebrate this with the biggest steak the Swiss can think up.
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  And champagne.' He remembered Osborne was standing quietly beside them.

  'My apologies, Osborne,' he said. 'I'd like you to meet my son . . . Jan, Mr Osborne is a friend of Professor Fleming.'

  Osborne had just extended his hand when a youth with a flashgun and a cumbersome plate camera came up.

  'Professor Neilson,' he shouted at them. 'Un moment, si'l vous plait. A picture, please. For the American press.'

  He bustled around, pushing all four into position he wanted for the photograph. Jan he had standing between his seated mother and father, Osborne well to one side. Satisfied, he backed towards the cafe entrance, peering into the range-finder.

  'Bon!' he exclaimed. The flash momentarily blinded everyone with its burst of white light.

  Simultaneously Jan fell sideways against his father, moaning.

  The photographer disappeared into the street, and a gentleman who had been reading a newspaper at a table beside the door put on his hat, slid something black and shiny into the breast pocket of his overcoat and walked quite unhurriedly after the photographer.

  The Neilson's were bent over their son, but Osborne had seen the careful and methodical movements of the man near the door. He had seen what that black thing shoved inside the coat was, noticing the squat round cylinder of a silencer on the muzzle of the gun. He loped through the door - in time to see a Citroen, its number plate covered in frozen slush, pick up photographer and gunman and cruise away along the lakeside road which led to Vevey and the frontier.

  He returned to the Neilsons. 'It's no good,' he said gently.

  'They got away.'

  The Neilsons took no notice. They were isolated by their grief as they awkwardly nursed the body of their dead son, one on each side.

  Mrs Neilson looked helplessly at her husband. 'He - he told me he feared this,' she moaned. 'They've been hunting him for months. They kept him prisoner before that, but he escaped. They made him work.'

  'Who did?' her husband exclaimed. 'Where could he have been imprisoned?'

  She began caressing Jan's hair, touching his eyelids. 'He said it was in a country called Azaran.'

  In a discreet house on the outskirts of Berne, Kaufman was compiling the details of the report he had to send his employers.

  The gunman stood at the side of the bureau desk, eyeing the bundle of American dollars which he had earned.

  'So the pictureman was late,' Kaufman said; 'he will be reprimanded in due course. But you are sure you killed the Neilson boy before he could talk?'

  'He wouldn't talk much after he was hit,' the gunman laughed. 'But he talked plenty before. To his mother. And she can talk to her husband - and to some Englishman the old man brought with him. He was introduced to the boy as Osborne.'

  Kaufman sighed. 'Osborne. It would have to be. All this killing. I dislike it. One death - and you have to organise another. So it goes on.'

  He pushed the money to the corner of the desk. The gunman stuck it inside his coat, a cushion for the revolver which lay there.

  'Get out of the country right away,' Kaufman told him.

  'As for me, I shall have to return to England.'

  Andre and Fleming were flown to the R.A.F. station at Northolt to avoid ,publicity problems at London Airport. A Government car awaited them on the apron and they were driven straight to the Ministry of Science.

  The Minister had decided to handle the interview personally, with Geers sitting in to brief on the technical side.

  He had a foreboding about questions in the House some time or other about this business if the secret leaked, and he had no intention of having to admit inefficiency. He was also a just man, which was why he had called a solicitor from the Attorney General's office to sit in and watch over the normal rights of a British citizen. His worried mind found a touch of humour there. Was the girl a British citizen? She had no birth certificate; no parents. So far as Somerset House was concerned she did not exist. It was an interesting point if this affair ever came to a legal trial. He fervently hoped it wouldn't.

  The Minister greeted his visitors coldly. But he went out of his way to stress that this was in no sense a trial; it was an informal enquiry.

  Fleming, untidy and doing his best to disguise the strain he felt, laughed sardonically. 'Very informal,' he said. 'I noticed the informally dressed plain clothes nark hanging around the door just in case I might make a run for it. Ah, and my dear Geers is here as well.'

  The Minister ignored him and turned to Andre. 'Sit down, my dear,' he said gently. 'You must be very tired. But this is unfortunately necessary.'

  He sat at his desk and re-read the brief report of the preliminary questioning Quadring had sent by teletype.

  I'm informed that you are suffering from amnesia,' he began, and motioned to Geers.

  Geers rose from his chair to the Minister's right and confronted the girl. 'Andromeda,' he said harshly. 'Surely you haven't forgotten the factors involved in the synthesis of living tissue? Do you really mean to tell us you know nothing about the fact that one of the formulae obtained from the computer on which you worked enable Professor Dawnay to construct living matter in the laboratory? And that the outcome of that work was you yourself?'

  Andre looked back at him, wide-eyed but quite calm, with the placidity of a child. She slowly shook her head.

  Geer's face flushed with frustration and anger. 'You're not going to insist that you can't remember your work with the computer?'

  The solicitor coughed discreetly. 'I think that is enough, Dr Geers,' he said mildly. To Andre he murmured, 'Don't worry to answer all these questions just now.'

  'I agree,' said the Minister, glaring at Geers. 'The girl's unfit and distraught. Perhaps we can have her history properly explained to her in a calmer atmosphere.'

  Fleming strode forward to the desk. 'That's the last thing!'

  he shouted.

  The Minister looked at him coldly. 'I beg your pardon.'

  Hurriedly the solicitor interposed. 'I think that my professional advice would be that this lady must testify once she is medically fit and has been properly informed of the past.

  Her evidence would, of course, have to be before a properly constituted Board of Enquiry.'

  'I could brief her,' Geers said eagerly.

  The Minister looked at him with hardly concealed distaste.

  'I would have preferred Osborne if circumstances had been different. In any case, he cannot be brought back from Geneva until tomorrow.' He smiled at Andre. 'Perhaps you'll wait in the ante-room while we talk to Dr Fleming?'

  Fleming crossed to the door and opened it. He smiled reassuringly at her as she went out.

  'Now, Dr Fleming, why did you abduct this woman?' The Minister's gentle tone had changed.

  'That's beside the point,' Fleming retorted truculently.

  'Then what is the point?'

  'That the message from the Andromeda nebulae, and all that derived from it, was evil.' Deliberately he forced himself to speak calmly and quietly. 'It was sent by a superior intelligence that would subjugate us, and would have, if necessary, destroyed us.'

  'And because you thought that, you destroyed the computer.'

  The Minister's tone was grim, though the inflexion suggested he was posing a question rather than making a statement. 'Yet you seem to be ready to do anything to protect the girl who worked it. Your contention surely involves her in your condemnation.'

  'The girl is nothing without the computer. The will, the memory, the knowledge - they were all in the machine. You can see there's something lacking in her now that the computer no longer exists - thank God. Something missing in her character. Ask Geers; he knows what she was like... '

  The Minister ignored the invitation. He had no intention of getting involved in by-ways of ethics when he believed the issue was far simpler.

  'I put it to you, Dr Fleming, that you destroyed the computer and you abducted the girl because she might have told us what happened.'

  'I took her becau
se she needed to be protected from the people around her.' Fleming looked at Geers.

  The Minister picked up a sheet of paper tucked into the bulky file before him. 'Perhaps you'd care to comment on the fact that Mr Osborne's assistant, the man supposed to have accompanied him to Thorness on the night of the fire, admitted when questioned late this afternoon that he did not go there.'

  'You'll have to ask Osborne who he did take, won't you?'

  said Fleming.

  'We shall,' the Minister glowered. 'In the meantime, Dr Fleming, you must consider yourself under surveillance. To avoid the necessity of formal arrest and indictment at Bow Street, with all the unpleasant sensationalism affecting both ourselves and you and the girl, I hope you will cooperate sensibly. I cannot force you to be our guest without a charge.

  But we can arrange very pleasant accommodation.'

  'So Magna Carta still operates?' said Fleming sarcastically.

  'If I insist on being arrested, on what grounds could you cook up a charge?'

  'Defence Regulations,' murmured the solicitor. 'The relevant Acts would be - '

  'Spare me the details,' Fleming interrupted. 'I'll come quietly. And where is this - er - hotel for unwelcome guests of the Government?'

  'Not too far away,' said the Minister vaguely. 'It will do you good, or at least the girl will benefit. A glimpse of more spacious days of the kind one pays 2s. 6d. on Sundays to inspect. I'm afraid I can't be more specific than that. The army's been using part of it ever since 1942. It would be best, I think, if you went there right away and both got a good night's rest. You may see things more dearly, even sensibly, in the morning.'

  The car journey took a couple of hours. Even Fleming could find no fault with the accommodation or service.

  Someone used to this sort of thing had arranged for every comfort - drinks, clean clothes, books, baths, everything.

  Andre was as lavishly provided. Fleming was, however, not over-enamoured with the solid-looking maidservants who hovered around. Their white overalls did not disguise their regulation hair styles and their khaki nylon stockings and sturdy black shoes. Fleming had never approved of women in the armed services.