Fred Hoyle - A for Andromeda

“It’s no good fiddling around until they’ve made up their minds,” he told her and dragged her off to help him enjoy himself. Not that he made passes at her. He simply enjoyed having her around and was affectionate and surprisingly pleasant company. The mainspring of his discontent, she discovered, was irreverence of pomposity and humbug. When they got in the way of his job he was sour and sometimes violent, but when he put work behind him they became merely targets for his particular brand of bitten-off salted humour.

“Britain is sinking slowly in the west,” he remarked once, when she asked him about the general state of things, and dismissed it with a grin. When she tried to apologise for her outburst at Bouldershaw Fell, he simply smacked her across the bottom.

“Forgive and forget, that’s me,” he said, and bought her a drink. She endured a good deal for his pleasure: he loved modern music, which she did not understand; he loved driving fast, which frightened her; and he loved looking at Westerns, which frightened her even more. He was deeply tired and restless. They rushed from cinema to concert, from concert to a long drive, from a long drive to a long drink, and by the end of it he was worn out. At least he seemed happy, although she was not. She felt she was sailing under false colours.

They only went occasionally to the little office in the Institute, and when they were there Fleming flirted with Christine. Not that Judy could blame him. He took no notice of her in any other way, and she was astonishingly pretty. She was, as she confided to Bridger, “In love with his brain,” but she seemed not particularly to relish being hugged and pinched. She went on stolidly with her work. She did enquire, however, about Thorness.

“Have you ever been there, Dr. Fleming?”

“Once.”

“What’s it like?”

“Remote and beautiful, like you. Also high-powered, soulless, clueless—not like you.”

It was assumed that, if Fleming were allowed to go there, she would go too. Watling had looked over her antecedents and found them impeccable. Father and mother Flemstad had fled from Lithuania when the Russian armies rolled over it towards the end of the Hitler war, and Christine had been born and brought up in England. Her parents had become naturalised British citizens before they died and she had been subjected to every possible check.

Dennis Bridger’s activities seemed a good deal more interesting. As the date of his departure drew near, he received an increasing number of unexplained long-distance telephone calls which appeared to worry him a good deal, although he never talked about them. One morning, alone in the office with Judy, he seemed more harassed than usual. When the telephone rang he seized it practically out of her hand. It was obviously a summons; he made some sort of excuse and left the office. Judy watched him from the window as he walked across the precinct to the roadway where a very large, very expensive car was waiting for him.

As he approached, the driver’s door opened and an immensely tall chauffeur stepped out wearing the sort of livery that one associated with a coupé de ville of the nineteen twenties, a pale mustard high-buttoned cross-over tunic, breeches and polished leather leggings.

“Dr. Bridger?”

He had on dark glasses and he spoke with a soft, indeterminate foreign accent. The car was shining and monstrously beautiful, like a new aircraft without wings. Twin radio masts sprung from its tail fins to above the height of a man—even that man. The whole outfit was quite absurdly larger than life.

The chauffeur held open the door to the back of the car while Bridger got in. There was an immensely wide seat, a deeply carpeted floor, blue-glazed windows and, on the far side of the seat, a short stocky man with a completely bald head.

The short man extended a hand with a ring on it.

“I am Kaufmann.”

The chauffeur returned to his place in front of the glass partition and they moved off.

“You do not mind if we drive around?” There was no mistaking Kaufmann’s accent: he was German, prosperous and tough. “There is so much tittle-tattle if one is seen in places.”

There was a small buzz by his ear. He picked up an ivory telephone receiver that lay across a rack in front of him. Bridger could see the chauffeur speaking into a microphone by the steering-wheel.

“Ja.” Kaufmann listened for a moment and then turned and looked out of the rear window. “Ja, Egon, I see. Go in a circle, then, yes? Und Stuttgart... the call for Stuttgart.”

He replaced the phone and turned to Bridger.

“My chauffeur says we are being followed by a taxi.” Bridger looked round nervously. Kaufmann laughed, or at least he showed his teeth. “Not to worry. There are always taxis in London. He will see we go nowhere. What is important is I have my call to Stuttgart.” He produced a silver case containing miniature cigars. “Smoking?”

“No thank you.”

“You send me a telex message to Geneva.” Kaufmann helped himself to a cigarillo. “Some months ago.”

“Yes.”

“Since then, we do not hear from you.”

“I changed my mind.” Bridger twitched anxiously.

“And now, perhaps, comes the time to change it back. We have been very puzzled, you know, these past few months.” He was serious but agreeable and relaxed. Bridger looked guiltily out of the back window again.

“Do not worry, I tell you. It is looked after.” He held a jewelled silver lighter to the end of his cigarillo and inhaled. “There really was a message?”

“Yes.”

“From a planet?”

“A very distant planet.”

“Somewhere in Andromeda?”

“That’s right.”

“Well, that is a comfortable way away.”

“What is this—?” Bridger twitched his nose as the cigar smoke drifted up it.

“What is this about? I come to that. In America—I was in America at the time—there was great excitement. Everyone was very alarmed. And in Europe—everywhere. Then your government say: ‘Nothing. It is nothing. We will tell you later.’ And so on. And people forget; months go by and gradually people forget. There are other things to worry about. But there is something?”

“Not officially.”

“No, no—officially there is nothing. We have tried, but everywhere is a blank wall. Everybody’s lips are sealed.”

“Including mine.”

They were by now half-way round Regent’s Park. Bridger looked at his watch.

“I have to get back this afternoon.”

“You are working for the British Government?” Kaufmann made it sound like a piece of polite conversation.

“I’m part of their team,” said Bridger.

“Working on the message?”

“Why should that interest you?”

“Anything of importance interests us. And this may be of great importance.”

“It might. It might not.”

“But you are going on with the work? Please, do not look so secretive. I am not trying to pump you.”

“I’m not going on with it.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t want to stay for ever in government service.”

They drove past the zoo and down towards Portland Place. Kaufmann puffed contentedly at his cigar while Bridger waited. As they turned west into Marylebone Kaufmann said:

“You would like something more lucrative? With us?”

“I did think so,” Bridger said, blinking at his feet.

“Until your little fracas in Bouldershaw?”

“You knew about that?” Bridger looked at him sharply. “At Oldroyd’s?”

“Naturally I knew.”

He was very affable, almost sweet. Bridger studied his shoes again.

“I didn’t want any trouble.”

“You should not be so easy put off,” said Kaufmann. “At the same time, you must not lead people towards us. We may be busy with something else.”