Fred Hoyle - A for Andromeda

“Can you spare me a minute, John?”

“I’m not here.”

“Look, John,” the Professor looked hurt. “We’re stuck.”

“Good.”

“Madeleine’s managed a D.N.A. synthesis. Cells have actually formed.”

“You must be proud of her.”

“Single cells. But they don’t live, or only a few minutes.”

“Then your luck’s in. If they did live they’d be under the control of the machine.”

“How?”

“I don’t know how. But they’d be no friends of ours.”

“A single cell can’t do much damage.” Judy had never heard Reinhart openly pleading before. “Come anyway.”

Fleming stuck his lower lip out obstinately.

“Go on, John.” Judy faced round to him. “Or are you afraid they’ll bite you?”

Fleming hunched up his shoulders and went with the Professor.

Judy walked straight into Quadring’s office and reported.

“Ah,” said Quadring. “That makes sense. Where is he now?”

They phoned the computer room, but Bridger had just left.

“Tell the F.S.P. boys to find him and tail him,” Quadring told his orderly. “But he’s not to see them.”

“Very good, sir.” The orderly swivelled his chair round to the switchboard.

“Who’s on cliff patrol?”

“B Section, sir.”

“Tell them to watch the path down to the jetty.”

“Are they to stop him?”

“No. They’re to let him go out if he wants to, and tell us.” Quadring turned to Judy. “His friend phoned him to-day. They must want something urgently to run a risk like that.”

“Why should they?”

“Maybe they’ve a deal on. We listened, of course. It was mostly pretty guarded, but they said something about the new route.”

Judy shrugged. This was beyond her. Quadring waited until the orderly had telephoned the field security corporal and gone out to deliver his message to the B Section commander. Then he led Judy over to a wall-map.

“The old route was via the island. Bridger could take stuff there and dump it without having to check out of camp. When needed it could be picked up by the yacht. One of Kaufmann’s colleagues probably has an ocean-going job that can anchor well off and send a boat in to rendezvous with Bridger.”

“The white one?”

“The one you saw.”

“Then that’s why—?” It was a long while since the shooting on the moor, but it came back clearly to her as she looked at the map.

“Kaufmann had to have someone to tip off Bridger and keep in touch with the yacht. He used his chauffeur, who used the car.”

“And shot at me?”

“It was probably he. It was a silly thing to do, but I expect he thought he could lose the body in the sea.”

Judy felt herself turn cold inside her thick sweater.

“And the new route?”

“What with the weather and us, they can’t use the yacht any more, so they can’t get to the island. Bridger still uses it as a hiding-place, as you’ve found out, but he’ll have to bring the stuff back and smuggle it out of the main gate, which is riskier.”

Judy looked out into the cold dusk that was falling on the warmth of the day. Low square roofs of research buildings jutted blackly from the darkening grass of the headland. Lights shone in a few hut windows, and above them the enormous arch of the sky began to dim and disappear. Somewhere Dawnay was working in a lighted underground room, dedicated and unaware of the consequences of what she was doing. Somewhere Fleming was arguing with Reinhart about the future. And somewhere, alone and miserable and perhaps shaking with hidden fear, Bridger was changing into oilskins, fisherman’s jersey and wading boots, to go out into the night.

“You’d better put on something thicker,” said Quadring. “I’m going too.”

It was warm in Dawnay’s laboratory. Lights and equipment had been on for weeks and were slowly beating the air-conditioning.

“It smells of biologist,” said Fleming as he and Reinhart walked in.

Dawnay was peering down the eyepiece of a microscope. She glanced up casually.

“Hallo, Dr. Fleming.” She spoke as though he had been out simply for a cup of tea. “It looks a bit like a witch’s soup-kitchen, I’m afraid.”

“Anything in the broth?” Reinhart asked.

“We’ve just been preparing a new batch. Like to stop and see?” The microscope had an electronic display tube, like a television screen. “You can watch on there if anything should happen.”

“New culture?” asked one of her assistants, fitting a needle to a hypodermic syringe.

“Take some from there, and watch the temperature of your needle.”

Dawnay explained her progress to Fleming while the assistant took a small bottle from a refrigerator.

“We do the synthesis round about freezing-point, and they come to life at normal temperature.” She seemed perfectly friendly and untouched by what Fleming thought.

The assistant pierced the rubber cap of the bottle with the hypodermic needle and drew up some fluid into the syringe.

“What form of life have they?” asked Fleming.

“They’re a very simple piece of protoplasm, with a nucleus. What do you want—feelers and heads?”

She took the syringe, squeezed a drop of fluid out on to a slide and clipped the slide on the viewing plate.

“How do they behave?”

“They move about for a bit, then they die. That’s the trouble. We probably haven’t found the right nutrients yet.”

She put her eye to the microscope and focused up. As she moved the slide under the lens they could see individual cells forming—pale discs with a darker centre—and swimming about in the screen for a few seconds. They stopped moving and were obviously dead by the time Dawnay changed to a higher magnification. She pulled the slide out.

“Let’s try the other batch.” She looked round at them with a tired smile. “This is liable to go on all night.”

Soon after midnight Bridger was seen leaving his chalet. The cliff patrol watched him go down the path to the jetty. They did not challenge him, but telephoned through to the guard-room from an old gun emplacement at the top of the path. Quadring and Judy had joined them by the time Bridger pushed out from the jetty. His outboard motor sneezed twice, then spluttered steadily away across the water. There was some moonlight, and they could see the boat moving out over the bay.

“Aren’t you going to follow him?” asked Judy.

“No. He’ll be back.” Quadring called softly to the sentries. “Stay up top and keep out of sight. It may be a long time.”

Judy looked out to sea, where the little boat was losing itself among the waves.

The moon went long before dawn, and although they were wearing greatcoats they were bitterly cold.

“Why doesn’t he come back?” she asked Quadring.

“Doesn’t want to navigate in the dark.”

“If he knows we’re here...”

“Why should he? He’s only waiting for a spot of daylight.”

At four o’clock the sentries changed. It was still dark. At five the first pearl-pale greyness began to appear in the sky. The night duty cook clanked round with containers of tea. He left one in the guardroom, another at the main gate, another at the computer building.

Dawnay pushed her glasses up on to her forehead and drank noisily.

“Why don’t you pack it in, Madeleine?” Reinhart yawned.

“I will soon.” She pushed another slide under the lens. There was a tray half-full of used slides on the table beside her, and Fleming sat perched on the corner, disapproving but intrigued.

“Wait.” She moved the slide a fraction. “There’s one!”

On the display tube a cell could be seen forming.

“He’s doing better than most,” said Reinhart.