Fred Hoyle - A for Andromeda

“Dawnay could stay.”

“In a consultative role,” Burdett added swiftly.

“And Dr. Fleming?” asked Ratcliff.

The Prime Minister turned again to Burdett. “Fleming would be useful, wouldn’t he?”

Burdett frowned. “We shall need complete control and very tight security.”

Ratcliff tried his last card. “Do you think she’s up to it, this girl?”

“I propose to ask her,” said the Prime Minister. He pressed a small bell-push on the table and a young gentleman appeared almost immediately in the doorway. “Ask Dr. Geers to bring his lady-friend in, will you?”

“You’ve got her here?” Ratcliff looked accusingly at Osborne as though it was his fault.

“Yes, dear boy.” The Prime Minister also looked at Osborne, inquiringly. “Is she, er—?”

“She looks quite normal.”

The Prime Minister gave a small sigh of relief and rose as the door reopened to admit Geers and Andromeda. “Come in, Dr. Geers. Come along in, my dear.”

Andromeda was given the chair facing him. She sat quietly with her head slightly bowed, her hands folded in her lap, like a typist coming for an interview.

“You must find this all rather strange,” said the Prime Minister soothingly.

She answered in slow, correct sentences. “Dr. Geers has explained it to me.”

“Did he explain why we brought you here?”

“No.”

“Burdett?” The Prime Minister handed over the questioning. Ratcliff looked on grumpily while Burdett sat forward on the edge of his chair, rested his elbows on the table, placed his fingers together and looked keenly at Andromeda over them.

“This country—you know about this country?”

“Yes.”

“This country is being threatened by orbital missiles.”

“We know about orbital missiles.”

“We?” Burdett looked at her even more sharply.

She remained as she was, her face empty of expression. “The computer and myself.”

“How does the computer know?”

“We share our information.”

“That is what we hoped,” said the Prime Minister.

Burdett continued. “We have interception missiles—rockets of various kinds—but nothing of the combined speed, range and accuracy to, er...” He searched around for the right piece of jargon.

“To hit them?” she asked simply.

“Exactly. We can give you full details of speed, height and course; in fact, we can give you a great deal of data, but we need it translated into practical mechanical terms.”

“Is that difficult?”

“For us, yes. What we’re after is a highly sophisticated interception weapon that can do its own instantaneous thinking.”

“I understand.”

“We should like you to work on this with us,” the Prime Minister said gently, as if asking a favour of a child. “Dr. Geers will tell you what is needed, and he will give you all facilities for actually designing weapons.”

“And Dr. Fleming,” added Ratcliff, “can help you with the computer.”

Andromeda looked up for the first time.

“We shall not need Dr. Fleming,” she said, and something about her calm, measured voice ran like a cold shadow across the sunlight.

After her return from London, Andromeda spent most of her time in the design office, a block or two away from the computer building, preparing data for the machine and sending it over for computation. Sometimes she came to communicate directly with it, with the result that long and complex calculations emerged later from the printer, which she would take away to translate into design terms. The outcome was all and more than Geers could have wished. A new guidance system and new ballistic formulas sprung ready-made from the drawing-board and when tested, they proved to come up to all specifications. The machine and the girl together could get through about a year’s development theory in a day. The results were not only elegant but obviously effective. In a very short time it would clearly be possible to construct an entirely new interceptive missile.

During duty hours Andromeda had freedom of movement within the compound and, although she disappeared, under guard, into her own quarters after work, she was soon a familiar figure in the camp. Judy put it about that she was a research senior who had been seconded by the Ministry of Defence.

The following week a communiqué was issued from 10 Downing Street:

“Her Majesty’s Government has been aware for some time of the passage of an increasing number of orbital vehicles, possibly missiles, over these islands. Although the vehicles, which are of unknown but terrestrial origin, pass over at great speed and at great height, there is no immediate cause for alarm. Her Majesty’s Government points out, however, that they constitute a deliberate infringement of our national air space, and that steps are being taken to intercept and identify them.”

Fleming listened to the telecast on the portable receiver in his hut at Thorness. He was no longer responsible for the computer, and Geers had suggested that he might be happier away from it. However, he stayed on, partly out of obstinacy and partly from a sense of impending emergency, watching the progress of Andromeda and the two young operators who had been enlisted to help her with the machine. He made no approaches to her, or to Judy, who continued to hang around with a sort of aimless watchfulness, acting as a liaison between Andromeda and the front office; but after he heard the broadcast he wandered over to the computer block with the vague idea that something ought to be done.

Judy found him sitting brooding on the swivel chair by the control desk. She had not gone near him again since the last snub, but she had watched him with concern and with a feeling of latent affection that had never left her.

She went up to the control desk and stood in front of him. “Why don’t you give it up, John?”

“That would please you, wouldn’t it?”

“It wouldn’t please me, but there’s nothing you can do here, eating your heart out.”

“It’s a nice little three-handed game, isn’t it?” He looked sardonically up at her. “I watch her and you watch me.”

“You’re not doing yourself any good.”

“Jealous?” he asked.

She shook her head impatiently. “Don’t be absurd.”

“They’re all so damn sure.” He stared reflectively across to the control equipment. “There may be something I’ve missed, about this—or about her.”

Andromeda came in to the computer room while Judy and Fleming were talking. She stood by the doorway holding a wad of papers, waiting until they had finished. She was quiet enough, but there was nothing modest about her. When she spoke to Judy and the others who worked with her she had an air of unquestioned and superior authority. She made no concessions even to Geers; she was perfectly polite but treated them all as intellectual inferiors.

“I wish to speak to Dr. Geers about these, please,” she said from the doorway.

“Now?” Judy tried to match her in quiet contempt.

“Now.”

“I’ll see if he’s free,” Judy said, and went out.

Andromeda crossed slowly to the control panel, ignoring Fleming; but something prompted him to stop her.

“Happy in your work?”

She turned and looked at him, without speaking.

He stretched back in the chair, suddenly alert.

“You’re getting quite indispensable, aren’t you?” he asked in the tone he had used to Judy.

She looked at him solemnly. She might have been a statue, with her fine carved face, her long hair, and her arms hanging limply down beside her simple, pale dress. “Please be careful what you talk about,” she said.

“Is that a threat?”

“Yes.” She spoke without emphasis, as if simply stating a fact.