Fred Hoyle - A for Andromeda

Judy led Reinhart and Osborne into the room. They were all heavily muffled in winter clothes, and Osborne carried a sizeable suitcase.

“It’s blowing up for a blizzard, I think,” he said, putting the case down. He looked unhappy and thoroughly out of his element. “Can we talk in here?”

“It’s all ours,” Judy said. “I fixed the man.”

“And the duty operator?” asked Reinhart.

“I fixed him too. He knows what to do and he’ll keep his mouth shut for us.”

Reinhart turned to Fleming. “How is Madeleine Dawnay?”

“She’ll pull through. So will the boy. The enzyme works all right.”

“Well, thank God for that.” Reinhart unbuttoned his coat. He looked no worse for his journey; in fact, the activity seemed to have refreshed him.

Osborne appeared to be the most dispirited of them. “What do you want to do with the computer?” he asked Fleming.

“Try to uncork it, or else—”

“Or else what?”

“That’s what we want to find out. It’s either deliberately malevolent, or it’s snarled up. Either it was programmed to work the way it does, or something’s gone wrong with it. I think the first; I always have done.”

“You’ve never been able to prove it.”

“What about Dawnay?”

“We need something more tangible than that.”

“Osborne will go to the Minister,” put in Reinhart. “He’ll go to the Prime Minister if necessary. Won’t you?”

“If I have evidence,” said Osborne.

“I’ll give you evidence! It had another go at killing me last night.”

“How?”

Fleming told them. “In the end I forced the truth out of her. You ought to try it sometime—you’d believe it then.”

“We need something more scientific.”

“Then give me a few hours with it.” He looked at Judy. “Have you brought me a pass?”

Judy produced three passes from her handbag and handed one to each of them. Fleming read the one she had given him, and grinned. “So I’m an official of the Ministry? That’ll be the day.”

“I’ve forsworn my good name for that,” said Osborne unhappily. “It’s only for an examination. No direct action.”

Fleming stopped grinning. “You want to tie both my hands behind my back?”

“You realise the risk I’m running?” Osborne said.

“Risk! You should have been in my hut last night.”

“I wish I had been, then I might be more certain where I stood. This country, young man, depends on that machine—”

“Which I made.”

“It means more to us, potentially, than the steam engine, or atomic power, or anything.”

“Then it’s all the more important—” Fleming began.

“I know! Don’t preach at me. Do you think I’d be here at all if I didn’t believe it was important and if I didn’t value your opinion very highly? But there are ways and ways.”

“You know of a better way?”

“Of checking—no. But that’s as far as it must go. A man in my position—”

“What is your position?” asked Fleming. “The noblest Roman of them all?”

Osborne sighed. “You have your pass.”

“You’ve got what you asked for, John,” said Reinhart.

Fleming picked up the suitcase and put it on the table. He opened it and, taking out a dark smooth-cloth overcoat, a black homberg and a briefcase, dressed himself for the part. They were all right for a dark night, but they hardly went with his face.

“You look more like a scarecrow than a civil servant,” said Reinhart, smiling.

Judy tried not to giggle. “They won’t examine you too closely if you’re with me.”

“You realise you’ll be shot for this?” said Fleming affectionately.

“Not unless we’re found out.”

Osborne did not enjoy the pleasantries; if they were hiding strain in the others, he did not realise it, he had more than enough strain himself.

“Let’s get it over, shall we?” He pushed back the cuff of his overcoat to look at his watch.

“We have to wait till it’s dark and the day shift have gone off,” said Judy.

Fleming burrowed under his coat and brought out the flask. “How about one for the raid?”

It was snowing hard by the time they reached the camp, not a soft fall, but a fury of stinging, frozen particles thrown by a wind from the north. The two sentries outside the computer block had turned up the collars of their greatcoats, although they stood in a little haven of shelter under the porch of the doorway. They peered out, through the white that turned into blackness, at the four approaching figures.

Judy went forward and presented the passes, while the three men hung back.

“Good evening. This is the Ministry party.”

“M’am.” One of the sentries, with a lance-corporal’s stripe on his greatcoat sleeve, saluted and examined the passes.

“Okeydoke,” he said, and handed them back.

“Anyone inside?” Judy asked him.

“Only the duty operator.”

“We shall only be a few minutes,” Reinhart said, coming forward.

The sentries opened the door and stood aside while Judy went in, followed by Reinhart and Osborne with Fleming between them.

“What about the girl?” asked Reinhart, when they were well down the corridor.

“She’s not due in to-night,” said Judy. “We took care of that.”

It was a long corridor, with two right-angle corners in it, and the doors to the computer-room were at the end, well out of sight and sound of the main entrance. When Judy opened one of the doors and led them in, they found the control-room full of light, but empty except for a young man who sat reading at the desk. He stood up as they came in.

“Hallo,” he said to Judy. “It went all right?”

It was the very young assistant. He seemed to be enjoying the situation.

“You’d better have your passes.” Judy returned Reinhart’s and Osborne’s to them, and handed Fleming’s to the operator. Fleming took off his homberg and stuck it on the boy’s head.

“What the top people are wearing.”

“You needn’t make a pantomime of it,” said Osborne, and kept an uneasy eye on the door while the operator was rigged out with Fleming’s overcoat and brief case. Even with the collar turned up he was clearly different from the man who came in, but, as Judy said, it was not a night for seeing clearly, and with her to reassure them the sentries would probably do no more than count heads.

As soon as the boy was ready, Osborne opened the door.

“We depend on you to do the right thing,” he said to Fleming. “You have a test check?”

Fleming pulled a familiar pad from his pocket and waited for them all to go.

“I’ll be back,” said Judy. “As soon as I’ve seen them past the sentries.”

Fleming seemed surprised. “You won’t, you know.”

“I’m sorry,” Osborne told him. “It’s one of the conditions.”

“I don’t want anyone—”

“Don’t be a fool, John,” said Reinhart, and they left him.

He went over to the control unit and glared at it, half laughing at himself out of sheer strain, then got down to work at the input unit, tapping in figures from the pad he had brought with him. He had nearly finished it when Judy came back.

“What are you doing?” she asked. She was strung too, in spite of the relief of having got the decoy past the sentries.

“Trying to cook it.” He tapped out the last group. “Same old naming-tag lark’ll do for a start.”

It took the computer a few moments to react, then the display lamps started flashing violently. They waited, listening for the clatter of the printer, but what they heard was footsteps approaching down the corridor. Judy stood rooted and paralysed until Fleming took her arm and pulled her into the darkness of the lab bay from where they could see through the half-open doorway without being seen. The footsteps came to a stop beyond the far entrance of the control-room. They could see the handle of one of the double doors turn, then the door opened and Andre stepped in from the corridor.