Fred Hoyle: A for Andromeda

Dennis Bridger set off towards the car park, his legs shaking.

News of the message came out through one of the wire agencies in time for the evening papers. By the time General Vandenberg called on the Minister of Science to protest, a government statement was being broadcast on television. The Minister was out. Osborne stood with Vandenberg in his senior’s office watching the newsreader mouthing earnestly out of the screen in the corner of the room.

The government of the time was a well-sounding but purposeless coalition of talents, nicknamed the Meritocrats, a closing of ranks in time of crisis. They were able men and women with no common principle except survival. The Prime Minister was a liberal Tory, the Minister of Labour a renegade trade-unionist; key posts were held by active and ambitious younger men like the Minister of Defence, others by less capable but publicly impressive figures with a good turn of phrase, such as the Minister of Science. Party differences had been not so much sunk as mislaid: possibly it was the end of party government in this country. Nobody cared much, the whole nation was apparently sunk in hopeless apathy in the face of a world that had got beyond its control. Some remaining left-wing anti-Establishment movements caused Vichy to be chalked up occasionally on Whitehall walls, but that was the only visible sign of spirit. People went quietly about their lives and an odd silence fell over public affairs. Someone said it was so quiet you could hear a bomb drop.

Into this vacuum fell the news of a message from space. The newspapers inevitably got it hopelessly wrong. SPACE-MEN SCARE: IS THIS AN ATTACK? they asked. The young man on the screen earnestly read out the official statement:

“The government this evening forcibly denied rumours of a possible invasion from space. A Ministry of Science spokesman told reporters that, while it was true that what appeared to be a message had been picked up by the new giant radio-telescope at Bouldershaw Fell, there was no reason to believe that it originated from either a space-ship or a nearby planet. If indeed the signal received was a message, it came from a very distant source.”

There was no satisfactory explanation for the leak. Reinhart knew nothing about it and the Ministry of Defence’s security man on the spot—Harries—was unaccountably missing. The military, however, were after heads. Vandenberg produced two dossiers which he opened on the Minister’s table.

“’Fleming, Dr. John - 1960 onwards: anti-N.A.T.O., pro-African, Aldermaston marcher, civil disobedience, nuclear disarmament.’ Do you call that reliable?”

“He’s a scientist, not a candidate for a police commission.”

“He’s supposed to be responsible. Look at the other.” The General riffled through the other folder, not without relish. “Bridger—Communist Party 1958 to ’63. Then he swung right round and started doing jobs for one of the international cartels. But one of the dirtiest: Intel. You could lose him anyway.”

“Fleming won’t work without him.”

“That figures.” The General gathered up the files. “I’d say we’re vulnerable in that area.”

“All right,” said Osborne wearily, and picked up the Minister’s phone. He spoke into it gently, as if ordering flowers. “Bouldershaw Fell.”

In the control room the message was coming through again. Harvey was out in the recording bay, looking after the tapes, and Fleming was alone at the control desk. They were shorthanded: Whelan had suddenly been posted away and even Harries was absent. Bridger hovered about in corners looking petulant and uneasy and twitching a good deal. Finally he faced up to the other man.

“Look, John, this could go on for ever.”

“Maybe.”

The sound from the stars went on over the loudspeaker.

“I’m going to bale out.” Fleming looked up at him. “The design’s finished. There’s nothing more for me to do here.”

“There’s everything for you to do!”

“I’d rather move on.”

“How about that?”

They listened for a moment to the speaker. Bridger’s nose twitched.

“Could be anything,” he said off-handedly.

“But I’ve an idea what.”

“What?”

“It could be a set of instructions.”

“All right, you work on it.”

“We’ll work on it together.”

At that moment Judy broke in on them. She marched across from the door, her high heels clicking on the flooring like a guardsman’s, her face set and furious. She could hardly wait to get to them before she spoke.

“Which of you told the press?”

Fleming stared at her in amazement. She turned to Bridger.

“Someone has leaked the information— all the information—to the press.”

Fleming clicked his tongue deprecatingly.

Judy gave him a blazing look and turned back to Bridger.

“It wasn’t Professor Reinhart and it wasn’t me. It wasn’t Harvey or the other boys—they don’t know enough. So it must be one of you.”

“Q.E.D.” said Fleming. She ignored him.

“How much did they pay you, Dr. Bridger?”

“I—”

Bridger stopped.

Fleming got up and barged his way between them. “Is it your business?” he asked her.

“Yes. I—”

“Well, what are you?” He pushed his face close up to her and she realised that his breath smelt of drink again.

“I—” she faltered, “I’m the press officer. I’m carrying the can. I’ve just had the biggest rocket of all time.”

“I’m very sorry,” said Bridger.

“Is that all you can say?” Her voice rose unsteadily.

“Do yourself a favour, will you?” Fleming stood with his legs apart, swaying, and grinning contemptuously down on her. “Take your talons out of my friend Dennis.”

“Why?”

“Because I told them.”

“You!” She stepped back as if she had been slapped in the face. “Were you drunk?”

“Yes,” said Fleming and turned his back on her. He walked to the door of the recording room and then looked round. “It wouldn’t have made any difference if I’d been sober.”

As he went out of the door he called back at her: “And they didn’t pay me!”

Judy stood for a moment without hearing or seeing. The loudspeaker hissed and crackled, fluorescent lighting shone down on the sparse angular furniture. Outside the window, the arch of the telescope reared up into a darkening sky: only three evenings ago she had come to it, uninitiated and uninvolved... She became aware of Bridger standing beside her, offering her a cigarette.

“Lost an idol, Miss Adamson?”

Judy, as press officer, had to report to Osborne, and Osborne reported to his Minister. Nothing was heard of Harries, and his disappearance was not announced. The press were persuaded that the whole thing was either a mistake or a hoax. After a series of painful meetings between ministers, the Ministry of Defence were able to assure General Vandenberg and his masters that nothing of the kind would occur again: they would take full responsibility. The search for Harries was intensified, and Fleming was summoned to London.

At first it seemed possible that Fleming was shielding Bridger, but it was soon established that he had in fact told the whole story over drinks in the Lion to an agency reporter called Jenkins. Although Bridger tendered his resignation, he had three months’ notice to work out and he was left in charge of Bouldershaw Fell while Fleming was absent. The message continued to come in, and was printed out in a code of 0 and 1.

Fleming himself seemed quite unmoved by the commotion around him. He took all the printed sheets with him in the train to London and studied them hour after hour, making notes and calculations in the margin and on odd letters and envelopes that he found in his pockets. He appeared to be hardly aware of anything else. He dressed and ate absent-mindedly, he drank little; he burned with intense preoccupation and excitement. He ignored Judy, and hardly looked at the newspapers.