Omega

by Stewart Farrar

  It was then he saw the marks.

  With an involuntary gasp, he pulled the bedclothes down further. From shoulders to buttocks, she was marked with blue-black stripes as though she had been thrashed with a heavy cane.

  She awoke and turned quickly to face him.

  'Who did it?' he demanded. 'Who did that to you?'

  'Oh, darling – I hoped you wouldn't see…'

  'Of course I'd see! Those bruises'll last for days. Who did it?'

  She sat up in bed and reached for her cup of tea. 'I don't know, Phil. I could make a few guesses but what's the point? It doesn't matter who the actual ones were.'

  'It damn well matters to me!'

  'I know, darling. Of course it does. But if you went to Security and complained, what would it achieve? I couldn't prove who did it and I'd only be drawing more attention to myself for nothing. Security don't like witch-lovers any better than the ones who beat me up do.'

  'Is that what they called you?'

  'That's what they called me… It was my own fault, really. I was in the Mess for morning coffee and all the wives' gang were there – about a dozen of them, gloating over the papers, talking their usual nonsense. They'd almost stopped picking on me about the witches recently but this time a couple of them kept goading me. And in the end I'm afraid I lost my temper and told them what mugs they were being, how I thought the whole campaign had been deliberately whipped up and so on. I know – it was simply asking for trouble… Anyway, I walked out and went to the shops. I was carrying a couple of full bags when I came out, otherwise they wouldn't have been able to jump me so easily… It was in that corridor by the baggage store – they must have known that was the quietest place-on my way home… Anyhow, they pounced on me out of a doorway and one of them had a gag stuffed in my mouth before I could yell out. There were four of them and they all had scarves over their faces – not that I had time to look at them properly, they shoved a bag or something over my head and dragged me inside the door… Then three of them held me while the other beat me – it felt like a whippy sort of rod or something… They kept saying "witch-lover" at me, sort of croaking as though they were disguising their voices.' Betty gave a strained little laugh. 'All rather melodramatic, really – almost silly, except that they bloody well hurt. I think I almost fainted… Then all of a sudden they dropped me on the floor and ran off… I pulled myself together and came home. I was glad, for once, you didn't come back for lunch.'

  'Christ, darling – you must know who they were! Tell me and I'll find a way, without Security…'

  'You will not, darling man. It's over – and I'll just make sure I don't go down empty corridors in future. Now – out of the way and I'll get breakfast. I'm hungry if you're not.'

  Philip was silent while she set the table and put slices in the toaster. He took a longer time than usual to shave, struggling to control his anger and think calmly. When he had finished Betty was already seated. He came and sat opposite her, taking both her hands in his.

  Involuntarily, he dropped his voice to the whisper they were accustomed to use on their pillow.

  'Betty, my love – we're getting out of here.'

  She simply said 'Yes' and the matter was settled.

  Arranging their escape was less easy than deciding upon it. Philip could get a Surface pass at any time; he had merely to claim that a ventilation intake needed inspection and his chief, the Director of Structural Services, would sign a pass for him. But a pass for Betty was another matter. Beehive personnel who had no official reason for going to Surface were not allowed to leave except in special circumstances – the dangerous illness of an immediate relative, for example – and then only with a Security escort.

  There was one possibility and it was a risky one. The first step in it, Philip achieved within two days. He applied at the appropriate office for a Surface pass for an inspection trip and while he was there noticed from which drawer the blank pass was taken and where the rubber stamp was kept. He also remarked to the clerk who dealt with him that the office air-conditioning extractor was unduly noisy, and promised to come back after his inspection trip to take a look at it. He then went to his chief for his signature on the pass and paid his visit to Surface for a quite unnecessary examination of a roof-top intake near Mornington Crescent.

  When he got back, he made his promised inspection of the office extractor, which took half an hour because he removed the grille to do it. Cleaning the grille did reduce the noise, so the clerk was quite unsuspicious – and quite unaware, too, that during one of his frequent trips into the next office, Philip had stolen and stamped three blank passes.

  So far, so good. Philip was confident he could make a satisfactory forgery of his chief's signature on each of the passes. Meanwhile, Betty was busy altering Philip's spare uniform to fit herself, and sewing 'Maintenance' shoulder-flashes to it. There were women maintenance workers; no difficulty there.

  It was the actual passing of the exit-guard that would be dangerous. Betty would be carrying equipment as Philip's assistant and her forged pass would bear a fictitious name. The exit-guard would have no reason to suspect them -unless it happened to be someone who had seen them together as man and wife. To minimize this possibility, they planned to use one of the outlying exits several kilometres from anywhere that Betty had visited. Philip did a reconnaissance, and found an empty room half a kilometre from the exit. There Betty could change, having brought her uniform bundled up in a shopping bag.

  If the guard did suspect, he might ask for Betty's identity card; then, of course, they would be in trouble because Philip had found no way of obtaining a blank identity card and would not have been able to put a plasticated colour photograph of Betty on it if he had. But assuming they got past the guard, a pass that tallied with her identity card might be useful on Surface; hence the third stolen pass which Philip made out in her real name.

  All was ready at last. There was no point in waiting, so they fixed their escape for the next morning.

  On his last afternoon, Philip was busy – of which he was glad; having professional problems to think about kept him from getting nervous. He had to dismantle a filter that was giving trouble with the help of one of his men because it was an awkwardly placed job. They were almost enjoying swearing at the thing and wrestling with it. It had been installed by Philip's own firm and his assistant had worked for their biggest rival, which gave the assistant an excuse for some cheerfully disrespectful sarcasm – to which Philip, equally cheerfully, replied in kind.

  Absorbed in their work and their cross-talk, they both jumped and almost dropped a heavy casing-panel when a nearby loudspeaker suddenly bellowed in their ears:

  'Attention, all personnel. Attention, all personnel. Beehive Red has been ordered. I say again, Beehive Red has been ordered. All personnel with special duties to perform on the ordering of Beehive Red will proceed to them immediately. All other personnel will continue with their normal duties. The following security measures will be observed as from now: exit-guards will double-check all Surface passes that are presented to them, by telephoning the officers who signed them for confirmation that the Surface visits concerned are still essential. Without such confirmation, no holders of Surface passes will be permitted to leave Beehive. I say again…'

  Talking far into the night, Philip and Betty still whispered from habit though they were growing hoarse with the effort.

  'All that bloody work,' Philip said bitterly, after a couple of hours' discussion had got them nowhere. 'Theft, forgery and hours of bloody sewing. All for nothing… For Christ's sake, I can't sleep. Want some coffee – or a scotch?'

  'It had better be coffee. I'd like to get stinking drunk but it wouldn't help.'

  Philip turned on the light and got out of bed, stumbling wearily and crossly about the cubicle, burning his fingers on the kettle and swearing. They nursed their cups, sitting side by side on the bed.

  ‘What a future,' Philip said at last. ‘Me spending all day clambering about
air-ducts, and you trying not to get beaten up, till the big quake comes. And then, God knows. Beehive should stand up to it but there's no telling.'

  'Climbing about air-ducts,' Betty repeated, suddenly thoughtful.

  Philip looked at her, puzzled. 'Keep me occupied, at least.'

  'No, it's just… Darling – how big are those air-ducts?' 'The trunk ones – quite big. Anything from sixty centimetres to a metre seventy-five.' 'All the way to Surface?'

  He caught her meaning, suddenly, and said 'Jesus!' 'Well?'

  'Hang on a moment – let me think… Oh, God, it'd be crazy.' 'Crazier than staying here?'

  'Darling, it could take hours… I'd have to work it out on my charts, of course – there'd be fans to bypass, filters to get through – it'd be murder. You'd never make it.'

  'Could you?'

  'I guess so – probably – but what good's that?' 'If you could, I could. I'm slimmer than you and I'm pretty tough.'

  Philip was silent for quite a while before he said: 'We might just make it. You know what, darling? We might just make it.'

  Betty took his empty cup from his hands. 'Right, then. Now perhaps we can sleep. And tomorrow, you get studying your charts.'

  Two days later, they were ready.

  The climb would be very hard work but possible. Even the vertical shafts would be easy to climb because the large ones they would be using were fitted with inspection-ladders. The problems would arise at the filters and fan-installations, of which there were several on the route Philip had planned. Some of the filters could be dismantled and replaced behind them, and all but one of the fans could be bypassed. But however they climbed, there were three places where they would have to emerge from inspection trap-doors into a corridor, and re-enter the duct through another trapdoor on the other side of the obstruction. They could have saved a lot of time by going directly via lift and corridor to the third of these open stretches, but that was ruled out because it could only be reached through areas for which Betty would have needed a special Security pass.

  There was only one way to brave the open stretches; Betty must wear her maintenance uniform, and hope not to be seen – or at least not recognized – at those three perilous points.

  They could take practically nothing with them apart from their anti-Dust respirators (compulsory at all times, in any case), all the money they had, and such small objects as they could stuff into their pockets. And, of course, the tools in the regulation maintenance kits they both carried – in Betty's case, as part of her disguise.

  They debated whether it would be better to make their attempt during the day, or at night. Beehive corridors were swarming with the thousands of new arrivals brought in by the Beehive Red order, during the day; this would make busy maintenance workers less noticeable but on the other hand daytime meant a bigger danger of running into someone who knew Betty. In the end, they decided that four o'clock in the morning was the least risky time. Very few people would be about and anyone they did meet would surely accept that they were engaged in urgent work on the ventilation system; Philip was, after all, the official judge of that urgency.

  Leaving their cubicle was a nervous business. Betty was still in her ordinary clothes, with her uniform in the shopping-bag. If they met anyone they knew, they could have been at a private party – but that shopping bag looked odd, they felt, and they were both very conscious of it. In the event, they met no one in the kilometre walk to the trapdoor they needed to start at, but there were still a few anxious minutes while Betty hid in a doorway till Philip had the trap open. They listened and she ran across. As soon as she was up the ladder a couple of metres out of his way, Philip came in after her and secured the trap-door behind them. Fortunately, they could be operated from both sides.

  They climbed, against a steady and over-warm down-draught, for about a hundred metres till they reached a horizontal section of the duct. There, awkwardly in a sixty-centimetre space, Betty changed into her uniform – putting her other clothes in the shopping bag which had come with them till they found a suitable place to dump it.

  They reached a filter, which took ten minutes to dismantle and replace – ten dirty and choking minutes, for the filter was excessively clogged. Philip caught himself making a mental note to find out why before he remembered that it was no longer his concern.

  Just beyond the filter, they came to the first of their three danger-spots. A fan-installation had to be passed by emerging into a dozen metres of public corridor.

  'Stay out of sight till I tell you,' Philip whispered, 'and for God's sake keep that torch out.'

  He unfastened the trap-door and peered out. The corridor was empty, so he climbed through, propping the trap cover on the floor. Then he walked to the second trap-door and began to unfasten it.

  Footsteps.

  His heart in his mouth, Philip forced himself to carry oh naturally. A man rounded the corner and stopped, looking at him. He wore the police-blue of Security.

  'Hullo,' Philip said, without stopping his work.

  'Hullo… What are you up to, sir?'

  'Bloody temperature fluctuations on Level Three. Director got me out of bed. There's something clogging a filter somewhere.'

  'Tough… I'd better look at your ID, sir. Routine, you know. But everything's tightened up, since Beehive Red.'

  'Sure.' Philip presented his card which not only identified him by name and photograph (a pity) but also gave his status of Senior Ventilation Officer (thank heaven). 'Hadn't the heart to get one of the lads up. They'd only just come off.'

  'Thank you, sir.' The Security man gave him back his card and strolled on along the corridor to the other trapdoor. To Philip's horror, he stuck his head inside and pointed his torch about. After a few seconds he pulled his head out again, said chattily 'Never seen inside the ventilation – big, isn't it?', and moved away round the next corner.

  Hardly believing their luck, Philip lowered the trap cover to the floor and hurried back to the first trap. When the Security man's footsteps were sufficiently faint, he called softly along the shaft: 'Betty? OK. Hurry.'

  She slithered along the duct and joined him. He pointed to the second trap, and without a word she sprinted to it and disappeared.

  When both trap-doors were back in place and he was beside her inside the duct, he whispered: 'How come he didn't see you?'

  'Because I heard you talking and got back round the bend, stupid.' 'I love you,' he said, fervently.

  Danger point number two passed without incident; nobody came near, and they were out and in again quickly. There followed a long and tiring climb, with several more filters to dismantle and replace, and a nerve-racking squeeze past a whirling fan whose bypass door was not really supposed to be opened unless the fan was switched off at the control room. Philip hoped the duty man was not awake enough to notice the temporary drop in air pressure which must be registering on one of his dials.

  At last, a mere hundred metres from Surface, they reached danger point number three, the last and worst.

  'Now let's recap the drill,' Philip whispered before he began unfastening the door. 'There's a good half-minute walk between this and the other door, so we can't do it like the first two. We have to play this for real, with you as my assistant. Out of this trap and re-close it; then walk naturally to the other one and open it, together. OK?'

  'OK.'

  He unfastened the trap and climbed out; no one in sight, no footsteps to be heard. He beckoned to Betty and she jumped down beside him. She was very quick with her fingers and working together they had the trap-door re-fastened in seconds.

  'Now,' he said, 'Quick but not too quick.'

  The first corner; no one. The second corner; no one. They reached the trap-door and started to release the fastenings, two on each side. Philip had both his open while Betty was still struggling with the second.

  'This one's jammed, Phil.'

  'Hell!'

  He took over and found she was right. It took him a spanner and thr
ee minutes' effort to get it free. Hastily, they lowered the cover to the floor – so absorbed that they were unaware of the woman's presence till she spoke.

  'Treasure-hunting, this time of night?'

  They both spun round and Philip knew at once that in their surprise they had over-reacted. He managed a grin, and said: 'God, you made me jump, creeping up on us like that… No, blockage-hunting…' He repeated the story he had told the Security man, hoping he sounded natural. Betty was behind him, so he could not see her, but he had more faith in her acting ability than in his own.

  He had an uncomfortable feeling he had seen this woman before. She wore the shoulder-flashes of the Press Corps; looked, and in her single remark had sounded, American; about thirty-five, short strong fair hair, shrewd grey eyes that watched him. He finished his story, hesitated and then turned to Betty.

  'Well, we'd better get in there, if we're ever going to find it.'

  Betty moved towards the trap, picking up her maintenance kit and respirator haversack. 'Find what?' the American asked, too casually. 'Surface?' 'I told you…'

  'And I didn't believe a word of it.' She had picked up the shopping bag before Betty could reach it and pulled out the obviously civilian sweater. 'To coin a phrase – that's no maintenance lady, that's your wife. I've seen you both in the Mess.'

  Philip would never have dreamed Betty could move so fast. She was on the American woman like lightning, the edge of her hand slashing at her neck. But the woman was fast, too; she dodged just in time and they grappled. The American was saying 'Hold it, hold it!' as she defended herself, and it was only the fact that she did not shout that made Philip hesitate to use the spanner that was still in his hand. The hesitation was only momentary – he would have to use it – but it was long enough for the American to gasp 'For Chrissake – I'm on your side!'

  Betty jumped back, watching the other warily.

  'In here – quick,' the American said, and threw open a cubicle door across the corridor. For some reason they did as she said and found themselves in what was obviously her own room. She turned and faced them. 'Tonia Lynd, Associated Press correspondent. I know you' – to Betty -'you're the one they've been calling witch-lover. My job to keep my ear to the ground. So you want out. Me too but my Chief won't give me an exit pass. My Press card will do once I am out. So can I come with you up that chimney? Because that's sure as hell where you're going and sure as hell I’m not going to snitch on you.'