by James White
‘I was sure something like that had happened ...’ began Carson.
‘And I’m really not listening to you,’ Donovan went on patiently, ‘because when something like this happens my job is not very pleasant, and for reasons which you will understand shortly I cannot afford to become emotionally involved.’
Carson looked at Jean and saw her begin to relax and felt himself doing the same. Donovan was something of a fanatic, obviously, an obeyer of orders without question, a my-country-right-or-wrong type, and an organic weapon which was always loaded and had only to be pointed at his country’s enemies and turned loose. But he was also emerging as a human being, a man who did not, apparently, like scaring people half to death by pointing guns at them.
‘I won’t mention the project to you again,’ said Carson briskly, ‘but I will have to tell what I know to someone. It’s important. I expect you’re going to arrest us, take us somewhere for interrogation to clear up any doubts you may have about our allegiance. That will give me a chance to tell...’
Donovan was looking impatient and a little annoyed. He said, ‘You weren’t listening to me, Mr Carson. I am all alone, I cannot arrest you and I don’t have the facilities for incarceration or interrogation. I’m sorry.’
Carson swallowed and said, ‘Herbie Patterson?’
Donovan nodded.
There had been a few times in his life when Carson had been really afraid, but they had been nothing compared to this. His stomach was one hard, sick knot of panic, and saliva suddenly flooded his mouth, the way it sometimes did during a very bumpy flight and he started thinking about brown paper bags. He wondered if it would hurt very much and for how long. No death, he was sure, was really instantaneous. He thought of the heavy calibre bullet smashing into his face, ploughing through his brain. He thought of what another just like it would do to Jean’s serious, finely boned, lovely face.
Sweat trickled down his forehead, cheeks and neck like fine, cold raindrops and he could not talk. He tried to say something, anything, that would stop or even delay for a few minutes what was going to happen. But his mind, like the small, tight circle of the gun-barrel which threatened them, was going around and around screaming No ...!
‘But we aren’t spies, Mr Donovan,’ Jean said desperately. ‘We, that is, he, stumbled on this almost by accident and felt that it was his duty to protect it ... ‘
‘If I believed you both innocent, which I don’t,’ said Donovan, ‘it still would make no difference. This project, I have been told, is too big for innocent by-standers to be considered important. I’m sorry.’
He sighed, then went on, ‘This will have to appear as a normal, understandable crime, of course--the murder of a girl followed by the suicide of her lover, something like that. I can set the stage afterwards. If there does happen to be a third party hiding in the flat, that would complicate things--but I’m not really concerned with what the local police do or think.
‘But there will be no unnecessary suffering,’ he added. ‘That is why I see no point in prolonging the agony ...’ The gun moved slightly and Carson realised that he had only seconds to live and that Jean had even less. Abruptly a cold fury shattered the tight circle of panic in his mind.
‘Don’t be so blasted considerate! Give yourself a minute to think, damn you! Just suppose we are spies. As the sole guardian of this most important of all projects, you should wonder who we pass our information to and if it is still possible to stop it getting out of the country. You should at least question us to see if ... ‘
‘I am required to give local protection only,’ said Donovan impatiently, ‘and trying to find out how you pass on information would involve other intelligence departments and a large number of people, which would advertise to the other side the fact that something is going on. This is a very small project. Officially it does not exist. I hope you haven’t passed on any vital information. If you have the only thing I am allowed to do is remove the source.’
The small double circle of the barrel and silencer seemed to fill the whole world. It was the world and while he looked at it he could not think.
Carson jammed his eyes closed and said desperately, ‘You are in charge of local security, right? Suppose I tell you that you’ve fallen down on the job, that someone has penetrated your security blanket, that someone has ripped such a great big hole in it that Jean and I were able to walk in behind him without even having to stoop? Would you listen to me while I performed my patriotic duty, as you are performing yours, by telling you how it was done and who the enemy agent is?’
He opened his eyes then and saw that he was at last getting through to Donovan. Professional pride and patriotism were the weak spots. Angrily, the shadow security man said, ‘You’re trying to wreck the project by suggesting that one of the engineers is a spy. That is a very old trick, Mr Carson. But my job is external security--they handle their own recruiting. At the same time I have seen to the destruction of all paperwork and everything that could possibly show that anything at all was going on … ‘
‘I know how well you covered up,’ Carson broke in, ‘and that you had no say in recruiting. But this agent was invited into the project--it was all set up so carefully and so long ago that they had no choice but to invite him in. They needed a guinea-pig, you see, preferably one with no known next of kin. And stop jabbing that thing at me! You are in charge of project security, yes? Are you going to guard the outside of the apple barrel while one rotten apple ruins the lot? Is that how you do your job, Donovan?’
Before the other could reply, Carson went on, ‘No matter what you do to us here, you must tell Daniels what I’ve told you. And don’t worry, the project won’t be wrecked by the top man having suspicions about one of his guinea-pigs. We were so sure of our facts that we were going to Daniels ourselves in a day or so. If you let us talk to Daniels now I can tell him exactly how it was done and more important to the security aspect, when the information is likely to be passed on as well as the method. That’s right, the project is still secure--for a few days, anyway. I can even tell him these things in your hearing without making you unhappy by discussing the project in detail … ‘
For a long time there was no response. Donovan’s face was composed again, his anger gone, his brain working coolly and suspiciously like a good security man’s should. Finally he nodded, lifted the phone with his free hand and put it to his ear. He said, ‘You dial, Mr Carson, and I’ll check that you get the right number. And be very careful...’
Twenty minutes later they left for Daniels’s house in Carson’s car, but not before Donovan had toured the flat with them checking wardrobes, cupboards and under beds for a possible third party. On the way they were very careful in what they said and did because Donovan sat in the back seat, constantly reminding them that nothing had changed and that they had been successful only in buying a little time. They tried hard not to believe him.
Chapter Eighteen
They talked for a long time amid the tomatoes in Daniels’s lean-to greenhouse. On three sides the glass streamed with condensation, effectively hiding them from outside observation, but the large pane in the door opening into the back of the house, because the kitchen and greenhouse were close to each other in temperature, was perfectly clear. It showed Jean and a little behind her Donovan keeping his eyes and gun on both of them from a point where he was in no danger of overhearing anything which was being said.
While they talked the nearest Daniels ever came to looking Carson in the face was when he occasionally fixed his gaze on the knot of Carson’s tie.
‘Joe,’ said Daniels finally, still without meeting his eyes, ‘I believe that you and Jean Marshall are not agents of the other side, that you got into this through the highest motives and that John Pebbles is who you say he is. I’m grateful to you, and maybe a little angry as well for the spanner you’ve tossed into the works--but it isn’t personal. The point I’m trying to make is this. Since Donovan brought you two here over an hour ago your sit
uation hasn’t really changed.’
Daniels’s tone was regretful, sympathetic and somehow aloof, and these feelings were reflected in his thin, ascetic’s face. Plainly he was concerned with the project as a whole and could not allow himself to become involved in individual problems.
Carson swore under his breath, thinking of the incredible violence of the peace demonstrations he saw practically every weekend on TV. There was nothing so ruthless as a militant pacifist, and the mistake he had made was in thinking that there was any difference at all between Donovan and Daniels. It was an effort to keep his voice steady as he spoke.
‘We aren’t traitors; you know that, so I thought that we might join your project. I’ve already shown that you can use some help on the security side ... ‘
‘There can be only one security man. I’m sorry.’
‘But he doesn’t even know what he is protecting. I do...’
‘You don’t, Joe,’ Daniels broke in again. ‘You have worked out a vague theory, accurate enough to make you realise the terrible consequences to the world if what we are doing here became general knowledge too soon, but you don’t know what the project is about. I know you two are not traitors, just patriotic innocent bystanders who unfortunately ... ‘
‘We came into this thing because of our interest in Pebbles,’ Carson tried again. ‘I’m certain that he hasn’t been contacted by his people yet, and this gives us--Doctor Marshall and myself, that is--a chance to work on him before that happens. His conditioning is breaking down, we will be able to find out a lot about the other side’s methods and why Pebbles was chosen for the job. Don’t forget that he is not a trained spy but a top test pilot tipped, if what the magazine caption says is true, for cosmonaut training who was suddenly converted into a sleeper. Why was he planted in Hart-Ewing’s, where we haven’t had a really secret project since the war? Was it sheer accident? Were they intending to plant agents like this in all the big companies and we happened to be first? Oh, I know that it was made to look as if you invited him in, but that is because the people who planned it are real smoothies. It seems to me that he was tailored to fit your ultra-secret project. Doesn’t that suggest anything to you?
‘The point I’m trying to make,’ Carson ended, ‘is that they must know something about the project to be able to train Pebbles for it, or they have a similar project to which Pebbles belonged ...’
Daniels’s mind seemed to be miles away--like Donovan, he was probably not even listening.
‘But I suppose,’ Carson added bitterly, ‘to avoid complications you will treat him the same as Jean Marshall and myself--elimination by Donovan’s silenced cannon ...! ‘
‘Pebbles is far beyond the range of Donovan’s cannon,’ said Daniels seriously, ‘and you have made a very strong point. But you must appreciate my position, too. When I went to the top man with my ideas for hiding the project even from our own counter-espionage people, I had to accept one rather fanatical watch-dog and keep a tight control on the number of project personnel. There is just no room for advisors or assistant security officers. But do you really care what happens to Pebbles?’
‘I think so,’ said Carson. ‘He doesn’t know that he is a spy, so at the moment he is just another innocent bystander like myself.’
‘And like yourself,’ said Daniels, ‘he doesn’t really know what the project is all about...’
I’m losing, thought Carson. But he could not think of another argument that would have any likelihood of influencing Daniels and he was about ready to beg for his life...
‘ .. We have one guard-dog,’ Daniels was saying, ‘but nobody in charge of internal security. I thought there was no need, you see. The project is staffed by personal friends or people I considered quite safe. None of them know about Herbie Patterson’s death or of what could happen to you two--it would only bother them. I still trust my own judgment about them...’ It was hard to read his expression, Carson thought, but it was obvious that some sort of battle was going on in the frigid reaches of that brilliant and emotionless mind. ‘. and your argument convinces me that we need Doctor Marshall’s abilities more than your own. It also convinces me that the project needs another, and more trustworthy, guinea-Pig.’
‘I’m afraid that is our only vacancy, Joe.’
He stopped, waiting. Carson realised suddenly that he wasn’t going to die--at least, not for a few days. He remembered Tillotson and wondered if the same thing, whatever it was, would happen to him. It was stupid of him to feel so elated.
‘I accept,’ said Carson, and added, ‘even though it is simply a matter of time ... ‘
‘How right you are,’ said Daniels drily.
‘... before whatever happened to Wayne Tillotson happens to me. But thanks anyway.’
Daniels shook his head. ‘Wayne was unlucky. You will find it much safer being a patriotic guinea-pig than a patriotic innocent bystander...’
‘I’m beginning to dislike the word patriotic,’ said Carson. ‘It has overtones of fanaticism and Donovan’s disease. Couldn’t I be an intelligent, self-interested guinea-pig...?’
‘No,’ said Daniels, smiling for the first time and looking him straight in the eye. ‘If you’ve taken this job you aren’t intelligent.’
Jean and Donovan were called into the greenhouse a few minutes later, but it took nearly twenty minutes before the security man put away his gun. After that he drove Jean and Carson to the doctor’s home to pack and explain her forthcoming three weeks’ absence to her family and, by letter, to Hart-Ewing’s. Then it was Carson’s turn to do the same, although in his case it meant writing notes to Bill Savage in Personnel, the owner of the flat and the milkman. They returned then to Daniels’s house to wait until it was time to catch the first plane out, which would be in only a few hours.
It had been impossible to tell what Donovan had thought about it all. He did not seem to care about individuals, one way or the other. Unlike Daniels, Carson thought, who also had the fate of millions of people weighing on his mind--Daniels struck him as being the rare type who could not forget that the millions of people were individuals ...
During the flight to the launching site Daniels told them all that they could talk about anything they liked so long as it wasn’t the project. The only consolation that Jean and Carson had was that they were not alone in their frustration--two of Daniels’s engineers, George Reece and Bert Parsons, who were accompanying them were also being forbidden to express curiosity about the presence of themselves.
They arrived in the early evening when a rather ostentatious sunset was making a fiery back-drop to the towering silhouettes of the launching silos which were planted all over the landscape like a skyscraper city with claustrophobia. A few of the launching towers were dark, but the majority of them blazed against the darkening sky like rectangular Christmas trees.
It looked as if their curiosity would be satisfied at last when they reached a small office opening off a partially manned control centre and Daniels offered them seats. But it was one of the engineers, neither of whom had been, offered seats, who asked the first question--or tried to.
‘What are they doing h ... ’
’They are joining us to help with some of the, ah, psychological problems which have come up,’ said Daniels quickly. ‘They are not fully informed as yet so a discussion at this stage would only confuse them. As well, Joe, here, may be making a plus and minus trip shortly, and I would like him to get as many answers as possible from me...’
As the two engineers left the office Carson thought that their expressions as they looked at him were much too respectful to be reassuring.
Daniels cleared his throat and said briskly, ‘I’m going to be as fair as I can with you two by giving you complete and accurate information on effects while saying nothing at all about causes. There are several reasons for this. One is that I believe in supplying only enough information to allow a man to do his job properly, another is that a large number of people working on or attached to
the project do not know what it is all about. Yet another is that the causes which bring about the effects we are trying to control and use are not clear even to us.
‘Well, Joe, what’s the first question?’
Carson’s mind had been seething with questions all day so that he did not know where to start. He was a little ashamed when the first question to occur to him was a purely selfish one concerning his own future. He said, ‘What happens to us now?’
Daniels smiled and said, ‘Nothing much until tomorrow when I want you to experience some prolonged negative G. You will be with a plane-load of would-be astronauts getting used to the feeling of weightlessness, and your cover will be that of an aviation journalist collecting material for an article. Doctor Marshall can go along, too, if she wants to, as a medical observer. I don’t want either of you to talk to Pebbles until we’re nearly ready to bring him back, which will be just before you leave, Joe. Until then there is very little you can do except stay from under our feet and prepare for your next contact with Pebbles.’
