Andromeda Breakthrough

by Fred Hoyle

  He nodded towards Andre's hands, lying close together in her lap. They were grotesquely swollen and discoloured, the bloated whiteness of the back and knuckles contrasting horribly with the seared flesh of the fingers where the computer had burnt them.

  Geers shuddered. 'Can we carry her out of here?' he asked doubtfully. 'We must get her to the mainland as soon as we can. Then perhaps we'll find out the truth about this business.'

  The impatience in Geers' tone infuriated Fleming. 'Give it a rest, can't you? The girl's half dead and all you can think of is putting her in thumbscrews.'

  He believed that Andre half understood what was being.

  said. Her body tautened in his arms and she made a pathetic attempt to shift away.

  Awkwardly Fleming struggled out of his duffle coat without releasing his hold on her and draped it around her shoulders. 'You're okay,' he reassured her. 'It's all over now.

  We'll go away for a nice long holiday. You know who I am, don't you?'

  Her clouded eyes opened wider and stared at his face. She nodded almost imperceptibly.

  He felt ridiculously pleased. 'Fine! I'm going to lift you up. Keep your hands just where they are and they won't get rubbed. Here we go!'

  Geers made no attempt to help. He watched Fleming grasp Andre and lift her like a baby, shifting the weight until he had her held securely, her head against his shoulder.

  Satisfied that they were leaving at last, Geers bent down to pick up the torch. Fleming was just behind him. With a quick shove from his boot he sent Geers sprawling. Then he kicked the lamp away. There was a tinkle of glass as it hit the rock-face and the light went out.

  Fleming laughed aloud. 'Hold tight, darling, we're taking off,' he whispered to Andre. Half crouching to avoid bumping the cave roof, he loped ahead helped by the fitful, jerking light from his own torch. Geers' wails of fright and fury echoed behind him.

  Fleming reached the cave entrance with no more than one bad bump on his shoulder. There was a stretch of thirty yards to the boat. He noted with satisfaction that the tide had turned and the stern was already afloat.

  He was wading in deep water before Geers stumbled from the cave entrance, bawling Fleming's name and alternately threatening punishment and appealing for him to wait.

  Fleming lowered Andre into the bottom of the boat. She groaned pitifully as her hand struck a rowlock.

  Fleming crouched over the motor. If only the damned thing would fire first time. Outboard engines were temperamental until they got heated up. He forced himself methodically to check choke and fuel control before he wrenched at the starter cord. He whipped it out with all his strength. The engine fired with a staccato burst of noise, spluttered, and then settled into a steady rhythm.

  With a kick over the side that filled his boot with sea water Fleming pushed off stern first. A couple of yards and there was room to veer. He gave the engine full throttle and the boat swung seawards. Geers was standing impotently up to his knees in water, shaking his arms and burbling incoherent imprecations. Fleming didn't trouble to turn round to look at him.

  The sea was pretty calm while the island protected it from the ocean swell. He grabbed the chance to check the petrol reserve and to wrap his coat more tightly around Andre. She was either asleep or had lapsed into unconsciousness again.

  The boat moved crabwise because of the current running through the narrows between' the island and the mainland.

  On this course he was merely making a return trip right up to the jetty at Thorness.

  His headlong flight had been without much reason. His objective had simply been to get Andre away from Geers and all that he represented in cold, efficient care and ruthless questioning.

  Now he had time to think up a plan. But not much time.

  The sea was getting perceptibly rougher. They were hitting a swell. Foam frothed here and there on the crescents of the heaving water ahead. He made up his mind.

  He turned the rudder to port and headed straight into the current. Emergency made his memory crystal clear. He could see this grey, misty waste of angry water as it was in the rare calm of a summer's day. He remembered the haphazard pattern of shoals, rocks, and islets which had made the area forbidden territory to any sailor except a few crab fishermen even before the Admiralty cordoned it off as a rocket range.

  Fleming was not unduly worried about crashing the boat.

  It wasn't capable of more than ten knots and was as manoeuvrable as a coracle. Though the half-hearted light of a winter's day was already lessening he felt sure that the noise of breaking waves and the swirl of foam would give him all the warning he needed of danger.

  What he wanted was something a bit larger than a collection of rocks where maybe a long-deserted crofter's cottage or bird-watcher's eyrie existed. Such places were built to resist wind and cold; they were as strong as the rocks from which they were made. They would give him a breathing space while he thought out the next move. Not for the first time in his life he half-regretted acting precipitately.

  A flurry of sleet hit him in the face. The gust of wind which accompanied it shook the boat, and a little water burst over the side, wetting Andre's face. She cried out and lifted her hand to brush away her matted hair. The touch of her hand on her forehead made her moan again.

  Fleming opened the throttle still more. There was no point in conserving petrol. He had got to get her out of the boat before the storm grew worse or before nightfall. He wasn't certain which would come first.

  For a full hour he sped northwards, straining his eyes and ears for a sign of land. There was nothing but the howl of the increasing wind and the expanse of the spume-flecked sea.

  Then, unmistakably, he heard the uneven roar of water crashing on to rocks and shingle. The sea became less broken, turning into a sullen, greenish swell. Beyond the broken mist a dark grey bulk loomed up - much darker than the twilight grey of the sky.

  He throttled down and veered to starboard. With the currents and sporadic gale-force winds he had no real idea where he was. He had no intention, even now, of landing on the mainland, right into the arms of some official or meek and law-abiding citizen.

  He steered a course a generous forty feet from the breaking waves. He tried to tell himself that he recognised the coast as one of the islands he had visited for recreation back in the summer, but he knew it was just self-persuasion. In such conditions all these islands looked much the same. All he could be certain of was that it was an island, a small one.

  Many gulls, disturbed by the noise of the boat as they settled down to roost for the night, wheeled around, with their piteous calling. Gulls preferred islands.

  The rock face sloped abruptly downwards at the point where the boat veered round until it was almost east of the land. Where the rocks met the water was a tiny beach, or rather a steep stretch of rounded stones, not more than twenty feet wide.

  Without hesitation Fleming steered straight for it, running the boat half out of the water. There was a vicious jerk and the sound of tearing timber. The lower section of the boat had been stove in.

  Fleming jumped over the side, feeling for a foothold. Then he caught hold of Andre and lifted her out. He laid her gently down on the stones above the water line and returned to the boat. He manhandled it round until it pointed seawards.

  Water was gurgling in fast. Tying the tiller midway, he set the throttle at full. The boat shot crazily away, the nose already down and the thrashing screw almost out of the water. He did not wait to see the boat go under; he lifted Andre once more and clambered as fast as he could to the higher ground beyond the stones.

  There was a distinct track where the ground provided some shallow soil where coarse grass and stunted heather struggled to live.

  Fleming was not surprised about this. He had expected it.

  For just at the moment the boat had swung towards the beach he had seen a dull yellow light a few hundred yards behind and above the landfall.

  From the track the light had shape. It was
a narrow vertical chink between some patterned curtains.

  He did not care who lived there. Coastguard, radar operator, rocket trajectory observer, recluse. The main thing was to get warmth and help for the girl. She was now as lifeless in his arms as when he had first grabbed hold of her at the edge of the cavern pool.

  CHAPTER TWO

  COLD FRONT

  The Azaran Embassy was easily identified in the long row of Edwardian houses whose bed-sitter occupants liked to claim that they lived in Belgravia, while in fact the postal number was Pimlico. It was noticeable because its decaying and crumbling stucco had been repaired and given a coat of glossy cream paint. It also displayed a gaudy flag and a highly polished brass nameplate.

  The interior was luxurious. The Ambassador's study was furnished with that refinement of taste and air of luxury possible only when money hardly matters. And Azaran, over the past few years, had floated to superficial and temporary prosperity on the small lake of oil British geologists had tapped beneath the desert.

  Colonel Salim, Azaran's accredited representative to the Court of St James's, had been the military strong man of his country's revolution. He had worked hard to make himself indispensable to the idealist whom fate and intrigue had made President, and his reward had been the best diplomatic post the President could offer. As a matter of fact, Azaran did not bother about the status of embassy in any other European country, but Britain, for the time being, was master of Azaran's economy.

  Salim enjoyed living in the West more than he enjoyed switching from force to diplomacy. He was a hard man and something of a genuine idealist, but he had forgotten his religious precepts sufficiently to enjoy alcohol and he had tempered his fierce racial beliefs enough to develop a taste for Western women. Much more, he had been impressed with the practical uses to which Europeans put their wealth.

  In his country, wealth had to be gaudily displayed. But in the West it was exploited to buy something infinitely more desirable: power.

  It was the prospect of unlimited power which kept Salim restlessly walking around his study on this grey winter's evening.

  He was getting rather soft with good living and a desk job. Fat was growing at his hips and in the jowl of his swarthy, handsome face, But he was still reasonably young.

  It was not merely vanity which told him that he was still impressive.

  He turned eagerly when a manservant entered and announced, with a bow, that a Herr Kaufman wished to see him.

  'Show him in,' Salim ordered. Quickly he sat down at his desk and opened a file of papers.

  The servant returned with the visitor. Kaufman was tall, and rigidly erect. Salim recognised him as a soldier; probably a Nazi junior ex-officer or N.C.O., possibly in a crack S.S.

  regiment. Salim did not mind that. There had been the occasion, back in 1943, when he had confidently assured Rommel's emissary that, when the time was ripe, he would bring the Azaran army over to the German side.

  'Herr Kaufman,' he exclaimed, extending his hand. 'Take a, pew.' He was rather proud of his mastery of the English vernacular. It inspired a friendly attitude he had found.

  Kaufman bowed slightly from the waist and smiled. His light blue eyes, enlarged by the thick lenses of his rimless gold spectacles, were appraising everything on the desk and around the room.

  He continued smiling as he deferentially murmured that he had been ordered by his superiors to wait on the Ambassador.

  'By Intel,' nodded Salim. What else were you told?'

  Kaufman stared back unblinking. 'Nothing else, your excellency.'

  Salim offered him a box of heavily chased silver. 'Smoke?'

  The other withdrew a case from his inner breast pocket.

  'These, if you don't mind.' He selected a small, almost black cheroot and lit it.

  Salim got up and walked across the room to a table where some photographs of Azaran were displayed.

  'Interested in archaeology, Herr Kaufman?' he asked. 'We are particularly rich in relics: Greek temples, Roman arenas, Turkish mosques, Crusader's castles, British anti-tank traps.

  They've all had a go at us.' He turned and eyed Kaufman.

  'And now Intel. Your employers are taking a deep interest in my small and harmless little country.'

  Kaufman puffed out a cloud of smoke. It eddied over Salim, who made a gesture of distaste. 'And if my employers are indeed keeping their commercial information up to date? As routine, of course. Is this important to you?'

  Salim lowered his voice. 'It's not unheard of for business interests to finance a breakaway state. And we propose to break with the British oil interests, Herr Kaufman. Their field has not been a very exciting one. We believe you will have more to offer than oil.'

  Kaufman thoughtfully shook the ash from his cigarello.

  'Our collateral?' he enquired.

  Salim rubbed his hands together. 'Let's be frank. You're a trading organisation. Probably the biggest commercial undertaking ever known. Just what cartels and groups are involved no Western government has been able to discover. Holding companies, secret understandings, private agreements, patent monopolies, offices registered in small and tolerant countries.

  But why need I tell you all this? You know it. You also know that with the Common Market and the increasing tendency for Governments to co-operate, the Intel organisation will find it harder to pursue its private way. Nobody very much likes such a successful enterprise.'

  'This may be true,' Kaufman agreed.

  'Your registered offices are in Switzerland,' Salim went on.

  'I read with interest the other day that both the Canton and Federal Governments are getting impatient over income tax matters. They hint at laws enforcing investigation of accounts and so forth. Your directors seem usually to meet in Vienna, capital of a tolerant and non-committed country.

  But Austria would not, could not, afford to ignore pressure from her powerful neighbours. You are, in fact, an organisation without a home.'

  Kaufman seemed unimpressed. 'We have offices in at least sixty countries. And influence in as many.'

  'The offices are merely trading posts, innocuous and politically negligible. Your influence is in jeopardy.'

  Salim crossed to the map of the Middle East which was spread across half the rear wall of the study. 'That little area painted red is my country. It could be the home sweet home for the headquarters of Intel. No interference. In return just some expert help for our own plans.'

  Once more Salim sat down. 'What do you know of Thorness?'

  Kaufman pondered for a moment.

  'Thorness?' he repeated, as if the word meant nothing.

  Salim made a gesture of impatience. 'I have information that you have long been in touch with the British Government's experimental station at Thorness. Unofficially, of course. I believe that you could even explain an unfortunate fatality to one of the scientists there, named Bridger, but no matter. I mention it to show that I am not without knowledge of your current activities.'

  'They are no longer current,' growled Kaufman. 'The station has been virtually destroyed. The computer and everything associated with it were blown up and burned.

  That, at any rate, is what I have so far ascertained.'

  'Blown up ?'

  'That is correct.'

  Salim was nonplussed. His Court of St James's manners disappeared as he waved away the cloud of Kaufman's cigar smoke. It was as if some latent violence in him had exploded.

  'Please refrain from burning those filthy things in here. If you wish, go to the toilet and smoke there.'

  His visitor obediently stubbed out his cigarello. He seemed impervious to insults. 'No thank you,' said Kaufman after he had carefully extinguished all the burning remains. 'But if you wish the interview to end...?'

  Salim glanced at the file on his table. Everything had suddenly changed and what was expected of him now was something which he understood. Action. He re-read the copy of the appreciation of the situation he had dictated a few days earlier. A smi
le hovered round his mouth. The gods might after all be working in their mysterious way for his benefit, even with this Thorness debacle.

  'There's a Professor Madeleine Dawnay at the station,' he said. 'I am offering her a post with our Government's bio-

  ***TEXT MISSING***

  and half-collapsing easy chair. 'Can we stay for a bit?' he asked.

  The man hovered around helplessly. 'I suppose so,' he said without enthusiasm. 'Where have you come from?'

  Fleming was occupied in removing Andre's coat, pulling gently at the sleeves so as not to touch her hands. 'The sea,' he said shortly. 'By boat. It's gone now. Smashed, I hope.'

  The man poked at the logs, sending up a cascade of sparks. 'I must confess I find you difficult to understand,' he observed.

  Fleming straightened up and grinned. 'I'm sorry. We're a bit flaked. Tough weather for a sea trip.'

  The other man was looking at Andre. He sort of shivered as he saw the shapeless, purplish flesh around her fingers.

  'What has happened to your friend's hands?' he enquired diffidently, as if ashamed of ungracious curiosity.

  'She burnt them. Touched some high voltage wiring. You haven't anything hot, have you? Soup?'

  'Only out of a tin.' The man drew a deep breath, ashamed of his attitude. 'I'll get it. You must forgive me,' he went on, smiling almost boyishly. 'It's just you were so unexpected.

  My name's Preen. Adrian Preen. I - er - write.' He glanced longingly at the table with the sheets of large, scrawling writing. 'I'll get the soup.' He went through the rear door, closing it carefully behind him.

  Andre shuddered, moaned, and opened her eyes. Fleming knelt down beside her. 'How do you feel?' he whispered.

  Her eyes were vacant, but she was able to turn her head and look at him. She even smiled. 'I'm better now,' she murmured.

  'My hands throb. What has happened?'

  'We're running away,' he said, caressing her hair. 'We started running two nights ago when we bust up the computer.