Andromeda Breakthrough

by Fred Hoyle

  From an immeasurable distance, yet clear and menacing, came Salim's voice again.

  'Now, where is Dr Fleming? If you know, you will tell us every detail. Now, I repeat, where is he?'

  As if it were some other woman talking, Dawnay heard herself meticulously describing her meeting at Oban airport.

  Word for word she repeated her conversation with John as if she were reading from a play script. Her memory was crystal clear. And she could not stop until she had explained every detail of the meeting.

  Salim laughed. 'So that is how a truth drug works.' He looked at Dawnay with interest.

  Janine Gamboul nodded. 'Sodium amytal. It'll work off in five or ten minutes. She'll remember nothing. Tell her she fainted with the yellow fever injection or whatever it was.

  And see you get her on that plane.'

  She took off her white coat, revealing a dress which had indeed come from Paris, and a good deal of herself as well.

  Although she was no longer a girl, the skin of her throat and the upper curves of her bosom looked as young and smooth as her face. She seemed completely relaxed and at ease. She perched on a corner of the table and looked at Salim with a mixture of malice and amusement as she lit a cigarette and slowly and delicately inhaled and exhaled. Salim watched her with something like admiration until she spoke again.

  'Repeat what you've heard to our man Kaufman,' she told him without any effort at grace. 'He is unimaginative but resourceful. Tell him that speed is vital. And this girl Fleming has with him. The one he got the medicament for. Tell Kaufman to bring her too.'

  'But she is nothing,' protested Salim. 'The man's mistress, one presumes. What do we need with her? We can supply reliable girls once Fleming's out in Baleb. They'll help to keep him happy.'

  'Nevertheless.' said Gamboul, 'we will have her.'

  Salim obediently lifted the receiver of the telephone. It took some time to locate Kaufman. The hotel where he had reported he was staying said that their guest was out tramping; the receptionist volunteered the information that Mr Kaufman was a great one for the open air and the rolling hills of Scotland. Salim cut her short and grunted that he would ring again. He had no wish to leave his number.

  When eventually he got through and Kaufman's guttural voice answered the extension to his bedroom Salim talked rapidly. 'We have reliable news. An island off an island near an island.' He stopped, aware of the ridiculousness of his words. 'A moment, I have written down the names of these places which I have never before heard. Ah yes, there is a place called Skye?'

  'Of course,' grunted Kaufman. 'I have been. Our friend was seen taking a plane there. But no information.'

  'And near this Skye is Soay,' Kaufman opened a map and located the word which he could pronounce no better than the Ambassador.

  'Good, you have it,' said Salim. 'Near this Soay there is perhaps a smaller island?'

  'I'll need a more detailed map,' came Kaufman's voice. 'I know there are several. We had better end this call, I think.

  You may leave things to me.'

  'I hope so. I have done my part. Now it is up to you.' Salim replaced the phone. Kaufman folded up the map and considered.

  First he made his plans for a discreet survey of the offshore islands around Skye. He put in a couple of calls to Glasgow to enrol some assistants whose co-operation for adequate reward had been tested on some previous matters.

  Then he moved to Portree. There he hired a powerful little launch on the pretext of photographing seabirds. The well-paid owner did not question Kaufman's statement that he specialised in taking flashlight photos by night of their roosting habits. Bird watchers were all queer - but profitable.

  The lonely peace of Preen's island pushed time into the background. Fleming mentally noted the fact that it took two days for Andre's hands to start building new flesh; on the third there was no need for bandages.

  Life by then had settled down into a rather pointless round of waking, preparing scratch meals from Preen's store of canned and dehydrated food laid down in quantities literally to outlast a war, arguing over a game of chess, and gently helping Andre's memory to re-discover the threads of life.

  There was little opportunity to go out even to check the fish nets Preen had laid down in rock inlets, but one still, misty day Andromeda went down alone to the small beach and when she came back to the croft she was looking puzzled.

  'The mist is going back into the sea,' she said in her slow, vacant way.

  Fleming did not believe her and she never had an opportunity of proving it, for the weather changed again to an interminable frenzy of storm and gale. There seemed to be no end to the restlessness of the sky and sea. When they listened in on Preen's transistor the forecast invariably included gale warnings, and the weather was so wild throughout the northern hemisphere that it was usually mentioned in the news bulletins. Andre continued to look vacant and confused and began to grow a little clumsy.

  But there was a sense of impregnable security within the cottage while the wind howled and battered outside. The tension which Fleming had left at first whenever the door rattled violently or something banged outside had eased to a pleasant fatalistic calm.

  Consequently he was quite unprepared one night when, as he was quietly playing chess with Preen and Andre was half-lying on the sofa staring at nothing, the door cracked loudly and immediately burst open. He sprang to his feet, knocking over the chessboard. Three men were grouped in the doorway.

  They were thickset, brutal and wild-looking. The water streamed from their oilskins and their tousled heads.

  The tallest of them took a step inside, jerking his head to the other two to back him up. He never took his eyes off Fleming, so that he did not see Preen open the chest, grabbing his automatic rifle from inside it.

  'Get out! Get out of here!' Preen bleated, prancing from side to side. His anger at this new invasion of his isolation made him oblivious of danger.

  Fleming had moved back to protect Andre. She clung close to him, watching wide-eyed. 'Better do what the gentleman says,' Fleming advised the intruders.

  The leading man stepped backwards, bumping into the two behind him. They half-stumbled as they hit the doorposts.

  Suddenly the leader dug into his oilskin pocket. In a flash he was pointing the snout of a Luger at Preen.

  'Look out!' yelled Fleming.

  Without taking aim, Preen fired a burst. Five or six explosions of high velocity bullets reverberated round the room.

  Glass from the window tinkled on the floor. The man with the gun collapsed without a sound, his mouth agape, his eyes still fixed straight ahead. One of the others screamed like a child and staggered drunkenly into the darkness, collapsing outside. The third simply fled, his footsteps crashing along the stony track to the sea.

  Preen had dropped the gun at the force of the recoil. But he started to charge after the third intruder, his mouth working in frenzy of anger. 'Hold it, Preen,' Fleming yelled. 'Don't go outside. There may be more.'

  Preen did not seem to hear. He was still in the light from the open door when a gun barked from the darkness. Preen stopped dead in his tracks, spun round, and fell to his knees, groaning.

  'Take ths,' said Fleming, picking up the rifle and thrusting it into Andre's hands. 'If you see anyone, point it at him and pull this.' He crooked her finger round the trigger.

  Then, crouching low, he ran outside and sprawled beside Preen. He waited for a moment for bullets to come spurting out of the dark at him, but nothing happened. All he could hear was Preen's agonised breathing. 'All right,' he said, 'you're not dead. I'll get you inside and patch you up.'

  He started dragging him towards the door. He paused while he heaved the body on the path out of the way. The man was quite dead, like the one outside the cottage. He motioned Andre to put down the gun and she helped him to get Preen on to the couch.

  Fleming dragged the other body out over the step and then shut the door. The bolt was useless but the catch still held. He paused
to get his breath before he examined Preen.

  Blood was spreading through his sweater below the armpit.

  Fleming cut the material away and pulled the shirt aside.

  The blood was not spurting. But there was a neat hole at the side of the chest and another more ragged one below the shoulder blade where the bullet had come out.

  No blood was coming from Preen's mouth, so Fleming felt sure that the lung had not been pierced; the worst was a chipped or broken rib.

  'You're not badly hurt, Adrian,' he said. 'I'll put on a pad to staunch the bleeding; and then we'll use the old magic treatment. Just leave it to your old Professor.'

  He made Preen as comfortable as possible, talking optimistically about the enzyme. His optimism seemed to convince the watching, worried Andre, though he himself did not really believe in it. The little which was left after Andre's treatment would doubtless tackle sepsis and re-create the surface skin. It could not deal with splintered or broken bone, nor with any internal injury.

  He resigned himself to the fact that in the morning he would have to go over to Skye and get a doctor. And he would have to let the police know that a couple of corpses were lying around.

  Meantime there was the puzzle of who the thugs were.

  When Preen fell asleep and Andre was dozing in the easy chair he cautiously crept outside and looked over the dead men with the aid of a flashlight. They looked even uglier in death than they had in life. Both carried wallets, but the contents were money only; no driving licence, no envelopes or letters. The absence of identifying items was in itself suspicious. His mind went back to the time he and Bridger had been shot at when they had taken a day off from building the computer. Bridger had clearly known what the attack was all about, and badgered by Fleming he had impatiently snapped out the word 'Intel', regretting it as if he had said too much.

  It had seemed ridiculous at the time to link a secretive but perfectly legitimate world-wide trading cartel with gunmen lurking on a Scottish moor. But after Bridger's murder the word had always had a sinister flavour in Fleming's mind.

  That a commercial enterprise should use strong-arm tactics to obtain secrets of the kind Thorness could provide did not really, surprise Fleming once he had accepted the situation. It was in accord with his conception of the rat race of individuals and nations to amass wealth and exert power. That was why he did not find it difficult to accept a theory that Intel was behind this abortive attack, though the motive remained a mystery. If the information they had obtained from Bridger had been even superficially right the brains behind Intel must be aware that the individuals counted for nothing without the machine they served. Not even Andre could provide saleable information.

  Not even Andre - Fleming very rarely displayed fear, but like any intelligent man he often felt it. He felt it now, and Andre was the reason. One of the assailants had got away. He would no doubt be back sometime with reinforcements, and they would come prepared for a shooting battle.

  He had no wish to die himself; but he dreaded far more the plan Intel might have for the girl. It was another reason why he would get help.

  He took Preen's boat for Skye at dawn. He phoned for a doctor from the first house he found with a telephone, explaining that the patient was suffering from a shot wound and adding that there were also two corpses to be picked up.

  The doctor informed the police before he set out. By then Fleming was well on the way back.

  Fleming had the mischievous pleasure of shouting out, 'I'll come quietly!' as a boat-load of police arrived at the cottage door later in the day.

  It was all very sedate and polite. They treated Andre and him with deference, hardly knowing what it was all about.

  They let him remain beside Preen until the doctor had made his examination and reported that there was little wrong, but an X-ray would be needed to check for bone injuries. Fleming noted with amusement that the doctor could not get his eyes off the tiny circles of young healthy flesh already growing around the bullet wounds.

  'And this happened only last night?' he kept muttering.

  They were taken down to a police launch where Preen was laid in the stern, comfortably wrapped in blankets. A constable was left behind to watch over the two bodies, which would be picked up later when the C.I.D. from Inverness had made their usual on-the-spot checks.

  Fleming and Andre said goodbye to Preen when they disembarked on Skye. Their involuntary host seemed almost distraught at the parting. 'You must come again,' he said.

  'If we ever get out of the Tower, we certainly will,' Fleming grinned.

  Expressing soft Highland apologies, the station police sergeant said that he would have to put his prisoners in a cell when they got to Portree.

  'It's forbye a murder case, ye'll be understanding,' he said.

  'But it'll be the Inspector to decide on a charge, if there's to be one. I'm going to permit the young lady to be with you.

  I'll have your word of no trouble, sir?'

  'Of course,' said Fleming. 'We're grateful for your hospitality.'

  They had to wait in the cells for a couple of hours. The sergeant's wife sent in two steaming plates of mutton stew.

  Both ate ravenously. It was good to eat a proper meal after Preen's diet of soup and vegetables.

  Then Quadrlng arrived. He was smiling. But not with any touch of triumph. He seemed relieved to see them both alive and well.

  'You've given us one hell of a chase, Fleming,' he said.

  'You are all right, my dear?' he added, looking hard at Andre. 'Well, as you may imagine, your bosses are very excited at the way you've both turned up, particularly Dr. Geers. I'm afraid I have instructions to take you to London right away. There'll be a Transport Command plane touching down presently.'

  'I expected that,' Fleming replied. 'But I hope you'll get your sleuthing powers working on just who the gentlemen were who visited us last night.'

  'Any ideas?' Quadring asked.

  Fleming hesitated. 'Nothing definite,' he answered.

  The failure of Intel's attempt to kidnap Fleming and Andre had caused consternation as much as anger in Kaufman's mind. He had learned to be completely unprincipled in the service of whoever paid him, but he had a distaste for personal violence. He had tried to explain this to a war crimes court back in 1947 when he sat in the dock along with the riff-raff from one of the minor camps. He had vehemently protested that he had never laid a hand on a single Jew or gipsy prisoner; his only connection with the extermination section had been to supply them with his carefully tabulated lists of outworked and over-age prisoners. The court had been obtuse; they had sentenced him to seven years, reduced by his perfect behaviour to five.

  The charming man who had then offered him a confidential post with Intel had been the first person to appreciate the virtues of Herr Kaufman's life. 'We like to use men like you,' he had said.

  And now he had badly let down these considerate and generous employers. Two men shot dead and a third getting out of the country as fast as he could. His frantic report over the phone to Salim had not been an experience he would like repeated. Unkind things had been said; even threats. Salim had appeared to be repeating the words of someone else in the room, judging from the way he constantly paused.

  Finally Kaufman had been told to be at Oban airport and await a caller. A director of Intel coming from Vienna, Kaufman had never previously met any executive above district manager.

  Nervously he hung around the airport building. An hour passed, then another. Beads of sweat glistened on his close-cropped head despite the coldness of the day. He wanted to run away. But he knew he dared not. For one thing it would be disobedience of orders; for another he was Intel's employee for life; there had been so many things he had done on their behalf which were in the crime dossiers of the police of a dozen countries ....

  'So you are here ....'

  It was a woman's voice. Kaufman spun around and saw Janine Gamboul. He grinned with relief. So they were going to use the
old trick of feminine allure to get hold of Fleming.

  But he had to be cautious. 'Excuse?' he said gutturally.

  'You are... ?'

  She ignored his question 'You are Kaufman. Where is Fleming?'

  'But Colonel Salim said a director from Vienna .... '

  Kaufman mumbled.

  She cut him short. 'So naturally you imagined a man.'

  'You are... ?' he stuttered. Then he was all deference and politeness. 'I am sorry, I did not realise.'

  'I repeat, where is Dr Fleming? Or have you frightened him off?'

  'He is at the same place. The little island. It was not my fault. Two men were killed. And I am not a gunman.'

  She walked towards the airport cafe, not troubling to see whether he followed. He rushed ahead to open the door for her. When they were seated at a table in a quiet corner she lighted a cigarette and drew in a deep lungful of smoke.

  'We shall arrange things better this time,' she murmured.

  'We must have Fleming quickly. Nothing is more vital.'

  'May I ask why?' he muttered.

  She gazed at him with impatient contempt. 'To help us with some equipment. He has some special knowledge we need.' She gave him a cold smile. 'It's really the result of your commendable activities on behalf of the company.

  Stupid you may be, but you are loyal and energetic. I think you should have been told before.'

  She dropped her voice to a murmur. 'When we heard that a message had been received from space you recall that you were told to make contact with Dr Denis Bridger, Fleming's partner. You did well, Kaufman. From Bridger you got the specification for making a computer to interpret the message.'

  'Nothing ever came of it,' said Kaufman mournfully.

  'Bridger - er- got himself killed.'

  'So you think nothing came of it?' she laughed. 'We have been building a copy of that computer; in Azaran. Only now we need a little expert advice. Salim has got Professor Dawnay, but she was only indirectly involved. She'll possibly be useful. But Fleming will be essential.'

  Kaufman felt relieved. Even happy. He ventured to light a cigarello.

  'So you see, Herr Kaufman,' Janine Gamboul finished, stubbing out her cigarette, 'this time there must be no mistake in enrolling Doctor Fleming on our staff.'