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jelled. But the side chains are all to hell.'
Dawnay ran an expert eye over his work amid the litter
spread across bench and desks. 'I'm not surprised,' she
exclaimed. 'You've achieved a glorious mess. Better leave it
to me.'
'I thought you hadn't time. I thought you were too busy
setting the world to rights.'
She ignored what he was saying and went on looking at
the equations he had writtgn down.
'Admittedly,' she said slowly, 'if there's a chemical deficiency
in her blood or endocrine glands there must be a
chemical answer, but we can't know whether this is it.'
'It has to be, doesn't it?' he suggested. 'Our electronic boss
says so.'
She considered for a time. 'Why do you want to do this,
John?' she enquired. 'You've always been afraid of her.
Always wanted her out of the way.'
'Now I want her to live!'
She eyed him speculatively, a smile hovering around her
mouth. 'Because you're a scientist and you want to know
what the message is really all about? You can't bear to think
that Gamboul knew and you don't? That's really the reason,
isn't it?'
'You've some funny old ideas,' he smiled.
'Maybe,' she answered, 'maybe.' She reached for an
overall on the wall hook. 'Go and get some breakfast, John.
Then come back here. I'll have some work for you to do.'
The two of them worked in perfect, almost instinctive
co-operation, carefully avoiding any kind of moral or emotional
argument. They were like enemies who were forced
to live in the same cell. They talked of nothing but the
enormous complication of the job, and for ten solid days,
and most of the nights, they carried on. Messages about the
world-wide improvements in barometric pressure, news
bulletins reporting a noticeable lessening of wind violence,
were just noted and then forgotten.
Because of her own forebodings or failure, Dawnay did
not even tell Fleming that even before the checking was
complete she had started injections on Andre. The ethics did
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not bother her. Andre's life was hovering near its end in any
case.
Fleming still avoided the girl's sick room. He told himself
that he would not see her until he could give her hope. He
knew Dawnay was visiting her regularly, but he deliberately
refrained from asking how she was.
And Dawnay, noting the slow improvement in her patient,
hardly dared to believe that she had succeeded. Only when
the doctor came and made prolonged and successful tests of
muscular reflexes did she admit even to herself that the near-impossible
had happened.
It was Andre herself who settled the matter. 'I am getting
well,' she said one morning as she waited for another injection.
'You have saved my life.'
'You have saved yourself,' Dawnay said gently. CYou and
John and the computer calculations.'
'What will he do now - now that I'm to go on?' Andre
asked.
'I don't know.' Dawnay had wondered so much herself
that she had been awaiting and dreading this question. 'He's
divided. One part wants to go on. The other is frightened.
We're all like that. But fear doesn't entirely stop us going
forward.'
'And I stand for going forward?' Andre asked.
'For much More. Down here on our cosy little earth we
used to think we were protected from the outside by sheer
distance. Now we see that intelligence - pure, raw intelligence
- can cross great gulfs of space and threaten us.'
'You still think of me as a threat from outside?'
'No,' Dawnay answered. 'No, I don't.'
Andre smiled. 'Thank you for that. Can't'I see him soon?'
'You're strong enough to get-up,' Dawnay agreed. 'He
should see you. Yes,' she went on after a pause. 'We'll go
together when you can walk.'
One evening the following week Fleming went back to the
computer block. Partly to ease his conscience, and partly
because he needed some fairly unskilled help, he had invited
Yusel to work on the computer. The salary was good, which
would help Lamka and the child.
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When Dawnay found them there, the Arab excused himself
and she was left alone with Fleming.
'John,' she said, 'Andre's here.'
'Where ?'
'Outside.' She smiled a little grimly at Fleming's amazement.
'She's cured, John. We've done it. She'll be all right
now.'
At first she thought he was not going to say anything at
all. Then he asked, in a hurt voice. 'Why couldn't you have
told me?'
'I wasn't sure which way it was going.'
He stared at her with amazement. 'So you've repaired her,
and the first thing you do is to bring her here - back to the
machine! It's all so easy, so planned, just as if we're being
used.' He turned away with a frown. 'How can we go on
competing with her, with this ?'
'That depends on you,' Dawnay replied. 'I can't help you.
My job here is finished. I'm flying home tomorrow.'
'You can't!' he exclaimed.
'You wanted her well,' she reminded him, but he looked at
her and through at a ghost.
'You can't leave me like this,' he implored. 'Not with her here.'
She had never before seen him plead for help. 'Look,
John,' she said kindly. 'You're not a child that hides behind
its mother's skirts. You're supposed to be a scientist. Andre
didn't use you or me. It was we who turned the world upside
down. It was Andre who saved it.' She moved to the door,
beckoning to the waiting girl. 'I'll see you before I go.'
Andre walked quickly towards Fleming, stopping before
him and smiling like a happy schoolgirl. She was still thin
and pale, and her eyes looked very big above her high, sharp
cheek-bones; but she no longer looked ill. She was alive and
vibrant, with a kind of fined-down beauty which touched
him in spite of himself.
'I can hardly believe that you're like this,' he said.
'You're not glad?'
'Of course I'm glad '
'Are
you afraid of me?'
'So long as you're a puppet, a mechanical doll.'
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Colour suffused her cheeks and she tossed her hair away
from her face. 'And you're not? You still think of yourself
as a divine, unique creation. Three thousand millions of you
on this earth alone. They - we - are all puppets, dancing on
strings.'
'Let's dance then.' He kept his hands in his pockets, his
body motionless.
'I will do whatever you wish,' she told him. 'All I know
is one certain thing. We cannot go separate ways.'
He put out his hand and brushed it against hers. 'Then
let's leave here,' he said. He turned and looked at the grey
bulk of the computer. 'After we've destroyed this. We'll
make a real job of it this time. Then we'll find somewhere
with peace, like that island we,were on with old what-washis-name
- Preen.'
'All right,' she said. 'We will do as you want. I have often
told you that. But have you .thought? Have you really
thought? Do you think we'd be allowed to live in peace any More than Preen was? The only
safe place for us is here. If
we accept this and its protection we accept what is planned.'
'Planned! That damned word. And what is planned?'
'What you want. It will be done here and in the rest of the
world.'
'I'm afraid I'm not cut out to be a dictator.'
'The only possible sort of dictator is someone who is not
cut out for it,' she said. 'Someone who knows.'
'Knows what?' he asked.
She took hold of his arm and began to lead him across to
the observation bay of the computer.
'I'll show you what I showed Mm'selle Gamboul,' she said.
'Stand close beside me.'
Obediently he stood by the panel and brought in the phase
switches as she called the numbers. She sat down, alert and
expectant, with a hand on his.
The computer began to purr. Relays snicked into operation,
the screen glowed. Like a film coming into focus the
shadows grew smaller and sharper as they took form and
perspective.
'It looks like the moon,' Fleming murmured. 'Dead mountains,
dust-filled valleys.'
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'It isn't,' Andre whispered, without looking away from the
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