"Listen, Olive, and believe what I say. Tom will do best to stay on here. He's -" he hesitated, "- safer here than he would be in the outside world."
"Safer? What a curious word."
"Safer," said Peters. "I use the word deliberately."
Hilary frowned.
"I don't really see what you mean. Tom's not - you don't think he's becoming mentally unhinged?"
"Not in the least. He's het up, but I'd say Tom Betterton's as sane as you or I."
"Then why are you saying he'd be safer here?"
Peters said slowly,
"A cage, you know, is a very safe place to be."
"Oh no," cried Hilary. "Don't tell me you're going to believe that too. Don't tell me that mass hypnotism, or suggestion, or whatever it is, is working on you. Safe, tame, content! We must rebel still! We must want to be free!"
Peters said slowly,
"Yes, I know. But -"
"Tom, at any rate, wants desperately to get away from here."
"Tom mayn't know what's good for him."
Suddenly Hilary remembered what Tom had hinted at to her. If he had disposed of secret information he would be liable, she supposed, to prosecution under the Official Secrets Act - That, no doubt, was what Peters was hinting at in his rather embarrassed way - but Hilary was clear in her own mind. Better to serve a prison sentence even than remain on here. She said, obstinately,
"Tom must come, too."
She was startled when Peters said suddenly, in a bitter tone,
"Have it your own way. I've warned you. I wish I knew what the hell makes you care for that fellow so much?"
She stared at him in dismay. Words sprang to her lips, but she checked them. She realised that what she wanted to say was, "I don't care for him. He's nothing to me. He was another woman's husband and I've a responsibility to her." She wanted to say, "You fool, if there's anybody I care about, it's you..."
II
"Been enjoying yourself with your tame American?"
Tom Betterton threw the words at her as she entered their bedroom. He was lying on his back on his bed, smoking.
Hilary flushed slightly.
"We arrived here together," she said, "and we seem to think alike about certain things."
He laughed.
"Oh! I don't blame you." For the first time he looked at her in a new and appraising way. "You're a good-looking woman, Olive," he said.
From the beginning Hilary had urged him always to call her by his wife's name.
"Yes," he continued, his eyes raking her up and down. "You're a damned good-looking woman. I'd have noticed that once. As it is, nothing of that kind seems to register with me any more."
"Perhaps it's just as well," said Hilary drily.
"I'm a perfectly normal man, my dear, or I used to be. God knows what I am now."
Hilary sat down by him.
"What is the matter with you, Tom?" she said.
"I tell you. I can't concentrate. As a scientist I'm shot to pieces. This place -"
"The others - or most of them - don't seem to feel like you?"
"Because they're a damned insensitive crowd, I suppose."
"Some of them are temperamental enough," said Hilary, drily. She went on, "If only you had a friend here - a real friend."
"Well, there's Murchison. Though he's a dull dog. And I've seen a good deal of Torquil Ericsson lately."
"Really?" For some reason Hilary felt surprised.
"Yes. My God, he's brilliant. I wish I had his brains."
"He's an odd sort of person," said Hilary. "I always find him rather frightening."
"Frightening? Torquil? He's as mild as milk. Like a child in some ways. No knowledge of the world."
"Well I find him frightening," repeated Hilary obstinately.
"Your nerves must be getting upset, too."
"Not yet. I suspect they will, though. Tom - don't get too friendly with Torquil Ericsson."
He stared at her.
"Why ever not?"
"I don't know. It's a feeling I have."
Chapter 17
LeBlanc shrugged his shoulders.
"They have left Africa, it is certain."
"Not certain."
"The probabilities point that way." The Frenchman shook his head. "After all, we know, do we not, for where they are bound?"
"If they are bound for where we think, why start the journey from Africa? Anywhere in Europe would be simpler."
"That is true. But there is the other side of it. No one would expect them to assemble and start from here."
"I still think there's more to it than that." Jessop was gently insistent. "Besides, only a small plane could have used that airfield. It would have to come down and refuel before crossing the Mediterranean. And where they refuelled some trace should have been left."
"Mon cher, we have instituted the most searching enquiries - everywhere there has been -"
"The men with the Geiger counters must get results in the end. The number of planes to be examined is limited. Just a trace of radio-activity and we shall know that is the plane we are looking for -"
"If your agent has been able to use the spray. Alas! Always so many 'ifs'..."
"We shall get there," said Jessop obstinately. "I wonder -"
"Yes?"
"We have assumed they are going north - towards the Mediterranean - suppose instead, they flew south."
"Doubled back on their tracks? But where, then, could they be flying to? There are the mountains of the High Atlas - and after that the desert sands."
II
"Sidi, you swear to me that it will be as you have promised? A petrol station in America, in Chicago? It is certain?"
"It is certain, Mohammed, if we get out of here, that is."
"Success depends on the will of Allah."
"Let us hope, then, that it is the will of Allah that you should have a petrol station in Chicago. Why Chicago?"
"Sidi, the brother of my wife went to America, and he has there a petrol pump in Chicago. Do I want to remain in a backward part of the world all my days? Here there is money and much food and many rugs and women - but it is not modern. It is not America."
Peters looked thoughtfully into the dignified black face. Mohammed in his white robes was a magnificent sight. What strange desires rose in the human heart!
"I don't know that you're wise," he said with a sigh, "but so be it. Of course, if we are found out -"
A smile on the black face revealed beautiful white teeth.
"Then it is death - for me certainly. Perhaps not for you, Sidi, since you are valuable."
"They deal out death rather easily here, do they?"
The shoulders of the other man rose and fell contemptuously.
"What is death? That, too, is the will of Allah."
"You know what you have to do?"
"I know, Sidi. I am to take you to the roof after dark. Also I am to put in your room clothing such as I and the other servants wear. Later - there will be other things."
"Right. You'd better let me out of the lift now. Somebody may notice we're riding up and down. It may give them ideas."
III
There was dancing going on. Andy Peters was dancing with Miss Jennsen. He held her close to him, and seemed to be murmuring in her ear. As they revolved slowly near where Hilary was standing he caught her eye and immediately gave her an outrageous wink.
Hilary, biting her lip to avoid a smile, averted her eyes quickly.
Her glance fell on Betterton who was standing just across the room talking to Torquil Ericsson. Hilary frowned a little as she watched them.
"Have a turn with me, Olive?" said Murchison's voice at her elbow.
"Yes, of course, Simon."
"Mind you, I'm not very hot at dancing," he warned her.
Hilary concentrated on keeping her feet where he could not possibly tread on them.
"It's exercise, that's what I say," said Murchison, panting slightly. He was an energetic dancer.
"Awfully jolly frock you've got on, Olive."
His conversation seemed always to come out of an old-fashioned novel.
"I'm glad you like it," said Hilary.
"Get it out of the Fashion Department?"
Resisting the temptation to reply: "Where else?" Hilary merely said, "Yes."
"Must say, you know," panted Murchison as he capered perseveringly round the floor, "they do you jolly well here. Said so to Bianca only the other day. Beats the Welfare State every time. No worries about money, or income tax - or repairs or upkeep. All the worrying done for you. Must be a wonderful life for a woman, I should say."
"Bianca finds it so, does she?"
"Well, she was restless for a bit, but now she's managed to get up a few committees and organise one or two things - debates, you know, and lectures. She's complaining that you don't take as much part as you might in things."
"I'm afraid I'm not that kind of person, Simon. I've never been very public spirited."
"Yes, but you girls have got to keep yourselves amused one way or another. At least I don't mean amused exactly -"
"Occupied?" suggested Hilary.
"Yes - I mean the modern woman wants to get her teeth into something. I quite realise that women like you and Bianca have made a definite sacrifice coming here - you're neither of you scientists, thank goodness - really, these scientific women! Absolutely the limit, most of them! I said to Bianca, 'Give Olive time, she's got to get tuned in.' It takes a little time getting used to this place. To begin with, one gets a kind of claustrophobic feeling. But it wears off - it wears off..."
"You mean - one can get used to anything?"
"Well, some people feel it more than others. Tom, now, seems to take it hard. Where's old Tom tonight? Oh yes, I see, over there with Torquil. Quite inseparable, those two."
"I wish they weren't. I mean, I shouldn't have thought they had very much in common."
"Young Torquil seems fascinated by your husband. He follows him round everywhere."
"I've noticed it. I wondered - why?"
"Well, he's always got some outlandish theory to get off his chest - it's beyond my power to follow him - his English isn't too good, as you know. But Tom listens and manages to take it all in."
The dance ended. Andy Peters came up and claimed Hilary for the next one.
"I observed you suffering in a good cause," he said. "How badly did you get trampled?"
"Oh, I was fairly agile."
"You noticed me doing my stuff?"
"With the Jennsen?"
"Yes. I think I may say without undue modesty that I have made a hit, a palpable hit in that quarter. These plain angular short-sighted girls respond immediately when given the treatment."
"You certainly gave the impression of having fallen for her."
"That was the idea. That girl, Olive, properly handled, can be very useful. She's in the know about all the arrangements here. For instance, tomorrow there's a party of various V.I.P.'s due here. Doctors and a few Government officials and a rich patron or two."
"Andy - do you think there might be a chance..."
"No, I don't. I bet that's going to be taken care of. So don't cherish false hopes. But it will be valuable because we'll get an idea of the procedure. And on the next occasion - well, there might be something doing. So long as I can keep the Jennsen eating out of my hand, I can get a lot of miscellaneous information out of her."
"How much do the people who are coming know?"
"About us - the Unit, I mean - nothing at all. Or so I gather. They just inspect the settlement and the medical research laboratories. This place has been deliberately built like a labyrinth, just so that nobody coming into it can possibly guess its extent. I gather there are kinds of bulkheads that close, and that shut off our area."
"It all seems so incredible."
"I know. Half the time one feels one must be dreaming. One of the unreal things here is never seeing any children about. Thank goodness there aren't! You must be thankful you haven't got a child."
He felt the sudden stiffening of her body.
"Here - I'm sorry - I said the wrong thing!" He led her off the dance floor and to a couple of chairs.
"I'm very sorry," he repeated. "I hurt you, didn't I?"
"It's nothing - no, really not your fault. I did have a child - and it died - that's all."
"You had a child?" he stared, surprised. "I thought you'd only been married to Betterton six months?"
Olive flushed. She said quickly,
"Yes, of course. But I was - married before. I divorced my first husband."
"Oh, I see. That's the worst of this place. One doesn't know anything about people's lives before they came here, and so one goes and says the wrong thing. It's odd to realise sometimes that I don't know anything about you at all."
"Or I anything about you. How you were brought up - and where - your family -"
"I was brought up in a strictly scientific atmosphere. Nourished on test tubes, you might say. Nobody ever thought or talked of anything else. But I was never the bright boy of the family. Genius lay elsewhere."
"Where exactly?"
"A girl. She was brilliant. She might have been another Madame Curie. She could have opened up new horizons..."
"She - what happened to her?"
He said shortly:
"She was killed."
Hilary guessed at some wartime tragedy. She said gently,
"You cared for her?"
"More than I have ever cared for anybody."
He roused himself suddenly.
"What the heck - we've got enough troubles in the present, right here and now. Look at our Norwegian friend. Apart from his eyes, he always looks as though he were made from wood. And that wonderful little stiff bow of his - as though you'd pulled a string."
