The Peace Machine

chocolate wafers she invariably ate at lunchtime in the company of other secretaries who gathered in her office to discuss pop singers.

“Sorry to interupt the proceedings at Culture Corner,” he said, “I just wanted to let you know I won’t be back in the office today. Handle anything that crops up, will you?”

“Where will I say you are?” Her voice was clearer now, but resentful.

“Say I’m at the seaside.” He thought of the red-brown beach at Hastings and wished he had not mentioned the seaside. “No, you’d better tell the truth — I’ll be doing some research at the Morrison Library.”

“Doing some research at the Morrison Library,” Muriel repeated in a dull monotone which openly signaled her disbelief. By this time a suitably edited version of his row with Spain would be going the rounds and Muriel, although she disliked Spain, would have seized on it as another example of how Mr. Hutchman had changed for the worse. It occurred to him that he had better be more careful with Muriel.

“That’s it,” he said. “See you in the morning.”

She hung up without replying. He hurried back to his car and drove through the afternoon grayness to the Jeavons Institute. The stone building was vaporing introspectively in the rain and nobody appeared to notice as he parked in the inner quadrangle. It took him twenty minutes to separate the machine into its major components and transfer them with their shielding to the car. By the time he had finished his shoulders and arms, toughened as they were by regular archery practice, were aching. He drove out through the archway, still without having encountered a soul, and headed south for Hastings.

The drive took rather more than his estimated ninety minutes, and he spent another ten locating the house he had rented at 31 Channing Waye. It turned out to be a reasonably well-preserved “two-up-and-two-down” in a short row of identical dwellings. The sea was visible at one end of the steeply sloping street. Hutchman felt strangely self-conscious as he put a key into the lock and opened the door of the alien little house he had just acquired. It was legally his, yet he felt guilty of trespass. He walked along the short hall and glanced into the downstairs rooms, noting the sparse furniture which was just sufficient to satisfy the rent-control regulations concerning the letting of houses. The house was cold, lifeless. Filled with an oddly sexual excitement, he went upstairs and found the rear bedroom to be completely empty except for a single bentwood chair painted gooseberry green. The narrow window looked out at a blank wall which ricocheted his thoughts back like bullets.

I may die in this room! The idea leaped into his mind unbidden, bringing with it a depression which countered the shame-tinged arousal the atmosphere of shabby secrecy had inspired in him. He clattered down the stairs and began carrying the machine into the house. The shielding seemed even heavier than before but the distances were short and within ten minutes he had the entire set of components laid out on the floor of the bedroom. He considered beginning the assembly, then decided in favor of an early start back to Crymchurch. At this stage he had to give priority to letting the world know the machine existed.

“David’s asleep, and I’m going out for a couple of hours,” Vicky said from the doorway of his study. She was wearing a rustcoloured tweed suit he could not remember seeing before and her face beneath the carefully applied make-up was taut. A deep sadness gripped Hutchman and he knew that, in spite of everything, he had been hoping she would be satisfied with the blow she had already dealt him.

“Where are you going?”

“I may go and visit mother.”

“You may go and visit your mother.” He laughed drily. “All right, Vicky — I get the message.”

“That is… if you aren’t planning to go out,” she said casually, ignoring the implication of his remark. “I’ll stay in and mind David if you’re going out.”

Hutchman glanced at the stacks of white paper he had put through the copier. “No. I’m not going out.”

“That’s all right then.” Vicky gave him a speculative look and he guessed she was wondering how he had managed to grow strong. On best form, he should have been on his knees to her, weeping and pleading, groveling. And he would have done it — that much he had to admit — except that she had made the mistake of overkilling him. One adultery or a dozen, one megaton or a hundred. Hutchman could not plead for his life, because he was already dead.

“I’ll see you later,” Vicky said.

Hutchman nodded. “Give my regards to your mother.”

CHAPTER 6

He was relieved, on waking up, to find himself bathed in the special honey-coloured radiance which, he was convinced, the sun emits only on weekend mornings. The effect he surmised to be either objective — fifty million Saturday-conscious Britons influencing the weather by the power of thought — or groupsubjective as the same fifty million people created a telepathic blanket of pleasure because the working week was over. In any case, Hutchman was glad he was not required to go into the office because he had to begin mailing those of his envelopes which were destined for the most remote parts of the world. He had decided to split them into small batches and mail them at different postboxes over as wide an area as he could cover in one day. The area would be confined to the southeast corner of the country, which was less satisfactory than going right up to Scotland, but it would encompass something like a third of the population. And it could be argued that a person living in the north would have deliberately chosen the southeast area to throw investigators off the scent.

Hutchman got out of bed and, in spite of himself, went to the door of the second bedroom and peered in. Vicky was asleep there in the tentlike ambience caused by drawn blinds. He closed the door, went to the bathroom, and washed hastily. There had been no reason to suppose that Vicky would stay out all night but a stubbon and unrealistic part of him felt reassured to find her at home. He dressed in sweater and slacks, and carried all his envelopes out to his car in a suitcase. Before leaving he looked into David’s room and stared for a long troubled moment at the small figure in its extravagant posture of sleep.

The mid-morning traffic was relatively light as he drove west, determined to reach Bath before mailing the first envelopes. Any full-scale enquiry into the mailing would start off with a certain amount of ready-made data — the collection times stamped on the envelopes, and the last thing he wanted was to blaze a circular route which started at Crymchurch. He drove quickly, with maximum concentration, and was barely aware of the radio until an hourly newscast mentioned the row which had blown up between the newly formed Damascus Relief Organization and a group of traditional bodies such as Oxfam and UNICEF. A Mr. Ryan Rhodes, chairman of DRO, had made a public allegation that postal contributions to his organization had been diverted to other funds with the connivance of the authorities. Hutchman had his doubts about the claim — Rhodes probably was suffering from an attack of charity organizer’s cholic — but it occurred to him that, for his own project, he was relying to an inordinate extent on Her Majesty’s mails. As a middle-class Englishman he had an inherent faith in institutions like the post office, yet as an intelligent citizen of the late l980s he understood that no government, not even that of Elizabeth II, obeyed any code of rules.

His forehead pricked coldly. In his case was a sheaf of envelopes addressed to selected Russian statesmen, physicists, and editors of scientific journals — but supposing there was a system in Britain whereby all mail bound for Russia was checked? There were ways to read a letter without opening the envelope. Hutchman eased his foot off the accelerator as he struggled to work out the implications of the new idea. If such a system really were in operation one effect would be that the great manhunt would get under way several days earlier than he had allowed for. This in itself would not necessarily be disastrous, but a much more serious consequence could be that no Russian envelopes would reach their intended destinations. The whole essence of his scheme was that all nuclear powers should be informed of the November 10 deadline. If it were used unilaterally Hutchman’s antiweapon would automatically become a weapon. Even as it was, by choosing a deadline so close in the future, he had already handicapped the greater powers who would have to work all out to break up their stocks of warheads in time.

As he coasted uncertainly along the road Hutchman was surprised to find the image of a woman’s face hovering behind his eyes. It was a smooth, dusky face with a pouting lower lip accented by chalky-pink lipstick. An intelligent amoral face. That of… Andrea Knight! With the identification came a rush of other information about the woman — she was a biologist with whom Hutchman had been briefly acquainted at university. Lately he had glimpsed her several times in the refectory at the Jeavons Institute, during his rare coffee breaks from work on the machine and — a hard knot of excitement formed in his stomach — he had read something about her in the J.I. Newsletter. She was going to Moscow to take part in a DNA seminar!

Hutchman fought to recall the exact date of her departure, but all he could be certain of was that it was imminent. Perhaps it had already passed, but if she — as a member of an accredited scientific mission — could be persuaded to take an envelope with her there was no doubt that it would get safely through the customs and security barriers. And if he gave her one of the envelopes intended for a journal it should be fairly easy to work out a reasonable story to satisfy her curiosity. If she had already left he would have to think of something else, but it seemed worth his while to find out what the situation was.

The next town ahead was Aldershot. Hutchman accelerated again and within a few minutes was speeding past the neat rows of army housing which spread out for miles on both sides of the road. He stopped at a telephone kiosk near the town and looked up the number of Roger Dufay, the Westfield press officer, who was also a free-lance science journalist and a regular contributor to the J.I. Newsletter. The phone rang a longish time but finally was answered by Dufay.

“Hello, Roger!” Hutchman tried to sound hearty and unconcerned. “Sorry to trouble you at home, but I can’t think of anybody else who could answer this one.”

“That’s all right, old boy.” Dufay was friendly but cautious. “What’s your problem?”

“I’m trying to contact a friend of mine who’s going off to Moscow for the DNA seminar, and I wonder if I’m too late.”

“Mmm. I’m not sure. Who is it you want?”

Hutchman hesitated. He could invent a name but Dufay was one of those frighteningly knowledgeable men who could be capable of reciting the names of the entire British party. “Ah . Andrea Knight.”

“Oho! You’re a crafty devil, Hutch. It’s like that, is it?”

“No, Roger.” Not you, too, Hutchman thought wearily. “Besides, do you think I’d admit anything to you?”

“No need to, old boy. They don’t call our little Andrea the Jeavons bicycle for nothing. You crafty devil.”

“Listen, Roger, have you got a note of when the British party leaves? I’m in a bit of a hurry.”

“I’ll bet you are. Hold on a moment.” There was a pause during which Hutchman bent his knees to bring his face level with the kiosk’s mirror. His cheeks looked thinner, the line of his jaw standing out clearly, and he had forgotten to shave — for the first time in years. “Hello, Hutch. They’re flying out from Gatwick tomorrow afternoon. So if you want to get in before the commissars you’d better pop round to her place tonight and…”

“Thanks, Roger.” Hutchman set the phone down and went in search of the Aldershot general post office. Arriving at it he looked through all the directories covering the Camburn and Crymchurch areas and found the entry he wanted: “Knight, Andrea, 11 Moore’s Road, Camburn… Camburn 3436.” He copied it onto a piece of paper and, suddenly apprehensive, dialed the number.

“Andrea Knight here.” She had answered so quickly, even before the phone began to ring properly, that Hutchman was startled.

“Hello, Miss Knight.” He sought the right words. “I don’t know if you would remember me. This is Lucas Hutchman. We were at…”

“Lucas Hutchman!” Her voice was surprised, but with undertones of pleasure. “Of course I remember… I’ve seen you lately at Jeavons, but you didn’t speak to me.”

“I wasn’t sure if you would know who I was.”

“Well, your not even saying hello to me wouldn’t help my memory, would it?”

“I guess not.” Hutchman felt his face grow warm and he realized with mild astonishment that he and this virtual stranger were, within seconds, making contact on a sexual level. “I always seem to miss my chances.”

“Really? Then why have you rung me? Or shouldn’t I be so bold?”

“I was wondering…” Hutchman swallowed. “I know this is very presumptuous, but I was wondering if you would do me a small favor.”