the Prime Minister.
“Well?’ said the Prime Minister.
“Yes, and no,” was Parkinson’s answer. “I’ve had to promise to fit the place up as a regular scientific establishment.”
“That’s no disadvantage. Kingsley was quite right in saying that we need more facts, and the sooner we get them the better.”
“I don’t doubt that, sir. But I would have preferred it if Kingsley were not likely to be quite so important a figure in the new establishment.”
“Isn’t he a good man? Could we have got someone better?”
“Oh, as a scientist he’s good enough. It’s not that which worries me.”
“I know it would have been far better if we had had to work with a more amenable type of person. But his interests seem to be pretty much the same as ours. So long as he doesn’t sulk when he finds he can’t get out of Nortonstowe.”
“Oh, he’s quite realistic about that. He used the point as a strong bargaining counter.”
“What were the conditions?”
“For one thing that there are to be no civil servants, and no political liaison except through me.”
The Prime Minister laughed.
“Poor Francis. Now I see what the trouble is. Ah well, as for the civil servants that’s not so serious, and as for the liaison, well we shall see what we shall see. Any tendency to make salaries — er — astronomical in magnitude?”
“None at all, except that Kingsley wants to use salaries as a bargaining counter to get people to Nortonstowe, until he can explain the real reason.”
“Then what is the trouble?”
“Nothing explicit that I can put my finger on, but I’ve got a sort of general sense of uneasiness. There are lots of small points, insignificant severally, but worrying when put together.”
“Come on, Francis, out with it!”
“Put in its most general terms, I’ve a feeling that it’s we who are being manoeuvred, not we who are doing the manoeuvring.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Neither do I really. On the face of it everything looks all right, but is it? Considering the level of Kingsley’s intelligence, wasn’t it just a bit too convenient that he took the trouble to register those letters?”
“It might have been a college porter who posted them for him.”
“It might have been, but if it was, Kingsley ought to have realized that the porter would register them. Then the letter to Leicester. It almost looked to me as if Kingsley expected us to intercept it, as if he wanted to force our hand. And didn’t he rough-house poor old Harry [the Home Secretary] just a bit too much? Then look at these lists. They’re incredibly detailed, as if everything had been thought out in advance. The food and fuel requirements I can understand, but why this enormous quantity of earth-moving equipment?”
“I haven’t the least idea.”
“But Kingsley has, because he’s already given a great deal of thought to it.”
“My dear Francis, what does it matter how much thought he has given to it? What we want to do is to get a highly competent team of scientists together, to isolate them, and to keep them happy. If Kingsley can be kept happy with these lists, then let him have the stuff. Why should we worry?”
“Well, there’s a lot of electronic equipment down here, an awful lot of it. It could be used for radio transmission purposes.”
“Then you strike that out here and now. That he can’t have!”
“Just a moment, sir, that isn’t the whole story. I was suspicious about this stuff, so I got some advice on it, good advice, I think. The position is this. Every radio transmission takes place in some form of code, which has to be unscrambled at the receiving end. In this country the normal form of coding goes by the technical name of amplitude modulation, although the B.B.C. has recently also been using a somewhat different form of coding known as frequency modulation.”
“Ah, that’s what frequency modulation is, is it? I’ve often heard people talking about it.”
“Yes, sir. Well, here’s the point. The type of transmission that this equipment here of Kingsley’s could give would be in a quite new form of code, a code that could not be unscrambled except by a specially designed receiving instrument. So although he might wish to send some message nobody could receive it.”
“Short of having this special receiver?”
“Exactly. Well now, do we allow Kingsley his electronic equipment or not?”
“What reason does he give for wanting it?”
“For radio astronomy. For observing this Cloud by radio.”
“Could it be used for that purpose?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Then what
“It’s just that there’s an awful lot of it. Admittedly I’m not a scientist, but I can’t swallow that this mass of stuff is really necessary. Well, do we let him have it or not?”
The Prime Minister thought for a few minutes.
“Check this advice of yours carefully. If what you’ve said about the coding turns out to be right, let him have it. In fact this transmission business may turn out to be an advantage. Francis, so far you’ve been thinking of all this from a national point of view — national as opposed to international, I mean?”
“Yes, sir?”
“I’ve been giving some attention to the wider aspects. The Americans must be finding themselves in much the same boat as ourselves. Almost certainly they will be thinking of forming a similar establishment to Nortonstowe. I think I shall try to persuade them of the advantage of a single co-operative effort.”
“But won’t that mean that we shall go there, not them come here?’ said Parkinson, somewhat ungrammatically. “They will consider their men to be better than ours.”
“Perhaps not in this field of — er — radio astronomy, in which I gather that both we and the Australians rank very highly. Since radio astronomy seems to be of rather key importance in this business I shall use radio astronomy as a strong bargaining point.”
“Security,” groaned Parkinson. “Americans think we have no security, and sometimes I think they are not far wrong.”
“Overweighed by the consideration that our population is more phlegmatic than theirs. I suspect that the American Administration may see an advantage in having all working scientists in this matter as far away from them as possible. Otherwise they will be sitting on a powder keg the whole time. Communication was my difficulty until a few moments ago. But if we could provide a radio link direct from Nortonstowe to Washington, using this new code of yours, that might solve the problem. I shall urge all this most strenuously.”
“You referred to international aspects a few moments ago. Did you really mean international or Anglo- American?”
“I meant international, the Australian radio astronomers for one thing. And I can’t see things remaining between us and the Americans for very long. The heads of other Governments will have to be told, even the Soviets. Then I shall see that a few hints are dropped, to the effect that Dr this and Dr that have received letters from one Kingsley discussing details of the business and that we have since been obliged to confine Kingsley in a place called Nortonstowe. I shall also say that if Dr this and Dr that are sent to Nortonstowe we shall be glad to see that they cause no trouble to their respective Governments.”
“But the Soviets wouldn’t fall for that!”
“Why not? We’ve seen ourselves how acutely embarrassing knowledge outside the Government can be. What wouldn’t we have given yesterday to have been rid of Kingsley? Perhaps you’d still like to be rid of him. They’ll rush their people over here as fast as aeroplanes can travel.”
“Possibly so. But why go to all this trouble, sir?”
“Well, has it struck you that Kingsley may all along have been picking the team? That those registered letters were his way of doing it? I think it’s going to be important to us to have the strongest possible team. I have a hunch that in the days to come Nortonstowe may possibly become more important than the United Nations.”
