village, and they’ve all been stopped. It appears as if there’s a guard around the whole perimeter. I think I’d better get on to London.”
Kingsley pressed a switch.
“Hello, is that the guard’s office at the front gate? Yes, yes, I accept that you are only acting under the Chief Constable’s orders. I understand that. What I want you to do is this. Listen carefully, I want you to ring Whitehall 9700. When you get that number you will give the code letters QUE and ask for Mr Francis Parkinson, Secretary to the Prime Minister. When Mr Parkinson comes on the line you will tell him that Professor Kingsley wishes to speak to him. Then you will put the call through to me. Please repeat these instructions.”
After a few minutes Parkinson came through. Kingsley began:
“Hello, Parkinson. I hear you sprang your trap this morning … No, no, I’m not complaining. I expected it. You may put as many guards as you please on the perimeter of Nortonstowe, but I will have none of them inside. I am ringing now to tell you that communication with Nortonstowe will henceforth be on a different basis. There are to be no more telephone calls. We intend cutting all wires leading to the guard posts. If you wish to communicate with us you must use the radio link … If you haven’t finished the transmitter yet, that’s your own affair. You shouldn’t insist on the Home Secretary doing all the wiring … You don’t understand? Then you ought to. If you chaps are competent enough to run this country at a time of crisis you ought to be competent enough to build a transmitter, especially when we’ve given you the design. There’s one other thing and I’d like you to take careful note of it. If you won’t allow anyone to go out, we shall allow nobody to come into Nortonstowe. Or on second thoughts you yourself, Parkinson, may come in if you please, but you will not be allowed out. That’s all.”
“But the whole thing’s preposterous,” said Weichart. “Why, it’s practically like being imprisoned. I didn’t know this could happen in England.”
“Anything can happen in England,” answered Kingsley, “only the reasons that are given may be somewhat unusual. If you want to keep a body of men and women imprisoned in a country estate somewhere in England, You don’t tell the guards that they are guarding a prison. You tell them that those inside need protection against desperate characters who are trying to break in from outside. Protection, not confinement, is the watchword here.”
And indeed the Chief Constable was under the impression that Nortonstowe held atomic secrets that would revolutionize the application of nuclear power to industry. He was also under the impression that foreign espionage would do its utmost to prise out these secrets. He knew that the most likely leak would be from someone actually working at Nortonstowe. It was therefore a simple deduction that the best form of security would be to prevent all access to, or egress from, the place. In this belief he had been confirmed by the Home Secretary himself. He was even willing to concede that it might be necessary to augment his police guard by calling in the military.
“But what has this, whatever it may mean, to do with us?’ asked Ann Halsey.
“It’d be easy for me to pretend that you happened to be here by accident,” said Kingsley, “but I don’t think so. You’re here as part of a plan. There are others here as well. You see George Fisher, the artist, was commissioned by the Government to do some drawings of Nortonstowe. Then there’s John McNeil, a young physician, and Bill Price, the historian, working on the old library. I think we’d better try to rope ’em all in, and then I’ll explain as best I can.”
When Fisher, McNeil, and Price had been added to their company, Kingsley gave the assembled non-scientists a general but fairly detailed account of the discovery of the Black Cloud, and of the events that had led up to the establishment of Nortonstowe.
“I can see why this explains the guards and so forth. But it doesn’t explain why we’re here. You said it wasn’t an accident. Why us and not someone else?’ asked Ann Halsey.
“My fault,” answered Kingsley. “What I believe to have happened is this. An address book of mine was found by Government agents. In that book were the names of scientists that I consulted about the Black Cloud. What I presume to have happened is that when some of my contacts were discovered, the Government decided to take no chances. They simply roped in everybody in the address book. I’m sorry.”
“That was damned careless of you, Chris,” exclaimed Fisher.
“Well, frankly I’ve had quite a lot to worry about during the last six weeks. And after all your situation is really pretty good. You’ve said, without exception, what a nice place this is. And when the crisis comes you’ve a vastly better chance of surviving than you could possibly have had otherwise. We shall survive here if survival is at all possible. So at root you may think that you’ve been pretty fortunate.”
“This address book business, Kingsley,” said McNeil, “doesn’t seem to apply at all in my case. As far as I’m aware we never met until a few days ago.”
“Incidentally, McNeil, why are you here, if I may ask?”
“Cock and bull story evidently. I’ve been concerned with finding a site for a new sanatorium, and Nortonstowe was recommended to me. Ministry of Health suggested I might like to see the place for myself. But why me I can’t imagine.”
“Perhaps so that we had a doctor on the spot.”
Kingsley got up and walked to the window. Cloud shadows were chasing each other across the meadows.
One afternoon in mid-April, Kingsley returned to the house after a brisk walk round the Nortonstowe estate, to find aniseed smoke pervading his room.
“What the …!’ he exclaimed. “By all that’s wonderful, Geoff Marlowe. I’d given up hopes of you getting here. How did you manage it?”
“By deception and treachery,” replied Marlowe between large mouthfuls of toast. “Nice place you’ve got here. Have some tea?”
“Thanks, it’s very kind of you.”
“Not at all. After you left we were moved down to Palomar, where I was able to do a certain amount of work. Then we were all transported into the desert, with the exception of Emerson, who I believe was sent over here.”
“Yes, we’ve got Emerson, Barnett, and Weichart. I was rather afraid they’d given you the desert treatment. That’s why I cleared out so quickly as soon as Herrick said he was going to Washington. Did he get a thick ear for allowing me to leave the country?”
“I gather so, but he didn’t say much about it.”
“Incidentally, am I right in supposing that the A.R. was sent over to your side?”
“Yes, sir! The Astronomer Royal is Chief British Liaison Officer to the whole U.S. project.”
“Good for him. That’ll be exactly up his alley, I expect. But you haven’t told me how you managed to give the desert the slip, and why you decided to leave.”
“The why of it is easy. Because of the way we were organized to death.”
Marlowe took a handful of lumps out of the sugar bowl. He laid one on the table.
“This is the guy who does the work.”
“What do you call him?”
“I don’t know that we call him anything in particular.”
“We call him a “bod” over here.”
“A “bod”?”
“That’s right. Short for “body”.”
“Well, even though we don’t call him a “bod”, he’s a “bod” all right,” went on Marlowe. “In fact he’s a hell of a “bod”, as you’ll soon see.”
Next he laid down a row of sugar lumps.
“Above the “bod” comes his Section Leader. In view of my seniority I’m a Section Leader. Then comes the Deputy Director. Herrick became a Deputy Director in spite of his being in the doghouse. Then here’s our old friend the Director himself. Above him comes the Assistant Controller, then who else but the Controller? They’re the military, of course. Next comes the Project Coordinator. He’s a politician. And so by degrees we come to the President’s Deputy. After that I suppose comes the President, although I can’t be sure because I never got as high as that.”
“You didn’t like it, I suppose?”
“No, sir, I didn’t,” continued Marlowe as he crunched another piece of toast. “I was too near the bottom of the hierarchy to like it. Besides I could never find out what was going on outside my own section. The policy was to
