information.
They installed a radio link. Land lines were no longer reliable.
Before the spring night had fallen the wind began to increase again. There was every sign of a far worse storm even than during the previous night. Osborne gave up all idea of going home.
Neilson went off to his hotel to get some dinner and Osborne was left alone. He took time off to relax and think.
The way every nation, large and small, had signified its eagerness to co-operate had been encouraging and stimulating. One tiny blank appeared in the long list of countries listed as willing to help. Osborne felt it peculiar that in the face of such danger from a natural phenomenon internal politics should be so jealously regarded in Azaran.
He picked up the phone and asked for the communications duty officer in the Middle East Section at the Foreign Office. The phone was answered immediately, but it was difficult to hear. The air had chosen that moment to whirl itself into a frenzy. Osborne had to shout his request, the effort making him gasp for breath.
Equally laboured came the reply: 'We'll try, sir, but things are difficult. Line communications have gone to hell, and radio is no more reliable. We'll be lucky to get any message out of this building tonight, let alone overseas. And as you know, sir, there's been an upheaval there. Azaran's officially sealed itself off.' A crash drowned out the rest of the words.
'Window's just blown in,' came the voice, 'God, what a night!'
It was mid-afternoon when Fleming heaved himself off his bed and went to his shower. Lethargy was insidiously enveloping him, making it possible to lie for hours doing nothing, sometimes hardly thinking. He had not really imagined that Abu would have any success in getting him an interview with Gamboul, any more than he had a definite idea of what he could say to her if he got the chance. Yet, in the frustration of his existence, he had played a sort of game ever since Abu had gone, pretending that the next ten minutes, or the ten minutes after those, would bring a summons.
It hadn't come, of course. Showered and refreshed in body, if not in mind, he made his way to the computer building.
Andre was seated at the console, Kaufman close by.
She looked desperately ill. Fleming hesitated beside her, but she took no notice of him and he moved away along the corridor.
The output printer was working and Abu was studying the figures emerging.
'I could do nothing,' murmured the Arab, without looking up. 'I'm suspected now.'
Fleming bent down as if to read the figures. 'I don't think there's anything any of us can do except warn people.'
Abu tore off the newly completed sheet and stood up. 'Go to my home this evening,' he whispered. 'Give the guards the slip. I can't come. I'm being watched. Lemka will tell you.'
Before Fleming could question him further Abu had walked quickly away to the filing office. Fleming watched his retreating back thoughtfully.
Dawnay came from the other end of the corridor. 'I saw Abu Zeki all conspiratorial with you through the glass doors,' she said, 'so I held back. What was it all about?'
'I don't know,' Fleming admitted. 'A trap perhaps; he had a session with La Gamboul this morning. Or it may be a wild goose chase. But we may as well go down fighting. And what happy tidings have you got?'
'I know what the little beast is.'
'What is it?'
'An artificially synthesised bacterium. If we knew how it acts we'd have an idea of what we're up against.'
'Can Andre... ?' He hesitated.
Dawnay gave a rueful smile. 'I tried. She says the computer can't help. It knows nothing about the bacterium.'
They walked towards the door, to get away from a guard who had paused near them. 'I'm reduced to straw- clutching,'
he continued. 'So I'll try walking into our friend Abu's trap if that's what it is.'
She clutched at his arm. 'Be careful, John,' she begged.
'With you gone - '
'I always turn up,' he grinned.
Getting away from the compound wasn't easy. Fleming had to wait until nightfall, and he was not too certain of the place where Abu said he had left his car. But he was helped by the weather. The winds after sporadic bursts of boisterousness throughout the day, was developing into a major gale.
The guards had all sought shelter against pillars and walls from the stinging sand.
His eyes adjusted to the moonless darkness after he had walked from the main compound into the service area. Abu's car was parked among several others. The ignition key was in position as Abu had promised. He drove away, not too fast, in case the speed aroused some hidden sentry.
Following the route was tricky. He wished he had taken more careful note of landmarks on the weekend trip. Twice he ran off the track during a particularly violent gust of wind when dense clouds of sand hit him, but the rear-engined Italian car was ideal for the terrain. He got to Abu's house in a couple of hours.
The door opened an inch when he knocked. He identified himself and Lemka told him to come in quickly.
An old woman in Arab costume was sitting in one corner.
She pulled her veil over the lower part of her face but her eyes were friendly. On her lap she nursed a baby.
Fleming looked at the child. 'Your son?' he asked Lemka.
'Yes; Jan,' she said proudly. 'Dr Neilson was his godfather.
You have children?'
'No.' He felt awkward with this very direct young woman.
'You would like some coffee?' Lemka said. She spoke to her mother in Arabic. The woman laid the child down in its cot and went to the kitchen.
'What's all this about?' Fleming asked when they had both sat down, Lemka beside the cot which she gently rocked.
'Abu couldn't tell me anything.'
'I made him ask you to come,' Lemka said quietly. 'You see, I have a cousin who is radio navigator of Intel's air transports. He's on the Europe run.'
'They're still flying there?'
She nodded. 'It's difficult, but they get through. It would help if you could get in touch with English scientists? My cousin is not allowed to carry messages. All crews are searched before take-off. But he has promised me he will try.'
Fleming became thoughtful. It all seemed like a trap.
'Why should he?' he asked.
Lemka's mother came in with the coffee, poured out two cups and stole silently away, squatting on the floor in the far corner. Lemka glanced at her, then at the baby. 'He'd do it for me, for his family; for our little Jan.'
It was something simple, human - the sort of human value which shone out in this nightmare world. Fleming believed her.
'He's going to London; fine. What could he take? A letter?'
She nodded. 'It is dangerous, you understand. People are locked up for such things. Even shot.'
'Thank you,' was all Fleming could find to say. 'I will ask Professor Dawnay what the message could usefully include.'
He stood up to go.
Lemka came beside him. 'What is going to happen?' she whispered.
He drew the curtains back from the tiny window. Sheltered by the precipitous hill, the air was clear of sand and the stars sprinkled the black vault of the sky with a myriad pinpoints of light.'
'There are two things,' he said half to himself. 'First, the intelligence out there in Andromeda that sent the message wanted to make contact with whatever forms of life it could find anywhere in the galaxy - in a sort of
