older people. The President was suffering from bronchitis.
The Salim residence looked shabby and dilapidated. There had been some minor storm damage. No one had troubled to sweep up the rubble. The palm trees which had grown in the courtyard for more than fifty years had been broken by the wind.
An armed guard escorted Dawnay to Gamboul's office.
She could see at once how the other woman had changed.
The sensuality seemed to have drained out of Gamboul. Her face had become more beautiful in a haggard, almost aesthetic way, and there was something fanatical about her bright dark eyes. Something terrifyingly self- possessed and dedicated.
She was surprisingly friendly, asking what she could do, 'You have everything you need for our work?' she enquired.
'For yours; not for mine,' Dawnay corrected her. Then, without preamble she gave a factual and restrained report on the reasons for the state of the weather.
Gamboul listened quietly, without interrupting. She walked to the window and looked out across the city to the towering masses of cumulus beyond it over the desert.
She was quiet for a time after Dawnay had finished. 'How shall we die?' she murmured, walking back to her desk and sitting down. Dawnay explained.
Gamboul waved an expressive hand. 'That wasn't the meaning in the message,' she protested. 'It wasn't meant to happen. Everything was clear and logical. What I saw was - desolation, but not like this. And there was power too.'
'What did you learn you had to do?' Dawnay prompted.
Gamboul's mind was far away, reliving that night in front of the computer screen. 'Govern,' she muttered. 'Everyone knows that it has to be, but nobody will make the real effort.
A few have tried .... '
'Hitler? Napoleon?' Dawnay suggested.
Gamboul was not insulted. 'Yes,' she agreed. But they were not brilliant enough, or rather they did not have the help of the brain from out there. It will be necessary to sacrifice almost everything. But not like this! Not now! We're not ready!'
'How much power have you ?' Dawnay asked.
'Enough here. But this was to be only a beginning.'
'It still could be,' said Dawnay. She could see now a way of appealing to the other woman's greed and fear.
Gamboul turned sharply to her. 'What do you mean?' she demanded.
'It's possible,' Dawnay explained, 'that we may be able to find a way to save the atmosphere. Not probable, but just a chance. We're getting some help from the computer with a formula that looks like an anti-bacterium. We may be able to synthesise it. But I shall need help and equipment. If we succeed we shall have to mass produce it and then pump it into the sea all over the world.'
Gamboul gave her a look of suspicion. 'How can you produce so much?'
Carefully Dawnay explained that with organisation the serum, once made, would increase naturally, possibly at a rate faster than the bacteria already in the sea. 'Once we've bred bulk supplies we should have to send batches to all countries, where their own installations could all handle it simultaneously.'
Gamboul began laughing. It was not a pleasant sound for there was no joy in it, only overweening exultation. 'We will do it,' she said, 'but we shall not allow other governments to co-operate. Intel will build all the plant you need. Intel will offer the serum at its own price. This will give us the power I was told about. It is part of the message after all. I didn't understand. Now the world will be ours, held to ransom.'
Dawnay rose, staring at her. 'It's not for you!' she found herself shouting, too deeply shocked to care what risk she ran. 'You're mad! It isn't part of the plan!'
But Gamboul seemed not to notice; only stared back at her with glazed eyes and spoke as if to a minion receiving orders.
'Indent for all the equipment you need, Professor. I assure you that there will be no restrictions about that.'
A portable projector had been rigged up in the Cabinet Room at 10, Downing Street. The Prime Minister, a few of his senior colleagues including the Minister of Science, and Osborne were sitting at one end of the table watching the screen.
The Prime Minister raised his hand. 'That's enough,' he said wearily. 'Put the lights on, will you?' The scene of a waste of water over what had once been Holland's most fertile farmland faded.
'The point is, sir, do we release it to the T.V. nets?' The Home Secretary enquired.
'Why not?' asked the Premier. 'People who can do so, might as well see. Perhaps there'll be some sort of wry comfort in knowing that Europe's even worse off than we are.
Anyway, not many will see them. I doubt whether a tenth of the country now has any electricity.'
He fingered his pipe, then laid it down; smoking was almost impossible with breathing so difficult. 'Any news from Neilson?' he enquired.
'Not yet, sir,' Osborne replied. 'Another report from Professor Dawnay brought on an Intel transport. It's a technical message the Director of Research is studying. But briefly, she claims that the bacterium is a bio-chemical thing put out by the Thorness computer.'
'Is she doing anything?'
'She says she's working on it, sir. We're hoping she will give Neilson a lead and he can help her.'
'Couldn't this Arab aviator or whatever he is smuggle Neilson back once there are some facts to work on?'
Osborne coughed deferentially. 'I'm afraid the calculations would have to be done there, sir; they have the computer.'
The Prime Minister gave Osborne a keen glance. 'Thank you for reminding me of that,' he snapped with uncharacteristic sharpness. 'And what about the computer's minions, the fellow Fleming, and the girl?'
'They're both there,' the Minister of Science told him.
'They're under guard.'
The Prime Minister got up and walked to the head of the great table. 'Perhaps it's time we moved in,' he said quietly.
'This isn't a Suez. We would have support from other quarters.'
The Minister of Science shifted uneasily. 'My experts have made an appreciation of the eventuality, sir. They advise against it. You will understand, sir, that the computer...'
'... Has built them the sort of defence set-up it built us,'
the Prime Minister finished for him. 'So we'll have to try appealing to their better nature, won't we?'
'Yes, sir,' muttered the Minister of Science.
'Not a very profitable policy, I suspect,' said the Premier.
'But I doubt whether we or the Opposition can think up any other. I'll get the C.O.I. to draft something for the B.B.C. I suppose there's still some transmitter or other which can pump it out?'
'Daventry is still on the air, sir,' the Minister of Science said. 'The army's there with a group of mobile power units.
We can reach Azaran on short-wave all right.'
The special bulletin was broadcast in English and Arabic at hourly intervals throughout the night. Most of the first transmission got through to Azaran. After that, on Gamboul's personal orders, it was jammed.
She summoned Kaufman to her office to hear a tape transcription. The German sat impassively while the tape was played.
'This is London calling the government and people of Azaran,' came the far-off, static-distorted voice. 'We need your help. The continent of Europe has been devastated. The whole world is threatened by a series of climatic disturbances which have already begun to reach your own country. The air we breathe is being sucked into the sea. Within the next few weeks millions will die unless by some enormous effort it can be arrested. Tens of thousands are dying now. This country has been badly hit. Three quarters of Holland are inundated. Venice has been largely destroyed by a tidal wave. The cities of Rouen, Hamburg, and Dusseldorf no longer exist.'
