Goodbye California

desert.’

‘Balderdash. The extreme cunning of extreme madness. Wants to convince people that they’re dealing with a rational human being.’ Burnett examined his empty glass, rose and made for the bar. ‘Well, he’ll never convince me of that. I detest cliches but, gentlemen — mark my words.’

They marked his words in silence and were still sitting in silence when Morro and Dubois entered. He was either oblivious of or ignored the thunder on Burnett’s face, the gloom on that of the others.

‘I am sorry to disturb you, gentlemen, but the evenings are a bit dull here and I thought you might care to see something to titillate your scientific curiosity. I do not want to sound like a showman in a circus, but I’m sure you will be astonished — dumb-founded, I might almost say — by what Abraham and I are about to show you. Would you care to accompany me, gentlemen?’

Burnett wasn’t going to pass up the opportunity to exercise his truculence. ‘And if we refuse?’

‘Your privilege. And I mean yours, Professor. I somehow think your colleagues might be quite interested, and would take great pleasure in telling you afterwards. Of course, you may all choose to refuse. I will bring no pressure to bear.’

Healey rose. ‘I was born nosey. Your food is excellent but the entertainment factor is zero. Nothing on the TV — not that there ever is much — except the precautions being taken to keep people away from the Yucca Flat tomorrow and the fearful speculation as to what the next threat is going to be and what is the motivation behind it all. What is the motivation, Morro?’

‘Later. Meantime, those of you who care —’

They all cared, even Burnett. Two white-robed acolytes were waiting in the passage. This didn’t worry the four physicists: there was nothing new in this, nor in the certain knowledge that they would be carrying their Ingrams in the folds of their robes. What was unusual was that one of them was carrying a tape-recorder. Burnett, as ever, was the first and principal objector.

‘What’s your devious mind planning on now, Morro? What’s the damned recorder for?’

Morro was patient. ‘To make a recording. I thought you might like to be the first to inform your fellow citizens of what I have here and, by implication, what’s in store for them. We will bring to an end what you, Dr Healey, call their “fearful speculations” and let them know the dreadful reality. Their fears, almost certainly, will be replaced by a mindless panic such as a people have never known before. But it is justifiable. It is justifiable because it will enable me to achieve what I wish — and, more importantly from your point of view, to achieve it without the loss of the lives of perhaps millions of people. That loss is just conceivable — if you refuse to co-operate.’

The quiet voice carried total conviction, but when a mind is confronted by the inconceivable it takes refuge in disbelief and non-acceptance.

‘You are quite, quite mad.’ For once Burnett was neither furious nor truculent but he carried as much conviction as Morro had done. ‘If we refuse to, as you say, co-operate? Torture? The threat to the women?’

‘Mrs Ryder will have told you that they are safe from me. You really can be tedious at times, Professor. No torture, except that of your own consciences, the thought that will haunt you as long as you may live — you could have saved countless lives but have chosen not to.’

Healey said: ‘What you are saying in effect is that while people might not believe you and take a chance that you are bluffing they would believe us and take no such chance.’

Morro smiled. ‘It wounds what passes for my amour propre but, yes, precisely.’

‘Let’s go and see just how mad he is.’

The lift was an extraordinary construction. Its floor measured about four feet by six but, in height, it must have been at least fourteen feet. The faces of the four physicists reflected their puzzlement. As the lift whined down Morro smiled again. ‘It is peculiar, I admit. You will understand the reason for its unique design in a very few moments.’

The lift stopped, the door opened and the eight men moved out into a large chamber about twenty feet square. The walls and roofs were as they had been when cut from the solid rock, the floor of smooth concrete. On one side were vertically stacked sheets of steel, whether hardened or stainless it was impossible to judge: on the other were unmistakable sheets of aluminium. For the rest, it was no more or less than a comprehensively- equipped machine shop, with lathes, machine presses, drills, guillotines, oxy-acetylene equipment and racks of gleaming tools. Morro waved a hand.

‘In an automobile plant, what you would call the “body shop”. Here we make the casings. I need say no more.’

Running along the length of the roof of the chamber was a heavy metal rail from which were suspended travelling chain blocks. This extended into the next compartment. Morro led the way in. There was a long table, again running the length of the chamber: a table fitted with circular metal clamps. On either side were racked storage compartments, wire-net fronted, both containing metal drums well separated at calculated intervals.

Morro didn’t even break stride. ‘Plutonium to the left, Uranium-235 to the right.’ He carried straight on to a smaller room. ‘The electrical shop, gentlemen. But that wouldn’t interest you.’ He kept on walking. ‘But this next room should fascinate you. Again in auto-manufacturing parlance, this is what you would call the “assembly shop”.’

Morro had made no mistake. The four physicists were, beyond question, fascinated as they had never been in their lives. But not in the details of the assembly shop. What caught and held fast their disbelieving and horrified attention was the rack bolted to the right-hand wall. More precisely, what the rack held. Clamped vertically, side by side, were ten twelve-feet-high cylinders, each four-and-a-half inches in diameter. They were painted in matt black with the exception of two red bands, each an inch thick, that circled the cylinders one third and two thirds the way up their height. At the further end of the row were two more sets of clamps which held nothing. Morro looked at each of the four physicists in turn. Each face held the same expression, a profound dismay coupled with a sick and shocked certainty. Morro’s face registered nothing — no humour, no triumph, no satisfaction, nothing. The silence dragged on for a seemingly interminable time, but then in circumstances sufficiently appalling a few seconds cannot be measured in the normally accepted units of time. In the accepted units of seconds, twenty had passed before Healey broke the silence. His face was grey, his voice husky as he broke from his thrall and turned to look at Morro.

‘This is a nightmare.’

‘This is no nightmare. From a nightmare you wake up. Not from this, for this is the dreadful reality. A waking nightmare, if you will.’

Burnett was as hoarse as Healey had been. ‘The Aunt Sally!’

Morro corrected him. ‘The Aunt Sallies. Ten of them. You, Professor, are an excellent designer of hydrogen weapons. Your brainchild in its final physical form. One could wish that you could have viewed it under happier circumstances.’

There was something very close to hate in Burnett’s eyes.

‘You, Morro, are an evil and vindictive bastard.’

‘You can save your breath. Professor, and for two reasons. Your statement is untrue for I derive no gloating pleasure from this; and, as you should know by now, I am impervious to insults.’

With a Herculean effort Burnett brought his temper and outrage under control, and regarded Morro with an expression of suspicious thought-fulness. He said slowly: ‘I have to admit they look like Aunt Sallies.’

‘You are suggesting something. Professor Burnett?’

‘Yes. I’m suggesting this is a hoax, a gigantic bluff. I’m suggesting that all this fancy machinery you have down here, the steel and aluminium sheets, the nuclear fuel, the electrical shop, this so-called assembly shop, is just window-dressing on an unprecedented scale. I suggest you are trying to trick my colleagues and myself into convincing the world at large that you really are in possession of those nuclear weapons, whereas in fact, they are only dummies. You could have those cylinders made in a hundred places in this State alone without arousing any suspicion But you couldn’t have the components, the very intricate and sophisticated components made without providing very complex and highly sophisticated plans, and that would have aroused suspicion. I’m afraid, Morro, that you are no engineer. To make those components here you would have required highly-skilled pattern-cutters, template-makers, turners and machinists. Such men are very hard to come by and are highly-paid professionals who most certainly would not jeopardize their careers by working for a criminal.’