settle down and be very happy amongst us.'
'Thank you, Dr. Nielson.'
Hilary sat down in the chair he drew forward for her.
'Any questions you want to ask me?' Dr. Nielson leant forward over his desk in an encouraging manner. Hilary laughed a little.
'That's a most difficult thing to answer,' she said. 'The real answer is, of course, that I've got so many questions to ask that I don't know where to begin.'
'Quite, quite. I understand that. If you'll take my advice – this is just advice, you know, nothing more – I shouldn't ask anything. Just adapt yourself and see what comes. That's the best way, believe me.'
'I feel I know so little,' said Hilary. 'It's all so – so very unexpected.'
'Yes. Most people think that. The general idea seems to have been that one was going to arrive in Moscow.' He laughed cheerfully. 'Our desert home is quite a surprise to most people.'
'It was certainly a surprise to me.'
'Well, we don't tell people too much beforehand. They mightn't be discreet, you know, and discretion's rather important. But you'll be comfortable here, you'll find. Anything you don't like – or particularly would like to have… just put in a request for it and we'll see what can be managed. Any artistic requirement, for instance. Painting, sculpture, music, we have a department for all that sort of thing.'
'I'm afraid I'm not talented that way.'
'Well, there's plenty of social life too, of a kind. Games, you know. We have tennis courts, squash courts. It takes a week or two, we often find, for people to find their feet, especially the wives, if I may say so. Your husband's got his job and he's busy with it and it takes a little time, sometimes, for the wives to find – well – other wives who are congenial. All that sort of thing. You understand me.'
'But does one – does one – stay here?'
'Stay here? I don't quite understand you, Mrs. Betterton.'
'I mean, does one stay here or go on somewhere else?'
Dr. Nielson became rather vague.
'Ah,' he said. 'That depends on your husband. Ah, yes, yes, that depends very much on him. There are possibilities. Various possibilities. But it's better not to go into all that just now. I'd suggest, you know, that you – well – come and see me again perhaps in three weeks' time. Tell me how you've settled down. All that kind of thing.'
'Does one – go out at all?'
'Go out, Mrs. Betterton?'
'I mean outside the walls. The gates.'
'A very natural question,' said Dr. Nielson. His manner was now rather heavily beneficent. 'Yes, very natural. Most people ask it when they come here. But the point of our Unit is that it's a world in itself. There is nothing, if I may so express myself, to go out to. Outside us there is only desert. Now I'm not blaming you, Mrs. Betterton. Most people feel like that when they first get here. Slight claustrophobia. That's how Dr. Rubec puts it. But I assure you that it passes off. It's a hangover, if I may so express it, from the world that you have left. Have you ever observed an ant hill, Mrs. Betterton? An interesting sight. Very interesting and very instructive. Hundreds of little black insects hurrying to and fro, so earnest, so eager, so purposeful. And yet the whole thing's such a muddle. That's the bad old world you have left. Here there is leisure, purpose, infinite time. I assure you,' he smiled, 'an earthly paradise.'
Chapter 13
'It's like a school,' said Hilary.
She was back once more in her own suite. The clothes and accessories she had chosen were awaiting her in the bedroom. She hung the clothes in the cupboard and arranged the other things to her liking.
'I know,' said Betterton, 'I felt like that at first.'
Their conversation was wary and slightly stilted. The shadow of a possible microphone still hung over them. He said in an oblique manner,
'I think it's all right, you know. I think I was probably imagining things. But all the same…'
He left it at that, and Hilary realised that what he had left unsaid was, 'but all the same, we had better be careful.'
The whole business was, Hilary thought, like some fantastic nightmare. Here she was, sharing a bedroom with a strange man, and yet so strong was the feeling of uncertainty, and danger, that to neither of them did the intimacy appear embarrassing. It was like, she thought, climbing a Swiss mountain where you share a hut in close proximity with guides and other climbers as a matter of course. After a minute or two Betterton said,
'It all takes a bit of getting used to, you know. Let's just be very natural. Very ordinary. More or less as if we were at home still.'
She realised the wisdom of that. The feeling of unreality persisted and would persist, she supposed, some little time. The reasons for Betterton leaving England, his hopes, his disillusionment could not be touched upon between them at this moment. They were two people playing a part with an undefined menace hanging over them, as it were. She said presently,
'I was taken through a lot of formalities. Medical, psychological and all that.'
'Yes. That's always done. It's natural I suppose.' 'Did the same happen to you?'
'More or less.'
'Then I went in to see the – Deputy Director I think they called him?'
'That's right. He runs this place. Very capable and a thoroughly good administrator.'
'But he's not really the head of it all?'
'Oh no, there's the Director himself.'
'Does one – do I – shall I see the Director?'
'Sooner or later I expect. But he doesn't often appear. He gives us an address from time to time – he's got a wonderfully stimulating personality.'
There was a faint frown between Betterton's brows and Hilary thought it wise to abandon the subject. Betterton said, glancing at a watch,
'Dinner is at eight. Eight to eight-thirty, that is. We'd better be getting down, if you're ready?'
He spoke exactly as though they were staying in a hotel.
Hilary had changed into the dress she had selected. A soft shade of gray-green that made a good background for her red hair. She clasped a necklace of rather attractive costume jewellery round her neck and said she was ready. They went down the stairs and along corridors and finally into a large dining room. Miss Jennsen came forward and met them.
'I have arranged a slightly larger table for you, Tom,' she said to Betterton. 'A couple of your wife's fellow travellers will sit with you – and the Murchisons, of course.'
They went along to the table indicated. The room contained mostly small tables seating four, eight or ten persons. Andy Peters and Ericsson were already sitting at the table and rose as Hilary and Tom approached. Hilary introduced her 'husband' to the two men. They sat down, and presently they were joined by another couple. These Betterton introduced as Dr. and Mrs. Murchison.
'Simon and I work in the same lab,' he said, in an explanatory fashion.
Simon Murchison was a thin, anaemic-looking young man of about twenty-six. His wife was dark and stocky. She spoke with a strong foreign accent and was, Hilary gathered, an Italian. Her Christian name was Bianca. She greeted Hilary politely but, or so it seemed to Hilary, with a certain reserve.
'Tomorrow,' she said, 'I will show you around the place. You are not a scientist, no?'
'I'm afraid,' said Hilary, 'that I have had no scientific training.' She added, 'I worked as a secretary before my marriage.'
'Bianca has had legal training,' said her husband. 'She has studied economics and commercial law. Sometimes she gives lectures here but it is difficult to find enough to do to occupy one's time.'
