Bianca shrugged her shoulders.
'I shall manage,' she said. 'After all, Simon, I came here to be with you and I think that there is much here that could be better organised. I am studying conditions. Perhaps Mrs. Betterton, since she will not be engaged on scientific work, can help me with these things.'
Hilary hastened to agree to this plan. Andy Peters made them all laugh by saying ruefully,
'I guess I feel rather like a homesick little boy who's just gone to boarding school. I'll be glad to get down to doing some work.'
'It's a wonderful place for working,' said Simon Murchison with enthusiasm. 'No interruptions and all the apparatus you want.'
'What's your line?' asked Andy Peters.
Presently the three men were talking a jargon of their own which Hilary found difficult to follow. She turned to Ericsson who was leaning back in his chair, his eyes abstracted.
'And you?' she asked. 'Do you feel like a homesick little boy too?'
He looked at her as though from a long way away.
'I do not need a home,' he said. 'All these things; home, ties of affection, parents, children; all these are a great hindrance. To work one should be quite free.'
'And you feel that you will be free here?'
'One cannot tell yet. One hopes so.'
Bianca spoke to Hilary.
'After dinner,' she said, 'there is a choice of many things to do. There is a card room and you can play bridge; or there is a cinema or three nights a week theatrical performances are given and occasionally there is dancing.'
Ericsson frowned disapprovingly.
'All these things are unnecessary,' he said. 'They dissipate energy.'
'Not for us women,' said Bianca. 'For us women they are necessary.'
He looked at her with an almost cold and impersonal dislike.
Hilary thought: 'To him women are unnecessary, too.'
'I shall go to bed early,' said Hilary. She yawned deliberately. 'I don't think I want to see a film or play bridge this evening.'
'No, dear,' said Tom Betterton hastily. 'Much better to go to bed really early and have a good night's rest. You've had a very tiring journey, remember.'
As they rose from the table, Betterton said:
'The air here is wonderful at night. We usually take a turn or two on the roof garden after dinner, before dispersing to recreations or study. We'll go up there for a little and then you'd better go to bed.'
They went up in a lift manned by a magnificent-looking native in white robes. The attendants were darker- skinned and of a more massive build than the slighter Berbers – a desert type, Hilary thought. She was startled by the unexpected beauty of the roof garden, and also by the lavish expenditure that must have gone to create it. Tons of earth must have been brought and carried up here. The result was like an Arabian Nights fairy tale. There was the splash of water, tall palms, the tropical leaves of bananas and other plants and paths of beautiful colored tiles with designs of Persian flowers.
'It's unbelievable,' said Hilary. 'Here in the middle of the desert.' She spoke out what she had felt:
'It's an Arabian Nights fairy tale.'
'I agree with you, Mrs. Betterton,' said Murchison. 'It looks exactly as though it has come into being by conjuring up a Djin! Ah well – I suppose even in the desert there's nothing you can't do, given water and money – plenty of both of them.'
'Where does the water come from?'
'Spring tapped deep in the mountain. That's the raison d'кtre of the Unit.'
A fair sprinkling of people was on the roof garden, but little by little they dwindled away. The Murchisons excused themselves. They were going to watch some ballet.
There were few people left now. Betterton guided Hilary with his hand on her arm to a clear space near the parapet. The stars showed above them and the air was cold now, crisp and exhilarating. They were alone here. Hilary sat down on the low concrete, and Betterton stood in front of her.
'Now then,' he said in a low nervous voice, 'Who the hell are you?'
She looked up at him for a moment or two without answering. Before she replied to his question there was something that she herself had got to know.
'Why did you recognise me as your wife?' she asked.
They looked at each other. Neither of them wished to be the first to answer the other's question. It was a duel of wills between them, but Hilary knew that whatever Tom Betterton had been like when he left England, his will was now inferior to her own. She had arrived here fresh in the self-confidence of organising her own life – Tom Betterton had been living a planned existence. She was the stronger.
He looked away from her at last, and muttered sullenly:
'It was – just an impulse. I was probably a damned fool. I fancied that you might have been sent – to get me out of here.'
'You want to get out of here, then?'
'My God, can you ask?'
'How did you get here from Paris?'
Tom Betterton gave a short unhappy laugh.
'I wasn't kidnapped or anything like that, if that's what you mean. I came of my own free will under my own steam. I came keenly and enthusiastically.'
'You knew that you were coming here?'
'I'd no idea I was coming to Africa, if that's what you mean. I was caught by the usual lure. Peace on earth, free sharing of scientific secrets amongst the scientists of the world; suppression of capitalists and warmongers – all the usual jargon! That fellow Peters who came with you is the same, he's swallowed the same bait.'
'And when you got here – it wasn't like that?'
Again he gave that short bitter laugh.
'You'll see for yourself. Oh, perhaps it is that, more or less! But it's not the way you thought it would be. It's not – freedom.'
He sat down beside her frowning to himself.
'That's what got me down at home, you know. The feeling of being watched and spied upon. All the security precautions. Having to account for one's actions, for one's friends… All necessary, I dare say, but it gets you down in the end… And so when someone comes along with a proposition – well, you listen… It all sounds fine…' He gave a short laugh. 'And one ends up – here!'
Hilary said slowly:
'You mean you've come to exactly the same circumstances as those from which you tried to escape? You're being watched and spied upon in just the same way – or worse?'
Betterton pushed his hair back nervously from his forehead.
'I don't know,' he said. 'Honestly. I don't know. I can't be sure. It may be all going on in my own mind. I don't know that I'm being watched at all. Why should I be? Why should they bother? They've got me here – in prison.'
'It isn't in the least as you imagined it?'
'That's the odd thing. I suppose it is in a way. The working conditions are perfect. You've every facility, every kind of apparatus. You can work for as long a time as you like or as short a time. You've got every comfort and accessory. Food, clothes, living quarters, but you're conscious all the time that you're in prison.'
'I know. When the gates clanged behind us today as we came in it was a horrible feeling.' Hilary shuddered.
'Well,' Betterton seemed to pull himself together. 'I've answered your question. Now answer mine. What are you doing here pretending to be Olive?'
'Olive -' she stopped, feeling for words.
'Yes? What about Olive? What's happened to her? What are you trying to say?'
