She looked with pity at his haggard nervous face.
'I've been dreading having to tell you.'
'You mean – something's happened to her?'
'Yes. I'm sorry, terribly sorry… Your wife's dead… She was coming to join you and the plane crashed. She was taken to hospital and died two days later.'
He stared straight ahead of him. It was as though he was determined to show no emotion of any kind. He said quietly:
'So Olive's dead? I see…'
There was a long silence. Then he turned to her.
'All right. I can go on from there. You took her place and came here, why?'
This time Hilary was ready with her response. Tom Betterton had believed that she had been sent 'to get him out of here' as he had put it. That was not the case. Hilary's position was that of a spy. She had been sent to gain information not to plan the escape of a man who had placed himself willingly in the position he now was. Moreover she could command no means of deliverance, she was a prisoner as much as he was.
To confide in him fully would, she felt, be dangerous. Betterton was very near a breakdown. At any moment he might go completely to pieces. In those circumstances it would be madness to expect him to keep a secret.
She said,
'I was in the hospital with your wife when she died. I offered to take her place and try and reach you. She wanted to get a message to you very badly.'
He frowned.
'But surely -'
She hurried on – before he could realise the weakness of the tale.
'It's not so incredible as it sounds. You see I had a lot of sympathy with all these ideas – the ideas you've just been talking about. Scientific secrets shared with all nations – a new World Order. I was enthusiastic about it all. And then my hair – if what they expected was a red-haired woman of the right age, I thought I'd get through. It seemed worth trying anyway.'
'Yes,' he said. His eyes swept over her head. 'Your hair's exactly like Olive's.'
'And then, you see, your wife was so insistent – about the message she wanted me to give to you.'
'Oh yes, the message. What message?'
'To tell you to be careful – very careful – that you were in danger – from someone called Boris?'
'Boris? Boris Glydr, do you mean?'
'Yes, do you know him?'
He shook his head.
'I've never met him. But I know him by name. He's a relation of my first wife's. I know about him.'
'Why should he be dangerous?'
'What?'
He spoke absently.
Hilary repeated her question.
'Oh, that.' He seemed to come back from far away. 'I don't know why he should be dangerous to me, but it's true that by all accounts he's a dangerous sort of chap.'
'In what way?'
'Well, he's one of those half balmy idealists who would quite happily kill off half humanity if they thought for some reason it would be a good thing.'
'I know the sort of person you mean.'
She felt she did know – vividly. (But why?)
'Had Olive seen him? What did he say to her?'
'I can't tell you. That's all she said. About danger – oh yes, she said she couldn't believe it.'
'Believe what?'
'I don't know.' She hesitated a minute and then said, 'You see – she was dying…'
A spasm of pain convulsed his face.
'I know… I know… I shall get used to it in time. At the moment I can't realise it. But I'm puzzled about Boris. How could he be dangerous to me here? If he'd seen Olive he was in London, I suppose?'
'He was in London, yes.'
'Then I simply don't get it…Oh well, what does it matter? What the hell does anything matter? Here we are, stuck in this bloody Unit surrounded by a lot of inhuman Robots…'
'That's just how they felt to me.'
'And we can't get out' He pounded with his fist on the concrete. 'We can't get out.'
'Oh yes, we can,' said Hilary.
He turned to stare at her in surprise.
'What on earth do you mean?'
'We'll find a way,' said Hilary.
'My dear girl,' his laugh was scornful. 'You haven't the faintest idea what you're up against in this place.'
'People escaped from the most impossible places during the war,' said Hilary stubbornly. She was not going to give in to despair. 'They tunnelled, or something.'
'How can you tunnel through sheer rock? And where to? It's desert all round.'
'Then it will have to be 'or something.''
He looked at her. She smiled with a confidence that was dogged rather than genuine.
'What an extraordinary girl you are. You sound quite sure of yourself.'
'There's always a way. I dare say it will take time, and a lot of planning.'
His face clouded over again.
'Time,' he said. 'Time… That's what I can't afford.'
'Why?'
'I don't know whether you'll be able to understand… It's like this. I can't really – do my stuff here.'
She frowned.
'How do you mean?'
'How shall I put it? I can't work. I can't think. In my stuff one has to have a high degree of concentration. A lot of it is – well – creative. Since coming here I've just lost the urge. All I can do is good sound hack work. The sort of thing any twopenny-halfpenny scientific chap can do. But that's not what they brought me here for. They want original stuff and I can't do original stuff. And the more nervous and afraid I get, the less I'm fit to turn out anything worth turning out. And it's driving me off my rocker, do you see?'
Yes, she saw now. She recalled Dr. Rubec's remarks about prima donnas and scientists.
'If I can't deliver the goods, what is an outfit like this going to do about it? They'll liquidate me.'
'Oh no.'
'Oh yes they will. They're not sentimentalists here. What's saved me so far is this plastic surgery business. They do it a little at a time, you know. And naturally a fellow who's having constant minor operations can't be expected to concentrate. But they've finished the business now.'
'But why was it done at all? What's the point?'
'Oh, that! For safety. My safety, I mean. It's done if – if you're a 'wanted' man.'
'Are you a 'wanted' man, then?'
'Yes, didn't you know? Oh, I suppose they wouldn't advertise the fact in the papers. Perhaps even Olive didn't know. But I'm wanted right enough.'
'You mean for – treason is the word, isn't it? You mean you've sold them atom secrets?'
He avoided her eyes.
'I didn't sell anything. I gave them what I knew of our processes – gave it freely. If you can believe me, I wanted to give it to them. It was part of the whole setup – the pooling of scientific knowledge. Oh, can't you understand?'
She could understand. She could understand Andy Peters doing just that. She could see Ericsson with his fanatical dreamer's eyes betraying his country with a high-souled enthusiasm.
Yet it was hard for her to visualise Tom Betterton doing it – and she realised with a shock that all that
