The Smog (13 page)

 

“But dammit, Palfrey,” expostulated Clitheroe, “if you wanted a hearing at a Cabinet meeting, you should have made the approach through me. I am the Minister dealing with this particular problem.”

He looked, thought Palfrey, like an indignant rabbit.

“
Surely
you understand that.”

“No,” said Palfrey, sitting in a luxuriously panelled office in front of an enormous pedestal desk. “I don't agree at all. You forget, Minister, that I am not a servant of the crown.”

“But as an Englishman—”

“I don't serve this country only, sir. I serve people of all nations. I am authorised to deal directly and personally with the heads of governments, and am now conferring with you as the representative of the British Government on Home Affairs. This is no longer a matter of Home Affairs.”

“Then why did you come here?” demanded Clitheroe, crossly.

“As a matter of courtesy, Minister,” Palfrey said gently. “And I shall hope for your support.”

“If you would give me details in advance, I—” Clitheroe broke off as the door opened and a youngish man entered, his manner almost that of an acolyte before a priest. “I said I was not to be disturbed,” Clitheroe rebuked pettishly.

“The Prime Minister says that the Cabinet will meet in five minutes, sir to hear a statement from Dr. Palfrey.”

“Oh, I see. Yes. Very well.” Clitheroe waited until the door was closed, and then stood up. “I am not at all sure that I am happy about your position, Palfrey.” Palfrey also stood up and they moved towards the door. “Either you are an Englishman, with the proper loyalties, or—”

“Minister,” interrupted Palfrey, “if I abide by the conventional loyalties to Britain, London could be wiped out as surely as the village of Sane. If I accept a broader allegiance, there is a chance of saving not only London, but the major cities of the world.”

Clitheroe, staring at him, closed the door and silently led the way down the narrow staircase of Number 11, Downing Street. A servant opened the door. A police sergeant stood immediately outside, while a number of other policemen made a crescent around the doorway of both houses. At each end of Downing Street, more police were forming cordons, while crowds of people craned their necks and stood on tiptoe to see what was going on.

The door of Number 10 opened.

“Palfrey,” said Clitheroe, in a subdued voice, “this is all too much for me. I—er—accept your broader loyalties, of course, but I am simply an Englishman. I can't help my own limitations.”

“There isn't the slightest reason why you should, sir,” Palfrey said.

They went inside, and into the Cabinet Room.

Palfrey was almost as familiar with it as with his own room. The length of the table, the panelling, the austerity, the men sitting at their places—twenty-one he saw, including Sir Norton Bray, the Prime Minister, at the head of the table. Clitheroe bobbed as if to an altar and took one of several vacant chairs. Bray half rose from his seat.

“Good morning, Dr. Palfrey. I understand your statement is one of great urgency. Sit or stand, as you prefer. We are all vitally interested and anxious to know what you can tell us.”

Palfrey moved to a vacant chair at one end of the table, but did not sit down. He placed his hands on the back of the chair and began to speak.

“I am extremely grateful, Prime Minister. There has been a development, an unexpected, a grave one, but not without hope, in fact with some built-in reassurance. We are not under threat from any hostile group—nor is any nation. We …”

He told them exactly what there was in the message, and there was utter silence as he spoke; when it was done, he passed his copy along to the Prime Minister, who placed it on one side and said quietly: “I am sure you have omitted nothing of significance, Dr. Palfrey. And I am equally sure that you expect us to understand the full implications of the message. A few days ago you asked us to recommend to all nations that they intensify their efforts to find the cause of the alarming increase in the smog content of the atmosphere. Now, you desire us to support a different recommendation—that no action be taken until there is further word from—” he glanced down at some notes he had made, and added: “Professor Storr. Do I understand you correctly?”

“You do indeed, sir.”

“I see. Do you know what the alternative is?”

“One investigating team, believing itself to be near success, and out of sheer ignorance, might bring about a catastrophe in a major city or cities.”

The Prime Minister glanced round at his colleagues, severe-looking men markedly professorial in manner, and said generally: “I imagine that I voice the opinion of most of us here when I say that the man Costain, about whom so little is known, might have been deceived by Storr.” He turned to Palfrey. “You appear to have been persuaded that Storr can be believed. Clearly, he could be lying: he could be asking you and the nations to suspend their investigation so that he can strengthen his own position to a point of dominance.”

“In other words,” put in Ogden, the bearded, bespectacled Foreign Minister who looked (and often talked) like an Old Testament Prophet, “Storr may be a megalomaniac who has world domination at heart and be using Palfrey to gain time. His story may have a basis of truth and yet be a concoction of lies.”

Palfrey was twisting some strands of hair about his forefinger.

“It may indeed,” he said.

“You admit that?” Ogden boomed.

“You realise that?” another man said.

“Of course,” said Palfrey briskly, and he untwisted the hair and patted it down. “If he's lying, he's gaining a little time. If he's telling the truth, he needs time and must have it. If we refuse his request we may bring disaster down on many world cities. So—I think we should accede to what he asks, while using this opportunity of finding out the truth to the utmost.”

“And how will you do that?” squeaked Clitheroe.

“By going there myself,” said Palfrey, “and making it a condition of our recommendation to the nations that I may go in person. I have already made arrangements to leave at twelve noon. I have also recommended that the second-in-command of Z5 ask his government to add their voice to yours in support of the new proposals.”

After a brief pause, the Prime Minister said: “You mean Andromovitch of Russia?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You cannot possibly believe that the Kremlin—” began Ogden, but his voice had lost much of its resonance, and fell away to a whisper as he repeated: “You cannot possibly believe that the Kremlin would agree.”

“We should soon know,” Palfrey said. “I have asked Andromovitch to put it to the Presidium as quickly and urgently as possible.”

 

Stefan Andromovitch was a huge man; among a crowd, even of big people, a giant. There were those who said that his features were too big for him to be called handsome, but many looked into his face and had a strange sensation, almost of awe. Even those steeped in prejudice against everything and everyone Russian had been known to say: “It is like looking on the face of a saint.”

Others, less dramatic, would simply say: “This man is good.”

He had worked with Palfrey during the war when the Allies had needed a secret service in the common interest. He had been the liaison between Moscow and the West when Moscow had suspected that Z5 watched only the interests of the Western Powers. He had been the man who, talking to a secret session of the Warsaw Pact Countries, had persuaded them that Z5 was as vital to Russia and Communist nations as to the West, since both sides had common enemies and, on some issues, must join in common cause.

Now, he towered over the meeting of the Party Presidium. Only seven were present, one of their number being in Pekin in a desperate effort to find a bridge between Pekin and Moscow. But Zobovkin, the Chairman, was there, in the middle of the seven, a bull of a man whose thick neck seemed to flow into his broad shoulders, and who looked like Karl Marx reborn.

Stefan talked – as Palfrey talked in Downing Street – briskly and lucidly, and after he had stopped there was a long, and what could so easily be a frightening, pause. There were the hawks and the doves on the bench before him; there were no fools but there were men who, out of prejudice, could act like fools. As each one of them looked at him he showed no change of expression, standing without the slightest movement, even of his lips; but his heart was thumping and he felt icy cold.

Afterwards, he said to Palfrey: “It was as if I were standing there on trial for treason; and they were the judges.”

It was Zobovkin who broke the silence.

“What if this man Storr is a tool of the West?”

“There is nothing to suggest he is any man's tool, comrade.”

“He is said to own the wealth of a nation.”

“He may also hold our safety and the world's safety in his hands.”

“What will you do, if you find he is lying to you?”

“I will come back and tell you that I was wrong,” Stefan said.

“By then it may be too late.”

There was another long pause, while each man stared accusingly and Stefan felt as if all hope were dying. But he did not look away from Zobovkin as he said clearly: “If we delay much longer, it may already be too late. Surely it is better to have a chance in a million than no chance at all.”

That was when Zobovkin dismissed him to wait outside for the Presidium's decision. And he was there, looking through a small, barred window out at the Armory with its priceless collection, when he was sent for.

“An aeroplane is waiting at the airport for you,” Zobovkin said. “Talk, first, to Palfrey.”

 

“We will meet at Yellowstone Park airport,” Palfrey decided, “and make our plans from there. And I'll send word by radio that we are coming and want free entry into the Pale Valley. We should know Storr's reply
en route.
”

 

“Palfrey is coming,” Storr said, “with the Russian, Andromovitch, and we shall make them welcome. But we can't afford to wait for them, David. We have to begin our experiments with you now.”

“If we have to begin them, let's begin.” Costain showed neither fear nor pleasure.

“Be ready to leave here in half an hour,” Storr said. “Marion will tell you what to do.”

 

 

Marion.

She was with him in the chalet in which he had lived for the past two days. She had spent much of the time with him, although they had had most meals with the others in another, longer chalet in this same hillside.

Talking very little about themselves, they had formed a kind of friendship, or companionship. She had passed on a lot of information since Storr had told him what he wanted. He knew that the research laboratories were built into the mountainside, just above the geyser level of the valley. A long series of natural caves had been turned into a tunnel, and in these a dozen test chambers had been built, each containing certain concentrations of
helia,
each carefully studied and controlled.

“Some of the concentrations have been measured by instruments and chemical tests. Some have been tried on animals; some, on human beings,” Marion had told him.

“How did you get the human beings?” he had asked.

“They volunteered,” she had answered. “The risk was far less than yours, and they received substantial danger money.”

She had shown him models of the chambers, and how they were approached from the chalet and from shacks which looked like hunting cabins. In the summer as many as thirty chemists and physicists worked there, in the winter perhaps only four.

“And the testing chambers are virtually inaccessible except from the lake,” she said. “They can be reached only by iron staircases or by chair lifts.”

“But why the secrecy?” he had demanded.

“Stephen believed it to be essential,” she had told him. She seemed almost to reverence Storr.

“Now,” she said: “David, you know you may not come back, don't you?”

“Of course,” he said.

“And it doesn't worry you?”

“It doesn't make me wish I weren't going if that's what you mean,” he said. “Don't make a hero out of me, Marion.”

“No hero,” she said, almost in anguish, and closed her eyes, then opened them again and said in a lighter tone: “Have you thought about the future if you do come back?”

“No,” he said. “Not really.”

“Have you been afraid to?”

“In a way, yes.”

“David, you've lived in the past too long.”

“I'm not living in the past now,” he said positively. “I won't again. Marion—” he felt strangely calm and strangely sure of himself, “whenever I catch a glimpse of the future, I see you with me.”

Her eyes lit up, and for the first time they held each other, almost fiercely, longingly; and he felt the warmth of her lips and the promise of her body.

And they drew apart.

“David,” she said in a faint voice, “I want to tell you what will happen now. Stephen or Arthur would have told you, but I wanted to.”

“Yes,” he said.

“There are the twelve main chambers, each with a series of smaller inner chambers.”

“Yes.”

“All have a different concentration of
helia
and carbon and sulphur oxides,” she said. “And daylight has been simulated to create the smog. If we have found the right additive for all the different concentrations, then you will come out alive. If we haven't—”

“All right,” he said gruffly. “How sure are you?”

“Stephen is nearly sure. If we fail—”

“Everything fails.” He moved towards the railing, and saw a motor-launch coming across the lake. “How long will the whole test take?”

“Seven days at least,” she said.

“I've never been a chemist,” he remarked, and then added: “I mean, I've never been interested in it. Odd that I should be—” he broke off. “Stephen won't harm Palfrey, will he?”

“He won't harm anyone provided they don't try to interfere. David, please try to understand. Stephen is a great humanitarian. No one could ever count the good he's done, the money he's given to the great foundations and to charities. He worked for the advancement of man, and in doing so, created by chance the devil which may destroy man. It is bad enough simply as a situation but he must feel possessed by a thousand devils, all tearing at his vitals.”

Costain said slowly: “Yes. Yes, I can understand.”

He saw that it would do no good to denigrate Storr, suggest that money-making was his chief concern, and that there would have been no need for the excess of tardy humanitarianism if he had not thrown an insufficiently tested product on the world. “Marion—”

“Yes.”

“What is he to you?” When she didn't answer immediately, he went on: “What has he been?”

“Everything,” she said.

“Must you evade the question?”

“He has been everything that is kind and good,” she repeated. “I first met him when, as the daughter of a close business associate, I worked with the Storr Foundation. Griselda already worked there. So did Arthur Harrison. Philip came in much later. We were all—partners in the
helia
experiments. This whole valley is overflowing with rock and ore. We found another deposit in New Zealand, in the South Island; there is probably a deposit in the Himalayas and of course there may be others. We believed when we began that it would lower the price of all fuels and so make all commodities cheaper and more plentiful. And, God forgive us, we thought that it would cleanse the air. What went wrong, where we went wrong, we don't yet know.”

“But if I live, you will find out,” Costain said gruffly.

They stood close together for a few moments, and then Stephen Storr came into the living room, and a bell rang from the landing stage.

Storr came onto the patio.

“Ready?” he asked.

“Yes,” said Costain.

They went to a door at the side of the house and for the first time he saw the chair lift from here to the lake itself; Marion came to the lift with them; it was a two seater and obviously she wasn't coming down. She gripped his arm as he stepped in, and he saw the tears in her eyes.

He found himself smiling at her.

Then Storr sat in and locked the safety bar, pressed a button, and the descent began.

From that moment it seemed to Costain that the world he knew was slipping away from him. He had no thought of death, but only of the beauty of the valley and the strange stillness everywhere. It was as if he were descending into infinity. At every stage the blue of the lake and the white of the mountain peaks, the colour of the trees and the darkness and the shape of the shadows cast by the clouds changed, each time to a greater beauty so that even thought and fear were lost in a wonder which seemed to have no end.

Soon, as a jutting crag of granite fell away from view, he could see the valley of steam – the Pale Valley of mist which could hold the secret between life and death. He saw a sheer fall of at least five hundred feet, and below this a beach of pale sand, two small jetties, another motor launch and what looked like a chair lift going up the face of the cliff. Then other crags and a patch of dark ponderosa pines hid this from view.

He did not see it again until he was in the launch. A sun-bronzed young man gave him a hand into it, but Storr lowered himself without help. He sat next to Costain as they headed for the cliff.

“The testing chambers are at the top of that cliff,” he said. “Did Marion tell you what will happen?”

“Yes.”

“If you should have breathing difficulty in any conditions we will try to—”

“Stop it.” Costain said roughly. “You haven't told me what Palfrey said.”

“The recommendations have gone through. His, London's, Moscow's—and, I have just learned, Washington's. We have gained time for your experiment.”

“Enough time?” demanded Costain.

“I think when Palfrey sees the research station and the laboratories—and when Dr. Erasmus Smith, an expert who is with him, studies our meters and our control—they will make sure we have enough time.”

Costain nodded, and then asked: “Will you look after Grace Drummond?”

“In every way I can,” promised Storr.

The launch was moving swiftly but with little noise across the deep blue waters of the lake. There was scarcely any wind, the surface was hardly rippled. The great granite face of the cliff rose almost sheer above them as the pilot manoeuvred so that they could climb onto the jetty. Here, the smell of ‘exhaust fumes' was very strong. Costain climbed on to the jetty. Blue jays flashed past him like metallic rockets. He saw the chair lift, large enough for two, looked upwards and felt dizzy as he craned his neck to see the top of the cliff.

Soon, he and Storr began to move upwards.

The lake and mountains, peaks and steam-filled valley lay before him with a beauty which seemed to show in one stupendous panorama everything he had seen in single vistas before. He was hardly aware of the smooth movement of the lift. Soon, there was a jolting sound and he realised they were at the top. A platform was pushed out from the edge of the cliff. He saw that Harrison and Griselda were there, while Philip sat in his wheel chair, watching expressionlessly.

There was a ledge perhaps fifty yards wide, cut out of the mountain – and beyond were the tunnels. Outside, there were all the trappings of a small factory: stores, a transformer, petrol pumps, drums of oil, pieces of machinery. They did not pause but walked straight into the tunnel. Here, in daylight which was simulated at least as well as Palfrey's at Z5, was a huge laboratory which stretched against the side of the tunnel. A dozen white-smocked men were in there, behind glass, working. But now they were turning round, and a little man with a shock of red hair gave the thumbs up sign.

The group passed the laboratory and reached a smaller room, a mass of narrow pipes, electrical conduits, switchboards and generator. There was a faint throbbing of a petrol-fired engine. It carried Costain's thoughts back to the sound at Sane Manor – Drummond's motor, which everyone had believed was only making electricity for his house. In fact it was used for both purposes.

Until now, Costain had been aware of hardly any feeling, conscious only of a kind of numbness throughout his body. But now that he saw the feeder pipes and realised that they were carrying the
helia
into the gas-laden chambers, his heart began to thump.

Then, at last, he saw the testing chambers.

They ran along the wall, as the laboratory had done. Outside each were great meters, showing the degree of pollution or the freshness of the air. Each chamber was made of some material which had the clarity of glass; each was about twenty feet long, and he could see partitions in each.

Storr said: “When you step into the first, David, a glass screen will move to one side, this will carry you into a trap which in turn will take you into the next cubicle. There is a seat in each, there are magazines and books. You may do anything you wish except move about quickly or do anything to make yourself breathe quickly or agitatedly.”

Costain nodded understanding.

“You stay in each cubicle for an hour,” Storr went on. “You will be warned when there are five minutes left in the cubicle you are in. Do you understand that, too?”

“Yes.”

“After each period of an hour you will have fifteen minutes to drink or eat; you must not drink in the testing chambers themselves. At the end of each three and three quarter hours you will have a period for normal eating, washing, showering. During the entire test you will be under observation. If you feel the effects of the toxic air—of any smog signs at all—put your hands to your throat.”

Costain said: “Can't we get on with it?”

“You are to go into that shower, undress, shower, put on bathing trunks you will find there. Afterwards you can start whenever you wish.”

“Right,” Costain said.

“Perhaps you should know this,” Storr went on. “The chambers are in a tunnel cut by a river of scalding water. We call it Boiling River. We diverted it, and now it runs almost parallel with the chambers.
Helia
is present in the river water. That is what makes this a perfect testing place.”

Costain said gruffly: “I'm glad something is perfect.”

Soon, he was showered and ready. He could not stop his heart from thumping or the muscles in his neck from tightening, but it did not occur to him to hesitate or draw back. He saw the sliding doorway close to the shower and pressed a button marked
open,
waited for it to slide back, and stepped through.

This was an air trap, between the gas-filled cubicle and the outside air. The next sliding door led him into the first of the gas chambers.

He tried not to breathe too deeply or too heavily, but even so his breath came in shorter gasps, and when the door slid to behind him, he felt a moment of near panic, and turned, hands raised as if to batter down the door.

He stopped and stood rigid with his hands clenched, his chest heaving. Soon, he moved to the stool and picked up the newspapers. There was a London
Times,
three days old, telling the story of what had happened at Mountview.

His breathing eased, and became normal.

He read on.

 

In the chalet, sitting before a television set, Marion Kemble watched, saw the momentary panic and cried out in fear for David. And, her heart thumping at least as fast as his, she saw him settle down.

 

In his aircraft, already nearing the coast of North America, Palfrey had a radio report, saying very simply: “Costain is in the testing chambers.”

“If he gets out alive,” said Erasmus Smith shifting in his seat across the gangway, “it will be a miracle. But you believe in miracles, Palfrey, don't you?”