A U.N. stand-by force was put on call but, by the President's wish, was only to enter Azaran in the event of a threat from Intel. Dawnay had engineered herself complete freedom.
But the whole entity of Intel was collapsing quietly and completely. The N.K.V.D., Interpol, and the F.B.I., working together on the report which Neilson had taken to London, raided and closed the main offices in Vienna and in Zurich and Hong Kong; and the names revealed in the documents they captured caused consternation in a dozen chancelleries.
By general agreement among the great powers, no pressure was brought to force dismissal and arrest, but all the consortium's trading licences were withdrawn. There were a couple of suicides and a whole series of resignations on health grounds, hardly noticed in the world-wide drama of retreat from chaos, and what was left came rapidly to a standstill, leaving empty trading posts all over the world without credentials or trade, and useless unclaimed millions in safe deposits in Swiss banks. In Azaran, the main centre of anti-bacteria production and the computer which had evolved it were left respectively in the hands of Madeleine Dawnay and her associate, John Fleming, who had both become world-famous characters overnight.
The atmosphere of super-efficiency and the constant flattery bestowed on Dawnay and himself repelled Fleming. He wanted no part of it; nor, indeed, was there anything for him usefully to do. He avoided the eager, enthusiastic groups who gathered in the makeshift canteen. He evaded invitations to parties which were soon organised in Baleb.
Soon after he had seen Kaufman into Interpol's custody, Fleming had suffered an experience which he found he could not dismiss from his mind. He had collected the handful of personal things in Abu's desk and driven to Lemka's village, glad that an officer of the President's personal staff had gone earlier to break the news of Abu's death to her.
It was very quiet inside the ruined courtyard of the house.
A line of washing fluttered in the wind. The baby's cot stood in the shade of a crumbling wall. A spiral of smoke eddied away from a cluster of faggots in a makeshift grate. He called and waited until Lemka appeared at the shattered doorway at the sound of footsteps.
'I came to say -' Fleming began.
'Do not tell me that you are sorry,' she interrupted, moving to the clothes line and keeping her face averted. 'And do not tell me it was not your fault.'
'I didn't want to involve your husband,' he muttered.
She turned round angrily. 'You involved us all.'
'I liked him, you know. Very much. I came to see what I could do,' he pleaded.
She was fighting back her tears. 'You've done enough.
You've saved the world - from your own muddle. So now you think it is all right. How can you - all of you - be so arrogant? You don't believe in God. You don't accept life as His gift. You want to change it because you think you're greater than God.'
'I tried to stop... ' His voice trailed away.
'You tried, and we suffer. The girl - your girl - was right when she said you condemn us. Why don't you go back and listen to her?'
'She is dying.'
'You kill her too?' She looked at him more with pity than with hatred. He could not answer. He laid the little parcel of Abu's possessions at the foot of the child's cot and walked away.
Back at the compound, he stole like an interloper by a roundabout route to his own quarters. He took out the computer print-out and his own calculations from a drawer and began studying them.
He had put them away when Dawnay had refused to help him, because he felt that he could not possibly do them himself.
He simply did not know enough bio-chemistry. For what seemed a lifetime he had avoided Andre's room, because he could no longer face the fact of her dying, and by now he had given up all hope of Dawnay having the time, energy, or will to be able to help him.
Dawnay now was installed in the executive block, at the centre of a quickly-spun web of radio and cable communications, directing and advising struggling scientists all round the world. He did not know how she managed it, or whether she ever slept; he didn't even see her.
He sat in his little room and stared glumly at the mass of figures. Then he opened a fresh bottle of whisky and started to try to make head or tail of them. It was close on midnight when he walked a little unsteadily across the deserted clearing to the laboratory.
With the experimental work over, the master breeding tanks had been transferred to the executive building where there was room for the regiments of assistants Dawnay could now direct. The laboratory where it had all begun was neat and lifeless. He groped for a switch. The light came on.
Most of the circuits had been restored during the previous day.
Hardly knowing from what recesses of memory of his student days they came, or how much was inspired by the neat Scotch, he began to find the facts he needed arranging themselves in his mind. Slowly and laboriously, and a little drunkenly, he started to make a chemical synthesis out of the mass of calculation he had written down.
His own training kept him roughly on the right path, but he ruefully had to face the fact that the ordinary, plebeian routine of practical chemistry was really beyond him. He lacked patience and accuracy; but obstinacy, and the memory of Lemka's pitying eyes, drove him on. He did not notice that morning sunlight was outshining the bare electric bulbs, nor did he hear the door open.
'What a hell of a mess!' said Dawnay's voice. 'Look at my laboratory. What do you think you're doing?'
He dropped off the high stool at the bench and stretched.
'Hello, Madeleine,' he said. 'I've been trying to synthesise this thing for Andre. Most of the main chain seems to have jelled. But the side chains are all to hell.'
Dawnay ran an expert eye over his work amid the litter spread across bench and desks. 'I'm not surprised,' she exclaimed. 'You've achieved a glorious mess. Better leave it to me.'
'I thought you hadn't time. I thought you were too busy setting the world to rights.'
She ignored what he was saying and went on looking at the equations he had written down.
'Admittedly,' she said slowly, 'if there's a chemical deficiency in her blood or endocrine glands there must be a chemical answer, but we can't know whether this is it.'
'It has to be, doesn't it?' he suggested. 'Our electronic boss says so.'
She considered for a time. 'Why do you want to do this, John?' she enquired. 'You've always been afraid of her.
Always wanted her out of the way.'
'Now I want her to live!'
She eyed him speculatively, a smile hovering around her mouth. 'Because you're a scientist and you want to know what the message is really all about? You can't bear to think that Gamboul knew and you don't? That's really the reason, isn't it?'
'You've some funny old ideas,' he smiled.
'Maybe,' she answered, 'maybe.' She reached for an overall on the wall hook. 'Go and get some breakfast, John.
Then come back here. I'll have some work for you to do.'
The two of them worked in perfect, almost instinctive co-operation, carefully avoiding any kind of moral or emotional argument. They were like enemies who were forced to live in the same cell. They talked of nothing but the enormous complication of the job, and for ten solid days, and most of the nights, they carried on. Messages about the world-wide improvements in barometric pressure, news bulletins reporting a noticeable lessening of wind violence, were just noted and then forgotten.
Because of her own forebodings or failure, Dawnay did not even tell Fleming that even before the checking was complete she had started injections on Andre. The ethics did not bother her. Andre's life was hovering near its end in any case.
Fleming still avoided the girl's sick room. He told himself that he would not see her until he could give her hope. He knew Dawnay was visiting her regularly, but he deliberately refrained from asking how she was.