The Unbegotten (15 page)

‘It's a long time since you've been here,' Andromovitch reminded him. ‘The Presidium does wonder if this is an Anglo-American move against Russia. You could help to reassure them.'

‘Stefan,' Palfrey said, with sudden vigour, ‘if I get any news at all which might help, I'll bring it myself if I'm physically able to.'

‘It will be a very wise move,' Andromovitch assured him. ‘Sap—' He broke off. ‘Oh, never mind.'

‘I'll see you soon,' Palfrey said, and replaced the receiver.

He went slowly back to his apartment, going over everything which Stefan had said in his mind. He knew that the other man was profoundly disturbed, that the government of Russia was as disturbed, and suspicious of this threat not simply to those who were alive, but to millions of the unborn.

And the only slender lead he had was Maddern's.

 

Joyce Morgan and Reginald Maddern sat close together in a military helicopter large enough for four passengers. They were behind the pilot and heading towards the starlit sky. The lights below were far fewer than when they had started, and not so bright. Great patches were covered with dark mist, which gave an eerie, even a frightening aura. They sat close, on a bench seat, and after a long silence Maddern said, ‘I wonder if we're being followed.'

‘I rather wish Sap's men were following us,' Joyce said. ‘How on Earth you—' She broke off.

‘How on Earth I—what?' asked Maddern, intrigued.

‘Can you come up again in a helicopter so soon after the crash,' Joyce marvelled. ‘Aren't you terrified?'

‘A bit edgy, perhaps,' he said. ‘What about you?'

‘I'm a bit edgy, too,' she said. ‘But I simply had to get away. I've been cooped up at H.Q. for so long I've almost forgotten what it's like to be free. And please don't blame Sap. He's tried everything short of—everything short of throwing me out to make me take leave!'

‘Why didn't you?'

‘Good question,' she retorted. ‘Why don't you take holidays when you can?'

He didn't answer, either.

The light was very dim, the noise much less than in the other helicopter, and they were in a little world of their own. Maddern felt a curious sense of freedom; in spite of the dangers, he knew real lightness of heart, something he hadn't known for a long time. He slid his arm round Joyce's waist, and the sensation was much as Joyce's had been when they had shaken hands, as if an electric current passed through him. He wondered – he hoped – she felt the same. She turned to look at him and in this light particularly, she was quite beautiful.

‘I don't enjoy going away on my own,' he stated, belatedly.

‘Nor do I' said Joyce. ‘I always wanted to be where Sap was. I always felt there was only half of me alive when he was away. But—I don't feel it now. I feel as if—'

She began to talk, and as she talked and Maddern listened intently, the pilot began to descend. He too was on edge, glad only that he hadn't two nervous passengers in the cabin with him.

For he knew that the helicopter was being followed by an unconventional plane, more rocket than aircraft, like the one that had already shot Maddern down once tonight.

 

 

They sat even closer together, very tense, Maddern's arm firm about Joyce's waist. He was acutely aware of the softness of her breast against his fingers. There was fear, making his heart race, and there was this acute awareness of being next to a woman, making it race even faster. He did not know which was the main cause.

The pilot glanced round and mouthed, ‘Hold tight.'

Mechanically, Maddern checked his safety-belt, then Joyce's. They were in a bank of clouds and going down very slowly indeed.
Clouds
? God! This was ground mist! There was a vague aura of light from which the shape of a lamp post loomed, a sudden swerve of the machine and they landed, with hardly a jar and with hardly a sound. All three sat in tension for a few moments, before the pilot pushed back the hinged door.

‘I'll get out first,' he said brightly.

‘Just where are we?'

‘In your paddock, I hope,' the pilot replied.

They all laughed with that final release from tension. Then one after another they got out, and Maddern opened both his arms for Joyce to steady herself. For a moment, she was in his arms. As they separated, the pilot remarked, ‘A bit close to your back door, sir.'

‘A minor miracle that you made it at all,' praised Maddern.

The mist was thinner here and they could make out the shape of the light bulb over the porch at the back, and as they drew nearer, the shape of the old house loomed up, with the yellow glow at all the windows. What puzzled Maddern was the fact that no one was in sight; Smith and his men must be hiding. He had an uneasy feeling that they might be falling down on their job, but when he had suspected that before they had swiftly proved him wrong. Certainly they must have heard the roar of the helicopter.

As he opened the back door with a huge key kept on the porch rafter, he expected Smith to appear but no one loomed out of the mist. The light in a narrow passage, walls oak beamed like the rest of the house, shone through into the main hall. No one appeared, and there was utter silence.

‘Azran is upstairs,' he said. ‘I'll go up first.'

He broke off, and Joyce drew in a hissing breath for a man stepped out of the living-room, a stranger to them both – a man, yet one who came if not from another world, then another civilisation.

He was small, but had a remarkably boyish, clean-limbed figure.

He was dressed in a shiny, metallic-looking sheath suit of pale green, and a hood of the same material fell from the neck, leaving his well-shaped head clear; his hair was light brown in colour and cut short. His hands were uncovered, too. He had a tiny, pointed beard and moustache, and wax like perfection of features and skin. He had appeared as if out of the floor itself, he moved so quickly. His very clear eyes had sharply defined but rather short eyebrows and lashes, in fact he looked like a man made up with extreme care to play a part in a space-age film.

Joyce's fingers tightened still more on Maddern's arm, as Maddern said sharply, ‘What are you doing here?'

‘I came to see Azran,' the man answered in very carefully enunciated English.

‘Where are the guards?' Maddern demanded.

‘I have dealt with them,' the man announced.

‘How
did you deal with them?' Maddern felt as aggressive as he sounded, but something else worked in him too, a new kind of fear. He had come here to try to communicate with Azran's friends, not antagonise them. Fear, concern, anxiety for Joyce, the woman he had met only a few hours ago, must not affect him. He must keep calm, reasonable, detached. Yet his heart raced. There was hardly time for these exhortations to flash through his mind before the other answered.

‘You would not understand.'

Maddern could not stop himself from blurting out, ‘I'll understand soon enough if you've killed them!'

‘No, they have not been killed,' the other assured him. ‘There is no need for killing now that the secret is known, and the world is beginning to react. Did
you
make that statement, Dr. Maddern?'

‘I did not. I wanted it kept secret.'

‘Then it was Palfrey.'

‘No!' interjected Joyce, very confidently. ‘It wasn't Dr. Palfrey. He wasn't sure what to do but was generally in favour of making an announcement. All the same, the one which was made took him completely by surprise.' Maddern felt the pressure on his arm tighten, felt her trembling, so it mattered a great deal to have Palfrey vindicated.

‘Do you know who did release the statement?' the man demanded. ‘Because on him there is a grave responsibility. Had this news been kept from the public—'

‘You could have gone on until you had complete control everywhere, without any fear of being checked,' Maddern said. ‘I didn't advocate silence for your sake, I wanted more time to think, more time to find out how widespread the barrenness is.'

The small man said coldly, ‘I
have
complete control over that, complete control.'

Maddern opened his mouth to speak, but closed it again. There was something chillingly assured in the way the sheathed man made that claim; and at the same time there was the realisation that he said ‘I
have
complete control.' If that were so, he
was
the Master. Here in Maddern's home, vulnerable as far as Maddern could see; arrogantly conscious of a superiority he probably didn't possess.

‘I am the Master,' the small man stated simply. ‘And I repeat that I have complete control of the situation. I can control the future of mankind, Dr. Maddern, and in fact I am controlling it. I have only to give the word, and there will be no more human pregnancies; no human children after nine months from this day. Do you understand the gravity of the situation?'

Maddern said heavily, ‘Yes.'

The master looked at Joyce.

‘Does Dr. Palfrey?'

‘Yes,' she answered. ‘He hasn't any doubt at all.'

‘Then we are in a position, perhaps, to talk,' the Master conceded.

He turned round very quickly, little more than a spin on his toes, and virtually flew into the other room. When the others went in he was standing by the fireplace, and Azran was sitting on a pouffe, a few feet away. Coffee was on a small table, with sugar and cream. Maddern saw Joyce glance round swiftly at the attractive room, then back at the man who so confidently called himself the Master.

It was ludicrous that he, Reginald Maddern, thought of this small person
as
the Master. The fear of being subordinated to this man's will was very strong, and although he steeled himself against it there was nothing at this moment that he could usefully say.

‘Talk won't get us anywhere,' he said gruffly.

‘Dr. Maddern, you are dealing with a situation completely new and foreign to you,' said the Master. ‘Until you understand it, you can do nothing. And you cannot understand it until I have told you of it. Talk is the only thing at this stage which can get you anywhere. I am already where I want to be.'

Maddern took off his coat and flung it over a chair. Azran brought him coffee and some for Joyce as well. Joyce dropped into an easy chair. She was obviously as baffled as he and probably felt as weak – any moment he expected his legs to buckle under him, and he lowered himself carefully to the arm of Joyce's chair. There was some comfort in being so close to her. There was comfort, too, in his own nature – the gift he had of facing facts and never turning away from them. It was useless to fight against this man's present authority, better by far to try to use it.

‘Where do you want to be?' he demanded.

‘In complete control of the future of humankind,' the Master answered.

‘Ah,' said Maddern drily. ‘You are God.'

‘So far as human beings are concerned, yes, I am God,' the Master said.

‘What would happen if I were to keep God here, or take him up to London to see Palfrey?' asked Maddern.

‘You could do no such thing,' the other retorted. ‘For one thing I am wearing a protective suiting which would keep you and anyone else away from me. You cannot take me anywhere against my will. You could kill me but that would not help you. The
only
thing that can help you is talk, understanding and co-operation. Are you prepared to deny that?'

‘When you say “you” presumably you are talking of human beings in general, not me personally,' said Maddern.

‘Yes. You—or Palfrey—or Miss Morgan—are representatives of the human race. Or, as I call them, terrestrial human beings. Palfrey, as far as I can judge, can speak for most nations if not all. No one else can speak for anyone but his own nation. Really,' went on the Master almost petulantly, ‘the world is still in a state of anarchy. It is not substantially better than it was five hundred, even a thousand years ago. Let me tell you this: when you left Azran here, alone, I came to find out why. She convinced me that it would be worthwhile to discuss the situation with you and perhaps with Dr. Palfrey. She persuaded me that you are creatures of genuine intellectual stature, not simply emotional and animal morons. With intellectuals, I may be able to come to terms. However, I do not know whether you can speak for anyone but yourself, and I do not wish to discuss this twice. Is Palfrey prepared to come with you?'

‘Come where?' asked Maddern quickly.

The Master looked at him with a scornful expression in his eyes.

‘You really do not know, do you?'

Joyce said, ‘Dr. Palfrey would go anywhere.'

‘Can you be sure?'

‘I've worked for him for nearly fifteen years,' she stated. ‘I am sure he would come.'

‘Not knowing where?'

‘I wouldn't be too sure that he doesn't know where,' Joyce said.

‘I cannot accept any kind of reservation or condition,' the Master said flatly. ‘Either he will come or he will not. I will talk to him only when he comes.'

‘He will need to know why he is coming,' reasoned Joyce.

‘He will find out exactly what I have done and why I am doing it,' said the Master, with a touch of impatience in his voice. ‘And he has no other choice of action.' When neither Joyce nor Maddern made any comment, he went on, ‘I will make one small concession, Dr. Maddern. I will tell you that I would take you all to a space satellite, one of those from which I conduct my operations. If Palfrey wishes to come I can arrange to have him picked up in London. He would have to do exactly what he is told, and so will you.'

‘I'll talk to Palfrey,' Maddern promised huskily and then looked round at Joyce. ‘Unless you would prefer to.'

‘I think this had better come from you,' Joyce said.

‘What must he do for you to communicate with him?' asked Maddern.

‘Go, alone, to Hyde Park, at the entrance to the underground garage, and then—' The Master was very lucid and

very precise as he gave instructions.

 

Palfrey said into the telephone, ‘Yes, Reggie. I will do exactly what he says.'

‘And no attempt must be made to follow you,' Maddern emphasised.

‘I can't guarantee what others will do,' said Palfrey. ‘I shall make no arrangements to be followed.'

‘Are you sure you remember the instructions?'

‘I have them here, taped as you gave them to me,' said Palfrey. ‘He certainly knows his London!' He gave a curious little laugh. ‘Just in case you think I am being too accommodating, let me tell you that reports of the number of affected areas in the world have now passed the one thousand five hundred mark. I don't really have any choice, do I?'

There were other factors which robbed Palfrey of any choice. Messages were coming in from the governments of other nations, large and small, from all over the world. They were stunned as their peoples were stunned by the gradual ending of fresh human life. In their different ways they charged Palfrey with preventing this hideous thing which affected all human mankind; on him, because of what and who he was, rested this awful responsibility.

In the less sophisticated parts of the world, there were priests and there were witch doctors who all made the same charge – that the western doctors, those who had introduced contraception, had placed a curse upon all women, a curse which would not be lifted until those who had created it were dead.

The priests and the witch doctors were leading their followers – to kill.

And those who had been dedicated to their understanding of mankind's greatest need – the control of population – were dying as Lal Singh had died.

 

‘How do we go?' Maddern asked the Master, almost humbly.

‘Come with me,' the other said. ‘Azran will take Miss Morgan.'

They went out into the garden where the mist had become much thicker. In a corner of the orchard where he had first seen Azran were two conical shell-like constructions which he realised at once were the rocket-capsules. They were like huge shell-cases and the fact that they stood enshrouded in mist gave them an eerie appearance.

‘These are our space capsules,' the Master announced with a matter of factness which astounded Maddern. ‘They are self-propelled and need very little blast-off either from their satellite base or from the Earth. The rocket engines do not have to be thrown off in space. After each journey they can be refuelled, and if approached by anyone who does not use a control ray with which to open the door, they burn instantly. You should be informed that I have created a galaxy of these satellites which make no sound. In them I, and my colleagues, can land in silence and mix with the Terrestrials—the Earth people from which we sprang. Now! The inside of each capsule is completely pressurised, and you will be inside for a comparatively short time. We shall fly direct at over 10,000 miles an hour to the master planet,
Nega
.' He touched a spot on the side of the first rocket, as Azran touched a spot on the other. Immediately, doors slid open, showing a pale yellow light inside. ‘Now,' went on the Master, ‘you may come or go, as you wish.'