Omega (11 page)

He nodded and said 'Good'; he did not know what else to say, because the winged figure transformed the cubicle. He felt at once disturbed and comforted.

'The kettle's on,' Betty said. 'Will a sandwich do, or do you want to go to the Mess?'

'Not tonight. A sandwich'll be fine. I don't want to see anyone but you, right now.'

'Second thoughts, to hell with the kettle. Can you buy a bottle of wine from that Mess of yours?'

'Oh, I'm sure. Want me to try?'

'Yes, but don't be long.'

'Ten minutes.'

He came back with the bottle to find Betty in a negligee, with her hair brushed loose and shining and her make-up renewed. When he had poured the wine, she clinked glasses with him and then held hers towards the winged figure on the wall. 'Here's to us - and to Her. Whatever happens.'

'Whatever happens,' he echoed, and they drank.

Philip could never remember, afterwards, what they talked about during that strange supper; much of it was like the symbols around the winged Virgo, numinous but only half comprehended. What he did remember was that for the first time in their marriage, instead of him making love to her, she made love to him.

Philip, next morning, had no time for self-analysis. He was more than fully occupied at once. He had to arrange a rota for his three maintenance men; organize his corner of the office which he shared with his power, water and sewage opposite numbers; make himself known (and agreeable) to the head of the Typing Pool (fed by Claridges' chef he might be but he still did not rate an individual secretary); make a fuss about indented stores which had still not arrived - and at the same time to try to get Area North organized, by telephone and a flying visit by shuttle-car, because its AVO' had been on holiday when Beehive Amber was ordered and had not yet reported in; so the Area was in charge of its senior maintenance man, who was brilliant with equipment but out of his depth with administration. Philip managed to cope reasonably well but he had to skip lunch and he reached 'home' just after six, exhausted.

Betty had been busy, too. She had found her way around ('After all, darling, geography's my subject'), investigated the Mess, the shop and the other services, bought various oddments to domesticate their cubicle ('No flowers, I'm afraid'), lunched with a couple of other wives and even found time to watch her Open University lecture on TV. She had also, thank God, stocked a little drinks cupboard and she had a whisky poured almost as soon as Philip came in the door.

They watched the BBC TV news together. There was, of course, no mention of Beehive Amber. Much of the news was taken up with the aftermath of the earth tremors. The tremors had never been far from Philip's mind all day - both because (although no official statement had been made to them) he and everyone he had spoken to took it for granted that the tremors had directly led to the Beehive Amber order, and because he was professionally anxious. If there were more tremors, ventilation, sewage and water would be among the most vulnerable aspects of Beehive and everyone in his shared office knew it. He had discovered that the reason why some of his stores had still not arrived was that they had been diverted to the Birmingham and Bristol hives - both of which were on the tremor lines. His sewage colleague had the same problem, and both of them had tried to phone their Bristol and Birmingham opposite numbers but had been told by the switchboard that 'until the Amber intake phase is complete' inter-hive communication was confined to Ministerial level. The sewage man had commented drily: 'Well, Phil - I guess down here lesson number one is to learn when to stop asking questions.' Philip had agreed, uneasily.

Something about the tone of the BBC news added to his unease. It was too smooth, too reassuring. Even compared with yesterday's newspapers, there was too little about actual damage and too much about confident officials. Yesterday there had been estimates of the number dead or injured and Philip had expected more authoritative figures today, but the question of numbers was ignored. Overseas news, too, devoted more minutes to reporting that the
Western Hemisphere was unaffected than to amplifying yesterday's information from Europe - with the exception of heartening shots of the speed and ingenuity with which the Dutch were repairing the Ijsselmeer dyke. One new significant item did emerge: Russia had cancelled all Intourist visits from abroad for the time being 'for meteorological reasons' - a characteristically obscure explanation but couched in terms of uncharacteristically courteous apology for the inconvenience.

The Soviet announcement meshed in Philip's mind with the recall of an incident that had puzzled him during the day. He had been passing the offices of the Chief Administrator - the Great God Harley himself - when a group came out who were obviously VIPs, from the deference with which they were being escorted. Two of them had been conversing earnestly in Russian and two others, though ^ silent, looked Chinese. He had wondered to himself: 'Diplomats? - surely not' . . . because an emphatic part of his pre-Beehive briefing had been that he should be constantly on the watch for the slightest hint of Eastern espionage sniffing at Beehive, and report even his most improbable suspicions at once. Had the situation now changed? Were national establishments becoming a world establishment, closing its ranks in the face of a common danger? Were Western diplomats now conferring in the Beehives that doubtless existed under Moscow and Peking?
...
If so, the situation was far worse than even Beehive personnel were being told.
He glanced across at his wife, who was watching the TV screen intently. He had no idea at all what thoughts were passing through her mind. Ever since they had walked in that door, last night, her eyes had looked more alive.... No, he told himself immediately, that was absurd. Betty had never lacked life or warmth; she was an introvert, certainly, but a calm and loving one with a gentle but refreshing sense of humour. Something
had
changed in her, though, in the past twenty-four hours. The only way he could express it to himself, in his own technician's terms, was that her voltage had been stepped up. .
..
It could not be that she
liked
it here. She had loved their home and looked after it devotedly and she had been torn out of it at one hour's notice with nothing but two suitcases and a rolled-up post
er; yet after that almost catale
ptically silent journey, not only had she not mentioned it - she had shown no signs of grieving over it, and puzzled by her though he was, Philip felt he would have known if she had been.

Could it be, he wondered suddenly, that under her suburban exterior (and Philip was well of his mother's view of her) there lurked the unexpressed potential of a pioneer wife? She was intelligent, she must know that their future was unpredictable, that even this concrete cell offered only a provisional security, beyond which lay . . . what? Had the sudden challenge (more than sudden - traumatic, surely) resonated some chord in her of which even she had been unaware until now?

Or
had
she been unaware? He asked himself a question which he realized he had always taken for granted; why was she studying for a geography degree, of all things, working hard at it too, even though she had no plans to earn her living by it? The unfulfilled pioneer again, urged to conquer and understand the round world, even if only from her suburban armchair?

He knew that only time would give him understanding.

Betty was still watching the screen, apparently unconscious of his scrutiny. Her legs were draped over one arm of her chair, her hands clasped round her knees, her head relaxedly erect.

Another novel thought came into Philip's mind, on the heels of the others; my wife is beautiful.

He turned his attention back to the news, inexplicably shy about being caught watching her.

Next morning he made his scheduled weekly inspection of the ventilation system of the Royal Apartments. During the Amber phase, he had been told, the Family would only be sleeping in Beehive; presumably their daytime presence on Surface would be a necessary part of the pretence of normality, until Beehive Red abandoned that pretence. So during the day the Apartments were manned only by a skeleton staff, presided over by a gentleman whose official appointment Philip did not know, but whom he heard addressed as Sir Wilfred. Admittance to the Apartments was through a military guardroom, manned today by the Coldstreams (in functional battledress - Philip had half expected the ceremonial scarlet) whose officer carefully checked Philip's fingerprinted identity card against a list of 'Technical Personnel - Authorized Access'. Behind the guardroom, two sentries stood rigid but watchful in front of an elevator door; Philip knew, because it was on his ventilation charts, that the elevator rose in two stages to the Palace, the stages being separated by a steel-shuttered airlock.

Philip had rather disliked having to wear battledress himself - the dark green of Technical Services, with the shoulder tabs of Civilian Officer Grade Two - but today he decided he was glad of it. Life and work in Beehive was going to be as compact, crowded, and busy as that of its natural namesake, and with as rigid a division of functions; indeed, individual and function would merge, so it would save a lot of time if one were seen to be what one was..
..
He deliberately tried to suppress his natural aversion to regimentation; here he was and he might as well make the best of it.

He set about checking the air-conditioning methodically - it was the first time he had seen it but his task was made easier by the fact that his own firm had installed it, so equipment and system were thoroughly familiar. He discovered a slight malfunction of the thermostat in the bedroom of one of the Princesses; correcting it took about twenty minutes and the chambermaid who had been hovering warily got bored after a while and left him alone. On the dressing-table Philip noticed a vase of about two dozen roses, the first flowers he had seen in Beehive; down here, they would obviously be a rare luxury..
..
His hand moved ahead of his thought and he was shocked to find himself committing his first conscious theft since he was a sweet-pilfering schoolboy; but the single bloom was inside his battledress blouse before he could stop himself and the bunch as quickly rearranged to hide the gap.

On his way out through the guardroom, later, he was gripped with a sudden terror that outgoing 'Technical Personnel' might be searched; but he was passed straight through, and his outbreak of sweat cooled on him in the safety of the corridor.

He was able to get to
Married Quarters in time to collar
Betty for a Mess lunch, and he did not dare to take the rose from its hiding place until he was inside their cubicle. He presented the slightly crushed bloom to her with a smile that was as much relief as gallantry. For a moment Betty was speechless, her bright-eyed control wavering; then she said with a quiver in her voice 'That's lovely, darling' and turned her back to put the rose in a tumbler of water. It stayed on the little shelf which served her as a dressing-table for days, until long after it was shrivelled and dead.

'But I don't
want
to be in bloody Beehive,' the tall girl said. 'I'm an American citizen...'

'What's that got to do with it?' Her bureau chief was beginning to sound exasperated. 'You're an Associated Press correspondent, is what matters as of now.'

'With a duty to tell the folks back home what's happening - right?'

'Right. And Beehive is where it's happening.'

'Oh, come off it, Gene. This is where the handouts are, is all. Down here, the AP bureau could be run by any high-school kid who could write his own name.'

'Thank - you - Tonia - Lynd.'

Tonia grinned, suddenly. 'Sorry. Eugene Macallister, genius diplomat-quizzer,
plus
one high-school kid. . . . Honestly, Gene, you know the score as well as I do. Till after Beehive Red, we can't even admit publicly that Beehive
exists,
let alone that it's operating already. And nobody down here's going to say
anything, . . .
Even if somebody did, by mistake, old Blue Pencil next door would kill it. Censorship, for God's sake! Anybody'd think this was Moscow.'

'Necessary censorship, honey. You got to admit that.'

'Oh, sure, it's necessary. So's a crutch, if you've got a broken leg. But my legs ain't broken, and I want to go walkabout.'

'Metaphor Minnie, at it again. .
..
Look, Tonia, I know Vox Pop's your thing - and sure, you're feeling frustrated. But Beehive Red could happen any day and when it does I want you right here.
Until
then I want you right here because it'll take both of us to nose out even what news there is.'

'Take it in turn to say "thank you kindly" for the handouts?' Tonia snorted. 'What news there is, is up there on Surface. This witch-hunt thing, for instance . . .'

'What witch-hunt thing?' 'Actual, not metaphorical.'

'Oh, the nutters. . . . No one's hunting them, as far as I can see.'