The Peace Machine Read online

  “Don’t touch me.” Her voice fractured, like ice.

  He sat up. “Vicky, what’s the matter?”

  “Just don’t try to touch me. I’ll sleep in the other room.”

  “Why are you behaving like this?” Hutchman spoke carefully, aware of how much was in the balance. He knew perfectly well what the uncomfortable little tableaux was all about — memories of previous walks through this section of the Marriage Exhibition came shimmering. How dare you suggest there’s anything wrong with my mind! Is a woman insane if she doesn’t want a filthy disease brought into the house, to her and her child? The trouble was he could not say he knew what was in her mind because — Vicky fought like a retiarius, always spreading her net in the same way while poising the trident — she would turn it into an admission of guilt.

  “You will not sleep in the other room,” he said firmly.

  “I’m not sleeping in that bed. Not now.”

  Not now that it could be contaminated with his filthy disease, Hutchman interpreted, seeing the net swirl toward him again. He evaded it by saying nothing. Instead he got out of bed and moved toward her. Vicky vanished through the bedroom door, and it took him a second to realize she had turned right toward the front door. He followed her into the short corridor as the main door opened to admit a gust of night air which probed insouciantly around his unprotected body. Vicky was outside, standing in the center of the lawn.

  “Don’t touch me,” she shouted. “I’d rather stay out here all night.”

  “Oh, Jesus,” Hutchman said aloud, but not addressing anyone. “What am I going to do?” Vicky could run well, so there was little hope of his catching her even if he decided to give chase and risk attracting the attention of outsiders. He turned back into the house, leaving the door open, and walked slowly into the second bedroom. Sometime later he heard the front door closing and there came a momentary hope, dismaying in its intensity, that Vicky would come to him with dew-cold breasts and thighs, seeking warmth. But she went into the other room, leaving him huddled in his bitterness.

  Attempting an explanation would have been disastrous whether it was believed or rejected. Either way, Vicky would talk — to her parents, to her friends and neighbours, to his colleagues — and that would be dangerous, because people would remember the things she said. The short-term goal of completing the machine was filling his mind, but beyond it the first outlines of a plan were taking shape. Vague though it was, one element was apparent — the frightful danger to himself, his wife, and even David. The machine had to be built in secret, yet before it would serve its purpose the secret would have to be broken thoroughly and systematically in a process which Hutchman could initiate but would find difficult to control. And Vicky, whom he had never been able to control, had to be kept in utter ignorance, even while stress patterns rippled through the structure of their marriage, building up in holographic concentrations around critical points such as the second milestone.

  A gas centrifuge, in perfect condition but at a price he could afford, had become available in Manchester. Hutchman drove up and collected it with the intention of being back in Crymchurch by late evening, but the Midlands were submerged in fog. He got no further south than Derby before news of a multiple crash with fatalities at Belper prompted him to seek out a motel. It was almost midnight when he called Vicky to let her know he would not be home. The phone rang blurrily, as though the moisture-laden air was slowly drowning all things electronic and mechanical, and there was no reply. Hutchman was not particularly surprised. Vicky would have a fair idea of who was ringing, and why, so by not answering she was putting him at a disadvantage.

  He set the phone down and stretched himself fully clothed on the chalet’s neat bed. That morning he had told Vicky the simple truth about his visit to Manchester, knowing her mind would shy away from the technicalities involved, and had asked her to come with him. She had said that he knew she would not keep David away from school for the day, and her tone implied that he would not have offered to take her with him otherwise. One up to Vicky. The damned machine, he thought. It’s costing me too much. Who do I think I am, anyway? Sixteen days had elapsed since the bomb had exploded on Damascus and as yet nobody had accepted the blame or, to put it another way, been able to do enough violence to the framework of political morality to make the action seem creditable, or even expedient. The Middle Eastern situation appeared paradoxically more stable than at any time since Syria’s abrupt withdrawal from the Arab Union — and Hutchman was faced with the fact that his machine would not bring any indomitable seven-year-olds back to life. It was a thought which, in the throbbing emptiness of the alien room, seemed worthy of consideration.

  He reached Crymchurch in mid-morning and found the house locked up and empty. Milk bottles were on the doorstep and several items of mail were lying on the hall floor. He knew at once that Vicky and David had left sometime during the previous day. Suppressing a surge of self-pity which closed up his throat, he picked up the telephone, and began to ring Vicky’s parents, then changed his mind. She had run emotionally naked to her parents and, as on the night she had fled out onto the lawn, the best way to bring her back was to leave the door open and wait.

  Three days went by before Vicky returned on a rainy Saturday morning, looking contrite and a little shamefaced, accompanied by her parents. Her father, Alderman James Morris, whitehaired and strawberry-nosed, spoke long and seriously to Hutchman about things like the cost of electricity and the uncertain nature of the money market. He never once mentioned his daughter’s marriage or expressed any views on what might be wrong with it, but the gravity of his tones seemed to convey a message outside their content. Hutchman answered all his remarks with equal seriousness. As soon as Vicky’s parents had left he sought her out in the bedroom. She smiled tearfully and pressed her palms downward against her hips like a little girl hoping for leniency after a prank, an action which spread her tawny shoulders within the oatmeal-coloured satin of her blouse.

  “Where’s David?” he demanded.

  “He was still in bed when I left. Dad’s taking him to the planetarium this afternoon and bringing him over later.”

  “Oh!” Hutchman could feel sexuality pulsing in the quiet air. It was almost three weeks since they had made love and now, suddenly, glandular pressures were causing real pain.

  “It was all a holiday for him, Lucas.”

  “And for you?”

  “I…” She came to him open-mouthed and hungry, and during the following hours she handled him with special tenderness until all the pain had left his body. Hutchman lay listening to the rain on the bedroom windows, the sane sound of rain, and wondered guiltily how Vicky would react when she learned that this time the pattern was going to be different. In the saw-tooth graph of their relationship a reconciliation scene was always followed by an idyllic period of harmony — but there had never been The Peace Machine to consider.

  “It’s a private research project into some properties of microwave radiation.” The “explanation” baffled Vicky, as he intended it to, and the more he repeated it the greater her bewilderment became. She was forced to accept the reality of the project but, without any hint of the incredible truth behind it, could only conjecture about Hutchman’s involvement. Others too, in spite of all his efforts, were noticing the changes. He had fallen behind in his work — a fact increasingly apparent at the weekly Jack-and-Jill progress meetings. Muriel Burnley went about her secretarial duties with open watchfulness, showing her resentment in a hundred irritating ways, and Don Spain was both fevered and elated with his certainty that Hutchman was up to his neck in a disastrous affair.

  Hutchman worked steadily on the project, at times unable to believe the degree to which he was committed, spending as much time at the Jeavons Institute as he dared, and at the same time trying not to imperil the slight improvement in his relations with Vicky. At the end of the month he had an operational cestron laser, and had reached yet another major milestone.

&n
bsp; “What does this mean?” Vicky spun the letter across the breakfast table.

  Even before he picked it up Hutchman recognized the neat, dull heading of his bank. “This letter was addressed to me,” he said numbly, trying to gain time to think.

  “Who cares about that? What does it mean?”

  He scanned the professionally terse note which stated that his current account was overdrawn by more than a thousand pounds and that, as he had closed his savings account, the bank would be obliged if he would deposit fresh funds immediately or call to discuss the matter with the manager.

  “It means what it says,” he commented. “We owe the bank some money.”

  “But how can we be overdrawn by so much?” Vicky’s face was turning white at the corners of her mouth.

  “That’s what I’d like to know.” It had been a mistake, Hutchman realized, to allow the account to get so far out of hand and an even bigger one to have permitted a letter about it to come to the house.

  “And why didn’t they simply transfer some cash from the savings account the way they usually…” Vicky snatched the letter back and read it again. “But you’ve closed the savings account! Where’s the money?”

  Hutchman tried to sound calm. “I had to use it — for the project.”

  “What!” Vicky gave a shaky laugh and glanced at David, who had looked up from his cereal with interest. “You have to be joking, Lucas — I had over four thousand pounds in that account.”

  Hutchman noted her use of the singular pronoun. Vicky was a director in the smallish contracting business owned by her father. She allowed her salary to accumulate in the savings account and studiously referred to it as “our” savings, except in moments of anger.

  “I’m not joking,” Hutchman said. “I needed it to buy equipment.”

  “I don’t believe you. What sort of equipment? Show me the receipts.”

  “I’ll try to find them.” He had bought the equipment on a cash basis, using a fictitious name and address, and then had burned the receipts. Being a dancing master to neutrons involved strange disciplines. “But I’m not hopeful.” He watched Vicky helplessly as tears began to spill down her cheeks in transparent ribbons.

  “I know why you can’t show me any receipts,” she said. “I know the kind of equipment you’ve been buying.”

  Here we go again, Hutchman thought in a panic. Interpreted in the context of all his years with Vicky, her words were a direct accusation that he had squandered the money on a woman or women, perhaps had even bought an apartment for use as a love nest. They both knew what she meant, but — and this was the familiar Vicky battle technique — if he denied that tacit change he would be admitting it.

  “Please, Vicky, please.” He nodded toward David.

  “I’ve never done anything to harm David,” Vicky assured him. “But I’ll hurt you, Lucas Hutchman. I’ll pay you back for this.”

  The knowledge that he was not going to use the antibomb machine crystalized slowly in Hutchman’s mind as he checked through the intricacies of the final assembly. He wondered for a moment if it had always been present at some level of consciousness, but occulted by his obsession with the project as a project. His hands continued to work and he stared down ruefully as though they had been the sole designers of the machine. Regardless of the thought processes, now that the machine was a reality he was faced with a daunting, multifaced truth.

  One facet was that the machine could not be tested or used on a limited scale. It was an all-or-nothing device, strictly intended for all-or-nothing people — a category to which Hutchman did not really belong. Another facet was that the international situation appeared to have changed for the better. Some observers felt that the air had been cleared a little, that a subconscious but a worldwide yearning to use the bomb had been expunged. Closely related to this was Hutchman’s reluctance to go any further along the path which was leading to the end of his marriage. It was difficult for him to accept that he was prepared to stake millions of human lives against his own happiness — if that was the correct way to describe his life with Vicky — but the machine was real, shockingly real, more real than anything he had ever seen before. It overwhelmed him with its three dimensional presence, leaving no room for illusion or double-think. And the truth he had to accept? I am, after all, just as selfish, cowardly, and ordinary as anybody else.

  Hutchman put his micrometer aside with a growing sense of relief, tempered with the guilty joy which comes with a lowering of one’s standards. Two hours’ work was all that was required to finalize the alignments and complete the machine; however, there was no point in it now. He debated dismantling the apparatus there and then, but he had opened the floodgates of weariness which had been building up inside him for a month. His legs began to tremble gently. He surveyed the machine soberly for a moment, making his peace with it, then walked out of the room and locked the door behind him.

  Several times on the drive back to Crymchurch he annoyed other drivers by slowing down when there was no external reason for it, but all urgency seemed to have fled from his mind. He wanted to coast, in every sense of the word, to immerse himself in the warm flow of life from which he had so painfully crawled for a time. The mural of broken bodies had ceased to pulse in his vision, and once again he was ordinary. Great sighs interspersed themselves with his normal breathing as he drove on through the darkness, and he had a sense of being at an important turning point in life. Massive doors seemed to be clanging into place, sealing off dangerous avenues of probability.

  Hutchman was disappointed to find an unfamiliar car parked in his driveway. It was a two-seater coupe, plum-coloured or brown — it was difficult to decide in the dim light from the house, and part of his mind noted irrelevantly that it was parked with its nose toward the gate, as though the owner had given thought to leaving with minimum delay. If there was a stranger in the house he would not be free to tell Vicky the things he wanted to tell her. Frowning, Hutchman put his key in the front-door lock and twisted it, but the key refused to turn. The Yale mechanism was double-locked on the inside.

  Hutchman stepped back from the porch, examined the house, and saw that the only light was a faint glow from David’s bedroom window. A visitor in the house but no lights on? The enormity of the idea which came to him caused Hutchman to move quietly to the side door and try to get in. It, too, was doublelocked. He ran back to the front door and now the lounge lights were on. He hit the door with his fist and pounded steadily on it until the lock clicked. Vicky was standing there, wearing a bluesilk kimono.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” She demanded coldly. “David’s asleep.”

  “Why were the lights out and the doors locked?”

  “Who said the lights were out?” Vicky continued to stand in the opening, as if refusing him admittance. “And why are you home so early?”

  Hutchman walked straight at his wife, ignoring her startled gasp, and threw open the door of the lounge. A tanned, darkhaired man of about forty, whom Hutchman identified vaguely as the owner of the local service station, was standing in the center of the room. He was pulling his trousers up over blacksatin briefs and his shocked face, above the weight-trained torso, was — an image flashed into Hutchman’s chilled brain — that of Lee Harvey Oswald just as Ruby’s bullet hit him.

  “You!” Hutchman snapped, his mind still working with unexpected cryogenic efficiency. “Get dressed and get out of here.” He watched the other man slip into his shirt, noting that even in a moment of presumed stress he did so in the classical locker-room manner, one leg slightly bent, abdominal muscles tightly contracted to present a flattering posture.

  “This is unforgivable,” Vicky breathed. “How dare you spy on me, then speak to my guest like that!”

  “Your guest isn’t objecting. Are you, guest?”

  The heavily built man stepped into his shoes and lifted his jacket from a chair without speaking.

  “This is my house, Forest,” Vicky said to him, “and you don
’t have to leave. In fact, I’m asking you right now not to leave.”

  “Well…” Forest looked at Hutchman, the bafflement slowly fading from his eyes to be replaced by a tentative belligerency. He flexed his shoulder muscles like a cobra spreading its hood.

  “Dear me,” Hutchman said with affected weariness. He stepped backward into the hall, lifted a three-foot machete from its hooks on the wall, and returned to the lounge. “Listen to me, Forest. I’m not angry with you about what happened here earlier — you simply happened to be walking by when the fruit machine paid off — but now you’re intruding on my privacy and if you don’t go away from here I mean to kill you.”

  “Don’t believe him,” Vicky laughed shakily and moved closer to Forest.

  Hutchman glanced around the room, picked out a Hepplewhite chair which Vicky’s father had given to her the previous year, and split its shield-shaped back in two with the machete. Vicky gave a low scream but the act of vandalism seemed to have proved something to Forest, who headed determinedly for the front door. She followed him for a few paces, then abruptly appeared to lose interest.

  “Destroying that chair wasn’t very bright,” she said disinterestedly. “It was worth money.”

  Hutchman waited till the car outside had started up and moved away before he spoke. “Just tell me one thing. Was this the first night your… guest was here?”

  “No, Lucas.” Vicky’s voice was incongruously tender, unmanning him. “This wasn’t the first night.”

  “Then…” Now that there was no outsider present for Hutchman to play to he was, for the second time in an hour, confronted with reality. He grasped its white-hot metal. “Then I was too late.”

  “Much too late.” Again the cruel tenderness.

  “I wish I could make you see how wrong you’ve been, Vicky. I’ve never been unfaithful to you. I… .” Hutchman stopped speaking as his throat closed in pain. All these years, he thought. All the beautiful, flawed years thrown away. And for what?