Planet in Peril Read Free Page B

similarity to diamond. As far as I know it never gave anything. But Dai didn’t find it easy to explain the lines he was following. He was still working on germanium.”
    “And titania ?”
    “We tried a few things with titania . No soap. The greater refractive index in the raw state doesn’t help at all. It’s a structural matter.”
    “So it’s a power source,” Charles said. “That explains a few things at least. It explains why it was such a rush job getting me down here and also—” He looked at Sara with attention. “Did you know the information had got out—outside UC, I mean?”
    She said bitterly: “Does it explain an overturned boat drifting back to shore?”
    Gloomily Charles surveyed his cigarette. “Whatever it is, I’m in it, up to the neck.” The impact of her last words came properly home to him. “Look, are you suggesting Humayun was murdered?”
    She was silent for a moment. “I talk too much,” she said at last. “I suppose it doesn’t matter now. I’ve already had my say to Contact Section. It makes no difference— you might as well know what I think. Dai learned his sailing in the Mediterranean. The day he was drowned ... there was a fair swell but nothing that would be likely to worry him unduly.”
    "Accidents do happen. And Ledbetter told me it was a tricky coast.”
    She said: "Dai never thought it particularly tricky: he had been sailing it for some years.”
    "If you think that, why the objection to Contact Section? Surely you’re not suggesting they had anything to do with it? UC would hardly be likely to kill the goose just when it’s getting broody. Why didn't you tell them what you thought about Humayun’s death?”
    “I did.”
    He was surprised. "And?”
    "They would not take it seriously. They reported accidental death.”
    ‘That doesn’t make them your enemies. They might just be mistaken—if your view’s the right one.”
    Her eyes were cold and unfriendly again. "I was under the impression that the job of Contact Sections was to go into anything that might be to the disadvantage of their managerial.”
    He said easily: "These are slack times, even for Contact Sections. It’s rare to find a job done properly nowadays.”
    He felt a twofold relief. That there was so simple an explanation of her antipathy to Contact Section, and that the predecessor had, after all, simply got himself drowned. The phantasmagoric mists were clearing, leaving behind a familiar and recognizable world framing an ordinary hysterical girl, instead of a nightmare situation pivoting on murder.
    She said: "And got out—where?”
    "Got out?”
    Her voice was impatient. "You said just now—that the information had got out I suppose, about our work here?”
    "That? Yes. It seems to have done. At least, I had the impression that something was known—I don’t know how much.”
    "Inside UC—or another managerial?”
    "Strictly speaking, another managerial. Telecom.”
    “And this was in Detroit. Didn't it seem odd to you that Ledbetter should be in the dark, and whoever it was, not?”
    “Not really. I didn't mean to imply that he necessarily knew anything more than Ledbetter did. And Ledbetter wasn't entirely in the dark, of course; he knew it was restricted work and had one of Humayun's reports on his desk—not that it conveyed anything to him.”
    The interview, he realized, had changed its course. His intention had been to question Sara; now, with the bit well between her teeth, Sara was questioning him. The problem was to ease her off the subject without upsetting her further.
    He thought he could see how the conversation might be turned; if he could divert the subject to Sara herself.
    He said: “Why do people—you, for instance, and Humayun —come over from Siraq in the first place? Faith in the managerial idea? Or what? Not just for the flesh-pots, I take it?”
    “People come over for both those reasons. There are always some students who find the system in operation