The Insulators Read Free

spring. Had she been able to look out, it would have brought balm; but the frosted glass window did nothing to ease the fear, the anger and the resentment she felt.
    In front of her were dozens of small glass-ceramic tubes in varying sizes, some openings half an inch across, some barely an eighth. In each were packed crystals from the superheated ovens which filled one narrow end of the room. Every kind of base ore, every kind of metal, every variety of glass was used to make the crystals, which came out of the ovens feather-light. Over in a glass case opposite the bench and at right angles with the ovens, were specimens of the crystals which had been made during the experiments. She, Janey, could remember the fierce surge of excitement when one crucible had seemed to be full not of ordinary crystals, or quartz, or coloured crystalline pieces, but of diamonds.
    “We are not looking for diamonds,” Arthur Leadbetter – the Chief Chemist – had told her coldly.
    He moved towards her as she picked up one of the tubes, and the shadow of his tall figure fell upon her bench. Her heart began to thump, she knew she must look up and see him but could not make herself, until he said: “Janey.”
    She looked round, and up at him. He was six foot three or four, with a very lean body and a long thin face with a pointed chin. He gave the impression of having been squeezed before he set into his present shape. His eyes were heavy lidded and had dark patches, as if he were desperately in need of sleep.
    “Yes, Arthur,” she responded at last.
    “I shall need those batches in an hour’s time.”
    “I’ll be ready,” she promised.
    “Make sure you are,” he said severely.
    Had the small man spoken like that, he would have sounded sinister. Leadbetter didn’t; instead, he sounded rather sad. He was trying to speak to her with his eyes, too, as if pleading. She knew what he meant; he was begging her not to lose her temper, not to show sympathy for Paul. He was frightened, too; he always had been. He wanted ‘them’ to believe he was being severe, for this whole place was bugged; but his severity was unconvincing and even pathetic, being born out of fear.
    All of them were frightened.
    Freddie Ferris, over at the glass-doored ovens, looking in, was checking the temperature. Those ovens could be taken up to 4,000° Fahrenheit; far beyond fusion point for the hardest of metals. Freddie was sandy-skinned and red-haired, freckled and chubby; even after being here so long he retained his pink colour and his fat, and his white smock was a shade too tight for him. When he had first come here he had been full of fun, the life and soul of the party, as it were, but never wearisome.
    It must be a week since Janey had seen him smile.
    Philip Carr, at the radiation unit at the other end of the laboratory, was normally a solemn and earnest individual, and Jane was not sure whether he had changed inwardly or not. Outwardly he was the same: precise, rather overformal, speaking in a pleasing ‘Oxford’ accent, very courteous and conscientious. He was remarkably adept in manoeuvring the mechanical arms which clawed the radioactive material inside the lead and porcelain ‘ovens’. He had developed the use of these until it was almost as if he were using his own fingers, placing pieces of crystal-filled glass-ceramic in a dozen different places. Carr was a man of medium height and medium build. His dark hair, always cut short, always seemed exactly the same; the hair showed up his tan, and he looked as if he had just come from the ski slopes or the sun lamp. Even in his smock he appeared immaculate; certainly he was the best groomed of all the research chemists here.
    Janey went on with her work, which was simple yet very exacting. She had to pack crystals from each batch manufactured in the ovens into the glass-ceramic tubes, with a piece of leadfoil between each two batches; and she had to tag the leadfoil with an identification number. The