ATOM BOMB BLUES.

by ANDREW CARTMEL.

Prologue.

The Girl on the Sofa.

The girl lay on the yellow leather sofa. She wasn't asleep, but she wasn't awake either.

Two men sat watching her, Professor John Henbest and Major Rex Butcher.

John Henbest had an unruly shock of reddish hair shot through with the occasional strand of grey, giving a salt-and-pepper effect. He was somewhat young to have grey in his hair, having only just turned thirty, according to his dossier, which Butcher had read again this morning.

The Major was a burly man with black Brylcreemed hair that, like his narrow moustache, might have been painted on. His uniform was marked with streaks of mud and there were blades of gra.s.s dotted here and there on his clothes.

Henbest was the official psychiatrist up here on the Hill at Los Alamos.

Butcher was in charge of security.

The girl they were watching lying there on the sofa, motionless was young, pretty, with long, gleaming dark hair. Her eyes were shut and her head was lolling back on a white silk cushion decorated with blue fleurs-de-lys. The girl wasn't moving but she was talking, in a low soft voice that seemed to drift like a subtle current of air between her still lips.

'We met a few years ago. He just showed up at a place where I was working and I guess we hit it off. So when he left I went with him.'

'Dirty rogue,' chuckled Henbest, taking out a thin silver mechanical pencil, adjusting it and scribbling a note on a yellow note pad. 'He sensed her vulnerability and swooped on her.'

'I don't think so,' said Butcher. He sounded impatient, annoyed. 'I don't think there's anything like that between the two of them.'

Henbest snorted. 'What would you know about it? Stick to your own line of work, the oxymoronic military intelligence. I'm the expert on the human psyche here.' At this, Butcher fell menacingly silent for a moment. Finally he said, 'This afternoon somebody took a shot at me.'

'I know, and I'm trying to help you find out why.'

'Then stop wasting time. The girl could wake up any minute.'

1.

'Nonsense. With the injection I gave her she'll be semiconscious and, ah, pliable to suggestion for at least another hour or so.' He turned to the girl on the sofa. 'Tell me, Acacia. . . '

'Call me Ace,' said the girl, her eyes shut, her voice matter-of-fact.

'Very well, Ace.'

'Ask her how long she's known Ray Morita.'

Henbest frowned at Butcher's interruption but he repeated the question to Ace. 'Cosmic Ray?' she said. 'I never heard of him before I got here.' Butcher cursed under his breath. He turned away and stared out the window, towards the pond and the trees that fringed it. His face was taut with anger.

'Well then, tell us about the Doctor,' said Henbest. 'Tell us precisely who he is.'

'You'd never believe me,' said the girl in the trance.

Butcher came back from the window and sat down beside Henbest. 'I thought you said she'd answer our questions?'

'To the best of her ability,' said the psychiatrist.

'She's being evasive.'

'Not deliberately and not by her own lights. She is really trying to answer our questions as best she can. She means it when she says we wouldn't believe her.'

'I need to find out about this Doctor bird,' said Butcher impatiently. 'I need to know about his background. Where he comes from.'

Henbest leaned over towards the girl on the sofa. 'Where does the Doctor come from?'

'Now, that's a question,' said the girl. 'There's some people who think they know, but I think they haven't got the first clue.'

'How about you?' Henbest grinned slyly. 'Surely you have the first clue.

Surely you know him better than they do. You You must know where he comes from.' The p.r.o.noun was almost obscene in his mouth. must know where he comes from.' The p.r.o.noun was almost obscene in his mouth.

'No, but at least I know enough to know I haven't got the first clue.' A smile played around the girl's lips. 'Which puts me one up on you.'

'She's right.' Butcher lit a cigarette. 'We're getting nowhere,' he exhaled smoke. The girl's nose wrinkled.

'She doesn't like the tobacco. You'd better put that out, old man,' said Henbest cheerfully. Butcher flashed him a poisonous look and reluctantly stubbed out the cigarette in a heavy, green gla.s.s ashtray in the shape of a toad that squatted, gleaming and polished, on the professor's desk.

Henbest turned back to the girl. 'If you won't tell us where the Doctor comes from, perhaps you can tell us where he's been.'

The girl chuckled, a pleasant throaty sound. 'It would be easier to tell you where he hasn't hasn't been. been.

2.

'You mean he's been everywhere.'

'Pretty much.'

'And you travel with him.'

'Like I said,' said the girl, 'for the last few years.'

'So where have you been lately, with the Doctor?'

Butcher b.u.t.ted in. 'What was the last place they visited before the came here? Before they came to America.' Henbest frowned at him, but he repeated the question to the girl.

'The last place we visited?' she said promptly. The fishing station at Two Moons.'

Butcher glanced at Henbest. 'Where the h.e.l.l is that?' he said. 'Alaska?

British Columbia? Sounds like an Indian name.' Henbest ignored him. He leaned closer to the girl.

'Tell us about the Two Moons fishing station.'

'Well, it stank of fish,' said the girl.

'Now,' said Butcher ironically, 'we're really making progress.'

'Smelled like fish?' murmured Henbest. He eagerly plucked the mechanical pencil from a pocket of his mustard-coloured jacket and resumed scribbling on the yellow pad, his thin, hairy hand scurrying busily. 'Go on,' he said.

'Describe the place.'

'It was set in some beautiful countryside,' said Ace. 'Mountains and forest.'

'Tell me more.'

'All I remember,' said Ace in a bored voice, 'is the moons reflecting in the water.'

'The moon reflecting in the water?'

'The moons moons. The two moons.'

There was silence for a moment in the small room. Then Henbest said, 'Two. I see.'

'What the h.e.l.l?' said Butcher.

'They call it the Two Moons fishing station because it's got got two moons,' said Ace. two moons,' said Ace.

'Fascinating,' crooned Henbest, leaning close towards the girl. 'I've never seen two moons myself.'

'That's because you've never left this planet,' said Ace.

At this point Butcher took Henbest by the shoulder and dragged him out of the office. The two men stood in the corridor, looking at each other.

'Fascinating,' repeated Henbest.

'She's making a fool of you,' said Butcher. 'And she's making a fool of me.'

'She isn't capable of doing anything of the sort. She's in a highly suggestible and tractable state thanks to the injection I gave her.'

3.

'This is 1944. We don't believe in rockets to the moon or little green men from Mars.'

'But we do believe in doomsday weapons,' said Henbest.

'Watch your mouth, Professor.'

At the moment Butcher said this, someone came around the corner and started walking straight towards them. Butcher cursed under his breath. It was the last person he wanted to see right now. But the small man was already cheerily lifting his hat in greeting.

'Gentlemen!'

'Ah yes, h.e.l.lo Doctor,' said Henbest. He moved hastily, trying to block the door to his office.

The little man joined them. 'h.e.l.lo Major Butcher. How are you?'

'I'm fine,' said Butcher. 'I'm not the one who got shot this afternoon. I just got shot at. And missed.'

'It was a terrible incident,' agreed the Doctor.

'Did you come here to talk about it?'

'No I came here looking for Ace.'

'Ace?'

'I mean Acacia. My a.s.sistant. I left her here earlier. Is she still around?'

'No,' said Henbest.

And at just that moment the Doctor sidled past him and leaned casually on the office door, which had been left slightly ajar. The door swung open under his weight while Henbest was still in mid-lie, revealing the girl lying there on the yellow leather sofa. Butcher winced.

'No mystery there at all,' said Henbest hastily, in what Butcher had to admit was quite a nifty save. 'She's indeed here in my office.' Henbest addressed this remark to the back of the Doctor's head, as the small man moved briskly past him into the room and stood over the girl.

'Very understandable,' said the Doctor. The poor thing's fallen asleep.' He glanced around at the men, who had hurried back into the office with him.

'After all. She's been through a lot this afternoon.' The Doctor shook his head. 'I'll look after her. Come along, Acacia. You can't just fall asleep here in Professor Henbest's office.'

'No, Doctor,' said the girl.

'Come along now.' The Doctor insinuated an arm under the girl's shoulders and lifted her head from the pillow. Behind him John Henbest twitched as though he wanted to stop him, but thought better of it. Butcher just stood there watching.

The Doctor had the girl sitting up on the sofa now, her eyes still shut. 'Up-sadaisy,' said the Doctor, and he half-lifted, half-guided the girl to her feet.

4.

She seemed to stand up steadily enough, and he took her hand and began to guide her towards the door, as though he was leading a sleepwalker.

He flashed a brief, lopsided grin at Butcher and Henbest. 'I do apologise for the inconvenience gentlemen. I'll see that Acacia takes her naps in more suitable venues in the future.' He led her out into the corridor, glancing back one final time to smile at the men in the office and shut the door on them.

'She was moving pretty good for a girl with her eyes shut,' said Butcher.

'Do you think he suspected anything?' whispered Henbest.

'He would have to be pretty stupid not to suspect something.'

'Well then why didn't he say anything? Accuse us? Confront us?'