Fred Saberhagen Dracula 09 A Sharpness on the Neck
Fred Hoyle Comet Halley
Carrie Jones [Need Pxies 02] Captivate (pdf)
Beckett Samuel Czekajac na Godota
Alan Dean Foster SS1 Spellsinger
Fatima i Wielk i Spisek
Biorć c oddech czćÂśÂć 2
Lewis Jennifer PrzyjćÂcie w Singapurze
Boys and Foreign Language Learning.Real Boys Don't Do Languages (J.Carr&A.Pauwels)
Historia Manon Lescaut i kawalera des Grieux
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
the expectation of life to thirty-two years. The schools, the
roads, and the hospitals had gone up. But the desert
remained desert, and now the oil was giving out.
'There's water,' the official went on; 'a French company
sank artesian wells. To the north there's a subterranean lake
with More water than the oil deposits to the south. Trouble is
the surface. Not even sand; mostly stones and rock. You can
irrigate it but it won't grow crops.'
'The erosion of several thousand years can't be put right
50
with a bit of water,' said Dawnay quietly. 'There'd be no
official objection to my going?'
'None,' the official said, 'so far as the F.O. is concerned,
that is. We're anxious to maintain our friendly relations with
these people. They're a smalI nation, but any friends are
valuable nowadays. The terIns of your engagement are
naturally not officially our pidgin. You'd be interviewed by
Colonel Salim, the ambassador here. He's a slippery customer,
though probably it's largely Arab love of intrigue. Anyway,
he's probably just the go-between for the President.'
Dawnay left the interview, her mind made up. She would
take the job if the terms were reasonable. A taxi deposited
her at the Azaran Embassy fifteen minutes later.
She was ushered into Salim's office without delay. Rather
to her surprise, he seemed to know all about her career and
he discussed her work with considerable intelligence. More
or less as an afterthought he mentioned the salary. It was
fantastically large and he heard her slight gasp.
'By British standards the income is high,' he smiled, 'but
this is Azaran, and one commodity/we have in plenty at
present is money. The Europeans - doctors, engineers, and so
on - who work for us need some compensation for absence
from their homeland and the fact that of necessity the job is
not for life. In your case we had in mind a contract for five
years, renewable by mutual arrangement.
'But it's the work which would interest you. We are an
ancient nation stepping late into the twentieth century, Miss
Dawnay. Eighty per cent of our food has to be imported. We
need to have a programme of vision and scientific validity to
make our country as fertile as it is rich.' He hesitated. 'For
reasons that will become clear shortly this will become More
and More vital for our future, even for our very existence.'
Dawnay hardly heard his final words. The old excitement
about a problem of nature which challenged the ingenuity
of the mind had taken hold of her.
'Colonel Salim,' she said quietly, 'I'll be proud to help. I
am free to go as soon as you wish.' She smiled a little ruefully.
'As you may know from what seems to be a comprehensive
survey of my background, I have no private ties, no relatives,
51
to hold me here. And for reasons I can't go into, my recent
work is now completed.'
Salim gave her a large, warm smile. 'I shall telephone my
President immediately,' he said. 'I know he will be deeply
grateful. Meantime, there are the usual international formalities
to be seen to - inoculations, vaccination, passport,
and so forth. Shall we say the day after tomorrow - about
10 a.m. - to complete the arrangements? I can then discuss
the actual time of your departure.'
Dawnay agreed. The decision made, she was anxious to be
gone. She telephoned Thorness and had her batwoman pack
her few belongings and put the cases on the train. Ruefully
she told herself that apart from a mass of books in her old
room at Edinburgh University she owned nothing else in the
world. Nor was there a close friend to whom she had to say
goodbye.
She went shopping the following morning, getting a
Knightsbridge departure store to fit her out with tropical
kit. She reduced the salesgirl to despair by approving the first
offer of everything she was shown. It was all done in a couple
of hours. The store agreed to deliver the purchases, packed
in cases, to London Airport when instructed.
Next morning she found a doctor and had her inoculations.
They made her a little feverish and she rested in her
hotel room that afternoon and evening. Promptly at 10 a.m.
on the following day she presented herself at the Azaran
Embassy.
Salim greeted her courteously, but he was ill at ease, half
listening to a powerful short-wave radio from which, amid
considerable static, a stream of Arabic spluttered quietly.
'Splendid, Professor Dawnay,' he said eventually, after
glancing cursorily at the passport and inoculation certificates.
'Here are your visa and air tickets. I have provisionally
booked you on the 9.45 flight the day after tomorrow. Will
that be suitable?'
Before she could reply he sprang up, rushing to the radio
and turning up the volume. He listened attentively for a
couple of minutes and then snapped off the switch.
'That was the announcement of our freedom,' he said
dreamily.
52
'But you are free!' Dawnay looked at him in surprise.
He turned to her. 'Political freedom is a matter of paper
ideals. Real freedom is a matter of business. We have at last'
broken off our ties with your country; we have renounced all
our oil and trade agreements.' He indicated the radio. 'That
is what you heard.' He smiled at her again. 'You can see why
we need the right people to help us. I shall be returning to
Azaran myself as soon as diplomtic affairs are cleared up
here. We want to remain on friendly terms with Britain;
with all countries. But we need to be independent in the best
sense of the word. 'So you will help us I'
Dawnay felt slightly disturbed at this sudden turn of
events. Throughout her career she had studiously avoided
politics, believing that scientists were above party and
national factions, their duty being to the welfare of mankind.
'I hope I can do something,' she murmured politely.
Salim did not appear to be listening. He began frowning
over the documents she had handed to him. 'No yellow fever
inoculation?' he queried. 'Surely you were notified that it's
necessary?'
'I don't think so,' she replied. 'But I can have it done
today.'
He stood up and smiled ingratiatingly. 'I can do better
than that. It so happens that the embassy doctor is here this
morning.'
He pressed a switch on his intercom. 'Ask Miss Gamboul
if she can manage another yellow fever inoculation,' he told
a secretary.
There was a pause and then a man's voice replied that
Miss Gamboul could do so. :
Again the sense of misgiving prodded Dawnay's brain. For
a moment she could not identify the reason. Then she found
it. A woman doctor was not usually described as Miss. She
dismissed the suspicion as trivial, putting it down to Salim's
incomplete knowledge of English.
While they awaited the doctor's arrival he came round
and leaned against the desk, close to Dawnay. 'Tell me about
a colleague of yours, a Dr John Fleming. I believe he worked
with you at that Scottish research station. Is he still there?'
'I can't say,' she answered shortly.
53
'I heard one report that he was dead.'
'I'm afraid I can't tell you anything about him.' Her tone
was all he needed to tell him that Fleming was alive, but he did not react to it. He looked up
instead at the opening
door.
'Ah, Miss Gamboul!'
A woman in a white coat had entered without knocking.
She was dark-haired and rather attractive and - one could
put it no closer than that - somewhere in her thirties. She
had a flawless skin, and a good brow above fine dark eyes;
but she did not look in the least like a doctor. Even in her
white coat she gave an impression of sensuousness and haute
couture; Dawnay felt sure that she was More used to being
called Mademoiselle than Miss.
And yet there was a surprising degree of professional [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
