“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.

“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.