Windfall

He paused and there was dead silence. 'The Foundation is the fortunate recipient of a certain sum of money from a gentleman in Europe now dead. The sum involved is five, perhaps six, maybe even seven…' He paused again with a fine sense of timing.'… million pounds sterling.'

Pandemonium erupted. There was a storm of applause and everyone stood, clapping and cheering. Stafford joined in, smiling as much as anyone, but wondering what had happened to the rest of the loot. Judy, her eyes shining, said, 'Isn't it just great?'

'Great,' he agreed.

Brice held up his hands and the applause died away. 'Now that doesn't mean you can go hog-wild on your financial requisitions,' he said genially, and there was a murmur of no amusement. 'There are legal procedures before we get the money and it may be some months yet. So, for the time being, we carry on as usual.' He sat down and a hubbub of noisy conversation arose again.

Stafford was still puzzled. He had assessed Brice, on his record, as being an honest man. Under the will 85 per cent of more than forty million pounds was to go to the Foundation so why was Brice lying? Or was he? Could it be that the Hendrykxx estate was being looted by someone else? Farrar, perhaps. A crooked lawyer was not entirely unknown -someone had once made the crack that the term 'criminal lawyer' is a tautology.

Hunt said something, rousing Stafford from his abstraction. 'What's that?'

'I'll show you around the College,' he repeated.

'All right.'

They did the rounds in a Land-Rover and Stafford found the place to be more extensive than he had thought. The research was not only into agricultural science concerning the growing of crops, but animal husbandry was involved and also a small amount of arboriculture. Hunt said, 'We're trying to develop better shrubs to give ground cover in the dry lands. Once the cover is destroyed the land just blows away.' He laughed. 'There's a chap here trying to develop a shrub that the bloody goats won't eat. Good luck to him.'

An extensive area was given over to experimental plots which looked like a patchwork quilt. Hunt said, 'It's based on a Graeco-Latin square,' and when Stafford asked what that was Hunt launched into an explanation replete with mathematics which was entirely beyond him, but he gathered it had something to do with the design of experiments. He commented that mathematics seemed to enter everything these days.

They were on their way back to the Admin Block when his attention was caught by something not usually associated in with an agricultural college a dish antenna about twelve feet across and looking up almost vertically. 'Stop a minute,' he said. 'What's that for?'

Hunt braked. 'Oh, that's the animal boys. It's a bit peripheral to us.'

'That,' Stafford said positively, 'is a radar dish and nothing to do with bloody animals,'

'Wrong,' said Hunt. 'It's a transmitter-receiver in com munication with a satellite up there.' He jerked his thumb upwards. 'And it has everything to do with animals.'

'All right; 'I'll buy it.'

'Well, it's no use us developing super crops if animals wreck the fields. You've no idea how much damage an elephant can do, and hippos are even worse. A hippo going through a maize field is like a combine harvester, and what it doesn't eat it tramples. So there's basic research going on into the movement of animals; we want to know how far they move, and where they're likely to move, and when. Selected animals are tagged with a small radio, and a geo-stationary satellite traces their movements.'

'What will you scientists get up to next?'

Hunt shrugged. 'It's of more use in tracing truly migratory animals like the Alaskan caribou. They used this method when they were planning the oil pipeline across Alaska. An elephant doesn't migrate in the true sense of the word although the herds do get around, and a hippo might go on a twenty-mile stomp.' He nodded towards the dish on the top of the building. 'But they're also using this to trace the annual migration of wildebeest from the Serengeti.' He released the brake.

'That's in Tanzania, isn't it?'

'Yes; but wildebeest don't respect national boundaries.'

Stafford laughed. 'Neither do radio waves.'

As they drove off Hunt said, 'I'd take you in there but there's no one about right now. As I said, it's peripheral to our work here. The radio crowd isn't financed by the Foundation; we just give them space here. They're a bit clannish; too; they don't mix well. We very rarely see them.'

He pulled up in front of the Admin Block, and Stafford said, 'Thanks for the guided tour. What about coming to the hotel for dinner?'

Hunt shook his head regretfully. 'Sorry, I've got something else on – a committee meeting. But what about coming up with me in the balloon tomorrow? Jim Odhiambo wants me to do some photography.'

Always something new. 'I'd like that,' said Stafford.

'I'll pick you up at the hotel – seven o'clock.'

***