Louis Barron

In the novel Destination Unknown, Dr Louis Barron is a French bacteriologist who traveled with Hilary Craven towards "the destination unknown".

Hilary was puzzled by her fellow travellers including Barron. Hilary had thought that all of them were trying to defect behind the Iron Curtain. Yet they have vastly different points of view and ideological outlooks. Hilary doubted if Barron was politically minded at all. All he wanted was, in his words "freedom from fools". He wanted unlimited money and facilities to conduct his experiments and he didn't particularly care if his research would result in discoveries which could kill thousands. He spoke casually of the powers of destruction which could devastate an entire continent all contianed in a single phial. In his quest for knowledge, the deaths of millions was not relevant.

After arrival at the destination, which turned out to be Aristides's research establishment in the High Atlas Mountains, Barron settled down and became absorbed in his work, extremely satisfied with the excellent facilities which he enjoyed. However Hilary managed to converse with him occasionally and during these times, Barron confided that he did not care to work in a prison, and the research station was a prison, although a gilded one. Nonetheless, he had been paid a large sum of money which he had put in a bank under another name, and when the whole project was over, he would have the money to spend as he wished. He told Hilary he felt certain the project would end some time. This was because he had concluded that the station was run "by a madman" and in the end the project must break up because "it is not reasonable".