Magazine 1967-­07] - The Electronic Frankenstein Affair - Davis Robert Hart - Страница 15

• Предыдущая
• 15/21
• Следующая

"He can still see us if we make a noise and he looks down and searches for us. But how he looks far away and what he sees we cannot see at all. And what he hears we cannot hear at all."

The moon had come into clear view again and was bathing the rock structure in its departing radiance, which shone full upon Chin Husan's face. It brought his features into harsh relief and Solo suddenly realized that, even now, they were not the features of a completely sane man. There was a look of torment in his eyes and he seemed to be directing his guilt feelings in upon himself, for abruptly he raised his right fist and pounded his chest as if punishing himself for his cowardice in deserting Sun Lin.

Solo felt himself to be in no danger of another sudden attack. His concern was solely for Chin Husan's sanity and the harm which a half-demented man could do to himself if abruptly released from all restraint.

Chin Husan could hardly have been aware of what was passing through Solo's mind. But if he had known his sudden bid for freedom could not have been more violent or taken the two men from U.N. C.L.E. more completely by surprise.

With a display of wiry strength amazing in so old a man he wrenched both of his wrists free and left the moon-splotched shadows where he had been huddling in a flying leap.

The leap carried him straight out over the sand, and was executed with so great a violence that it sent him sprawling. But almost instantly he was on his feet again, running wildly across the desert in the direction of the hollow where the vanished camels had spent the major part of the night. He encircled the hollow and ran on without looking back or uttering a sound.

ILLYA SEEMED the most shaken. "Who could have anticipated he'd try something like that?" Solo muttered. "His madness came back fast."

"Do you think we should go after him?" Kuryakin said.

"Only if we were as mad as he is," Solo said. "Then getting lost in the desert wouldn't matter much, one way or the other. He won't stop running for quite some time. We can search for him when the 'copter gets here, if he's still alive."

"Why don't you come right out and say it," Illya asked. "If we're still alive. Signaling the 'copter is going to be the first real test. If THRUSH can pick up a short wave, limited range message in triple-code in the middle of the Gobi Blakeley's disappearance may be followed by another vanishing act—staged by Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin."

"A THRUSH pickup of a transmitted SOS might be wholly unnecessary to accomplish that," Solo said. "You're forgetting that when Huntley and Rivers discussed something their voices on the headland and the two telecasts we saw in New York must have been picked up almost instantaneously, by some spot-coverage transmission mechanism that verges on the miraculous."

"But Newfoundland isn't quite as remote from the THRUSH-cell network as the middle of the Gobi," Illya reminded him.

"How do we know how remote the bedrock bottom of a Pacific Island volcano might be from some nightmare kind of eavesdropping mechanism?" Solo said. "The same kind of pickup impossibility may be at work here, changing it into the opposite of an impossibility. Could spoken words be picked up electronically half across the world? Think a moment before you rule that out. Television in its most primitive form was considered just as great an impossibility at the turn of the century."

He paused an instant, then went on grimly. "I've a feeling also that right now, for us, that pickup mechanism wouldn't have to be globe-encircling, that we're very close to its mysterious source. That's why I questioned Chin Husan so closely about the Fire Demon. His answers didn't tell me one-tenth of what I'd like to know. But they made something clearer I've given a great deal of thought to. In case you're interested, it's also on the nightmare level."

They heard the helicopter before they saw it. It was still high in the sky and approaching from the east. For three full minutes they continued to hear it before it came into view as a tiny black dot against the dawn glow.

Gradually the dot grew larger and as it began to descend its aspect changed from that of an airborne gnat to a huge and ungainly insect with dangling appendages. Growing larger still it lost its insect-like appearance and became a flying windmill. Finally its whirlybird contours stood out distinctly. The cockpit glimmered in the dawn light and the metal helmets of the two pilots glittered with a diamond-like brilliance.

The helicopter was less than four hundred feet to the east of them now, and descending quite rapidly. But it had not quite reached a hovering position and seemed to be moving with a puzzling lack of stability. Solo thought for a moment that the pilots had manipulated the controls with insufficient precision high in the sky, and were endeavoring to correct a miscalculation that would have carried the 'copter a considerable distance beyond the tent area.

But it was hard to believe that pilots so experienced could have committed such a blunder, and his alarm increased when the 'copter began to sway and lurch violently.

It never reached a hovering position directly overhead. Instead it dipped with appalling suddenness, shot off at a tangent to its original course and went into so fast a vertical spin that its outlines became blurred for an instant.

It was still revolving when two sharp blasts put an end to the spinning, and a bright sheet of flame spurted skyward, accompanied by a billowing cloud of smoke.

Half the 'copter was aflame when it began to fall, with an incredible slowness at first and then with a speed that no aircraft less massive could have attained after being blasted down in midair.

It crashed to earth a hundred yards from where Solo and Kuryakin were standing, sending another sheet of flame spiraling skyward. So violent was the impact that a small earthquake seemed to pass over the desert, hurling them to the sand and stinging their nostrils with a spattering of micro-bullets composed entirely of sand.

When they struggled to their feet a pillar of smoke was arising from the shattered 'copter, laced with darting tongues of flame. But one of the pilots had managed to escape from the wreckage and was running straight toward them cross the sand.

It was difficult to imagine how he could have survived so fiery a holocaust with no more than a soot-scorched face and a slight limp which slowed him down a little as he ran. But in some miraculous way he had not only extricated himself from the wreckage, but had suffered no injuries in the crash crippling enough to keep him from outdistancing the swiftly spreading flames.

He was gesturing to them as he ran, as if he had something to tell them of such vital importance that not even the terrible ordeal of struggling to save himself in time could blot it from his mind.

Illya Kuryakin was still too stunned by what had happened to move from where he stood. But Solo, while almost as stunned, managed to stagger forward until the distance between the advancing pilot an U.N.C.L.E.'S Number One operative had been considerably reduced.

"You're safe now," Solo shouted. "Better slow down or you'll be flat on your face. Even if another explosion comes—"

"That's what it was, an explosion!" the advancing pilot shouted, not heeding Solo's advice. "But it wasn't a flash-fire accident. We were fired upon!"

But that's impossible Solo thought, coming to an abrupt halt and waiting for the now slightly swaying man to join him. His waiting was in vain, because the runner's swaying increased and he began to lurch back and forth across the sand as erratically as the 'copter had done before the explosion had sent it crashing to the earth in flames.

• Предыдущая
• 15/21
• Следующая