[Magazine 1967-­01] - The Light-­Kill Affair - Davis Robert Hart - Страница 15

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He'd trap a thought of some distant place, but the first whirling of the lights fragmented the thoughts; he was unable to hold on to them.

The light intensified, and so did the pain.

As the drum parted and the chair slid forward his wrist watch scratched his cheek.

Frantically, he grabbed the watch band, jerked the watch from his wrist.

The motor hummed, the short slide was almost over, the immobilizing lights would flash on. Or maybe they no longer bothered to magnetize him to the chair. Illya didn't know.

His mind could contain only the thought of the watch. He smashed it in his palm on the arm of the chair.

Trembling, he shook the broken shards of glass into his mouth, and dropped the watch.

At this instant the water struck him. He chewed sharp pieces of glass, feeling it cut his gums, his tongue, the roof of his mouth. He chewed again. Blood oozed from his lips.

Kuryakin could feel the temperature of the water. It was cold.

FOUR

SOLO PROWLED the small room which adjoined one of the thickly grown hothouses.

Bikini slumped against one of the three solid walls. She cried for a long time, her dark head pressed into her arms.

Solo stood at the fourth wall. It was thick green glass and afforded a view of the lushly growing cannibal plants out there.

He shook his head. He had no way to break this glass, yet it was almost as if Nesbitt wished he would. It was as though they dared him and Bikini to attempt to escape across that tangled growth.

He drew his arm across his forehead, wiping away perspiration. The cell was as hot as the hothouse beyond the glass, and more breathless.

The door was thrust open and Solo looked in that direction.

A guard stood at the opened door with a light-gun in his arms. Another entered the small hot room. He walked slowly, like a spring-wound toy that has run down.

His face was set, his eyes vacant. He faltered slightly.

Solo caught his breath. The man's face was battered, his hands cut. This was the man who had fought him at the canyon ledge, the one he'd left dangling over the precipice. He had hit him in the face with his shoe until the pain somehow got through to his consciousness.

The guard looked at Napoleon Solo, shook his head in an almost imperceptible movement, then he turned and walked, still faltering, toward Bikini.

Solo set himself to jump the guard if he harmed Bikini. He closed the armed sentry at the door from his mind. It might be the last thing he ever did for Bikini.

But the guard merely drew a folded sheet of paper from his tunic.

He held it out toward Bikini in a quivering hand.

Solo caught his breath. He recognized the form, it was a 'a summons to death' like the one delivered to Bikini's father at the hotel in Big Belt.

Bikini took it. She didn't even glance at it. She recognized it, too.

The guard turned and stalked toward the door.

Bikini jumped up. She ran to Solo and pressed herself against him, tears in her eyes. Solo closed his arms about her, comforting the miserable, frightened girl.

The guard was barely at the door when Joe, Nesbitt's Indian assistant, brushed past the door sentry.

He caught the guard by the shirt front and pushed him against the wall, as if forgetting Solo and Bikini in a sudden savage fury.

Joe switched on a wall light, marched the guard to it, forced him to stare into its brilliance. The man gazed at the bulb, unblinking. His dry eyes did not even water.

Joe spoke urgently but quietly to the man with the light fixed in his eyes. The Indian's voice was low, controlled, almost kindly. "The summons was for Napoleon Solo. The summons was for Napoleon Solo."

Solo watched Joe, fascinated. He forgot the misdelivered summons. This didn't seem very important right now. He was seeing one of Nesbitt's mindless slaves being programmed, by light. The programming was much like that done to computers, Solo thought, except that the computers' were memory tapes and transistors, and here the scientist was dealing with a man driven mindless by some sort of exquisite torture.

FIVE

THE INDIAN assistant moved toward Napoleon Solo. The man's dark face was impassive.

"We've come for the girl," Joe said.

Solo flinched, looking down at Bikini's dark head pressed on his shoulder. She was deeply asleep. She had been able to relax because she trusted him. She felt secure in his arms, even in this place.

"She's asleep," Solo said, his chilled voice warning Joe flatly to keep his hands off of her. The Indian merely smiled coldly, spoke sharply, and the two guards entered, armed with small rifles. They stood ready at Joe's side.

"You'll still have to take her," Solo said.

The Indian bent forward, catching Bikini's arm. He shook her. The girl came awake slowly, protesting.

Solo set himself. Joe shook Bikini again, lifted her. As Joe rose, Solo came up on the balls of his feet. His fist caught Joe on the jaw, staggering him.

He released his hold on Bikini and fell backwards. He struck hard against the glass wall. It trembled under his weight.

Beyond the glass the huge leaves and thick limbs quivered, set into motion by the vibration.

Solo came up, moving, crouched toward Joe.

A rifle butt caught Solo in the forehead. Bikini screamed,

Solo staggered, his legs buckling under him. He landed on his knees. Vaguely, he saw Joe pull himself up, shake his head and then order the guards out of the cell with the girl.

Solo saw it as if from a great distance, and he knew Bikini was screaming, but he could barely hear her.

The guards half-dragged Bikini to the corridor entrance of Hothouse One. Behind them, Joe tested his jaw, his face twisted.

The guards thrust open the doors. The giant plants inside set up a rustling, waving motion at the movement.

"Inside," Joe ordered.

Bikini shook her head, staring wide-eyed at the long writhing green tentacles, the huge crying leaves.

Joe jerked his head. The guards caught Bikini's arms, thrusting her through the door.

Bikini toppled on the walkway. She sprang to her feet and ran to the doors. They were closed in her face. She beat against them.

The sound set up a wild reaction among the plants. The snake-like limbs reached out, the leaves waved, the thick trunks seemed to quiver.

Bikini pressed against the door, staring in awe at the giant green plants.

From an intercom Dr. Nesbitt's voice seemed to fill the room, setting the plants in violent motion again.

"You must fight to live, my dear. You don't have a chance. As you see, some of the walks are wide. Some are almost grown over. But the wide ones are open only be cause the plants are pulled back. Any movement in them and the plants will crowd in, reaching out, even growing in the direction of the sound. It's the way they live, my dear."

Bikini pressed her fist over her mouth to keep from crying out.

"Perhaps if you run, my dear," Nesbitt's voice suggested. "Run. You may find a place to run. You may break free from their tentacles. You must offer some challenge to the plants, my dear, or your unfortunate death will serve no useful purpose."

Suddenly Bikini screamed.

As Nesbitt had talked, long green tentacles had struck against the walls, holding as if with suction cups, and now reached out swiftly toward her.

They approached from both sides of the door.

"You're not safe there, my dear," Nesbitt's voice taunted. "I suggest you run."

Bikini did not move. Petrified with fear, she remained pressed against the door until the slimy, serpent-like tentacles clapped against her arms from both sides.

Screaming, she broke free and ran again.

Ahead of her the center aisle seemed wide and clear. But as she ran along it, the motion of her body stirred the plants on each side into frantic action. Trunks bent, leaves shook and tentacle limbs grasped out.

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