"But O forbid." said the Earl Marischal,

you want while you eat Antona smiled with genuine pleasure. I do. I dont enjoy eating by myself all the time. Could you drop down here first? Youre still listed as inactive and youll want that status amended. On her way down to the Infirmary level, Killashandra first worried then chided herself for fearing there was more to Antonas request than a simple record up-date. It might have nothing to do with her fitness to take on the Optherian job. Nor would it be discreet to imply that she knew such an assignment was available. On the other hand, Antona would know more about the amenities of the nearby worlds. The medical formality took little time and then the two women proceeded to the catering section of the main singers floor of the Guild Complex. Its so depressingly empty, Antona said in a subdued voice as she glanced about the dimly lit portions of the facility. I found it a lot more depressing when everyone else was celebrating a good haul, Killashandra said in a glum tone. Yes, yes, it would be, I suppose. Oh, fardles! Antona quickly diverted Killashandra toward the shadowy side. Borella, Concera, and that simp, Gobbain, she murmured as she made a hasty detour. You dont like them? Killashandra was amused. Antona shrugged. One establishes a friendship by sharing events and opinions. They remember nothing and consequently have nothing to share. And less to talk about. Without warning, Antona caught Killashandra by the arm, turning to face her. Do yourself a sterling favor, Killa. Put everything youve experienced so far in your life, every detail you can recall from cutting expeditions, every conversation youve had, every joke youve heard, put everything when Killashandra affected surprise, Antona gave her arm a painful squeeze and yes, I do mean everything, into your personal retrieval file. What you did. what you said, what you felt and Antonas fierce gaze challenged Privacy how youve loved. Then, when your mind is as blank as theirs, you can refresh your memory and have something with which to reestablish you! Her expression became intensely sad. Oh, Killa. Be different! Do as I ask! Now! Before its too late! Then, her customary composure restored, she released the arm and seemed to draw the intensity back into her straight, slim body. Because I assure you, she said as she took the last few steps into the catering area, that once your brilliant wit and repartee become as banal and malicious as theirs, she jerked lens for nikon digital slr cameras her thumb at the silent trio, Ill seek other company at lunch. Now, she said, her fingers poised over the catering terminal, what are you having? Yarran beer. Killashandra said the first thing that came to mind, being slightly dazed by Antonas unexpected outburst. Antona raised her eyebrows in mock surprise, then rapidly dialed their orders. They were served quickly and took their trays to the nearest banquette. As Antona tackled her meal with good appetite, Killashandra sipped her beer, digesting Antonas remarkable advice. Till then, Killashandra had had no opportunity to appreciate the viewpoint of a colleague who would not lose her memory as an occupational hazard. Stubbornly, Killashandra preferred to forget certain scenes in her life. Like failure. Well, you dont have long to wait for a fresh supply of cluttered minds, Killashandra said at last, blotting the beer foam from her upper lip and deferring conversation on Antonas unsettling advice. A new class? How did that privileged information seep out? You are only just out of an Infirmary tank. Well, you wont be allowed to brief them if thats what you had in mind, Killa. Why not? Antona shrugged and daintily sampled her nicely browned casserole before replying. Youve no injury to display. Thats an important part of the briefing, you see the visible, undeniable proof of the rapid tissue regeneration enjoyed by residents of Ballybran. Irresistible! Antona gave Killashandra a sharp glance. Oh, no complaints from me, Antona. The Guild can be proud of its adroit recruiting program. Antona fastened a searching glance on her face and put down her fork. Killashandra Ree, the Heptite Guild is not permitted by the Federated Sentient Planets to recruit free citizens for such a hazardous profession. Only volunteers Only volunteers insist on presenting themselves, and so many of these have exceedingly useful skills She broke off, momentarily disconcerted by Antonas almost fierce glance. What concern is that of yours, Killashandra Ree? You have benefited immensely from the selection process. Despite my unexpected inclusion. A few odd ones slip through no matter how careful we are, Antona said all too sweetly, her eyes sparkling. Dont fret, Antona. Its not a subject that I would discuss with anyone else. Particularly

In shoals new-minted by the ocean swell,

wouldn't depend on one man to cope with five. So" "Signals," Andrea finished for him. "They must have some way of letting the others know. Perhaps flares" "No, not that," Mallory disagreed. "Give their position away. Telephone. It has to be that. Remember how they were in Cretemiles of field telephone wire all over the shop?" Andrea nodded, picked up the dead man's torch, hooded it in his huge hand and started searching. He returned in less than a minute. "Telephone it is," he announced softly. "Over there, under the rocks." "Nothing we can do about it," Mallory said. "If it does ring, I'll have to answer or they'll come hot-footing along. I only hope to heaven they haven't got a bloody password. It would be just like them." He turned away, stopped suddenly. "But someone's got to come sometimea relief, ser geant of the guard, something like that. Probably he's supposed to make an hourly report. Someone's bound to comeand come soon. My God, Andrea, we'll have to make it fast!" "And this poor devil?" Andrea gestured to the huddled shadow at his feet. "Over the side with him." Mallory grimaced in distaste. "Won't make any difference to the poor bastard now, and we can't leave any traces. The odds are they'll think he's gone over the edgethis top-soil's as crumbly and treacherous as hell.. . . You might see if he's any papers on himnever know how useful they might be." "Not half as useful as these boots on his feet." Andrea waved a large hand towards the scree-strewn slopes. "You are not going to walk very far there in your stocking soles." Five minutes later Mallory tugged three times on the string that stretched down into the darkness below. Three answering tugs came from the ledge, and then the cord vanished rapidly down over the edge of the overhang, drawing with it the long steel-cored rope that Mallory paid out from the coil on the top of the cliff. The box of explosives was the first of the gear to come up. The weighted rope plummetted straight down from the point of the overhang, and padded though the box was on every side with lashed rucksacks and sleeping-bags it still crashed terrifyingly against the cliff on the inner arc of every wind-driven swing of the pendulum. But there was no time for finesse, to wait for the diminishing swing of the pendulum after each tug. Securely anchored to a rope that stretched around the base of a great boulder, Andrea leaned far out camera digital hp m407 over the edge of the precipice and reeled in the seventy-pound deadweight as another man would a trout. In less than three minutes the ammunition box lay beside him on the cliff-top: five minutes later the firing generator, guns and pistols, wrapped in a couple of other sleeping-bags and their lightweight, reversible tentwhite on one side brown and green camouflage on the otherlay beside the explosives. A third time the rope went down into the rain and the darkness, a third time the tireless Andrea hauled it in, hand over hand. Mallory was behind him, coiling in the slack of the rope, when he heard Andrea's sudden exclamation: two quick strides and he was at the edge of the cliff, his hand on the big Greek's arm. "What's up, Andrea? Why have you stopped?" He broke off, peered through the gloom at the rope in Andrea's hand, saw that it was being held between only finger and thumb. Twice Andrea jerked the rope up a foot or two, let it fall again: the weightless rope swayed wildly in the wind. "Gone?" Mallory asked quietly. Andrea nodded without speaking. "Broken?" Mallory was incredulous. "A wire-cored rope?" "I don't think so." Quickly Andrea reeled in the remaining forty feet. The twine was still attached to the same place, about a fathom from the end. The rope was intact. "Somebody tied a knot." Just for a moment the giant's voice sounded tired. "They didn't tie it too well." Mallory made to speak, then flung up an instinctive arm as a great, forked tongue of flame streaked between the cliff-top and unseen clouds above. Their cringing eyes were still screwed tight shut, their nostrils full of the acrid, sulphurous smell of burning, when the first volley of thunder crashed in Titan fury almost directly overhead, a deafening artillery to mock the pitiful efforts of embattled man, doubly terrifying in the total darkness that followed that searing flash. Gradually the echoes pealed and faded inland in diminishing reverberation, were lost among the valleys of the hills. "My God!" Mallory murmured. "That was close. We'd better make it fast, Andreathis cliff is liable to be lit up like a fairground any minute... . What was in that last load you were bringing up?" He didn't really have to askhe

I will gar hang you hie."

and firmly diverted him to her cargo door, which she flung open. She didnt have much crystal, so every speck she had cut was precious to her. If she didnt earn enough credit to get off-planet this time Killashandra ground her teeth as she hurried her carton into the Sorting Shed. As the man she had pressed into her service quite properly put her carton down at the Hangar end of a line of ranked containers, Killashandras patience evaporated. No, over here! she shouted. Not there! Itll take all day to be sorted. Here. She waited until he had deposited her carton in the indicated row before adding her own. Then she strode back to her sled for a second load, commandeering two more unencumbered handlers on the way. Only after eight cartons were unloaded did she permit herself to pause briefly, coping with the multiple fatigues that assailed her. She had worked nonstop for two days, desperate to cut enough crystal to get off Ballybran. Crystal pulsed in her blood and bones, denying her rest in sleep, surcease by day, no matter how she tried to tire her body. Her only respite was immersion in the radiant fluid bath. But no one cut crystal from a bathcube! She had to get off-planet to ease the disturbing thrum. For over a year and a half, ever since the Passover storms had shattered Keborgens old claim, she had searched unremittingly for a workable site Killashandra was realist enough to admit to herself that the probability of finding a new claim as important and valuable as Keborgens black crystal was very low. Still, she had every right to expect to find some useful, and reasonably lucrative, crystal in Ballybrans Ranges. And, with each fruitless trip into the Ranges, the credit balance she had amassed from her original cutting of Keborgens site and from the Trundomoux black crystal installation had eroded beneath the continuous charges the Heptite Guild exacted for even the most minor services rendered a crystal singer. By fall, when everyone else she knew Rimbol, Jezerey and Mistra had managed to get off-planet, she had labored on, unable to make a worthwhile claim in any color. During the mild winter, she had doggedly hunted in the Ranges, returning to the Complex only long enough to replenish food packs and steep her crystal-weary body in the radiant fluid. You really ought to take a week or two up at Shanganagh Base, Lanzecki had said, intercepting her on one of her brief visits. What good would that really do? she had replied, almost snarling at him in her frustration. Id still feel crystal kelkoo sony digital cameras and Id have to look at Ballybran. Lanzecki had given her a searching look. Youre in no mood to believe me, and he paused to be sure that he had her attention, but you will find black crystal again, Killashandra. Meanwhile, the Guild has pressing needs in any shade you can find. Even the rose you so despise. A gleam shone in his black eyes and his voice turned lugubrious as he said, I am certain that you will be distressed to learn that the Passover storms destroyed Moksoons site, too. Killashandra had stared at him a moment before her sense of the ridiculous got the better of her and she laughed. I am inconsolable! I thought you might be. His lips twitched with suppressed amusement. Then he reached down and pulled the plug on the radiant fluid. Youll find more crystal, Killa. It had been that calm and confident statement which had buoyed her flagging morale all during the next trip. Nor had it been entirely misplaced. The third week out, after disregarding two sites of rose and blue, she discovered white crystal but very nearly missed the vein entirely. If she had not been bolstering her spirits with arousing aria, causing the pinnacle under her hand to resonate, she might have missed the shy white crystal. Consistent with her long run of bad luck, the while proved elusive, the vein first deteriorating in quality and then disappearing entirely from the face at one point, resurfacing half a mile away in fractured shards. It had taken her weeks to clear the fault, digging away half the ridge before she got to usable crystal. Only the fact that white crystal had such a variety of potentially lucrative uses kept her going. Forewarned of the spring storm by her symbiotic adaptation to Ballybrans spore, Killashandra had cut at a frenzied pace until she was too hoarse to key the sonic cutter to the crystal. Only then had she stopped to rest. She had continued to cut until the first of the winds began to stroke the dangerous crystal sound from the Ranges. Recklessly, she had taken the most direct route back to the Complex, counting on the fact that shed be the last singer in from the Ranges to protect her claim. She had almost cut her retreat too fine: the hangar doors slammed shut against the shrieking storm as soon as her sled had cleared the baffles. She could expect a reprimand from the Flight Officer for her recklessness. And probably one from the Guild Master for ignoring the storm warnings. She forced several deep breaths

Thy looks are wan, thine eyes are wet.

easy. On the way up from the coast, over four months previously, we had planted big marker flags at intervals of half a mile. On a night such as this, with the moonlight flooding the ice-cap, these trail flags, a bright luminous orange in colour and mounted on aluminium poles stuck in snow beacons, were visible at a great distance, with never less than two and sometimes three in sight at the same time, the long glistening frost feathers stretching out from the poles sometimes twice the length of the flags themselves. We counted twenty-eight of these flags altogetherabout a dozen were missingthen, after a sudden dip in the land, completely lost them: whether they had blown away or just drifted under it was impossible to say. "Well, there it is, Jackstraw," I said resignedly. "This is where one of us starts getting cold. Really cold." "We've been cold before, Dr Mason. Me first." He slid the magnetic compass off its brackets, started to unreel a cable from a spool under the dashboard, then jumped out, still unwinding the cable, while I followed to help. Despite the fact that the magnetic north pole is nowhere near the north poleat that time it was almost a thousand miles south of it and lay more to the west than north of usa magnetic compass, when proper variation allowances are made, is still useful in high latitudes: but because of the counter-acting magnetic effects of a large mass of metal, it was quite useless when mounted on the tractor itself. Our plan, therefore, was that someone should He with the compass on the dog-sled, fifty feet behind the tractor, and, by means of a switch which operated red and green lights in the tractor dashboard, guide the driver to left or right. It wasn't our original idea, it wasn't even a recent idea: it had been used in the Antarctic a quarter century previously but, as far as I knew, had not been improved upon yet. With Jackstraw established on the sledge, I walked back to the tractor and pushed aside the canvas screen at the back of the wooden body. What with the faces of the passengers, drawn and pinched and weirdly pale in the light of the tiny overhead bulb, the constant shivering, the chattering of teeth and the frozen breath drifting upwards to condense and freeze on the wooden roof, it was a picture of utter and abject misery: but I was in no mood to be moved at that moment. "Sorry for the delay," I said. "Just off again now. But I want one of you for a lookout." Both Zagero and Corazzini volunteered almost in the same breath, but I shook my head. wifi digital camera with email "You two get what sleep or rest you canI'm liable to need you very much later on. Perhaps you, Mr Mahler?" He looked pale and ill, but he nodded silently, and Zagero said in a quiet voice: "Corazzini and myself too high up on the list of suspects, huh?" "I wouldn't put either of you at the very foot," I said shortly. I waited till Mahler had climbed down then dropped the canvas and walked round to the driver's seat. Theodore Mahler, strangely enough, proved only too anxious to talkand keep on talking. It was so completely out of keeping with the idea I had formed of his character that I was more than surprised. Loneliness, perhaps, I thought, or trying to forget the situation, or trying to divert my thoughts and suspicions: how wrong I was on all three counts I wasn't to find out until later. "Well, Mr Mahler, it looks as if the itinerary of your European trip is going to be upset a bit." I had almost to shout to make my words heard above the roar of the tractor. "Not Europe, Dr Mason." I could hear the machine-gun-like chatter of his teeth. "Israel." "You live there?" "Never been there in my life.1 There was a pause, and when his voice came again it was all but drowned in the sound of the engine. I thought I caught the words 'My home'. "Youyou're going to start a new life there, Mr Mahler?" Tm sixty-ninetomorrow," he answered obliquely. "A new life? Let's say, rather, that I'm going to end an old one." "And you're going to live there, make your home thereafter sixty-nine years in another country?" "Millions of us Jews have done just that, in the past ten years. Not that I've lived in America all my life. . . . " And then he told me his storya story of refugee oppression that I'd heard a hundred times, with a hundred variations. He was a Russian Jew, he said, one of the millions of the largest Jewry in the world that had been 'frozen' for over a century in the notorious Pale of Settlement, and in 1905 had been forced to flee with his fatherleaving mother and two brothers behindto escape the ruthless massacres carried out by the 'Black Hundreds' at the behest of the last of the Romanoff Tzars who was seeking scapegoats for his crushing defeat by the Japanese. His mother, he learned later, had just disappeared, while his two brothers had survived only to die in

And condemn you to death".

fear and the death of fear is certain. The mind is a limited thing, they had said. It can only hold one thought at a time, one impulse to action. Say to yourself, I am brave, I am overcoming this fear, this stupid, unreasoning panic which has no origin except in my own mind, and because the mind can only hold one thought at a time, and because thinking and feeling are one, then you will be brave, you will overcome and the fear will vanish like a shadow in the night. And so Andy Stevens said these things to himself, and the shadows only lengthened and deepened, lengthened and deepened, and the icy claws of fear dug ever more savagely into his dull exhausted mind, into his twisted, knotted stomach. His stomach. That knotted ball of jangled, writhing nerve-ends beneath the solar plexus. No one could ever know how it was, how it felt, except those whose shredded minds were going, collapsing into complete and final breakdown. The waves of panic and nausea and faintness that flooded up through a suffocating throat to a mind dark and spent and sinewless, a mind fighting with woollen fingers to cling on to the edge of the abyss, a tired and lacerated mind, only momentarily in control, wildly rejecting the clamorous demands of a nervous system which had already taken far too much that he should let go, open the torn fingers that were clenched so tightly round the rope. It was just that easy. "Rest after toil, port after stormy seas." What was that famous stanza of Spenser's? Sobbing aloud, Stevens wrenched out another spike, sent it spinning into the waiting sea three hundred long feet below, pressed himself closely into the face and inched his way despairingly upwards. Fear. Fear had been at his elbow all his life, his constant companion, his alter ego, at his elbow, on in close prospect or immediate recall. He had become accustomed to that fear, at times almost reconciled, but the sick agony of this night lay far beyond either tolerance or familiarity. He had never known anything like this before, and even in his terror and confusion he was dimly aware that the fear did not spring from the climb itself. True, the cliff was sheer and almost vertical, and the lightning, the ice-cold rain, the darkness and the bellowing thunder were a waking nightmare. But the climb, technically, was simple: the rope stretched all the way to the top and all he had to do was to follow it and dispose of the spikes as he went. He was sick and bruised and terribly tired, his head ached abominably and he had lost a great deal of blood: but then, more digital cameras under $20 often than not, it is in the darkness of agony and exhaustion that the spirit of man burns most brightly. Andy Stevens was afraid because his self-respect was gone. Always, before, that had been his sheet anchor, bad tipped the balance against his ancient enemythe respect in which other men had held him, the respect he had had for himself. But now these were gone, for his two greatest fears had been realisedhe was known to be afraid, he had failed his fellow-man. Both in the fight with the German caique and when anchored above the watch-tower in the creek, he had known that Mallory and Andrea knew. He had never met such men before, and he had known all along that he could never hide his secrets from such men. He should have gone up that cliff with Mallory, but Mallory had made excuses and ten Andrea insteadMallory knew he was afraid. And twice before, in Castelrosso and when the German boat had closed in on them, he had almost failed his friendsand to-night he had failed them terribly. He had not been thought fit to lead the way with Malloryand it was he, the sailor of the party, who had made such a botch of tying that last knot, had lost all the food and the fuel that had plummetted into the sea a bare ten feet from where he had stood on the ledge . . . and a thousand men on Kheros were depending on a failure so abject as himself. Sick and spent, spent in mind and body and spirit, moaning aloud in his anguish of fear and self-loathing, and not knowing where one finished and the other began, Andy Stevens climbed blindly on. The sharp, high-pitched call-up buzz of the telephone cut abruptly through the darkness on the cliff-top. Mallory stiffened and half-turned, hands clenching involuntarily. Again it buzzed, the jarring stridency carrying cleanly above the bass rumble of the thunder, fell silent again. And then it buzzed again and kept on buzzing, peremptory in its harsh insistence. Mallory was half-way towards it when he checked in midstep, turned slowly round and walked back towards Andrea. The big Greek looked at him curiously. "You have changed your mind?" Mallory nodded but said nothing. "They will keep on ringing until they get an answer," Andrea murmured. "And when they get no answer, they will come. They will come quickly and soon." "I know, I know." Mallory shrugged. "We have to

For I am weary wi hunting and fain wald lie down."

looked neither at Mallory nor anyone else, but slowly, deliberately, in an almost frightening silence, began to work his way round to the back of the table, the scuffing of his sliding palms on the leather top rasping edgily across over-tautened nerves. Mallory stood quite still, watching him with expressionless face, cursing himself for his folly. He had overplayed his hands There was no doubt in his mindthere could be no doubt in the mind of anyone in that roomthat Skoda meant to kill him; and he, Mallory, would not die. Only Skoda and Andrea would die: Skoda from Andrea's throwing knifeAndrea was rubbing blood from his face with the inside of his sleeve, fingertips only inches from the sheathand Andrea front the guns of the guards, for the knife was all he had. You fool, you fool, you bloody stupid fool, Mallory repeated to himself over and over again. He turned his head slightly and glanced out of the corner of his eye at the sentry nearest him. Nearest himbut still six or seven feet away. The sentry would get him, Mallory knew, the blast of the slugs from that Schmeisser would tear him in half before he could cover the distance. But he would try. He must try. It was the least he owed to Andrea. Skoda reached the back of the table, opened a drawer and lifted out a gun. An automatic, Mallory noted with detachmenta little, blue-metal, snub-nosed toybut a murderous toy, the kind of gun he would have expected Skoda to have. Unhurriedly Skoda pressed the release button, checked the magazine, snapped it home with the palm of his hand, ificked off the safety catch and looked up at Mallory. The eyes hadn't altered in the slightestthey were cold, dark and empty as ever. Mallory ificked a glance at Andrea and tensed himself for one convulsive fling backwards. Here it comes, he thought savagely, this is how bloody fools like Keith Mallory dieand then all of a sudden, and unknowingly, he relaxed, for his eyes were still on Andrea and he had seen Andrea doing the same, the huge hand slipping down unconcernedly from the neck, empty of any sign of knife. There was a scuffle at the table and Mallory was just in time to see Turzig pin Skoda's gun-hand to the tabletop. "Not that, sir!" Turzig begged. "For God's sake, not that way!" "Take your hands away," Skoda whispered. The staring, empty eyes never left Mallory's face. "Take your hands away, I sayunless you -want to go the same way as Captain Mallory." "You can't kill him, sir!" Turzig persisted doggedly. "You just can't. Herr Kommandant's class digital camera battery including charger orders were very clear, Hauptmann Skoda. The leader must be brought to him alive." "He was shot while trying to escape," Skoda said thickly. "It's no good." Turzig shook his head. "We can't kill them alland the other prisoners would talk." He released his grip on Skoda's hands. "Alive, Herr Kommandant said, but he didn't say how much alive." He lowered his voice confidentially. "Perhaps we may have some difficulty in making Captain Mallory talk," he suggested. "What? What did you say?" Abruptly the death's head smile flashed once more, and Skoda was completely on balance again. "You are over-zealous, Lieutenant Remind me to speak to you about it some time. You underestimate me: that was exactly what I was trying to dofrighten Mallory into talking. And now you've spoilt it all." The smile was still on his face, the voice light, almost bantering, but Mallory was under no fflusions. He owed his life to the young W.G.B. lieutenanthow easily one could respect, form a friendship with a man like Turzig if it weren't for this damned, crazy war. . . . Skoda was standing in front of him again: he had left his gun on the table. "But enough of this fooling, eh, Captain Mallory?" The German's teeth fairly gleamed in the bright light from the naked lamps overhead. "We haven't all night, have we?" Mallory looked at him, then turned away in silence. It was warm enough, stuffy almost, in that little guardroom, but he was conscious of a sudden, nameless chili; he knew all at once, without knowing why, but with complete certainty, that this little man before him was utterly evil. 'Well, well, well, we are not quite so talkative now, are we, my friend?" He hummed a little to himself, looked up abruptly, the smile broader than ever. "Where are the explosives, Captain Mallory?" "Explosives?" Mallory lifted an interrogatory eyebrow. "I don't know what you are talking about." "You don't remember, eh?" "I don't know what you are talking about." "So." Skoda hummed to himself again and walked over in front of Miller. "And what about you, my Mend?" "Sure I remember," Miller said easily. "The captain's got it all wrong." "A sensible man!" Skoda purredbut Mallory could have sworn to an undertone of disappointment

True, she has forced thee from my breast,

the crash until after it had happened is that they were all doped. As far as I could see, all of them, or nearly all, were under the influence of some sleeping drug or narcotic." In the darkness I could almost feel him staring at me. After a long time he said softly, "You wouldn't say this unless you were sure of it." "I am sure of it. Their reactions, their dazed fumbling back to realityand, above all, the pupils of their eyes. Unmistakable. Some kind of sleeping tablet mixtures, of the fast-acting kind. What is known to the trade, I believe, as Mickey Finns." "But" Joss broke off. He was still trying to orientate his mind to this new line of thought. "Butthey would be bound to know of it, to be aware that they had been doped, when they came to." "In normal circumstances, yes. But they came to in what was, to say the least, most abnormal circumstances. I'm not saying that they didn't experience any symptoms of weakness, dizziness and lassitudethey must have doneand what more natural than that they should ascribe any such unusual physical or mental symptoms to the effects of the crash. And what more natural, too, than that they should conceal these symptoms as best they could- and refrain from mentioning them? They would be ashamed to admit or discuss weaknessesit's a very human trait to show to your neighbours the very best face you can put on in times of emergency or danger." Joss didn't reply at once. The implications of all this, as I'd found out for myself, took no little time for digestion, so I let him take his time and waited, listening to the lost and mournful wailing of the wind, the rustling hiss of millions of ice spicules scudding across the frozen snow of the ice-cap, and my own thoughts were in keeping with the bleak misery of the night. "It's not possible," Joss muttered at length. I could hear his teeth chattering with the cold. "You can't have some maniac rushing around an aircraft cabin with a hypo needle or dropping fizz-balls into their gin and tonics. You think they were all doped?" "Just about." "But how could anyone" "A moment, Joss," I interrupted. "What happened to the RCA?" "What?" The sudden switch caught him momentarily off-balance. "What happenedyou mean, how did it go for a burton? I've no idea at all, sir. All I know is that these hinges couldn't have been knocked into the wall accidentallynot with radio and equipment weighing about 180 pounds sitting on digital microscope adapter camera top of them. Someone shoved them in. Deliberately." "And the only person anywhere near it at the time was the stewardess, Margaret Ross. Everyone agreed on that." "Yes, but why in the name of heaven should anyone want to do a crazy thing like that?" "I don't know," I said wearily. "There's a hundred things I don't know. But I do know she did it.. . . And who's in the best position to spike the drinks of aircraft passengers?" "Good God!" I could hear the sharp hissing intake of breath. "Of course. Drinksor maybe the sweets they hand out at take-off." "No." I shook my head definitely in the darkness. "Barley sugar is too weak a covering-up agent to disguise the taste of a drug. Coffee, more likely." "It must have been her," Joss said slowly. "It must have been. Butbut she acted as dazed and abnormal as any of the others. More so, if anything." "Maybe she'd reason to," I said grimly. "Come on, let's get back or we'll freeze to death. Tell Jackstraw when you get him by himself." Inside the cabin, I propped the hatch open a couple of inches -with fourteen people inside, extra ventilation was essential. Then I glanced at the thermograph: it showed 48 below zeroeighty degrees of frost. I lay down on the floor, pulled my parka hood tight to keep my ears from freezing, and was asleep in a minute. CHAPTER FOURMonday 6 A.M.6 P.M. For the first time in four months I had forgotten to set the alarm-clock before I went to sleep, and it was late when I awoke, cold and stiff and sore all over from the uneven hardness of the wooden floor. It was still dark as midnighttwo or three weeks had passed since the rim of the sun had shown above the horizon for the last time that year, and all the light we had each day was two or three hours dim twilight round noonbut a glance at the luminous face of my watch showed me that it was nine-thirty. I pulled the torch out from my parka, located the oil-lamp and lit it. The light was dim, scarcely reaching the far corners of the cabin, but sufficient to show the mummy-like figures lying huddled on the bunks and sprawled grotesquely across the floor, their frozen breath clouding before their faces and above their heads, then condensing on the cabin walls. The walls themselves were sheeted with ice which had extended far out across the roof, in places reaching the skylights, a condition largely brought about by the cold

I wish that thou give such a blast

must now inevitably happen and as soon as the thought had come he thrust it savagely away. Everything, every action, every thought, every breath must be on the present. Hope was gone, but not irrecoverably gone: not so long as Andrea lived. He wondered if Casey Brown had seen or heard them coming, and what had happened to him: he made to ask, checked himself just in time. Maybe he was still at large. "How did you manage to find us?" Mallory asked quietly. "Only fools burn juniper wood," the officer said contemptuously. "We have been on Kostos all day and most of the night. A dead man could have smelt it." "On Kostos?" Miner shook his head. "How could?' "Enough!" The officer turned to someone behind him. "Tear down that screen," he ordered in German, "and keep us covered on either side." He looked back into the cave, gestured almost imperceptibly with his torch. "All right, you three. Outsideand you had better be careful. Please believe me that my men are praying for an excuse to shoot you down, you murdering swine!" The venomous hatred in his voice carried utter conviction. Slowly, hands still clasped above their heads, the three men stumbled to their feet. Mallory had taken only one step when the whip-lash of the German's voice brought him up short. "Stop!" He stabbed the beam of his torch down at the unconscious Stevens, gestured abruptly at Andrea. "One side, you! Who is this?" "You need not fear from him," Mallory said quietly. "He is one of us but he is terribly injured. He is dying." "We will see," the officer said tightly. "Move to the back of the cave!" He waited until the three men had stepped over Stevens, changed his automatic rifle for a pistol, dropped to his knees and advanced slowly, torch in one hand, gun in the other, well below the line of fire of the two soldiers who advanced unbidden at his heels. There was an inevitability, a cold professionalism about it all that made Mallory's heart sink. Abruptly the officer reached out his gun-hand, tore the covers off the boy. A shuddering tremor shook the whole body, his head rolied from side to side as he moaned in unconscious agony. The officer bent quickly over him, the hard, clean lines of the face, the fair hair beneath the hood high-lit in the beam of his own torch. A quick look at Stevens's pain-twisted, emaciated features, a glance at the shattered leg, a brief, distasteful wrinkling of the nose as he caught the foul stench of the gangrene, and he had hunched depreciation fuji digital cameras back on his heels, gently replacing the covers over the sick boy. "You speak the truth," he said softly. "We are not barbarians. I have no quarrel with a dying man. Leave him there." He rose to his feet, walked slowly backwards. "The rest of you outside." The snow had stopped altogether, Mallory saw, and stars were beginning to twinkle in the clearing sky. The wind, too, had fallen away and was perceptibly warmer. Most of the snow would be gone by midday, Mallory guessed. Carelessly, incuriously, he looked around him. There was no sign of Casey Brown. Inevitably Mallory's hopes began to rise. Petty Officer Brown's recommendation for this operation had come from the very top. Two rows of ribbons to which he was entitled but never wore bespoke his gallantry, he had a formidable reputation as a guerrilla fighterand he had had an automatic rifle in his hand. If he were somewhere out there. . . . Almost as 'if he had divined his hopes, the German smashed them at a word. "You wonder where your sentry is, perhaps?" he asked mockingly. "Never fear, Englishman, he is not far from here, asleep at his post. Very sound asleep, I'm afraid." "You've killed him?" Mallory's hands clenched until his palms ached. The other shrugged his shoulder in vast indifference. "I really couldn't say. It was all too easy. One of my men lay in the gully and moaned. A masterly performancereally pitiablehe almost had me convinced. Like a fool your man came to investigate. I had another man waiting above, the barrel of his rifle in his hand. A very effective club, I assure you. . . ." Slowly Mallory unclenched his fists and stared bleakly down the gully. Of course Casey would fall for that, he was bound to after what had happened earlier in the night. He wasn't going to make a fool of himself again, cry "wolf" twice in succession: inevitably, he had gone to check first. Suddenly the thought occurred to Mallory that maybe Casey Brown had heard something earlier on, but the thought vanished as soon as it had come. Panayis did not look like the man to make a mistake: and Andrea never made a mistake; Mallory turned back to the officer again. "Well, where do we go from here?" "Margaritha, and very shortly. But one thing first." The German, his own height to an inch, stood squarely in front of him, levelled revolver at waist

The Queen she's turned her face about,

turned paler. But he was dogged enough. "You have papers? Letters of authority?" Mallory sighed wearily, looked over his shoulder. "Andrea!" he bawled. "What do you want?" Andrea's great bulk loomed through the hatchway. He had heard every word that passed, had taken his cue from Mallory: a newlyopened wine bottle was almost engulfed in one vast hand and he was scowling hugely. "Can't you see I'm busy?" he asked surlily. He stopped short at the sight of the German and scowled again, irritably. "And what does this haifling want?" "Our passes and letters of authority from Herr General. They're down below." Andrea disappeared, grumbling deep in his throat. A rope was thrown ashore, the stern pulled in against the sluggish current and the papers passed over. The papersa set different from those to be used if emergency arose in Navaroneproved to be satisfactory, eminently so. Mallory would have been surprised had they been anything else. The preparation of these, even down to the photostatic facsimile of General Graebel's signature, was all in the day's work for Jensen's bureau in Cairo. The soldier folded the papers, handed them back with a muttered word of thanks. He was only a kid, Mallory could see nowif he was more than nineteen, his looks belied him. A pleasant, open-faced kidof a different stamp altogether from the young fanatics of the S.S. Panzer Divisionand far too thin. Mallory's chief reaction was one of relief: he would have hated to have to kill a boy like this. But he had to find out all he could. He signalled to Stevens to hand him up the almost empty crate of Moselle. Jensen, he mused, had been very thorough indeed: the man had literally thought of everything. . . . Mallory gestured lazily in the direction of the old watch-tower. "How many of you are up there?" he asked. The boy was instantly suspicious. His face had tightened up, stified in hostile surmise. "Why do you want to know?" he asked stiffly. Mallory groaned, lifted his hands in despair, turned sadly to Andrea. "You see what it is to be one of them?" he asked in mournful complaint. "Trust nobody. Think everyone is as twisted as. . . ." He broke off hurriedly, turned to the soldier minox classic digital camera again. "It's just that we don't want to have the same trouble every time we come in here," he explained. "We'll be back in Samos in a couple of days, and we've still another case of Moselle to work through. General Graebel keeps hisahspecial envoys well supplied. . . . It must be thirsty work up there in the sun. Come on, now, a bottle each. How many bottles?" The reassuring mention that they would be back again, the equally reassuring mention of Graebel's name, plus, probably, the attraction of the offer and his comrades' reaction if he told them he had refused it, tipped the balance, overcame scruples and suspicions. "There are only three of us," he said grudgingly. "Three it is," Mallory said cheerfully. "We'll bring you some Hock next time we return." He tilted his own bottle. "Prosit!" he said, an islander proud of airing his German, and then, more proudly still, "Auf Wiedersehen!" The boy murmured something in return. He stood hesitating for a moment, slightly shame-faced, then wheeled abruptly, walked off slowly along the river bank, clutching his bottles of Moselle. "So!" Mallory said thoughtfully. "There are only three of them. That should make things easier" "Well done, sir!" It was Stevens who interrupted, his voice warm, his face alive with admiration. "Jolly good show!" "Jolly good show!" Miller mimicked. He heaved his lanky length over the coaming of the engine hatchway. "'Good' be damned! I couldn't understand a gawddamned word, but for my money that rates an Oscar. That was terrific, boss!" "Thank you, one and all," Mallory murmured. "But I'm afraid the congratulations are a bit premature." The sudden chill in his voice struck at them, so that their eyes aligned along his pointing finger even before he went on. "Take a look," he said quietly. The young soldier had halted suddenly about two hundred yards along the bank, looked into the forest on his left in startled surprise, then dived in among the trees. For a moment the watchers on the boat could see another soldier, talking excitedly to the boy and gesticulating in the direction of their boat, and then both were gone, lost in the gloom of the forest. "That's torn it!" Mallory said softly. He turned away. "Right, that's enough. Back to where you were. It would look fishy if we ignored that incident altogether, but it would look a damned sight fishier if we paid too much attention to it. Don't

That were sae fair to see O?

certainly head for the coast. The likelihood was that Hillcrest, too, would head for the Kangalak fjordtogether with a small bay beside it, the Kangalak fjord was the only break, the only likely rendezvous in a hundred miles of cliff-bound coastand he could go there arrow-straight: on board his Sno-Cat he had a test prototype of a new, compact and as yet unmarketed Arma gyroscope specially designed for land use which had proved to have such astonishing accuracy that navigation on the ice-cap, as a problem, had ceased to exist for him. But, even should he be heading towards the coast, our chances of meeting him in that blizzard did not exist, and if we once passed them by we would have been lost for ever. Better by far to head for the coast, where some patrolling ship or plane might just possibly pick us upif we ever got there. Besides, I knew that both Jackstraw and Zagero felt exactly as I didunder a pointless but overpowering compulsion to follow Smallwood and Corazzini until'we dropped in our tracks. And the truth was that we couldn't have gone any other way even had we wished to. When Smallwood had dropped us off we had been fairly into the steadily deepening depression in the ice-cap that wound down to the Kangalak glacier and it was a perfect drainage channel for the katabatic wind that was pouring down off the plateau. Although powerful enough already when we had been abandoned, that wind was now blowing with the force of a full gale, and for the first time on the Greenland ice-plateaualthough we were now, admittedly, down to a level of 1500 feet -1 heard a wind where the deep ululating moaning was completely absent. It howled, instead, howled and shrieked like a hurricane in the upper works and rigging of a ship, and it carried with it a numbing bruising flying wall of snow and ice against which progress would have been utterly impossible. So we went the only way we could, with the lash of the storm ever on our bent and aching backs. And ache our backs did. Only three peopleZagero, Jackstraw and myselfwere able to carry anything more than their own weight: and we had among us three people completely unable to walk. Mahler was still unconscious, still in coma, but I didn't think we would have him with us very much longer: Zagero carried him for hour after endless hour through that white nightmare and for his self-sacrifice he paid the cruellest price of all for when, some hours later, I examined the frozen, useless appendages that had once been his hands, I knew that Johnny Zagero nikon memory cards for digital camera would never step into a boxing ring again. Marie LeGarde had lost consciousness too, and as I staggered along with her in my arms I felt it to be no more than a wasted token gesture: without shelter, and shelter soon, she would never see this night out. Helene, too, had collapsed within an hour of the tractor's disappearance, her slender strength had just given out, and Jackstraw had her over his shoulder. How all three of us, exhausted, starved, numbed almost to death as we were, managed to carry them for so long, even though with so many halts, is beyond my understanding: but Zagero had his strength, Jackstraw his superb fitness and I still the sense of responsibility that carried me on long hours after my legs and arms had given out. Behind us Senator Brewster blundered along in a blind world all of his own, stumbling often, falling occasionally but always pushing himself up and staggering gamely on. And in those few hours Hoffman Brewster, for me, ceased to be a senator and became again my earliest conception of the old Dixie Colonel, not the proud, rather overbearing aristocrat but the embodiment of a bygone southern chivalry, when courtesy and a splendid gallantry in the greatest perils and hardships were so routine as to excite no comment. Time and time again during that .bitter night be insisted, forcibly insisted, on relieving one of the three of us of our burdens and would stagger along under the load until he reached the point of collapse. Despite his age, he was a powerful man: but he had no longer the heart and the lungs and the circulation to match his muscles, and his distress, as the night wore on, became pitiful to see. The bloodshot eyes were almost closed in exhaustion, his face deep-etched in grey suffering and his breath coming in painful whooping gasps that reached me clearly even above the thin high shriek of the wind. No doubt but that Small wood and Corazzini had left us to die, but they had made one mistake: they had forgotten Balto. Balto; as always, had been running loose when they had left us, and they had either failed to see him or forgotten all about him. But Balto hadn't forgotten us, he must have known something was far wrong, for all the hours we had been prisoners on the tractor sled he had never come within a quarter-mile of us. But as soon as the tractor had dumped and left us, he had come loping in out of the driving snow and settled to the task of leading us down towards the

This said, they fell to 't without more dispute,

Jensen informs me that most of you speak Greek fluently, that you will be dressed as Greek peasants and will carry forged papers. That is well. You will bewhat is the word?self-contained, will operate on your own." He paused, then went on very earnestly. "Please do not try to enlist the help of the people of Navarone. At all costs you must avoid that. The Germans are ruthless. I know. If a man helps you and is found out, they will destroy not only that man but his entire villagemen, women and children. It has happened before. It will happen again." "It happened in Crete," Mallory agreed quietly. "I've seen it for myself." "Exactly." Vlachos nodded. "And the people of Navarone have neither the skifi nor the experience for suecessful guerrilla operations. They have not had the chanceGerman surveillance has been especially severe in our island." "I promise you, sir" Mallory began. Vlachos held up his hand. "Just a moment. If your need is desperate, really desperate, there are two men to whom you may turn. Under the first plane tree in the village square of Margarithaat the mouth of the valley about three miles south of the fortressyou will find a man called Louki. He has been the steward of our family for many years. Louki has been of help to the British beforeCaptain Jensen will confirm thatand you can trust him with your life. He has a friend, Panayis: he, too, has been useful in the past." "Thank you, sir. I'll remember. Louki and Panayis and Margarithathe first plane tree in the square." "And you will refuse all other aid, Captain?" Vlachos asked anxiously. "Louki and Panayisonly these two," he pleaded. "You have my word, sir. Besides, the fewer the safer for us as well as your people." Mallory was surprised at the old man's intensity. "I hope so, I hope so." Viachos sighed heavily. Mallory stood up, stretched out his hand to take his leave. "You're worrying about nothing, sir. They'll never see us," he promised confidently. "Nobody will see usand we'll see nobody. We're after only one thingthe guns." "Ay, the gunsthose terrible guns." Vlachos shook his head. "But just suppose" "Please. It will be all right," Mallory insisted quietly. "We will bring harm to noneand least of all to your islanders." "God go with you to-night," the old man whispered. "God go top picks for digital cameras with you to-night. I only wish that I could go too." CHAPTER 2 Sunday Night 19000200 "Coffee, sir?" Mallory stirred and groaned and fought his way up from the depths of exhausted sleep. Painfully he eased himself back on the metal-framed bucket-seat, wondering peevishly when the Air Force was going to get round to upholstering these fiendish contraptions. Then he was fully awake, tired, heavy eyes automatically focusing on the luminous dial of his wrist-watch. Seven o'clock. Just seven o'clockhe'd been asleep barely a couple of hours. Why hadn't they let him sleep on? "Coffee, sir?" The young air-gunner was still standing patiently by his side, the inverted lid of an ammunition box serving as a tray for the cups he was carrying. "Sorry, boy, sorry." Mallory struggled upright in his seat, reached up for a cup of the steaming liquid, sniffed it appreciatively. "Thank you. You know, this smells just like real coffee." "It is, sir." The young gunner smiled proudly. 'We have a percolator in the galley." "He has a percolator in the galley." Mallory shook his head in disbelief. "Ye gods, the rigours of war in the Royal Air Force!" He leaned back, sipped the coffee luxuriously and sighed in contentment. Next moment he was on his feet, the hot coffee splashing unheeded on his bare knees as he stared out the window beside him. He looked at the gunner, gestured in disbelief at the mountainous landscape unrolling darkly beneath them. "What the hell goes on here? We're not due till two hours after darkand it's barely gone sunset! Has the pilot?" "That's Cyprus, sir." The gunner grinned. "You can just see Mount Olympus on the horizon. Nearly always, going to Casteirosso, we fly a big dog-leg over Cyprus. It's to escape observation, sir; and it takes us well clear of Rhodes." "To escape observation, he says!" The heavy trans-atlantic drawl came from the bucket-seat diagonally across the passage: the speaker was lying collapsed there was no other word for itin his seat, the bony knees topping the level of the chin by several inches. "My Gawd! To escape observation!" he repeated in awed wonder. "Dog-legs over Cyprus. Twenty miles out from Alex by launch so that nobody ashore can see us taldn' off by