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