That courtiers thrive at latter Lammas day,

we had others still to rescue, urgent enough though that was, but the man lying at our feet, so still, so ashen-faced, was suffering so severely from shock and exposure that to touch him would have been to kill him: I was astonished that he had managed to survive even this long. I told the stewardess to make some coffee, gave her the necessary instructions, and then we left her and the big young man together: the girl heating a pan over a pile of meta tablets, the young man staring incredulously into a mirror as he kneaded a frost-bitten cheek and chin with one hand, and with another held a cold compress to a frozen ear. We took with us the warm clothes we had lent them, some rolls of bandages, and left. Ten minutes later we were back inside the plane. Despite its insulation, the temperature inside the main cabin had already dropped at least thirty degrees and almost everyone was shivering with the cold, one or two beating their arms to keep themselves warm. Even the Dixie colonel was looking very subdued. The elderly lady, fur coat tightly wrapped around her, looked at her watch and smiled. "Twenty minutes, exactly. You are very prompt, young man." "We try to be of service." I dumped the pile of clothes I was carrying on a seat, nodded at them and the contents of a gunny sack Joss and Jackstraw were emptying. "Share these out between you and be as quick as you can. I want you to get out at oncemy two friends here will take you back. Perhaps one of you will be kind enough to remain behind." I looked to where the young girl still sat alone in her back seat, still holding her left forearm in her hand. "I'll need some help to fix this young lady up." "Fix her up?" It was the expensive young woman in the expensive furs speaking for the first time. Her voice was expensive as the rest of her and made me want to reach for a hairbrush. "Why? What on earth is the mattef with her?" "Her collar-bone is broken," I said shortly. "Collar-bone broken?" The elderly lady was on her feet, her face a nice mixture of concern and indignation. "And she's been sitting there alone all this timewhy didn't you tell us, you silly man?" "I forgot," I replied mildly. "Besides, what good would it have done?" I looked down at the girl in the mink coat. Goodness only knew that I didn't particularly want her, but the injured girl had struck me as being almost painfully shy, and I was sure she'd prefer to have one of her own sex around. "Would you like reviews gt digital cameras to give me a hand?" She stared at me, a cold surprised stare that would have been normal enough had I made some outrageous or improper request, but before she could answer the elderly lady broke in again. "I'll stay behind. I'd love to help." "Well" I began doubtfully, but she interrupted immediately. "Well yourself. What's the matter? Think I'm too old, hey?" "No, no, of course not," I protested. "A fluent liar, but a gallant one." She grinned. "Come on, we're wasting this valuable time you're always so concerned about." We brought the girl into the first of the rear seats, where there was plenty of space between that and the first of the rearward facing front seats, and had just worked her coat off when Joss called me. "We're off now, sir. Back in twenty minutes." As the door closed behind the last of them and I broke open a roll of bandage, the old lady looked quizzically at me. "Know what you're doing, young man?" "More or less. I'm a doctor." "Doctor, hey?" She looked at me with open suspicion, and what with my bulky, oil-streaked and smelly furs, not to mention the fact that I hadn't shaved for three days, I suppose there was justification enough for it. "You sure?" "Sure I'm sure," I said irritably. "What do you expect me to dowhip my medical degree out from under this parka or just wear round my neck a brass plate giving my consulting hours?" "We'll get along, young man," she chuckled. She patted my arm, then turned to the young girl. "What's your name, my dear?" "Helene." We could hardly catch it, the voice was so low: her embarrassment was positively painful. "Helene? A lovely name." And indeed, the way she said it made it sound so. "You're not British, are you? Or American?" "I'm from Germany, madam." "Don't call me 'madam'. You know, you speak English beautifully. Germany, hey? Bavaria, for a guess?" "Yes." The rather plain face was transfigured in a smile, and I mentally saluted the old lady for the ease with which she was distracting the young girl's thoughts from the pain. "Munich.

Are the only sad vestiges now that remain.

weaving, sinuous gesture with her hand, and grimaced with distaste. Surely the Elders make use of informers and spies. Oh, they do. Most of whom report themselves to us and pass back such information as we want the Elders to have. Lars grinned as his fingers caressed her arm. Its not naive of us; islanders stick together. The Elders can give us little that we lack except the freedom to leave the planet. To be sure, not many of us would leave: its having the option to do so. And my father has a small detector so that people posing as tourists can be quickly identified. Father has a theory that only a certain type of personality is attracted to such an infamous occupation, and they often give themselves away. Strangely enough, by not singing! He gave her a mischievous grin. I was relieved to hear you singing lustily at the barbecue. I nearly didnt because, if I could recognize your tenor, you might have spotted me as that midnight soprano. So I sang alto. But, Lars, isnt Nahia in jeopardy for being here? Someone might just slip up and mention her presence? Lars took her by the elbows and pulled her against him, unconcernedly stroking her hair. Beloved Sunny, Nahia would be protected under any circumstances but, as it happens, only my father, you, and the people she came with, know she was on this island during the hurricane. Her partys ocean jet has been secreted in another of the Back caves, unseen by anyone. Its still there and wont emerge until weve had a chance to jam the cruisers surveillance systems. Nahia and Hauness will use the islands to screen them from any possibility of detection when the cruiser takes you all right, and me back to the Mainland. Satisfied? I told you my father is efficient. He is. There will also be no one here tonight from Wing Harbor who might inadvertently remember the girl Lars Dahl had as his partner. But No one in Wing will feel slighted: theyre all too busy with storm damage. Every building on the waterfront collapsed. And Wingers avoid Elder inspection as they would a smacker school. Killashandra did feel relieved by his explanations. She was rather pleased, too, as she reviewed her confrontation with Torkes. Nor would she fail to be exceedingly cautious in the presence of any of the elders. Torkes would never forgive her for that tongue-lashing, and she knew that he would do everything he could to rank the others against her if a second confrontation was to occur. Still, she was glad she had launched her frontal assault on the fardling tyrant. We shant polaroid simplicity digital camera leave anything to chance, however, Sunny, Lars went on as they climbed to the last terrace level. If sun-bleached hair and eyebrows alter your appearance enough to deceive an FSP agent Corish was not expecting me to be on that beach, any more than you Then Teradia can restore your beauty. With more sophisticated clothes, and that hauteur of yours, youll be every inch the crystal singer. Lars halted, swinging her into his arms again. No one was in sight. Will the impressively beautiful crystal singer still favor her island lover? He smiled down at her, but tension caught at the corners of his grey-tinged eyes. Dont tell me you who braves hurricanes, Elders, and Masters feared my ranting? She soothed the creases from his eyes. I assume a role, Lars Dahl, from some opera or other. I play no role with you, no matter under what circumstances. Believe me. Lets not lose a moment of what we have together! She stood on tiptoe to kiss him and the hunger they both felt made them tremble. How are we going to make out, Killa, on board that cruiser? And back on the Mainland? Oh, citizen! Killashandra laid her hand gracefully against her bosom, fluttering her eyes, as much to keep back the tears as to embellish her assumed character. When I trust to you my safety, where else shall you be but with me, wherever I go, even in my bedchamber? And have you seen where they quartered me in the Conservatory? Youll see, Lars. It will all be arranged my way! By then they had reached an establishment with a modest sign spelling out Teradia in graceful lettering. Teradia herself greeted them, a woman as tall as Lars, with a supple, willowy figure, and densely black hair very intricately braided. Her skin was olive and flawless, the pale green pupils of her eyes appeared luminous: she was a superb testimonial to her establishment. Olav Dahl wants the very best for you, Killashandra Ree, and I myself will see to your care. Ill supervise, Lars interrupted. The bleaching must be With a quick movement, Teradia placed one hand across Larss chest and eased him away from Killashandra, a look of mild disdain on her elegant features. My dear boy, clever you may be in some of the ways of pleasing a woman, but this is my art she began to draw Killashandra away with her, and you will allow me to practice it. Come, Guildmember, this way.

"As thou dost seem to be,

and using a blow-torch to thaw out two cans of fruit, Jackstraw and I rigged up the radio transmitter, strung out an antenna and started triggering out our GFK call-sign. Normally, on these hand-cranked eight-watt jobs, a morse key was used for transmission while reception was by a pair of earphones, but thanks to a skilful improvisation by Joss who knew how hopelessly awkward morse was for everyone in the party except himself, the set had been rigged so that the key was used only for the call-up sign. After the link was made, a hand microphone could be used for transmission: and simply by throwing the receiving switch into the antenna lead, the microphone was transformed into a small but sufficiently effective loudspeaker. Calling up Joss was only a gesture. I'd made a promise and was keeping it, that was all. But by this time, I estimated, we were 120 miles distant from him, near enough the limit of our small set: I didn't know what effect the intense cold would have on radio transmission, but I suspected it wouldn't be anything good: there had been no aurora that morning, but the ionosphere disturbance might still be lingering on. and, of course, Joss himself had declared that his RCA was entirely beyond repair. Ten minutes passed, ten minutes during which Jackstraw industriously cranked the handle and I sent out the call-sign, GFK three times repeated, a flick of the receiver switch, ten seconds listening, then the switch pulled back and the call-sign made again. At the end of the ten minutes I sent out the last call, pushed over the receiving switch, listened briefly then stood up, resignedly gesturing to Jackstraw to stop cranking. It was then, almost in the very last instant, that the mike in my hand crackled into life. "GFX calling GFK. GFX calling GFK. We are receiving you faint but clear. Repeat, we are receiving you. Over." I fumbled and nearly dropped the mike in my excitement. "GFK calling GFX, GFK calling GFX." I almost shouted the words, saw Jackstraw pointing to the switch which was still in the receiving position, cursed my stupidity, threw it over, called out the signs again and then, quite forgetting the procedure and etiquette of radio communication, rushed on, the words tumbling over one another: "Dr Mason here. Dr Mason here. Receiving you loud and clear. Is that you, Joss?" I threw the switch. "Yes, sir. Glad to hear from you." Static lent a flat impersonality to the crackling words, robbed them of meaning. "How are you? What weather, how far canon powershot sd digital camera out?" "Going strong," I replied. "Cold intenseminus 70. Approximately 120 miles out. Joss, this is a miracle! How on earth did you fix it?" "I didn't," he said unemotionally. There was a pause and then his voice came again. "Captain Hillcrest is waiting to speak to you, sir." "Captain Hillcrest! What on earth is Captain Hillcrest" I broke off abruptly, not through astonishment, great though that was, that Hillcrest, whom I had believed to be almost 250 miles to the north of our IGY cabin should have suddenly turned up there, but because the warning glance from Jackstraw had found an echoing answer in the back of my own mind. "Hold on," I said quickly. "Will call you back in two or three minutes." We had set up the transmitter just to the rear of the tractor cabin, and I knew that every word said on both sides could be heard by those inside. It was just then that the curtains parted and Corazzini and Zagero peered out, but I ignored them. I never cared less about the hurt I was offering to anybody's feelings, just picked up the radio and generator while Jackstraw unstrung the antenna, and walked away from the tractor. Two hundred yards away I stopped. Those in the tractor could still see usthe brief light of noonday was flooding over the ice-capbut they could no longer hear us. We rigged the radio again, and I tried to tap out the call-sign but it was hopeless, we'd been out too long in that dreadful cold and my hand was beating an uncontrollable tattoo on the key. Fortunately, they knew or guessed at the other end what was happening, for Hillcrest's voice, calm, confident, infinitely reassuring, came through as soon as I pressed the receiving switch. "Surprise, surprise," the mike crackled mechanically. "OK, Dr Mason, from what Joss has saidand the recent delay -1 guess you're a good way from the tractor. At seventy below you won't want to stay there too long. Suggest I do all the talking. I'll keep it brief. Receiving me?" "Loud and clear. What on earth are yousorry, carry on." "Thanks. We heard Monday afternoon, on both British and American broadcasts, of the overdue airliner. Tuesday morning -yesterday, that iswe heard from the Uplavnik base. They say this hasn't been announced officially, but the US and British governments are convinced that the plane has not been lost at sea, but that it has landed somewhere in Greenland or Baffin Island. Don't ask me why they're convincedI've no

Aboard a river-boat from Baltimore;

main room so vast that she had to stifle a chuckle. Mirbethan indicated the toilet and the slightly open closet panel where her clothes had been hung. Then the woman withdrew. Stripping off the torn garment, Killashandra flicked open one of the Beluga spider-silk kaftans which ought to be suitable for any reception: certainly a foil against the predominantly white or pale colors which the Optherians seemed to prefer. Except for that brooding young man. Killashandra dwelt briefly on him as she washed hastily. Then she couldnt resist a peek into the other hygiene rooms. One contained a variety of tubs, massage table, and exercise equipment while the third boasted a radiant-fluid tub and several curious devices which Killashandra had never before encountered but which left an impression of obscenity. Back in the bedchamber, she heard a soft rapping at the door. Im ready, Im ready, she cried, masking irritation with a lilt in her voice. Chapter 5 That protocol had become an art form on Optheria told Killashandra quite clearly that if there were no rebellious spirits then the entire population had stagnated. At the reception, every faculty member, their subordinates, then every student, all in order of their rank and scholastic standing, filed past her. Mercifully, handshaking was no longer a part of the ritual. A nod, a smile, a mumbled repetition of the name sufficed. After fifty nods, Killashandra felt her smile fixed in her cheeks and her face stiffened into that mode. With her everfaithful quartette, she stood at the top of a massive double staircase, whose white marble nights curved down into a marbled hall below. The ceiling of the vast reception chamber was so high that the murmuring of the assembled crowd was absorbed. Killashandra had had a glimpse of tables, laden with patterns of plates whose contents were as precisely placed as the plates were, and with beakers of colored liquids. The assembled scrupulously kept their eyes from the direction of the refreshments. Killashandra guessed that they all knew too well the taste and texture of the reception repast. There were curious patterns, too, in the reception. Five people would take the right-hand staircase, the next five would descend on the left. Killashandra wondered if a steward in some distant anteroom ticked the people off for left and right. There were never more than ten people waiting to be introduced, yet the flow down the gobalization and ge digital camera hallway was steady despite its apparent randomness. Abruptly no more people were making their way to the reception line and Killashandra let her cheeks relax, rotating her head on her neck, wriggling her lips and nose in a very undignified manner in order to ease the muscles. One never knows when ones early training as a singer is going to prove useful, she thought, just as she heard a concerted intake of breath from her quartette. Reorganizing her expression, she glanced up the hall in time to observe the ceremonial approach of dignitaries. The seven figures who processed and that was the correct verb to describe their advance were not differently garbed from the other highly placed Optherians, but they wore their pale robes with an unmistakable air of authority. Four men and three women, each wearing the same slight smile upon their serene faces. Faces, Killashandra would shortly note, that had been carefully adjusted by surgery and artifice to enhance that serenity, for only one of the smiles reached the weary, bored, aged eyes. Elder Ampris, Killashandra was immensely relieved to discover, was the only one of the Optherian rulers with whom she would have much contact. He was currently responsible for the Music Complex. If there should ever be a Stellarity Award given for Best Character Actor among Planetary Rulers, surely Ampris would win it. But for the disparity of expression between eye and face, Killashandra might have missed that gleam of humor and possibly ignored that spontaneous lifting of the heart that occur when one encounters a kindred spirit. The others, whose names Killashandra promptly forgot, gave her hand one firm shake in welcome, a few words of gratitude for making so arduous a journey in this moment of planetary crisis, and passed on by, having acquitted their duty. They all waited, without appearing to wait, at the top of the right-hand stair. Then Killashandra felt the almost electric touch of Ampriss hand, looked into his bright and knowing eyes and returned the first genuine smile of the long afternoon. We will have time to talk later on, Guildmember. In the meantime, let us gild their afternoon with the gold and scarlet of our presences. His negligent wave took in the whole room, not just the high dignities patiently awaiting the dissolution of the reception line. Thyrol glanced at Killashandra, her hand on Ampriss arm, then he turned to the nearest Elder woman and offered his

And why sae sad gang yee O?

strangely foreboding, that towered above and beyond them. "He'll catch us up within fifteen minutes or so." He grinned tiredly at Miller. "And we're to leave this box and a rucksack for him to carry." "Spare me," Miller pleaded. "I feel only six inches tall as it is." He looked down at Stevens lying quietly under the darkly gleaming wetness of the oilskins, then up at Andrea. "I'm afraid, Andrea" "Of course, of course!" Andrea stooped quickly, wrapped the oilskins round the unconscious boy and rose to his feet, as effortlessly as if the oilskins had been empty. "I'll lead the way," Miller volunteered. "Mebbe I can pick an easy path for you and young Stevens." He swung generator and rucksacks on to his shoulder, staggering under the sudden weight; he hadn't realised he was so weak. "At first, that is," he amended. "Later on, you'll have to carry us both." Mallory had badly miscalculated the time it would require to overtake the others; over an hour had elapsed since Brown had left him, and still there were no signs of the others. And with seventy pounds on his back, he wasn't making such good time himself. It wasn't all his fault. The returning German patrol, after the first shock of discovery, had searched the clifftop again, methodically and with exasperating slowness. Mallory had waited tensely for someone to suggest descending and expmining the chimneythe gouge-marks of the spikes on the rock would have been a dead giveawaybut nobody even mentioned it. With the guard obviously fallen to his death, it would have been a pointless thing to do anyway. After an unrewarding search, they had debated for an unconscionable time as to what they should do next. Finally they had done nothing. A replacement guard was left, and the rest made off along the cliff, carrying their rescue equipment with them. The three men ahead had made surprisingly good time, although the conditions, admittedly, were now much easier. The heavy fall of boulders at the foot of the slope had petered out after another fifty yards, giving way to broken scree and rain-washed rubble. Possibly he had passed them, but it seemed unlikely: in the intervals between these driving sleet showersit was more like hail nowhe was able to scan the bare shoulder of the hill, and nothing moved. Besides, he knew that Andrea wouldn't stop until he reached what promised at least a bare minimum of shelter, and as yet these exposed, windswept slopes had offered nothing that even remotely approached that. In the end, Mallory almost literally stumbled upon both men and canon powershot tx1 digital camera review shelter. He was negotiating a narrow, longitudinal spine of rock, had just crossed its razor-back, when he heard the murmur of voices beneath him and saw a tiny glimmer of light behind the canvas stretching down from the overhang of the far wall of the tiny ravine at his feet. Miller started violently and swung round as he felt the hand on his shoulder: the automatic was half-way out of his pocket before he saw who it was and sunk back heavily on the rock behind him. "Come, come, now! Trigger-happy." Thankfully Mallory slid his burden from his aching shoulders and looked across at the softly laughing Andrea. "What's so funny?" "Our friend here." Andrea grinned again. "I told him that the first thing he would know of your arrival would be when you touched him on the shoulder. I don't think he believed me." "You might have coughed or somethin'," Miller said defensively. "It's my nerves, boss," he added plaintively. "They're not what they were forty-eight hours ago." Mallory looked at him disbelievingly, made to speak, then stopped short as he caught sight of the pale blur of a face propped up against a rucksack. Beneath the white swathe of a bandaged forehead the eyes were open, looking steadily at him. Mallory took a step forward, sank down on one knee. "So you've come round at last!" He smiled into the sunken parchment face and Stevens smiled back, the bloodless lips whiter than the face itself. He looked ghastly. "How do you feel, Andy?" "Not too bad, sir. Really. I'm not." The bloodshot eyes were dark and filled with pain. His gaze fell and he looked down vacantly at his bandaged leg, looked up again, smiled uncertainly at Mallory. "I'm terribly sorry about all this, sir. What a bloody stupid thing to do." "It wasn't a stupid thing." Mallory spoke with slow, heavy emphasis. "It was criminal folly." He knew everyone was watching them, but knew, also, that Stevens had eyes for him alone. "Criminal, unforgiveable folly," he went on quietly, "and I'm the man in the dock. I'd suspected you'd lost a lot of blood on the boat, but I didn't know you had these big gashes on your forehead. I should have made it my business to find out." He smiled wryly. "You should have heard what these two insubordinate characters had to say to me about it when they got to the top. . . . And they were right. You should never have been asked to bring up the rear in the state you were in. It was madness." He grinned again. "You should have been

"Whar sall we gang and dine the day?"

done to any Optherians? Someone touched her temples and she cried out the right one was immeasurably sore. The pain flowed away, like water from a broken vessel, flowed out and down and away, and Killashandra sank into the gorgeous oblivion which swiftly followed painlessness. If she had been anyone else, Trag, I wouldnt permit her to be moved for several weeks, and then only in a protective cocoon, said a vaguely familiar voice. In all my years as a physician, I have never seen such healing. Where am I going? Id prefer the islands, Killashandra said, rousing enough to have a say in her disposition. She opened her eyes, half-expecting to be in the wretched Conservatory Infirmary and very well satisfied to find that she was in the spacious bed of her quarters. Lars! Hauness called jubilantly. His had been the familiar voice. The door burst inward as an anxious Lars Dahl rushed to her bedside, followed by his father. Killa, if you knew Tears welling from his eyes, Lars could find no more words and buried his face against the hand she raised to greet him. She stroked his crisp hair with her other hand, soothing, his release from uncertainty. Lousy bodyguard, you are She was unable to say what crowded her throat, hoping that her loving hand conveyed something of her deep feeling for him. Corish was no use, after all. Then she frowned. Was he hurt? Security says, Hauness replied with a chuckle, he lifted half a dozen of your assailants and broke three arms, a leg, and two skulls. Who was it? A woman Trag moved into her vision, registering with a stolid blink that her hands were busy comforting Lars Dahl. The search and seize stirred up a great deal of hatred and resentment, Killashandra Ree, and as you were the object of that search, your likeness was well circulated. Your appearance on the streets made you an obvious target for revenge. We never thought of that, did we? she said ruefully. The movement to her right caused her to flinch away and then offer profuse apologies, for Nahia was moving to comfort the distraught Lars. So you took the pain away, Nahia? My profound thanks, Killashandra said. Even crystal singers nerve ends dont heal as quickly as flesh. So Trag told us. And that crystal singers cannot assimilate many of the pain-relieving drugs. Are you in any pain now? Nahias hands gently rested on Lars head in a brief benison, but her beautiful eyes searched digital camera fisheye lens Killashandras face. Not in the flesh, Killashandra said, dropping her gaze to Larss shuddering body. It is relief, Nahia said, and best expressed. Then Killashandra began to chuckle, Well, we achieved what I set out to do in meeting Corish. Got you all here! Far more than that, Trag said as the others smiled. A third attack on you gave me the excuse to call a scout ship to get us off this planet. The Guild contract has been fulfilled and, as I informed the Elders Council, we have no wish to cause domestic unrest if the public objects so strongly to the presence of crystal singers. How very tactful of you. Belatedly remembering caution, Killashandra looked up at the nearest monitor, relieved to find it was a black hole. Did the jammer survive? No, Trag said, but white crystal, in dissonance, distorts sufficiently. Theyve stopped wasting expensive units. And Killashandra prompted, encouraging Trag since he was being uncharacteristically informative. He nodded, Olavs grin broadened, and even Hauness looked pleased. Those shards provide enough white crystal to get the most vulnerable people past the security curtain. Nahia and Hauness will organize a controlled exodus until the Federated Council can move. Lars and Olav come with us on the scout ship. Brassner, Theach, and Erutown are to be picked up by Tanny in the Pearl Fisher and leave with Corish on the liner Corish? Killashandra looked about expectantly. Hes searching most thoroughly for his uncle, Hauness said, and attending the public concerts which have been hastily inaugurated, to soothe a disturbed public. Whats the diet? Security, pride, reassurance, no sex, Hauness replied. Then you didnt get to the other organs, Trag? Corish suggested that some should be left in, shall we say, normal operating condition as evidence, to be seen by the Federal Investigators. What Trag doesnt say, Killashandra, replied Nahia, a luminous smile gently rebuking the other crystal singer, is that he refused to leave you. As the only way to prevent the Infirmary from interfering with the symbiont, Trag said, bluntly, disclaiming any hint of sentiment. Lars thought to send for Nahia to relieve pain. For which I am

"Why, I am an old woman, thou cuckoldly bishop;

then, on our way." "Leaving us here to starve and die of cold, I suppose?" I said bitterly. "What becomes of you no longer concerns me," Smallwood said indifferently. Already, in a matter of minutes, it had become almost impossible to think of him, to remember him as the meek retiring minister we had known. "It is possible, however, that you might be foolish enough to take advantage of the cover of snow and darkness to run after us, waylay and try to overcome us. You might even succeed, even though unarmed. We must immobilise you, temporarily." "Or permanently," Zagero said softly. "Only fools kill wantonly and unnecessarily. Fortunatelyfor youit is not necessary for my plans that you die. Corazzini, bring some rope from the sled. There's plenty of cord there. Tie their feet only. With their numbed hands it will take them an hour to undo their bonds: we will be well on our way by then." He moved his gun gently from side to side. "Sit in the snow. All of you." There was nothing for it but to do as we were told. We sat down and watched Corazzini bring a hank of cord from the sled. He looked at Smallwood, and Smallwood nodded at me. "Dr Mason first." Corazzini gave his gun to Smallwoodthey missed nothing, that pair, not even the remote possibility that one of us might try to snatch Corazzini's gunand advanced on me. He knelt and had taken a couple of turns round my ankles when the truth struck me with the suddenness, the shocking impact of a physical blow. I sent Corazzini staggering with a violent shove and leapt to my feet. "No!" My voice was hoarse, savage. "By God, you're not going to tie me up, Smallwood!" "Sit down, Mason!" His voice was hard, whip-like, and the light from the tractor cabin was enough for me to see the rock-like pistol barrel centred between my eyes. I ignored it completely. "Jackstraw!" I shouted. "Zagero, Levin, Brewster! On your feet if you want to live. He's only got one gun. If he starts firing at any of us, the rest go for him and get himhe can't possibly get us all. Margaret, Helene, Mrs Dansby-Gregg-first shot that's fired, run off into the darknessand stay there!" "Have you gone crackers, Doc?" The words came from an astonished Zagero, but for all that something namelessly urgent and compelling in my voice had got him to his feet, and he was bent most current personal digital cameras forward, crouched like a great cat, ready to launch himself at Smallwood. "Want to get us all killed?" "That's just what I don't want." I could feel my spine, the back of my neck cold with a cold that was not of the Arctic, and my legs were trembling. "Going to tie us up and leave us here? Is he hell! Why do you think he told us of the trawler, its position, the submarine and all the rest of it? I'll tell you whybecause he knew it was safe, because he'd made up his mind that none of us would ever live to tell of these things." I was rattling the words out with machine-gun rapidity, desperate with the need to convince the others of what I was saying before it was too late: and my eyes never left the gun in Smallwood's hand. "No 'buts'," I interrupted harshly. "Smallwood knows that Hillcrest will be coming through here this afternoon. If we're still hereand alivefirst thing we'd tell him would be Smallwood's course, speed, approximate position and destination. Within an hour the Kangalak glacier would be sealed, within an hour bombers from the Triton would have blasted him off the face of the glacier. Tie us up? Sureand then he and Corazzini would shoot us at their leisure while we flopped around like birds with broken wings." Conviction was immediate and complete. I couldn't see the faces of the others, but the fractional lowering of Smallwood's gun was enough to tell me. "I underestimated you, Dr Mason," he admitted softly. His voice was devoid of all trace of anger. "But you almost died there." "What's five minutes more or less?" I asked, and Smallwood nodded absently. He was already working out an alternative solution. "Youyou inhuman monster!" Senator Brewster's voice was shaking with fear or anger or both. "You were going to tie us up and butcher us likelike" Words failed him for a moment, then he whispered: "You must be mad, Smallwood, stark raving mad." "He's not in the slightest," Zagero said quietly. "Not mad. Just bad. But it's kind of hard to tell the difference at times. Figured out our next jolly little scheme, Smallwood?" "Yes. As Dr Mason says, we can't possibly dispose of all of you inside a couple of seconds, which is all the time it would take for oneprobably moreof you to reach the cover of the snow and darkness." He nodded towards the tractor sled, lifted his high collar against the snow and biting wind. "I think you had better ride a little way with us." And ride with them we did for the

And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed;

idea. Anyway, they've mounted the biggest air-sea rescue search since the war. Merchant vessels of several nationalities have been diverted. American, British, French and Canadian fishing trawlers are moving in to the Greenland coastthe west coast mainly. The east's already blocked with ice. A dozen US air force search bombers are already operating from Thule and Sondre Strom-fjord. US coastguard cutters are on the job, a flotilla of Canadian destroyers have been rerouted from mid-Atlantic and are steaming at full speed for the southern entrance of the Davis Straitalthough it will take them at least thirty-six more hours to get thereand a British aircraft-carrier, accompanied by a couple of destroyers, has already rounded Cape Farewell: we don't know yet how far north she can get, the ice is solid on the Baffin side, but it's open at least to Disko on the Greenland coast, maybe as far as Svartenhuk. All IGY stations in Greenland have been ordered to join in the search. That's why we came back non-stop to the cabinto pick up more petrol." I could contain myself no longer, threw over the receiving switch. "What on earth's all the mad flap about? You'd think the President of the United States and half the Royal Family were aboard that plane. Why no more information from Uplavnik?" I waited, and then Hillcrest's voice crackled again. "Radio transmission impossible during preceding twenty-four hours. Will raise them now, tell them we've found the missing plane and that you're on your way to the coast. Any fresh developments with you?" "None. Correction. One of the passengersMahlerturns out to be an advanced diabetic. He's in a bad way. Radio Uplavnik to get insulin. Godthaab will have it." "Wilco," the microphone crackled back. A long pause, during which I could faintly hear the murmur of conversation, then Hillcrest came on again. "Suggest you return to meet us. We have plenty of petrol, plenty of food. With eight of us on guard instead of two, nothing could happen. We're already forty miles out" -1 glanced at Jackstraw, caught the sudden wrinkling of the eyes which I knew to be the tell-tale sign of a quick grin of astonished delight which so accurately reflected my own feelings'so not more than eighty miles behind you. We could meet up in five or six hours." I felt elation wash through me like a releasing wave. This was wonderful, this was more than anything I had ever dared hope for. All our troubles were at an end. . . . And then digital and video camera 7 the momentary emotion of relief and triumph ebbed, the cold dismaying processes of reason moved in inexorably to take their place, and it didn't require the slow, definite shake of Jackstraw's head to tell me that the end of our troubles was as far away as ever. "No go," I radioed back. "Quite fatal. The minute we turned back the killers would be bound to show their hand. And even if we don't turn they know now that we've been in contact with you and will be more desperate than ever. We must go on. Please follow at your best speed." I paused for a moment, then continued. "Emphasise to Uplavnik essential for our lives to know why crashed plane so important. Tell them to find out the passenger list, how genuine it is. This is absolutely imperative, Captain Hillcrest. Refuse to accept 'No' for an answer. We must know." We talked for another minute, but we'd really said all there was to be said. Besides, even during the brief periods that I'd pushed down my snow-mask to speak the cold had struck so cruelly at my cut and bleeding lips that I could now raise scarcely more than a mumble, so after arranging an 8 p.m. rendezvous and making a time-check I signed off. Back in the tractor cabin curiosity had reached fever pitch, but at least three minutes elapsedthree excruciatingly uncomfortable minutes while Jackstraw and I waited for the blood to come surging back through our frozen veinsbefore anyone ventured to speak. The inevitable question came from the Senatora now very much chastened Senator who had lost much of his choler and all of his colour, with the heavy jowls, hanging more loosely than ever, showing unhealthily pale through the grey grizzle of beard. The very fact that he spoke showed, I suppose, that he didn't regard himself as being heavily under suspicion. He was right enough in that. "Made contact with your friends, Dr Mason, eh? The field party, I mean." His voice was hesitant, unsure. "Yes," I nodded. "JossMr Londongot the set working after almost thirty hours' non-stop work. He raised Captain Hillcrest -he's in charge of the field partyand managed to establish a relay contact between us." I'd never heard of the phrase 'relay contact' in my life, but it sounded scientific enough. "He's packing up immediately, and coming after us." "Is that good?" the Senator asked hopefully. "I mean, how long-?" "Only a gesture, I'm afraid," I interrupted. "He's at least 258 miles away. His

They set it in the glen,

repellent about the incongruously small bullet head perched above. When the thin, bloodless lips parted in a smile, which was often, they revealed a perfect set Of teeth: far from lighting his face, the smile only emphasised the sallow skin stretched abnormally taut across the sharp nose and high cheekbones, puckered up the sabre scar that bisected the left cheek from eyebrow to chin: and whether he smiled or not, the pupils of the deep-set eyes remained always the same, stifi and black and empty. Even at that early hourit was not yet six o'clockhe was immaculately dressed, freshly shaven, the wetly-gleaming hairthin, dark, heavily indented above the templesbrushed straight back across his head. Seated behind a flat-topped table, the sole article of furniture in the bench-lined guardroom, only the upper half of his body was visible: even so, one instinctively knew that the crease of the trousers, the polish of the jackboots, would be beyond reproach. He smiled often, and he was smiling now as Oberleutinant Turzig finished his report. Leaning far back in his chair, elbows on the arm-rests, Skoda steepled his lean fingers under his chin, smiled benignly round the guardroom. The lazy, empty eyes missed nothingthe guard at the door, the two guards behind the bound prisoners, Andrea sitting on the bench where he had just laid Stevensone lazy sweep of those eyes encompassed them all. "Excellently done, Oberleutnant Turzigl" he purred. "Most efficient, really most efficient!" He looked speculatively at the three men standing before him, at their bruised and blood-caked faces, switched his glance to Stevens, lying barely conscious on the bench, smiled again and permitted himself a fractional lift of his eyebrows. "A little trouble, perhaps, Turzig? The prisoners were not tooah-co-operative?" "They offered no resistance, sir, no resistance at all," Turzig said stiffly. The tone, the manner, were punctilious, correct, but the distaste, the latent hostility were mirrored in his eyes. "My men were maybe a little onthusiastic. We wanted to make no mistake." "Quite right, Lieutenant, quite right," Skoda murmured approvingly. "These are dangerous men and one cannot take chances with dangerous men." He pushed back his chair, rose easily to his feet, strolled round the table and stopped in front of Andrea. "Except maybe this one, Lieutenant?" "He is dangerous only to his friends," Turzig said shortly. "It is as I told you, sir. He would betray his mother to save his own skin." "And claiming friendship with us, eh?" Skoda asked precision mini digital camera drivers musingly. "One of our gallant allies, Lieutenant." Skoda reached out a gentle hand, brought it viciously down and across Andrea's cheek, the heavy signet ring on his middle finger tearing skin and flesh. Andrea cried out in pain, clapped one hand to his bleeding face and cowered away, his right arm raised above his head in blind defence. "A notable addition to the armed forces of the Third Reich." Skoda murmured. "You were not mistaken, Lieutenant. A poltroonthe instinctive reaction of a hurt man is an infallible guide. It is curious," he mused, "how often very big men are thus. Part of nature's compensatory process, I suppose. . . . What is your name, my brave friend?" "Papagos," Andrea muttered sullenly. "Peter Papagos." He took his hand away from his cheek, looked at it with eyes slowly widening with horror, began to rub it across his trouser leg with jerky, hurried movements, the repugnance on his face plain for every man to see. Skoda watched him with amusement "You do not like to see blood, Papagos, eh?" he suggested. "Especially your own blood?" A few seconds passed in silence, then Andrea lifted his head suddenly, his fat face screwed up in misery. He looked as if he were going to cry. "I am only a poor fisherman, your Honour!" he burst out. "You laugh at me and say I do not like blood, and it is true. Nor do I like suffering and war. I want no part of any of these things!" His great fists were clenched in futile appeal, his face puckered in woe, his voice risen an octave. It was a masterly exhibition of despair, and even Mallory found himself almost believing in it. "Why wasn't I left alone?" he went on pathetically. "God only knows I am no fighting man" "A highly inaccurate statement," Skoda interrupted dryly. "That fact must be patently obvious to every person in the room by this time." He tapped his teeth with a jade cigarette-holder, his eyes speculative. "A fisherman you call yourself" "He's a damned traitor!" Mallory interrupted. The commandant was becoming just that little bit too interested in Andrea. At once Skoda wheeled round, stood in front of Mallory with his hands clasped behind his back, teetering on heels and toes, and looked him up and down in mocking inspection. "So!" he said thoughtfully. "The great Keith Mallory! A rather different proposition from our fat and fearful friend on the bench there, eh, Lieutenant?" He did not wait for an answer. "What rank are you,

And there he met with a silly old palmer,

here." The grip on my arm was promise enough that Jackstraw meant to detain me by force, if necessary. "You'd never come back. Balto! Balto!" He shouted a few Eskimo words which meant nothing to me, but the big Siberian seemed to understand, for he was gone in a moment, following the direction of Jackstraw's pointing hand. He was back again inside two minutes. "He's found him?" I asked Jackstraw. Jackstraw nodded silently. "Let's bring him in." Balto led us there, but we didn't bring him in. Instead we left him lying where we found him, face down in the snow, dead. The blizzard was already drawing its concealing shroud over him, in an hour he would be no more than a featureless white mound in a featureless white valley. My hands were too numb to examine him, but I wouldn't have bothered anyway: the half-century of self-indulgence in food and drink and temper, all of which had been so clearly reflected in the heavy florid face when first I'd seen him, had had their inevitable way. The heart, cerebral thrombosis, it didn't matter now. But he had been a man. How long we lay there, the six of us and Balto huddled close together for warmth, unconscious or dozing while that hurricane of a blizzard reached then passed its howling crescendo, I never knew. Probably only half an hour, perhaps not even that. When I awoke, stiff and numbed, I reached for Jackstraw's torch. It was exactly four o'clock in the morning. I looked at the others. Jackstraw was wide awake -1 was pretty sure he'd never shut an eye lest one of us slip away from sleep into that easy frozen sleep from which there would have been no wakeningand Zagero was stirring. That theyand Iwould survive, I didn't doubt. Helene was a question mark. A seventeen-year-old, though short on endurance, was usually high on resilience and recuperative powers, but Helene's seemed to have deserted her. After the death of her mistress and up to the time she had collapsed she had become strangely withdrawn and unresponsive, and I guessed that the death of Mrs Dansby-Gregg had hit her far more than any of us would have guessed. The previous forty-eight hours apart, it seemed to me that she had had little enough to thank Mrs Dansby-Gregg for in the way of affection and warmth: but, then, she was young, Mrs Dansby-Gregg had been the person she had known best and, as a foreigner, she must have regarded fuji 7.3 mp digital camera Mrs Dansby-Gregg as her sole anchor in an alien sea.... I asked Jackstraw if he would massage her hands, then turned to have a look at Mahler and Marie LeGarde. "They don't look so hot to me." Zagero, too, was studying them. "What's their chances', Doc?" "I just don't know," I said wearily. "I don't know at all." "Don't take it to heart, Doc. It's no fault of yours." Zagero waved a hand towards the snow-filled emptiness and desolation of the glacier. "Your dispensary ain't all that well stocked." "No." I smiled faintly, then nodded at Mahler. "Bend down and listen to his breathing. The end's coming pretty close. Ordinarily I'd say a couple of hours. With Mahler I don't knowhe's got the will to live,sheer guts,his beliefs-the lot.. . . But in twelve hours he'll be dead." "And how long do you give me, Dr Mason?" I twisted round and gazed down at Marie LeGarde. Her voice was no more than a weak, husky whisper: she was trying to smile, but the smile was a pitiful grimace and there was no humour in either the eyes or the voice. "Good lord, you've come to!" I reached out, pulled off her gloves and started to massage the frozen wasted hands. "This is wonderful. How do you feel, Miss LeGarde?" "How do you think I feel?" she said with a flash of her old spirit. "Don't try to put me off, Peter. How long?" "About another thousand curtain calls at the old Adelphi." The light came from the torch that had been thrust, butt down, into the snow, and I bent forward so that my face was shadowed, my expression unreadable. "Seriously, the fact that you've recovered consciousness is a good sign." "I once played a queen who recovered consciousness only to speak a few dramatic words before she died. Only, I can't think of any dramatic words." I had to strain to catch the feeble whispered words. "You're a shocking liar, Peter. Is there any hope for us at all?" "Certainly," I lied. Anything to get away from that topic. "We'll be on the coast, with a good chance of being picked up by ship or plane, tomorrow afternoonthis afternoon, rather. It can't be more than twenty miles from here." "Twenty miles!" Zagero interjected. "In this little lot?" He raised a cupped hand significantly to his ear, a gesture superbly superfluous in the ululating shriek of the blizzard. "It won't last, Mr Zagero," Jackstraw put in.

That I could not draw one string."

and mouth blocked with water, the pit of his stomach knotted and constricted in that nameless, terrifying ache he was to come to know so well: how his father and two elder brothers, big and jovial and nerveless like Sir Cedric himself, had wiped the tears of mirth from their eyes and pushed him in again. . . His father and brothers. . . . It had been like that all through his schooldays. Together, the three of them bad made his life thoroughly miserable. Tough, hearty, open-air types who worshipped at the shrine of athleticism and physical fitness,. they could not understand bow anyone could fail to revel in diving from a five-metre springboard or setting a hunter at a five-barred gate or climbing the crags of the Peak district or sailing a boat in a storm. All these things they had made him do and often he had failed in the doing, and neither his father nor his brothers could ever have understood how he had come to dread those violent sports in which they excelled, for they were not cruel men, nor even unkind, but simply stupid. And so to the simple physical fear he sometimes and naturally felt was added the fear of failure, the fear that he was bound to fail in whatever he had to do next, the fear of the inevitable mockery and ridicule: and because he had been a sensitive boy and feared the ridicule above all else, he had come to fear these things that provoked the ridicule. Finally, he had come to fear fear itself, and it was in a desperate attempt to overcome this double fear that he had devoted himselfthis in his late teensto crag and mountain climbing: in this he had ultimately become so proficient, developed such a reputation, that father and brothers had come to treat him with respect and as an equal, and the ridjcule had ceased. But the fear had not ceased; rather it had grown by what it fed on, and often, on a particularly difficult climb, be had all but fallen to his death, powerless in the grip of sheer, unreasoning terror. But this terror he had always sought, successfully so far, to conceal. As now. He was trying to overcome, to conceal that fear now. He was afraid of failingin what he wasn't quite sureof not measuring up to expectation: he was afraid of being afraid: and he was desperately afraid, above all things, of being seen, of being known to be afraid. . . . The startling, incredible blue of the Aegean; the soft, hazy silhouette of the Anatolian mountains against the washed-out cerulean of the sky; the heart-catching, magical blending of the blues and violets and sony dscs730 digital camera purples and indigoes of the sun-soaked islands drifting lazily by, almost on the beam now; the iridescent rippling of the water fanned by the gentle, scent-laden breeze newly sprung from the south-east; the peaceful scene on deck, the reassuring, interminable thump-thump, thump-thump of the old Kelvin engine. . . . All was peace and quiet and contentment and warmth and languor, and it seemed impossible that anyone could be afraid. The world and the war were very far away that afternoon. Or perhaps, after all, the war wasn't so far away. There were occasional pin-pricksand constant reminders. Twice a German Arado seaplane had circled curiously overhead, and a Savoia and Fiat, flying in company, had altered course, dipped to have a look at them and flown off, apparently satisfied: Italian planes, these, and probably based on Rhodes, they were almost certainly piloted by Germans who had rounded up their erstwhile Rhodian allies and put them in prison camps after the surrender of the Italian Government. In the morning they had passed within half a mile of a big German caiqueif flew the German flag and bristled with mounted machine-guns and a two-pounder far up in the bows; and in the early afternoon a high-speed German launch had roared by so closely that their caique had rolled wickedly in the wash of its passing: Mallory and Andrea had shaken their fists and cursed loudly and fluently at the grinning sailors on deck. But there had been no attempts to molest or detain them: neither British nor German hesitated at any time to violate the neutrality of Turkish territorial waters, but by the strange quixotry of a tacit gentlemen's agreement hostilities between passing vessels and planes were almost unknown. Like the envoys of warring countries in a neutral capital, their behaviour ranged from the impeccably and frigidly polite to a very pointed unawareness of one another's existence. These, then, were the pin-pricks-the visitations and bygoings, harmless though they were, of the ships and planes of the enemy. The other reminders that this was no peace but an illusion, an ephemeral and a frangible thing, were more permanent. Slowly the minute hands of their watches circled, and every tick took them nearer to that great wall of cliff, barely eight hours away, that had to be climbed somehow: and almost dead ahead now, and less than fifty miles distant, they could see the grim, jagged peaks of Navarone topping

O I hae killed my reid-roan steid,

It was Jackstraw who heard it firstit was always Jackstraw, whose hearing was an even match for his phenomenal eyesight, who heard things first. Tired of having my exposed hands alternately frozen, I had dropped my book, zipped my sleeping-bag up to the chin and was drowsily watching him carving figurines from a length of inferior narwhal tusk when his hands suddenly fell still and he sat quite motionless. Then, unhurriedly as always, he dropped the piece of bone into the coffee-pan that simmered gently by the side of our oil-burner stovecurio collectors paid fancy prices for what they That erst was sae fair and frie O. imagined to be the dark ivory of fossilised elephant tusksrose and put his ear to the ventilation shaft, his eyes remote in the unseeing gaze of a man lost in listening. A couple of seconds were enough. "Aeroplane," he announced casually. "Aeroplane!" I propped myself up on an elbow and stared at him. "Jackstraw, you've been hitting the methylated spirits again." "Indeed, no, Dr Mason." The blue eyes, so incongruously at

The wind sall blaw for evermair."

It was Jackstraw who heard it firstit was always Jackstraw, whose hearing was an even match for his phenomenal eyesight, who heard things first. Tired of having my exposed hands alternately frozen, I had dropped my book, zipped my sleeping-bag up to the chin and was drowsily watching him carving figurines from a length of inferior narwhal tusk when his hands suddenly fell still and he sat quite motionless. Then, unhurriedly as always, he dropped the piece of bone into the coffee-pan that simmered gently by the side of our oil-burner stovecurio collectors paid fancy prices for what they The three Rauens imagined to be the dark ivory of fossilised elephant tusksrose and put his ear to the ventilation shaft, his eyes remote in the unseeing gaze of a man lost in listening. A couple of seconds were enough. "Aeroplane," he announced casually. "Aeroplane!" I propped myself up on an elbow and stared at him. "Jackstraw, you've been hitting the methylated spirits again." "Indeed, no, Dr Mason." The blue eyes, so incongruously at

Thou bought me both shoos and hose;

Although there was no sign or legend on the building to indicate its purpose, Killashandra was not deterred. A locked front door, however, did pose an obstacle. She rapped politely and repeated her knock when it brought no immediate response. Thumping on the door also produced no results, and Killashandra felt determination replace courtesy. Was brewing illegal in Optherias largest city? Or could it be brewing without due license? After all, Bascum originated on Optheria and might have a monopoly. To be sure, she hadnt paid much attention to what plants were being so carefully tended in the gardens. Home industry? Thwarting the ever vigilant and repressive Elders? Quickly she stepped around the building and toward its rear, hoping to find a window. She caught a glimpse of a running juvenile body and heard it raise its voice in warning. So she raced around the corner to find the rear doors folded back on a scene of much industry as men and women supervised the bottling of a brew from an obviously improvised vat. The young messenger took one look at her and fled, ducking down the nearest alley. May a thirsty stranger to this planet have a sample of your brew? Im perishing for lack of a decent glass. Killashandra could, when she exerted herself, be smoothly charming and ingratiating. Shed played the part often enough. She glanced from one stony expression to the next, holding her smile. Ill tell you it was some shock to discover this planet doesnt import anything spirituous or fermented. Shuttle got in yesterday, someone in the group said. Too early for tourists. Those clothes arent local. Nor island. Im not a tourist, Killashandra inserted in the terse comments. Im a musician. Come to see the organ, have you? The mans voice was so rich in contempt, disapproval, cynical skepticism, and malicious amusement that Killashandra tried hard to spot him in the hostile group. If I can judge by my reception above, that sour lot permits few favors. A body really needs a brew here. Again she fortified her smile with winning charm. And licked dry lips. Later, in reviewing the scene at her leisure, Killashandra decided that it might have been that unconscious reflex that won her case. The next thing she knew an uncapped bottle was thrust at her. She reached canon digital rebel beach camera to her belt pouch for the Optherian coins she had acquired on the Athena but was curtly told to leave off. Money didnt buy their brew. Although some had turned back to their job, most watched while she took her first sip. It was rich despite its clandestine manufacture, slightly cool, undoubtedly improved by a proper chilling but superior to the Bascum and almost on a par with Yarran. Your brewmaster wouldnt happen to be of Yarra origin? she asked. What do you know of Yarra? Once again the question was posed anonymously though Killashandra thought the speaker was on her left, near the vat. They make the best beer in the Federated Sentient Planets. Yarran brewmasters have the best reputation in the Galaxy. A rumble of approval greeted this. She could feel the tension ease though the work continued at the same swift pace. Above the rattle of bottles, and the noise of crating the full containers, Killashandra heard a gasping wheeze to her right, on the roadway, and then a dilapidated vehicle, its sides scarred and rusting, pulled up to the open door. Immediately crates were loaded into it, Killashandra helping, for shed finished her bottle and wondered how she could wheedle another, others, from them. Thirst properly quenched, shed find it easier to deal with the reproaches of Thyrol and the others. No sooner had the load bed been filled than the vehicle moved off and another, equally disreputable, slid into its place. Of course this patently unauthorized operation proved conclusively to Killashandra that the population of Optheria had not all stagnated. But how much of a minority did they constitute? And did any of them actually wish to leave Optheria! Some people enjoy thwarting their elected/established/appointed governments out of perversity rather than disloyalty or dislike. When the third transport had been loaded, only a few crates remained. And the vat and its attendant paraphernalia had been dismantled and reassembled in different form entirely. Killashandra gave the brewers full marks for ingenuity. You expect a search? Oh yes. Cant mask brewing completely, you know, said a sun-wrinkled little man with a twinkle in his eye. He offered Killashandra a second bottle, gesturing to the loaded vehicle in explanation of his generosity. As she inadvertently glanced in the same direction, Killashandra

Some liken it to climbing up a hill,

by the Navy. Wryly Mallory remembered his dismay, his shocked unbelief when he heard Andrea telling of it but Andrea had been far ahead of him. There was a fair chance that the Germans might have guessed anyway they would reason, perhaps, that an assault by the British on the guns of Navarone at the same time as the German assault on Kheros would be just that little bit too coincidental: again, escape for them all quite clearly depended upon how thoroughly Andrea managed to convince his captors that he was all he claimed, and the relative freedom of action that he could thereby gain and there was no doubt at all that it was the news of the proposed evacuation that had tipped the scales with Turzig: and the fact that Andrea had given Saturday as the invasion date would only carry all the more weight, as that had been Jensen's original dateobviously false information fed to his agents by German counter-Intelligence, who had known it impossible to conceal the invasion preparations themselves; and finally, if Andrea hadn't told Turzig of the destroyers, he might have failed to carry conviction, they might all yet finish on the waiting gallows in the fortress, the guns would remain intact and destroy the naval ships anyway. It was all very complicated, too complicated for the state his head was in. Mallory sighed and looked away from Andrea towards the other two. Brown and a now conscious Miller were both sitting upright, hands bound behind their backs, staring down into the snow, occasionally shaking muzzy heads from side to side. Mallory could appreciate all too easily how they feltthe whole righthand side of his face ached cruelly, continuously. Nothing but aching, broken heads everywhere, Mallory thought bitterly. He wondered how Andy Stevens was feeling, glanced idly past the sentry towards the dark mouth of the cave, stiffened in sudden, almost uncomprehending shock. Slowly, with an infinitely careful carelessness, he let his eyes wander away from the cave, let them light indifferently on the sentry who sat on Brown's transmitter, hunched watchfully over the Schmeisser cradled on his knees, finger crooked on the trigger. Pray God he doesn't turn round, Mallory said to himself over and over again, pray God he doesn't turn round. Let him sit like that just for a little while longer, only a little while longer. . . . In spite of himself, Mallory felt his gaze shifting, being dragged back again towards that cave-mouth. Andy Stevens was coming out of the cave. Even in the dim starlight every movement camera digital text javascript was terribly piain as he inched forward agonisingly on chest and belly, dragging his shattered leg behind him. He was placing his hands beneath his shoulders, levering himself upward and forward while his head dropped below his shoulders with pain and the exhaustion of the effort, lowering himself slowly on the soft and sodden snow, then repeating the same heart-sapping process over and over again. Exbausted and pain-filled as the boy might be, Mallory thought, his mind was still working: he bad a white sheet over his shoulders and back as camouflage against the snow, and he carried a climbing spike in his right hand. He must have heard at least some of Tuizig's conversation: there were two or three guns in the cave, he could easily have shot the guard without coming out at allbut he must have known that the sound of a shot would have brought the Germans running, bad them back at the cave long before he could have crawled across the gully, far less cut loose any of his Mends. Five yards Stevens had to go, Mallory estimated, five yards at the most. Deep down in the gully where they were, the south wind passed them by, was no more than a muted whisper in the night; that apart, there was no sound at all, nothing but their own breathing, the occasional stirring as someone stretched a cramped or frozen leg. He's bound to hear him if he comes any closer, Mallory thought desperately, even in that soft snow he's bound to hear him. Mallory bent his head, began to cough loudly, almost continuously. The sentry looked at him, in surprise first, then in irritation as the coughing continued. "Be quiet!" the sentry ordered in German. "Stop that coughing at once!" "Husten? H?sten? Coughing, is it? I can't help it," Mallory protested in English. He coughed again, louder, more persistently than before. "It is your Oberleutnant's fault," he gasped. "He has knocked out some of my teeth." Mallory broke into a fresh paroxysm of coughing, recovered himself with an effort. "Is It my fault that I'm choking on my own blood?" he demanded. Stevens was less than ten feet away now, but his tiny reserves of strength were almost gone. He could no longer raise himself to the full stretch of his arms, was advancing only a few pitiful inches at a time. At length he stopped altogether, lay still for half a minute. Ma!lory thought he had lost consciousness, but by and by ho raised himself up again, to the full stretch

We shall live well -- we shall live very well.

But there was no explosion, nothing at all. "Ain't workin' so good either, is it, boss? A hundred to one the rest are all empty, too." He fished out a pack of cigarettes, lit one, and watched the smoke eddy and swirl above the heat of the candles. He slid the cigarettes into his pocket. "There was a third thing you were going to show me," Mallory said quietly. "Yeah, I was goin' to show you somethin' else." The voice was very gentle, and Mallory felt suddenly cold. "I was goin' to show you a spy, a traitor, the most vicious, twistin', murderin', doublecrossin' bastard I've ever known." The American had his hand out of his pocket now, the silenced automatic sitting snugly against his palm, the muzzle trained over Panayis's heart. He went on, more gently than ever. "Judas Iscariot had nothin' on the boy-friend, here, boss. . . . Take your coat off, Panayis." "What the devil are you doing! Are you crazy?" Mallory started forward, half-angry, half-amazed, but brought up sharply against Miller's extended arm, rigid as a bar of iron. "What bloody nonsense is this? He doesn't understand English!" "Don't he, though? Then why was he out of the cave like a flash when Casey reported hearin' sounds outside . . . and why was he the first to leave the carob grove this afternoon if he didn't understand your order? Take your coat off, Judas, or I'll shoot you through the arm. I'll give you two seconds." Mallory made to throw his arms round Miller and bring him to the ground, but halted in mid-step as he caught the look on Panayis's faceteeth bared, murder glaring out from the coal-black eyes. Never before had Mallory seen such malignity in a human face, a malignity that yielded abruptly to shocked pain and disbelief as the .32 bullet smashed into his upper arm, just below the shoulder. "Two seconds and then the other arm," Miller said woodenly. But Panayis was already tearing off his jacket, the dark, bestial eyes never leaving Miller's face. Mallory looked at him, shivered involuntarily, looked at Miller. Indifference, he thought, that was the only word to describe the look on the American's face. Indifference. Unaccountably, Mallory felt colder than ever. "Turn round!" The automatic never wavered. Slowly Panayis turned round. Miller stepped forward, caught the black shirt by the collar, ripped it off his back with one convulsive jerk. "Waal, waal, now, whoever woulda thought it?" Miller drawled. "Surprise, surprise, surprise! Remember, boss, this was the character that was fujifilm digital camera finepix a204 publicly flogged by the Germans in Crete, flogged until the white of his ribs showed through. His back's in a heliuva state, isn't it?" Mallory looked but said nothing. Completely off balance, his mind was in a kaleidoscopic whirl, his thoughts struggling to adjust themselves to a new set of circumstances, a complete reversal of all his previous thinking. Not a scar, not a single blemish, marked the dark smoothness of that skin. "Just a natural quick healer," Miller murmured. "Only a nasty, twisted mind like mine would think that he had been a German agent in Crete, became known to the Allies as a fifth columnist, lost his usefulness to the Germans and was shipped back to Navarone by fast motor-launch under cover of night. Floggin'! Islandhoppin' his. way back here in a rowboat! Just a lot of bloody eyewash!" Miller paused, and his mouth twisted. "I wonder how many pieces of silver he made in Crete before they got wise to him?" "But heavens above, man, you're not going to condemn someone just for shooting a line!" Mallory protested. Strangely, he didn't feel nearly as vehement as he sounded. "How many survivors would there be among the Allies if" "Not convinced yet, huh?" Miller waved his automatic negligently at Panayis. "Roll up the left trouser leg, Iscariot. Two seconds again." Panayis did as he was told. The black, venomous eyes never looked away from Miller's. He rolled the dark cloth up to the knee. "Farther yet? That's my little boy," Miller, encouraged him. "And now take that bandage offright off." A few seconds passed, then Miller shook his head sadly. "A ghastly wound, boss, a ghastly wound!" "I'm beginning to see your point," Mallory said thoughtfully. The dark sinewy leg wasn't even scratched. "But why on earth" "Simple. Four reasons at least. Junior here is a treacherous, slimy bastardno self -respectin' rattlesnake would come within a mile of himbut he's a clever bastard. He faked his leg so he could stay in the cave in the Devil's Playground when the four of us went back to stop the Alpenkorps from comin' up the slope below the carob grove." "Why? Frightened he'd stop something?" Miller shook his head impatiently. "Junior here's scared o' nothin'. He stayed behind to write a note. Later on he used his leg to drop behind us some place, and leave the note where it could be seen. Early on, this must

Sic counseils ye gave to me O.

threatenedand violently threatenedno one, that is, who couldn't see the broad wink that Mallory had given the inn-keeper. "I'm going to tie you up with them. All right?" "All right. There is a trap-door at the end of the counter here. Steps lead down to the cellar." "Good enough. I'll find it by accident." Mallory gave him a vicious and all too convincing shove that sent the man staggering, vaulted back across the counter, walked over to the rembetika singers at the far corner of the room." "Go home," he said quickly. "It is almost curfew time anyway. Go out the back way, and rememberyou have seen nothing, no one. You understand?" "We understand." It was the young bouzouko player who spoke. He jerked his thumb at his companions and grinned. "Bad menbut good Greeks. Can we help you?" "No!" Mallory was emphatic. "Think of your familiesthese soldiers have recognised you. They must know you weliyou and they are here most nights, is that not so?" The young man nodded. "Off you go, then. Thank you all the same." A minute later, in the dim, candle-lit cellar, Miller prodded the soldier nearest himthe one most like himself in height and build. "Take your clothes off!" he ordered. "English pig!" the German snarled. "Not English," Miller protested. "I'll give you thirty seconds to get your coat and pants off." The man swore at him, viciously, but made no move to obey. Miller sighed. The German had guts, but time was running out. He took a careful bead on the soldier's hand and pulled the trigger. Again the soft plop and the man was staring down stupidly at the hole torn in the heel of his left hand. "Mustn't spoil the nice uniforms, must we?" Miller asked conversationally. He lifted the automatic until the soldier was staring down the barrel of the gun. "The next goes between the eyes." The casual drawl carried complete conviction. "It won't take me long to undress you, I guess." But the man had already started to tear his uniform off, sobbing with anger and the pain of his wounded hand. Less than another five minutes had passed when Mallory, clad like Miller in German uniform, unlocked the front door of the tavern and peered cautiously out. The rain, if anything, was heavier than everand there wasn't a soul in sight. Mallory beckoned Miller to follow and locked the door behind him. Together the two men walked up the middle of the street, digital versus film camera making no attempt to seek either shelter or shadows. Fifty yards took them into the town square, then left along the east side, not breaking step as they passed the old house where they had hidden earlier in the evening, not even as Louki's hand appeared mysteriously behind the partly opened door, a hand weighted down with two German Army rucksacksrucksacks packed with rope, fuses, wire and high explosive. A few yards farther on they stopped suddenly, crouched down behind a couple of huge wine barrels outside a barber's shop, gazed at the two armed guards in the arched gateway, less than a hundred feet away, as they shrugged into their packs and waited for their cue. They had only moments to waitthe timing had been split-second throughout. Mallory was just tightening the waist-belt of his rucksack when a series of explosions shook the centre of the town, not three hundred yards away, explosions followed by the vicious rattle of a machine-gun, then by further explosions. Andrea was doing his stuff magnificently with his grenades and home-made bombs. Both men suddenly shrank back as a broad, white beam of light stabbed out from a platform high above the gateway, a beam that paralleled the top of the wall to the east, showed up every hooked spike and strand of barbed wire as clearly as sunlight. Mallory and Miller looked at each other for a fleeting moment, their faces grim. Panayis hadn't missed a thing: they would have been pinned on these strands like flies on flypaper and cut to ribbons by machine-guns. Mallory waited another half-minute, touched Miller's arm, rose to his feet and started running madly across the square, the long hooked bamboo pressed close to his. side, the American pounding behind him. In a few seeonds they had reached the gates of the fortress, the startled guards running the last few feet to meet them. "Every man to the Street of Steps!" Mallory shouted. "Those damned English saboteurs are trapped in a house dawn there! We've got to have some mortars. Hurry, man, hurry, in the name of God!" "But the gate!" one of the two guards protested. "We cannot leave the gate!" The man had no suspidons, none at all: in the circumstancesthe near darkness, the pouring rain, the German-clad soldier speaking perfect German, the obvious truth that there was a gunbattle being fought near-handit would have been remarkable had he shown any signs of doubt "Idiot!" Mallory screamed at