"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