I only feel - Farewell! - Farewell!

stopped dead in midair, the gleaming point only two inches from Andrea's chest. There was a sudden scream of agony, the ominous cracking of wrist bones as the giant Greek tightened his grip, and then Andrea had the blade between finger and thumb, had removed the knife with the tender, reproving care of a parent saving a well-loved but irresponsible child from himself. Then the knife was reversed, the point was at the Levantine's throat and Andrea was smiling own pleasantly into the dark and terror stricken eyes. Miller let out a long breath, half-sigh, half-whistle. "Well, now," he murmured, "I guess mebbe Andrea has done that sort of thing before?" "I guess maybe he has," Mallory mimicked. "Let's have a closer look at exhibit A, Andrea." Andrea brought his prisoner close up to the table, well within the circle of light. He stood there sullenly before them, a thin, ferret-faced man, black eyes dulled In pain and fear, left hand cradling his crushed wrist. "How long do you reckon this fellow's been outside, Andrea?" Mallory asked. Andrea ran a massive hand through his thick, dark, curling hair, heavily streaked with grey above the temples. "I cannot be sure, Captain. I imagined I heard a noisea kind of shuffleabout ten minutes ago, but r thought my ears were playing tricks. Then I heard the same sound a minute ago. So I am afraid" "Ten minutes, eh?" Mallory nodded thoughtfully, then looked at the prisoner. "What's your name?" he asked sharply. "What are you doing here?" There was no reply. There were only the sullen eyes, the sullen silencea silence that gave way to a sudden yelp of pain as Andrea cuffed the side of his head. "The Captain is asking you a question," Andrea said reproachfully. He cuffed him again, harder this time. "Answer the Captain." The stranger broke into rapid, excitable speech, gesticulating wildly with both hands. The words were quite unintelligible. Andrea sighed, shut off the torrent by the simple expedient of almost encircling the scrawny throat with his left hand. Mallory looked questioningly at Andrea. The giant shook his head. "Kurdistan or Armenian, Captain, I think. But I don't understand it." "I certainly don't," Mallory admitted. "Do you speak English?" he asked suddenly. Black, hate-filled eyes glared back at him in silence. Andrea cuffed him again. "Do you speak English?" poloroid 5.1 pixel digital camera Mallory repeatea relentlessly. "Eenglish? Eenglish?" Shoulders and upturned palms lifted in the age-old gesture of incomprehension. "Ka Eenglish!" "He says he don't speak English," Miller drawled. "Maybe he doesn't and maybe he does," Mallory said evenly. "All we know is that he has been listening and that we can't take any chances. There are far too many lives at stake." His voice suddenly hardened, the eyes were grim and pitiless. "Andrea!" "Captain?" "You have the knife. Make it clean and quick. Between the shoulder blades!" Stevens cried out in horror, sent his chair crashing back as be leapt to his feet. "Good God, sir, you can't" He broke off and stared in amazement at the sight of the prisoner catapulting himself bodily across the room to crash into a distant corner, one arm up-curved in rigid defence, stark, unreasoning panic limned in every feature of his face. Slowly Stevens looked away, saw the triumphant grin on Andrea's face, the dawning comprehension in Brown's and Miller's. Suddenly he felt a complete fool Characteristically, Miller was the first to speak. "Waal, waal, whaddya know! Mebbe he does speaka da Eenglish after all." "Maybe he does," Mallory admitted. "A man doesn't spend ten minutes with his ear glued to a keyhole if he doesn't understand a word that's being said. . . . Give Matthews a call, will you, Brown?" The sentry appeared in the doorway a few seconds later. "Get Captain Briggs here, will you, Matthews?" he asked. "At once, please." The soldier hesitated. "Captain Briggs has gone to bed, sir. He left strict orders that he wasn't to be disturbed." "My heart bleeds for Captain Briggs and his broken slumbers," Mallory said acidly. "He's had more sleep in a day than I've had in the past week." He glanced at his watch and the heavy brows came down in a straight line over the tired, brown eyes. "We've no time to waste. Get him here at once. Understand? At once!" Matthews saluted and hurried away. Miller cleared his throat and clucked his tongue sadly. "These hotels are all the same. The goin's-onyou'd never believe your eyes. Remember once I was at a convention in

But lives, as saints have died, a martyr.

involved. Not to the population? Killashandra asked, surprised at Trags emphasis. Trag shook his heavy head. Populations are easy to produce, but habitable planets are relatively scarce. He indicated that Lars should continue. So, your report will be considered, deliberated upon, and then? It may indeed take time, Lars Dahl, but the Federated Council has outlawed the use of subliminal conditioning. There is absolutely no question in my mind that action will be taken against the Optherian Elders. A government which must resort to such means to maintain domestic satisfaction has lost the right to govern. Its Charter will be revoked. Theres no danger that you and Killashandra will be restrained from leaving? Lars asked abruptly. Why should we be? Can they have any suspicion that someone knows that they maintain control by illicit means? Comgail did, Killashandra said, even if he was killed before he could pass on the information. Whoever killed the man must wonder if Comgail had accomplices. Lars shook his head positively. Comgails only contact was Hauness and Hauness didnt reveal that until after Comgails death. I knew that some drastic measure was planned. Not what it was. Tell me, Lars, Trag asked, does any one suspect that you are aware of the subliminals? Lars shook his head vigorously. How? I always pretended the correct responses after concerts. Father didnt warn me until I was sent to the Mainland for my education. His warning was accompanied by a description of the retribution I would suffer, from him as well as the Council, if I ever revealed my knowledge unnecessarily. Lars grinned. You may be sure I told no one Besides your father, who knows? Trag asked. Or dont you know that? Lars nodded. Hauness and his intimates. As a trained hypnotherapist, he caught on to the subliminals but had the sense to keep silent. It is quite possible that others in his profession know it, but if they do, they dont broadcast it either. What could they do? Especially when I doubt that many Optherians know that subliminals are against Federated Law! The last was spoken in a bitter tone. Who would suspect that music, the Ultimate Career on Optheria, can be perverted to ensure the perpetuation of a stagnant government? Then there was the almost insoluble problem of trying to get word off Optheria, to someone with sufficient status to get Council attention. Complaint from people who could be time lapse digital movie camera considered a few maladjusted citizens and every society has some carries little weight. It was Hauness who devised a way to get messages off Optheria for us. Post hypnotic requests yes, yes, I know, and dont think it was an easy matter for him to violate his ethics as a physician-healer, but we were getting desperate. A suggestion to receive and later mail a letter from the nearest transfer point seemed a minor infraction. I am certain that Hauness only capitulated because Nahia was suffering so much distress. She had to cope with such a devastating increase of suicide potentials. Shes an empath, Trag You must encounter Nahia, Trag, before you leave Optheria, Killashandra said, twining her fingers reassuringly about Larss. He gave her a quick and grateful glance. Thats why, if you would go to Ironwood to check out the organ there, you would surely encounter Nahia and Hauness, Lars said eagerly. I would? Trag asked. Quite likely, if you were suddenly taken ill. Trag regarded him steadily. Crystal singers do not succumb to planet-based diseases. Not even food poisoning? Lars was not to be deterred. And thats a likelihood if you eat often with the Elders. Or do I mean starvation? Killashandra remarked. That way, you can warn Nahia and Hauness, and they can alert others. Lars leaned forward, eagerly waiting for Trags decision. I couldnt save myself at the expense of my friends. How large a group do you have, Lars Dahl? Trag asked. I dont know at the moment. We had about two thousand, and more were being investigated. The Elders search and seize to find Killashandra reduced our ranks considerably. Regret for having provoked the Elders to such action colored Larss expression. He squared his shoulders, accepting that responsibility. I fervently hope more sacrifices will not be required. Do your islanders perpetrate many outrages on the Main land? Outrages on the Mainland? Lars burst out laughing. We leave the Mainland to stew in its own juice! If you wish to punish an island child, you threaten to send him to a Mainland school. What crimes were being laid on our beaches? Crimes hinted at darkly but never specified, apart from the attack

"O save, O save, O sheriff," he said,

with a speed and noiseless efficiency that excited Turzig's professional admiration, chagrined though he was. Securely tied hand and foot, he lay in a corner of the room, not yet gagged. "I think I understand now why your High Command chose you for this task, Captain Mallory. If anyone could succeed, you wouldbut you must fail. The impossible must always remain so. Nevertheless, you have a great team." "We get by," Mallory said modestly. He took a last look round the room, then grinned down at Stevens. "Ready to take off on your travels again, young man, or do you find this becoming rather monotonous?" "Ready when you are, sir." Lying on a stretcher which Louki had miraculously procured, he sighed in bliss. "First-class travel, this time, as befits an officer. Sheer luxury. I don't mind how far we go!" "Speak for yourself," Miller growled morosely. He had been allocated first stint at the front or heavy end of the stretcher. But the quirk of his eyebrows robbed the words of all offence. "Right then, we're off. One last thing. Where is the camp radio, Lieutenant Turzig?" "So you can smash it, I suppose?" "Precisely." "I have no idea." "What if I threaten to blow your head off?" "You won't." Turzig smiled, though the smile was a trifle lopsided. "Given certain circumstances, you would kill me as you would a fly. But you wouldn't kill a man for refusing such information." "You haven't as much to learn as your late and unlamented captain thought," Mallory admitted. "It's not all that important. . . . I regret we have to do all this. I trust we do not meet againnot, at least, until the war is over. Who knows, some day we might even go climbing together." He signed to Louki to fix Turzig's gag and walked quickly out of the room. Two minutes later they had cleared the barracks and were safely lost in the darkness and the olive groves that stretched to the south of Margaritha. When they cleared the groves, a long time later, it was almost dawn. Already the black silhouette of Kostos was softening in the first feathery greyness of the coming day. The wind was from the south, and warm, and the snow was beginning to melt on the hills. CHAPTER 11 Wednesday 14001600 All day long they lay hidden in the carob grove, a thick clump of stunted, disney digital imaging camera software gnarled trees that clung grimly to the treacherous, scree-strewn slope abutting what Louki called the "Devil's Playground." A poor shelter and an uncomfortable one, but in every other way all they could wish for: it offered concealment, a first-class defensive position immediately behind, a gentle breeze drawn up from the sea by the sun-baked rocks to the south, shade from the sun that rode from dawn to dusk in a cloudless skyand an incomparable view of a sundrenched, shimmering Aegean. Away to their left, fading through diminishing shades of blue and indigo and violet into faraway nothingness, stretched the islands of the Lerades, the nearest of them, Maidos, so close that they could see isolated fisher cottages sparkling whitely in the sun: through that narrow, intervening gap of water would pass the ships of the Royal Navy in just over a day's time. To the right, and even farther away, remote, featureless, back-dropped by the towering Anatolian mountains, the coast of Turkey hooked north and west in a great curving scimitar: to the north itself, the thrusting spear of Cape Demirci, rock-rimmed but dimpled with sand coves of white, reached far out into the placid blue of the Aegean: and north again beyond the Cape, haze-blurred in the purple distance, the island of Kheros lay dreaming on the surface of the sea. It was a breath-taking panorama, a heart-catching beauty sweeping majestically through a great semi-circle over the sunlit sea. But Mallory had no eyes for it, had spared it only a passing glance when he had come on guard less than half an hour previously, just after two o'clock. He had dismissed it with one quick glance, settled by the bole of a tree, gazed for endless minutes, gazed until his eyes ached with strain atwhat he had so long waited to see. Had waited to see and come to destroythe guns of the fortress of Navarone. The town of Navaronea town of from four to five thousand people, Mallory judgedlay sprawled round the deep, volcanic crescent of the harbour, a crescent so deep, so embracing, that it was almost a complete circle with only a narrow bottleneck of an entrance to the north-west, a gateway dominated by searchlights and mortar and machine-gun batteries on either side. Less than three miles distant to the north-east from the carob grove, every detail, every street, every building, every caique and launch in the harbour were clearly visible to Mallory and ho

He thought no shame all the day long

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 To wear the bags of bread. 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

You've passed your youth not so unpleasantly,

them yourself. Want to try?" It was boorish of me, but that was the effect she had. I turned away to see the minister or priest hold up his hand against the offered brandy. "Go on, take it," I said impatiently. "I don't really think I should." The voice was high-pitched, but the enunciation clear and precise, and I found it vaguely irritating that it should so perfectly match his appearance, be so exactly what I should have expected. He laughed, a nervous deprecating laugh. "My parishioners, you know . . . " I was tired, worried and felt like telling him what he could do with his parishioners, but it wasn't his fault. "There's precedent in plenty in your Bible, Reverend. You know that better than I. It'll do you good, really." "Oh well, if you think so." He took the glass gingerly, as if Beelzebub himself were on the offering end, but I noticed that there was nothing so hesitant about his method and speed of disposal of the contents: his subsequent expression could properly be described as beatific. I caught Marie LeGarde's eye, and smiled at the twinkle I caught there. The reverend wasn't the only one who found the coffeeand brandywelcome. With the exception of the stewardess, who sipped at her drink in a distraught fashion, the others had also emptied their glasses, and I decided that the broaching of another MarteU's was justified. In the respite from the talk, I bent over the injured man on the floor. His pulse was slower, steadier and his breathing not quite so shallow: I slipped in a few more heat pads and zipped up the sleeping-bag. "Is heis he any better, do you think?" The stewardess was so close to me that I brushed against her as I straightened. "Hehe seems a bit better, doesn't he?" "He is a bit, I think. But nothing like over the shock from the wound and the exposure, though." I looked at her speculatively and suddenly felt almost sorry for her. Almost, but not quite: I didn't at all like the direction my thoughts were leading me. "You've flown together quite a bit, haven't you?" "Yes." She didn't offer anything more. "His headdo you think" "Later. Let me have a quick look at that back of yours." "Look at what?" "Your back," I said patiently. "Your shoulders. They seem to give you some pain. I'll rig a screen." "No, no, I'm all right." She moved away from canon 7.1mp digital camera powershot a560 me. "Don't be silly, my dear." I wondered what trick of voice production made Marie LeGarde's voice so clear and carrying. "He is a doctor, you know." "No!" I shrugged and reached for my brandy glass. Bearers of bad news were ever unpopular: I supposed her reaction was the modern equivalent of the classical despot's unsheathing his dagger. Probably only bruises, anyhow, I told myself, and turned to look at the company. An odd-looking bunch, to say the least, but then any group of people dressed in lounge suits and dresses, trilby hats and nylon stockings would have looked odd against the strange and uncompromising background of that cabin where every suggestion of anything that even remotely suggested gracious living had been crushed and ruthlessly made subservient to the all-exclusive purpose of survival. Here there were no armchairsno chairs, evenno carpets, wall-paper, book-shelves, beds, curtainsor even windows for the curtains. It was a bleak utilitarian box of a room, eighteen feet by fourteen. The floor was made of unvarnished yellow pine. The walls were made of spaced sheets of bonded ply, with kapok insulation between: the lower part of the walls was covered with green-painted asbestos, the upper part and entire roof sheeted with glittering aluminium to reflect the maximum possible heat and light. A thin, ever-present film of ice climbed at least half-way up all four walls, reaching almost to the ceiling in the four corners, the parts of the room most remote from the stove and therefore the coldest. On very cold nights, such as this, the ice reached $e ceiling and started to creep across it to the layers of opaque ice that permanently framed the undersides of our rimed and opaque skylights. The two exits from the cabin were let into the fourteen-foot sides: one led to the trap, the other to the snow and ice tunnel where we kept our food, petrol, oil, batteries, radio generators, explosives for seismological and glacial investigations and a hundred and one other items. Half-way along, a secondary tunnel led off at right anglesa tunnel which steadily increased in length as we cut out the blocks of snow which were melted to give us our water supply. At the far end of the main tunnel lay our primitive toilet system. One eighteen-foot wall and half of the wall that gave access to the trap-door were lined with twin rows of bunkseight in all. The other eighteen-foot wall was given over entirely to our

"Some suits, some suits," the sheriff he said,

exception of tourists seeking to enjoy the gentler pleasures of old Terra in a Totally Natural World. Killashandra, reading with an eye to hidden significances, paused to consider the implications. Although her experience with planets had been limited to two Fuerte, her planet of origin, and Ballybran, she knew enough of how worlds wagged to sense the iron idealism that probably supported the Optherian propaganda. She tapped a question and frowned at the negative answer: Optherias Charter Signers were not proselytizers of a religious sect nor did Optheria recognize a federal church. As many worlds had been colonized for idealist forms of government, religiously or secularly oriented, as for purely commercial considerations. The guiding principle of foundation could not yet be considered the necessary criterion for a successful subculture. The variables involved were too numerous. But the entry made it clear that Optheria was considered efficiently organized and, with its substantial positive galactic balance of payments, a creditably administered world. The entry concluded with a statement that Optheria was well worth a visit during its annual Summer Festival. She detected a certain hint of irony in that bland comment. While she would have preferred to sample some of the exotic and sophisticated pleasures available to those with credit enough, she felt she could tolerate Optherias natural pastimes in return for the sizeable fee and a long vacation from Ballybran. She considered Lanzeckis diffidence about the assignment. Could he be charged with favoritism if he gave her another choice off-world assignment? Who would remember that she had been away during the horrendous Passover Storms, much less where? Shed been peremptorily snatched away by Trag, shoved onto the moon shuttle, and without a shred of background data about the vagaries of the Trundomoux, delivered willy-nilly to a naval autocracy to cope with the exigencies of installing millions of credits worth of black communication crystal for a bunch of skeptical spartan pioneers. The assignment had been no sinecure. As Trag was the only other person who had known of it, was he the objector? He very easily could be, as Administration Officer, yet Killashandra did not think that Trag could, or did, influence Guild Master Lanzecki. A second wild notion followed quickly on the heels of that one. Were there any Optherians on the roster of the Heptite Guild to whom such a job might be assigned? The Heptite Guild had no Optherian members. From canon a digital camera her ten years in the Music Department of Fuertes Culture Center, Killashandra was familiar with the intricacies of Optherian sensory organ instruments. The encyclopedia enlarged the picture by stating that music was a planetwide mania on Optheria, with citizens competing on a planetary scale for opportunities to perform on the sensory organs. With that sort of environment, Killashandra thought it very odd indeed that Optheria produced no candidates with the perfect pitch that was the Heptite Guilds essential entry requirement. And, with competitions on a worldwide scale, there would be thousands disappointed. Killashandra smiled in sour sympathy. Surely some would look for off-world alternatives. Her curiosity titillated, Killashandra checked other Guilds. Optherians did not go into the Space Services or into galactic mercantile enterprises, nor were embassies, consulates or legates of Optheria listed in the Diplomatic Registers. There she lucked out by discovering a qualifier: As the planet was nearly self-sufficient and no Optherians left their home world, there was no need for such services. All normal inquiries about Optheria had to be directed to the Office of External Trade and Commerce on Optheria. Killashandra paused in perplexity. A planet so perfect, so beloved by its citizens that no one chose to leave its surface? She found that very hard to believe. She recalled the encyclopedias entry on the planet, searching for the code on Naturalization. Yes, well, citizenship was readily available for those interested but could not be rescinded. She checked the Penal Code and discovered that, unlike many worlds, Optheria did not deport its criminal element: any recidivists were accommodated at a rehabilitation center. Killashandra shivered. So even perfect Optheria had to resort to rehabilitation. Having delved sufficiently into Optherias history and background to satisfy her basic curiosity, she turned to research the procedure necessary to replace a fractured manual. The installation posed no overt problems as the bracketing was remarkably similar to that required by the black communications crystal. The tuning would be more complex because of the broad-frequency variable output of the Optherian organ. The instrument was similar to early Terran pipe organs, with four manuals and a terminal with hundreds of stops, but a performer on the Optherian organ read a score containing

As they play at the ba?

The most likely candidates for the next bullet are some of yourselves. You're absolutely inessential and, as far as the killers are concerned, represent nothing more than a waste of priceless rations." With this comforting thought I left them, each person trying to watch all the others at one and the same time, while doing his level best to give the appearance of watching no one. The wind was so slight now that the anemometer cups had stopped turning. The dying embers of the burnt-out plane were a dull smouldering glow to the north-east. The snow had gone completely and the first faint stars were beginning to show through the thinning cloud above. It was typically Greenland, this swift change in the weather, and so, too, was the temperature inversion that would surely follow in the morning, or before morning. Twelve hours from now it was going to be very cold indeed. With searchlight and torches we examined every inch of the tractor and sledges, above and below, and if there had been a pin there I would have sworn that we couldn't have missed it, far less anything so large as a couple of guns. We found nothing. I straightened, and turned to look at the glow that was lightening the sky to the east, and even as I stood there with Joss and Jackstraw by my side the moon, preternaturally large and rather more than half full, heaved itself above the distant horizon and flooded the ice-cap with its pale and ghostly light, laying down between itself and our feet a bar-straight path of glittering silver grey. We watched in silence for a full minute, then Jackstraw stirred. Even before he spoke, I knew what was in his mind. "Uplavnik," he murmured. "Tomorrow, we set off for Uplav-nik. But first, you said, a good night's sleep." "I know," I said. "A traveller's moon." "A traveller's moon," he echoed. He was right, of course. Travel in the Arctic, in winter, was regulated not by daylight but my moonlight. And tonight we had that moonand we had a clear sky, a dying wind and no snow at all. I turned to Joss. "You'll be all right alone?" "I have no worries," he said soberly. "Look, sir, can't I come too?" "Stay here and stay healthy," I advised. "Thanks, Joss, but you know someone must remain behind. I'll call you up on the usual schedules. You might get a kick out of the RCA yet. Miracles still happen." "Not this time, they won't." He turned digital game camera repairs away abruptly and went below. Jackstraw moved across to the tractorwe didn't say another word to each other, we didn't have toand I followed Joss down to the cabin. No one had moved an inch, as far as I could see, but they all looked up as I came in. "All right," I said abruptly. "Get your stuff together and pile on every last stitch of clothes you can. We're leaving now." We left, in fact, just over an hour later. The Citroen had been lying unused for the better pan of a fortnight, and we had the devil's own job getting it to start. But start it eventually did, with a roar and a thunderous clatter that had everybody jumping in startlement then looking at it in dismay. I knew the thoughts in their minds, that they'd have to live with this cacophony, this bedlam of sound assaulting their shrinking eardrums for no one knew how many days to come, but I wasted little sympathy on them: at least they would have the protection of the wooden body while I would be sitting practically on top of the engine. We said our goodbyes to Joss. He shook hands with Jackstraw and myself, with Margaret Ross and Marie LeGarde, and, pointedly, with no one else. We left him standing there by the hatchway, a lonely figure outlined against the pale light of the steadily climbing moon, and headed west by south for Uplavnik, three hundred long and frozen miles away. I wondered, as I knew Joss was wondering, whether we would ever see each other again. I wondered, too, what right I had in exposing Jackstraw to the dangers which must lie ahead. He was sitting beside me as I drove, but as I looked at him covertly in the moonlight, at that strong lean face that, but for the rather broad cheekbones, might have been that of any Scandinavian sea-rover, I knew I was wasting my time wondering. Although nominally under my command, he had only been lent me, as other Greenlanders had been lent as an act of courtesy by the Danish Government to several IGY stations, as a scientific officerhe had a geology degree from the University of Copenhagen and had forgotten more about the ice-cap than I would ever knowand in times of emergency, especially where his own pride, and he had plenty of that, was concerned would be extremely liable to do what he thought best, regardless of what I thought or said. I knew he wouldn't have remained behind even if I had ordered him to- and, if I were honest with myself, I was only too damned glad to have him