Текст книги "Magazine 1967-­07] - The Electronic Frankenstein Affair"

Автор книги: Robert Hart Davis

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The instant he emerged from the tent he saw that Napoleon Solo had already crossed the wide stretch of sand which separated the tent from the long rock structure which they had encircled in puzzlement before turning in for the night and was struggling with someone about his own height who had thrown one arm about his neck and was making a frantic effort to drag him to the sand.

Knowing that Solo was unarmed and that the struggling figure might well be clasping a knife made Illya break into a run without stopping to upholster his gun.

That his fear was justified he saw before he had crossed half of the intervening distance, for the sudden glint of moonlight on steel was unmistakable. The knife flashed twice and each flash was accompanied by a downward thrust of the attacking figure's left arm. Solo groaned loudly and fell to one knee. But he was almost instantly on his feet again, fighting desperately to keep the knife at arm's length.

Illya managed to get his gun out of its holster as he ran. But the two men were so entangled now that to risk a shot at Solo's assailant would have been the height of folly. But still he kept the weapon, a .38 calibre special, leveled and ready, his forefinger on the safety catch.

He crashed into the man just as his arm was going up for the third time, and Solo had started to sag, his right sleeve drenched with blood.

Reversing the pistol, Illya Kuryakin brought the butt-end down with violence on the maniacal knife-wielder's skull. But the knife continued to rise, the hand that held it thrusting upward with a violent jerk that carried the weapon high into the air. Then the man's arm fell back to his side and the knife dropped to the sand. He crashed down on top of it, rolled over and lay still.

His face, in the moonlight, was ghastly, the jaw sagging, the lips split in a half-idiotic grin. It was Chin Husan.

Solo was still on his feet, clutching his right arm as he swayed. "Sun Lin has been killed and that poor devil got the idea into his head that we're in some way responsible. He kept telling me that while he tried his best to kill me. He went crazy because of something he saw. I hope you didn't crack his skull."

"I hope so too, if he really was off his noggin and not just lying to you," Illya said.

"He'd have no reason to lie," Solo said, still clutching his arm. "Nothing else could have made him slash at me that way. He had a wild look in his eyes."

"Your arm," Illya said. "How bad is it?"

"I'll live," Solo said, wryly. "Just a ribbon of skin sliced away. But if he hadn't missed with his first try it could have been real bad."

"You're bleeding like a pig. You'd better get a bandage on it fast."

"I'll get around to it. But first we're going to have a look at what's on the other side of this big ridge of stone."

"What do you expect to find?"

"Sun Lin, crushed, battered to a pulp. And some strange markings in the sand all around him."

"He told you all that while he was doing his best to plunge a knife into your heart?"

Solo nodded. "He was chattering away every second."

They didn't see horror until they were almost upon it, for despite the brightness of the moonlight, much of the rock structure was in shadows. Sun Lin had been a small man in life and the terrible violence that had been done to him made him seem even more inconspicuous in death. His ribcage was completely crushed, his limbs so flattened they resembled gruesome traceries made with a stick on the sand.

Not only was the dead man's clothing torn, it had a singed look, as if the tatters into which they had been ripped had passed through a sheet of flame. The head lolled and there was a deep gash at the base of the oddly discolored neck.

"Crushed to death," Illya Kuryakin muttered, more shaken than he would have cared to admit. "That's what you said, wasn't it? What could have inflicted such injuries?"

The moonlight seemed to shift a little as he spoke, causing the shadows to lengthen and change shape.

Solo shook his head. "I don't know," he said. "We must have had a visitor in the night."

Sweat stood out on Illya's brow. He moved a little away from the corpse, his eyes sweeping the sand within a ten foot radius. Suddenly he seemed to remember something else that Napoleon Solo had repeated as coming from the lips of the deranged man who had tried to kill him, for he bent to examine more closely a huge, circular indentation in the sand.

"There are more of those markings," Solo said, as if aware of his thoughts. "Over there—look."

He gestured toward a wider expanse of sand a few yards to the right of him. The moonlight brought into sharp relief two deep, crater-like depressions in the sand, perfectly circular and set fairly far apart.

"They don't look like footprints," Illya said, following the direction of his gaze. "Only a giant could have made prints that large and they're perfectly round. It's as if—" He hesitated. "It's almost as if he were on stilts. The giant, I mean. A giant walking on stilts and trampling Sun Li into the sand. Crushing and killing him."

"Would you care to put that into a report?" Solo asked, a look of grim reproach in his eyes. "A tank passing over him would be a more sensible guess."

"But we didn't hear a sound," Illya said. "Except, of course, that scream. Just the fact that Chin Husan was screaming loudly enough to wake the dead—"

Kuryakin stopped, puzzled by the look which Solo continued to train on him.

"What makes you think it was Chin Husan who screamed?" Solo asked.

"I naturally thought, when the screaming stopped, and I saw you struggling with him—"

"Chin Husan didn't make a sound until he closed with me," Solo said. "Then he started chattering wildly about what he'd just seen. It was Sun Lin who screamed. I'm sure of it."

"Well, it fits," Illya conceded. "I hope I'll never have to listen to a scream like that again."

"Or see what Sun Lin saw coming toward him across the desert before the life was crushed out of him. If that's what you're thinking I'm with you one hundred percent."

"I'm not sure that's what I'm thinking," Illya said. "I'm not sure of anything, except that he could hardly have just stumbled and crushed in his ribs and broken his neck and slashed himself up in a dozen places."

"We have a witness," Solo said. "Just the fact that Chin Husan ran amuck like a Malay on the deck of an Indian Ocean freighter for a minute or two doesn't mean the aberration is going to last. If you didn't fracture his skull—"

"A gentle tap wouldn't have stopped him from sinking that knife in your ribs," Illya said. "It was nothing that could be helped. There's a first aid kit in the duffel bag Lin Sun tossed into the tent just before we dozed off. You'd better bandage your arm before you collapse."

"You can say that again," Solo grunted. "All right. We may as well get back to the tent. It will do Chin Husan no harm to rest up a bit."

It took them longer than they had anticipated to cross the level stretch of sand between the rock structure and the tent, because they made the mistake—or perhaps it wasn't a mistake—of glancing toward the hollow where the camels were supposed to be sleeping.

The camels were gone. Not only had all five of the animals vanished, but the tent which the three orientals had shared had been taken down and there was no sign anywhere of Nieh Huang.

They halted abruptly in their tracks and stared across the empty expanse of desert with a chill foreboding. It might have come as less of a shock if there had been some way of making sure, right at that instant, that Nieh Huang had not robbed them of everything but the clothes on their backs. Tropical shorts and one gun were hardly survival-level safeguards in the middle of the Gobi.

Fortunately so absolute a disaster had not taken place, as they discovered when they continued on to the tent, and found all of their personal belongings intact.

It was the portable shortwave transmitter which Solo seized upon first, inspecting it carefully to make sure that it had not been tampered with.

"We'll have to signal the 'copter to pick us up," Solo said. "Without camels or replacements for Sun Lin and Nieh Huang we can't do any more exploring on foot, that for sure. I might be willing to risk it with just one guide and one camel between us. But I can't see Chin Husan as that guide. And we have not got one camel. Why did he have to take our camels? That's what I can't understand."

"Maybe he didn't," Kuryakin said. "Maybe they became frightened and took advantage of Sun Lin's failure to tie them up. Ordinarily a camel doesn't have to be tied up for the night. But if they saw whatever it was that trampled Sun Lin to death—"

"We'll have to signal the 'copter," Solo said. "We have no choice. It won't prevent us from searching this particular spot more thoroughly—for a few hours, at least, while the chopper stands by. But another day's journey over the sand is definitely out. If that still seems a worthwhile gamble we'll have to return to the coast, engage some new guides and arrange for them to meet us here when the 'copter sets us down for the second time."

"Does that appeal to you?" Illya said. "It doesn't to me."

"It's what Waverly would expect us to do," Solo reminded him soberly.

Illya's eyes widened, looking at Solo's still unbandaged arm. "You haven't even taken a good look at that wound," he said. "Don't tell me it's just a scratch. In a climate like this infection can set in fast."

"I did take a look," Solo said. "While we were rounding that long ridge of rock. It's not a scratch, exactly. But it's nothing to be alarmed about."

It took Solo less than five minutes to dress and bandage the wound but Illya could see that he made a thorough job of it.

Kuryakin kept looking toward the tent flap and there was no need for him to speculate as to the reason for Solo's haste, for he kept talking as he drew the bandage tight.

"Chin Husan has either regained consciousness by now or he'll be needing the kind of medical aid this kit can't supply. I'm not sure I shouldn't have let my arm go until—"

Illya shook his head. "Antiseptic should have been poured on that wound before this. You took a dangerous risk in not stopping the bleeding at once."

"All right," Solo said. "But let's get moving. We don't want Chin Husan to vanish into the desert before we have a chance to talk to him. He's had plenty of time to get up and go staggering off."

"I hope the blow sobered him and he can talk rationally," Illya said.

"If he can talk at all," Solo said. "Right now, that's the only thing I'm concerned about."

There was a faint flush of dawn on the desert's rim far to the east when they emerged from the tent and moved toward the rock structure—more cautiously now. Despite the faint dawn glow the desert was much darker than it had been ten minutes earlier, for the moon had passed behind a cloud and the stars supplied very little light.

They could not make out more than the vague outlines of the rock structure and if Chin Husan still lay where he had fallen there was no possibility of confirming it until they had advanced within a few feet of where the struggle had taken place.

Solo drew in his breath sharply when he saw the huddled form swaying back and forth on the sand. He gestured Illya back, and went on alone until Chin Husan's harsh breathing brought him to a cautious halt.

NINE

THE FIRE DEMON

PERSUADING A wildly terrified man who had just regained consciousness to be calm proved more difficult than Napoleon Solo had thought it would.

It was made more difficult by the fact that Chin Husan, deprived of his reason by what he had seen, had directed all of his rage against Solo in a wholly irrational way. Despite the restoration of his sanity, a little of that rage remained and the very firmness of Solo's hand on his arm threatened to bring all of it back again.

Luckily Chin Husan seemed to quiet down a little after considerable firmness had been applied and enough reassuring words had been poured into his ear. He continued to struggle, but less violently and he stopped completely when Illya said: "We are your friends, do you understand? We were Sun Lin's friends as well, both Mr. Solo and myself. We had nothing whatever to do with his death.

"A great anger came upon you and you stabbed Mr. Solo in the arm. It may have been because you saw Sun Lin die and we are strangers here, and you could not completely trust us. Is that what you thought? That we were in some way to blame for the terrible thing that happened to your friend?"

Chin Husan remained utterly motionless for an instant, as if a part of what Illya had said was bewildering to him, and he did not quite know what to say in reply. Then a convulsive shudder seized him, and he spoke with a quaver in his voice, his clawlike hands in rapid motion, as if he were dry-washing them.

"I do not remember—stabbing Mr. Solo in the arm. But when the Fire Demon goes walking in the desert there are many things which are best forgotten. We were as close as brothers but when the Fire Demon came for my brother it was only my own worthless life I prized. I ran very fast, but my head keep turning, turning—and I saw him die."

"Just how did he die, Chin?" Solo said. "Try to remember. Did you ever see the Fire Demon before?"

"Everyone has seen the Fire Demon," Chin Husan said. "He is as old as the human race."

"And he killed Sun Lin? With fire?"

Chin Husan shook his head. "Not with fire, no. He is all fire, but shaped like a man. Out of his mouth, ears, nostrils there comes nothing but fire. But it is not a fire that burns. He goes walking in the desert and he walks over you and—you die."

Illya Kuryakin gripped Solo's arm and whispered into his ear. "This is madness, of course. But he must have seen something that looked like a fiery giant. If you keep on questioning him we may get at the truth."

Solo nodded and tightened his grip on Chin Husan's arm. "Listen to me, Chin," he said. "What you have told us is very strange. We believe you, of course, but you have not told us why the Fire Demon goes walking in the desert. Why did he kill Sun Lin and spare you?"

"He did not spare me. I ran. He walked away into the darkness without seeing me at all."

"How do you know he didn't see you? Doesn't he have eyes?"

"He has eyes that look out across the world and ears that hear the whisper of the wind as it moves across the ocean a thousand miles away. To the Fire Demon we are too small to be seen unless he bends down and searches for us in the sand. When you walk through a forest there are thousands of insects which you hear but do not see. But if they are silent you neither see or hear them. I was silent when I ran."

"How long have the tribesmen of the Gobi thought of the Fire Demon in that way?" Solo asked, a rising excitement in his voice.

There was no change in Chin's voice when he said: "I do not know."

"I think you do," Solo said. "This is very important to us, Chin. It is something we must know. Your friends, your brothers—did they always think of the Fire Demon in that way?"

"In what way? I do not understand."

"As having eyes that can see what is taking place a great distance away. Do you know what a legend is, Chin?"

"I have heard your countrymen talk about legends," Chin Husan said. "For us there are no legends. We only believe in what is true."

"And the Fire Demon is true."

"I have said that he is."

"I'm afraid you may not understand me when I tell you that the Fire Demon is an ancient Chinese legend which goes back thousands of years, and he has been pictured as a—well, a kind of idol fifteen or twenty feet tall, walking about and breathing fire just as you've described him. But even if you don't completely understand I'd like you to think about it for a minute or two."

"I am an unlearned man. Is that what you're thinking?" Chin Husan said, with a trace of resentment in his voice. "It may be true, but why do you fling it in my face? I know what you are talking about."

"I'm sorry," Solo said. "But if you understand I am glad, because it makes it that much simpler. You know what the Fire Demon looks like. But when you say he can 'look out across the world' did you always think of him as being able to do that? As a child, I mean. And do your friends all think he can do that too? For how long, Chin? Since they were very young?"

"I do not think so," Chin Husan said. "It is very strange. When I was young the Fire Demon could see all of us. So we believed, and that is why we hoped we would never meet him walking in the desert.

"He can still see us if we make a noise and he looks down and searches for us. But how he looks far away and what he sees we cannot see at all. And what he hears we cannot hear at all."

The moon had come into clear view again and was bathing the rock structure in its departing radiance, which shone full upon Chin Husan's face. It brought his features into harsh relief and Solo suddenly realized that, even now, they were not the features of a completely sane man. There was a look of torment in his eyes and he seemed to be directing his guilt feelings in upon himself, for abruptly he raised his right fist and pounded his chest as if punishing himself for his cowardice in deserting Sun Lin.

Solo felt himself to be in no danger of another sudden attack. His concern was solely for Chin Husan's sanity and the harm which a half-demented man could do to himself if abruptly released from all restraint.

Chin Husan could hardly have been aware of what was passing through Solo's mind. But if he had known his sudden bid for freedom could not have been more violent or taken the two men from U.N. C.L.E. more completely by surprise.

With a display of wiry strength amazing in so old a man he wrenched both of his wrists free and left the moon-splotched shadows where he had been huddling in a flying leap.

The leap carried him straight out over the sand, and was executed with so great a violence that it sent him sprawling. But almost instantly he was on his feet again, running wildly across the desert in the direction of the hollow where the vanished camels had spent the major part of the night. He encircled the hollow and ran on without looking back or uttering a sound.

ILLYA SEEMED the most shaken. "Who could have anticipated he'd try something like that?" Solo muttered. "His madness came back fast."

"Do you think we should go after him?" Kuryakin said.

"Only if we were as mad as he is," Solo said. "Then getting lost in the desert wouldn't matter much, one way or the other. He won't stop running for quite some time. We can search for him when the 'copter gets here, if he's still alive."

"Why don't you come right out and say it," Illya asked. "If we're still alive. Signaling the 'copter is going to be the first real test. If THRUSH can pick up a short wave, limited range message in triple-code in the middle of the Gobi Blakeley's disappearance may be followed by another vanishing act—staged by Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin."

"A THRUSH pickup of a transmitted SOS might be wholly unnecessary to accomplish that," Solo said. "You're forgetting that when Huntley and Rivers discussed something their voices on the headland and the two telecasts we saw in New York must have been picked up almost instantaneously, by some spot-coverage transmission mechanism that verges on the miraculous."

"But Newfoundland isn't quite as remote from the THRUSH-cell network as the middle of the Gobi," Illya reminded him.

"How do we know how remote the bedrock bottom of a Pacific Island volcano might be from some nightmare kind of eavesdropping mechanism?" Solo said. "The same kind of pickup impossibility may be at work here, changing it into the opposite of an impossibility. Could spoken words be picked up electronically half across the world? Think a moment before you rule that out. Television in its most primitive form was considered just as great an impossibility at the turn of the century."

He paused an instant, then went on grimly. "I've a feeling also that right now, for us, that pickup mechanism wouldn't have to be globe-encircling, that we're very close to its mysterious source. That's why I questioned Chin Husan so closely about the Fire Demon. His answers didn't tell me one-tenth of what I'd like to know. But they made something clearer I've given a great deal of thought to. In case you're interested, it's also on the nightmare level."

They heard the helicopter before they saw it. It was still high in the sky and approaching from the east. For three full minutes they continued to hear it before it came into view as a tiny black dot against the dawn glow.

Gradually the dot grew larger and as it began to descend its aspect changed from that of an airborne gnat to a huge and ungainly insect with dangling appendages. Growing larger still it lost its insect-like appearance and became a flying windmill. Finally its whirlybird contours stood out distinctly. The cockpit glimmered in the dawn light and the metal helmets of the two pilots glittered with a diamond-like brilliance.

The helicopter was less than four hundred feet to the east of them now, and descending quite rapidly. But it had not quite reached a hovering position and seemed to be moving with a puzzling lack of stability. Solo thought for a moment that the pilots had manipulated the controls with insufficient precision high in the sky, and were endeavoring to correct a miscalculation that would have carried the 'copter a considerable distance beyond the tent area.

But it was hard to believe that pilots so experienced could have committed such a blunder, and his alarm increased when the 'copter began to sway and lurch violently.

It never reached a hovering position directly overhead. Instead it dipped with appalling suddenness, shot off at a tangent to its original course and went into so fast a vertical spin that its outlines became blurred for an instant.

It was still revolving when two sharp blasts put an end to the spinning, and a bright sheet of flame spurted skyward, accompanied by a billowing cloud of smoke.

Half the 'copter was aflame when it began to fall, with an incredible slowness at first and then with a speed that no aircraft less massive could have attained after being blasted down in midair.

It crashed to earth a hundred yards from where Solo and Kuryakin were standing, sending another sheet of flame spiraling skyward. So violent was the impact that a small earthquake seemed to pass over the desert, hurling them to the sand and stinging their nostrils with a spattering of micro-bullets composed entirely of sand.

When they struggled to their feet a pillar of smoke was arising from the shattered 'copter, laced with darting tongues of flame. But one of the pilots had managed to escape from the wreckage and was running straight toward them cross the sand.

It was difficult to imagine how he could have survived so fiery a holocaust with no more than a soot-scorched face and a slight limp which slowed him down a little as he ran. But in some miraculous way he had not only extricated himself from the wreckage, but had suffered no injuries in the crash crippling enough to keep him from outdistancing the swiftly spreading flames.

He was gesturing to them as he ran, as if he had something to tell them of such vital importance that not even the terrible ordeal of struggling to save himself in time could blot it from his mind.

Illya Kuryakin was still too stunned by what had happened to move from where he stood. But Solo, while almost as stunned, managed to stagger forward until the distance between the advancing pilot an U.N.C.L.E.'S Number One operative had been considerably reduced.

"You're safe now," Solo shouted. "Better slow down or you'll be flat on your face. Even if another explosion comes—"

"That's what it was, an explosion!" the advancing pilot shouted, not heeding Solo's advice. "But it wasn't a flash-fire accident. We were fired upon!"

But that's impossible Solo thought, coming to an abrupt halt and waiting for the now slightly swaying man to join him. His waiting was in vain, because the runner's swaying increased and he began to lurch back and forth across the sand as erratically as the 'copter had done before the explosion had sent it crashing to the earth in flames.

There was a sudden, blinding flash and the running pilot rose eight feet into the air and went spinning back toward the still flaming wreckage. He screamed just once, piercingly, his lips writhing back from his teeth.

Solo could not see what it was that was bearing him backwards. But his face, where the soot had not blackened it, was a livid mask of terror, and it was easy to see that he was experiencing as well an al most unendurable agony.

There was another sudden flash and the pilot's spinning body flew apart in the air, as if some invisible force had shattered it. Instantly, gruesomely, severing the arms from the trunk, the legs at the knees, and causing the head to split open like a coconut dropped from a tree.

What was 1eft the body thudded to the sand a short distance from the wreckage and was almost as instantly enveloped in a swirl of smoke that continued on past it over the sand until it was half way to where Solo was standing.

For an instant he had to fight against a threat he could not remember ever having experienced before—the danger of actually blacking out from shock alone. It did not surprise him too much. To witness so ghastly an execution at close range, with no warning, no chance at all to summon a danger-conditioned fortitude to one's aid held a degree of horror that made such a threat very real.

In the vicinity of the wreckage the desert was strewn with still flaming debris, and the heat could be felt from where Napoleon Solo stood. But it wasn't the heat that caused him to take a few steps backward and blink furiously. It was the towering figure that had come suddenly into view a half mile beyond the wreckage, its vast bulk silhouetted against the sky and half blotting out the blazing sunlight.

It was moving slowly toward the wreckage. It was ablaze with many-colored lights which even the downstreaming sunlight failed to dim. It had an unmistakably oriental look. The arms were bent sharply at the elbows and were held well out from a body that seemed divided into segments that overlapped.

What looked like a gigantic stone turban enveloped the upper part of a head which was sharply angular and gleamed with a metallic luster as it swayed slowly back and forth.

Clearly Illya Kuryakin had seen it too, for Solo was aware of the younger man's harsh breathing a little to the left of him, and could hear the swish of his sandals as he moved about on the sand.

Gradually, as he stared, the figure grew dimmer, as if the newly arisen sun resented its presence and was reaching out with long arms of radiance to blot it from sight. It seemed to merge and blend with the sunlight as it went walking into the east.

TEN

THREE DESERT MAIDENS

THE HEAT was intolerable and the sun was a blazing red eye that seemed to follow Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin as they dragged themselves over the sand. Not only had they lost their way in the desert—they had started out with no knowledge of what Sun Lin could have told them if he had been still alive. The Gobi was a man-killer.

Its monotony stripped it of all guideposts. Just as you felt you might be on the track of something—the recovered trail of a camel, perhaps—what you thought might be hoof-marks in parallel formation turned out to be wind– flurry indentations.

There were no big mirages to mislead them. Just little ones that were infinitely more misleading. They became illusion-tormented in slow stages. There would be moments when they seemed to be caressed by cool winds, encouraged by what they were quite sure were distant but encouraging voices, urging them not to abandon hope, promising them a reward for their efforts.

Illya was the first to collapse. He did it without complaining, without uttering a single word of protest. He simply stopped dragging himself forward, sank level with the sand and lay still. Solo blacked out a few minutes later.

* * *

THREE DESERT maidens, their faces veiled in morning mist, were tripping lightly over the Gobi sands. Three desert maidens, arm in arm, their long yellow robes flowing out over the sand.

Only—there was something wrong. All three of the maidens looked exactly alike. They had the same eyes, the same high cheek bones, the same facial pallor.

Solo had seen each of the three faces—or one face—before. But not in the Gobi. Somewhere far away in another world. But how could three Gobi maidens look so enchantingly beautiful, when behind them loomed gray buildings that had nothing whatever to do with the Gobi and should not have been there at all?

Tall gray buildings and hurrying New York faces tight with strain. A long gray limousine moving slowly through a canyon of stone. Against such a background, how could three lovely maidens maintain their poise and trip so gracefully over the sand? How could their faces fail to mirror something of that same strain?

"Wake up, Napoleon Solo," a voice that was all music seemed to whisper deep in Solo's mind. "This is Lhasa. We meet for the second time, under circumstances which have greatly changed. You have been delirious for hours. But it is important for you to know that many things have changed—so that you will not think that you are in the presence of an enemy."

The voice ceased for an instant, then went on again. "When a man has endured almost more than the human mind can bear, it would be cruel beyond belief to let him go on thinking that he is still in deadly danger. So long as you remain here you will be in danger. But it is not immediate; you are completely safe for the moment. Try to understand that. It will set your mind at rest, and make your awakening less of a torment."

The three desert maidens drew suddenly closer to one another, their linked arms tightening as they danced. And suddenly they seemed to merge and blend, to coalesce and run together until there remained just one enchantingly radiant maiden in a long yellow robe tripping gracefully over the Gobi sand.