Текст книги "[Magazine 1966-­05] - The World's End Affair"

Автор книги: Robert Hart Davis

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"I understand the danger," Solo said. "Under the cover of a man-made storm like the one produced from the jet, a cadre of THRUSH people could move in and take over virtually any city in the world. There'd be no defenses. People would be too busy finding cover, caring for their dead and wounded, trying to prevent looting -" Solo's voice trailed off. Pictures of the possible carnage flicked in his mind like images thrown by a slide projector. None was pleasant.

"We must discover the source of this THRUSH breakthrough," Waverly said. "How far along is the development of the device? Does the mission of Chee and Loo – which was to be a suicide mission if necessary, as Chee revealed under the drugs – represent an early test? What will be the next test? An entire city? Is every THRUSH satrapy now equipped with such a generator? Or if we locate and wipe out the research unit, will we have cut off the rooted tree before it grows to full size?"

Waverly cleared his throat. "We must operate on the assumption that the generator is a research project only. We will prove the truth or falsity of our theory only by locating the research center responsible for the machine."

Waverly turned to a console. He pressed one of many colored studs. A rheostat began to reduce the light level. Soundlessly, an ultra-wide screen descended from the ceiling on the far wall. Illya slouched in a deep leather chair, smoking. Solo paced.

"About that damned generator itself, sir -" he began.

"You heard Rolfe's report."

"Yes. They're sure downstairs that the generator will produce violent weather on command, but they're not sure how yet."

Waverly nodded. "Rolfe is wary of using destructive testing to analyze the components, the belt and the black generating box found in Chee's luggage. Since those are the only samples we have, tearing them apart must be done with utmost caution."

"That also means it will be some time before the laboratory people discover a way to counteract the ion reversal which Rolfe thinks is at the heart of the process," Illya said.

"Um." From the underside of the gleaming table, Waverly took small microphone from a carrier receptacle. He pressed a button beneath the tiny mike grid. A red light on the wall glowed. "Stand by to let me have the aerial photos, will you, Jacques?"

There was a disembodied, "Right, sir," from a concealed loudspeaker.

"I have brought you two here," Waverly explained, "to offer you the one additional piece of the mosaic which is in U.N.C.L.E.'s hands. It came through while you were returning from Bangkok. We routinely receive unusual aerial reconnaissance material from the various governments banded together lo support U.N.C.L.E. What you are about to see was culled from a batch I received while you were on the other side of the World.

The photos were taken by an aircraft similar to the American U-2. It was flying a routine patrol mission. Normally the weather in the region photographed prohibits clear photography, which is why views like these have never shown up before. Now the only other facts Mr. Chee revealed on that tape which Mr. Kuryakin is holding were what again?"

Solo frowned. "He didn't know the man who brought the weather equipment and the sealed orders to Hong Kong."

"But the man was a THRUSH agent, " Illya said. "He knew the code."

"He was Oriental," Solo said. "This may tie in later."

Silence. Mr. Waverly sucked on his pipe stem.

Illya said, "Isn't that all?"

"Is it?" said Waverly.

Furrows formed on Solo's forehead. Then he remembered. "Chee's contact mentioned a rough flight. And something about Nepal, I think."

"Nepal," murmured Waverly. Into the mike again: "The photos, Jacques, please."

A series of full-color aerial shots slid one after another across the screen. There was an oval area in the center of each photo. The area glowed darkly green. It was surrounded by sharp, brown-and-slate topography, splotched here and there with white.

"A valley," Illya said, "And a very fertile one, from the looks of it."

"Surrounded by – that can't be!" Solo said. "Those are mountains with snow on them. No valley so green could exist at such an altitude, so close to such big peaks." Solo turned toward Waverly. "There must be some distortion, sir. The valley must be far below those mountain tops."

"On the contrary," Waverly said. "Photo analysis confirms that the peaks and the bottom of the valley are less than a quarter mile apart."

Illya snorted. "A fertile valley at the snow line? Where on earth -"

"In Tibet," said Alexander Waverly.

Solo jumped up so hastily he dropped his burning cigarette on the carpet. He snatched it up, talking all the time: "These photographs were taken over Tibet, Mr. Waverly?"

"To be specific, Mr. Solo, over the Himalayan mountain range, the highest mountains in the world. Cold, frozen mountains. Of course no fertile valley could exist at that altitude, Mr. Solo. Unless, of course, one could control the climate."

Mr. Waverly thanked Jacques on the microphone, re-hooked it beneath the table and tented his fingers. The rheostat brought the room light up to normal again. "I expect the significance has dawned on both of you by now."

"The THRUSH contact's reference to Nepal -" Illya said. "Nepal adjoins Tibet."

"But Tibet is in the hands of the Red Chinese!" Solo said.

"Quite right," Waverly agreed. "Do you suppose that would make any difference to THRUSH? They have sold out the worst as well as the best in their insane determination to build a supra-nation. Why not operate in Tibet if it suits their purpose'? Perhaps they have recruited some Chinese assistance. Why is that so unrealistic? The fanaticism of the Chinese would fit perfectly into their scheme of things.

"In fact, I can think of few worse adversaries than a Communist Chinese who has renounced his old masters and joined the intellectual monsters who control THRUSH. Most civilized people consider the Red China the most destructive and imperialistic nation in the world today. THRUSH makes the Chinese look like kindergarten toddlers by comparison."

Solo swallowed. "'What's our move?"

"To try to send agents along the route from Hong Kong to Nepal, and thence into Tibet."

A chill descended. Solo's backbone crawled. Penetrate Chinese-dominated territory and discover a THRUSH outpost? The peril would be exactly doubled. Before he could comment, Waverly went on:

"That's my purpose in having this man Chee brought back here as soon as he recovers. We will place him under the control of our hypnotic compounds, so that he will be amenable to whatever we suggest. We will buy him a plane ticket to Hong Kong. You two gentlemen will be on the next plane. We will let Mr. Chee be seen in his usual haunts in the Crown Colony. Before very long, I imagine, there will be THRUSH agents sniffing after him, to find out what went wrong with the aircraft test.

"After all, THRUSH cannot have gotten a very authoritative report. They cannot know fully how the flight turned out, since we managed to neatly quash any reference to the storm in the Hong Kong newspapers. They should be most anxious to contact Alfred Chee when he reappears. When that happens, you two gentlemen will follow those who contact him."

Napoleon Solo was about to say something sardonic. High up on the ceiling, a bank of square, previously dark inlaid panels flared red and began to blink in sequence.

Illya jerked his head up, staring at the blood-hued lights.

A hidden loudspeaker barked, "Immediate red alert! Immediate red alert!" A siren began to warble. Waverly snatched up the mike.

"Give me the Central Board." A pause. "This is Waverly. Where's the trouble?"

"The medical wing," came a voice. "Unexplained explosion. All primary communications systems have been knocked out. We're trying – hold on, here come the backups."

"Plug me in with the wing," Waverly ordered.

Solo and Illya tensed by the door, checking over their long-barreled pistols. There was another rattle of noise. As the back-up communications systems cut in, the audio-visual room filled with an amplified confusion of voices crying out in pain. Solo heard fire crackling, sirens warbling, walls collapsing. Waverly shouted for Dr. Bailey. Finally he answered:

"Here – here, sir; Chee woke up. The search units missed one thing. He had a high-intensity explosive cap on one of his teeth. He used it to blow half this floor to pieces the minute we left him alone. We thought he was still sleeping it off."

"Are you all right, Doctor?" Waverly said.

"Yes. Two of my interns got it, though. Killed by the blast. There's fire everywhere, but the sprinklers are on. We'll make it. The prisoner's loose."

"In which direction?"

"The express elevators leading to the basement level."

Illya snapped the slide on his pistol. "Let's go, Napoleon. If Chee discovers the underground channel leading to the motor launch dock at the East River, we've lost him."

Both men charged out of the room.

"Waverly!" came Dr. Bailey's voice. "I heard that. Tell Solo and Kuryakin to be careful. I'm willing to bet that if the prisoner had onetooth with an explosive cap, he had at least one more. Two is usually standard for THRUSH agents."

Under the blinking blood-colored lights, Mr. Waverly looked wan.

"It's too late, Doctor. They have already gone."

Four

Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin raced through the corridors, pistols drawn. Other

U.N.C.L.E. agents, responding to the red alert, crisscrossed the halls, then disappeared behind stainless steel doors which shut and sealed themselves and would not open again until a specified signal removed the alert.

Out of breath, the two agents reached the express elevator bank. Two sets of doors were recessed in the wall. Solo pointed to the indicator board above the closed doors.

"That one's in the basement already. If the alert signal had come a second or so sooner, we could have caught him between floors. Use your keys on the over-ride board, Illya."

Illya was already at work. He inserted one key and then another into the silvery-dull cover of a metal box set in the wall between the elevators.

Tumblers rattled faintly. The cover sprang open. Illya threw a toggle within the box.

At once the indicator lights above the right-hand elevator began to wink. The over-ride system had restored power. Within a few more seconds the men were riding downward again.

Neither spoke.

Finally the elevator stopped. Solo and Illya flattened against the side walls of the car, pistols ready. The doors opened.

Illya slid forward to the front of the car. He shifted his long-snouted pistol to his left hand. He used his right to press a button which locked the car doors to full open. Solo peered around the edge of the opening into the hallway.

In most respects the corridor resembled the one they had just quitted, stories above. The walls shimmered and reflected each other like dull steel mirrors. Recessed light banks, but fewer of them, blinked every dozen yards in the ceiling. Not so many doors opened off this corridor. And there was a faint but pervasive scent of salty, open water.

The corridor was empty.

"He must be down here," Illya said. "Each floor is sealed during an alert."

"He's here," Solo whispered back. "I'm getting the message from my spine. Let's go."

Solo's neck prickled as he and Illya stepped into the tomb-like hall. Like perfectly oiled machines, one of them whipped around to the left, one to the right. They swept the gloom with the muzzles of their pistols.

The doors of the other elevator stood open. Bright fluorescent light washed out over the concrete floor. But the car in which Chee had ridden down was also empty.

They began to walk. Their footfalls clicked and echoed, eerily. The ceiling lights flashed blue, amber, vermilion, coloring their faces with harlequin patterns. Solo licked his lips. A feeling that they were being watched increased.

His scalp tingled. His belly felt tight. Somewhere, in this corridor their quarry waited, hidden. The ceiling angled downward as they rleached the halfway point between the elevators and the massive steel doors which led to the underground quay and the private channel.

Illya's eyes ranged the corridor. "This is impossible, Napoleon. All the doors are sealed, the elevator is empty, and no one has gotten through those steel lovelies blocking the exit to the river." He craned his head back to stare at the ceiling. At this point it was barely three feet above their heads. "I don't see where our elusive friend could have got to, unless he ascended to heaven as a cloud of ectoplasm. I would have sworn -"

Barely whispering, Solo said, "Quiet. He's watching us. From that vantage point you mentioned. Don't turn! Keep staring at the river doors. Something just registered. At the place back there where the ceiling began to slope, I noticed a patch of shadow on the floor. One of those light bays in the ceiling is out of commission."

Illya's eyebrows quirked up, understanding. Each of the bays consisted of three large, square panels set in a line across the ceiling from wall to wall. Still playing the game of pretending that his interest was centered up ahead, Solo went on, "The only trouble is, we told him which way is out."

"But he has no over-ride keys," Illya said. "And he can't possibly be armed."

Sweat trickled down the back of Solo's neck to his collar. "You're right. We'll take him on the count."

Slowly Solo whispered out the numbers. On the spat-out three, both agents turned. Instantly Solo spotted the dark ceiling square which his subconscious had only noted before. Repair crews had apparently pulled all the wiring guts from the center light box a few yards back. The translucent cover which fitted into the frame flush with the ceiling was gone. Up in the barely man-sized space recessed into the ceiling, a shadow stirred –

"Chee?" Solo called. "Chee, you haven't got one chance. Get down, or –"

A shrill, ear-hurting shriek made Solo start. The THRUSH agent had been wedged up into the recess, using the pressure of his backbone and his heels to hold himself in concealment. Now he let out another wild scream as he dropped. He tumbled on the concrete, sprang up. Solo knocked Illya's rising arm aside:

"Don't kill him! His hands are empty -"

Strictly true. But in spite of this, Chee was not behaving like a trapped man. He had his fingers in his mouth, pulling and yanking at his teeth as though one ached. Then his spittle-shining hand whipped out from between his lips. There was a wild, crooked grin on his face as he threw hard.

The two U.N.C.L.E agents dodged instinctively. Something small and white whizzed past them, and pinged against the great steel doors. Instantly, deafening sound, raw heat, gouts of fire and billows of smoke swirled around them.

The explosion's force hurled Solo against the corridor wall. Chee stumbled, off balance, keeping up that maniacal, demoralizing shrieking. Chee pelted past them through the smoke, which was already beginning to leap and swirl as fresh currents of air struck it.

The salty aroma of the East River washed over Solo as he jerked Illya along in pursuit.

Alfred Chee had already leaped over the wrecked remains of the great doors. His shoes clicked rapidly out in the darkness.

Solo and Illya could see little. The underground channel which led in from the East River under an arched concrete tunnel opened into a far larger, tear-drop shaped basin at this end. Three to four powerful motor launches were customarily anchored there. Only one at a time could pass from the tear-drop through the narrower channel. And the channel's river end was being blocked now. The explosion had activated other alarms.

As a metallic squawk came raucously from a speaker overhead, a grille of thick iron bars descended at the channel's far end. It was visible to Solo because its pattern stood out against the city lights on the river's opposite shore.

Somewhere in the dark down by the tear-drop marina there was a clunk of feet hitting decking. Then a heavier slosh of water as one of the fast launches' took the sudden weight of Alfred Chee jumping aboard.

Solo ran to the left, out of the jagged frame of light created by the ruined doors. Illya followed. They flattened against the concrete wall, listened.

Water lapped out by the launches. Chee laughed. It was a low, unpleasant sound, smacking of lost sanity.

"We have to rush him," Solo whispered.

"I can't see a thing except those lights on the river," Illya said.

"Hang on for a second. Your eyes'll adjust."

"I hope he doesn't have another of those exploding molars conveniently fastened in his head. If he threw one right now, we'd be two very -"

A white spot of light bloomed out by the marina. It widened, blasted Solo's eyes with its glare. Suddenly Illya and Solo were circled in brilliance. Chee had found the spotlight on the launch.

Solo leaped out of the light, zigzagging wildly as he ran. Illya went the other way. The spotlight whipped back and forth wildly, searching for them. Finally it hit Illya, and stayed on him.

Then the thing which Solo feared happened. The THRUSH agent discovered the swivel-mounted machine-gun mounted near the spot.

A stuttering roar filled the dark. Tracers left orange trails as the bullets ripped the wall in the center of the spot-lighted circle. Illya had thrown himself face forward just in time. Now he leaped up, started to run. The spotlight swiveled. The machine-gun stuttered evilly. Illya wrenched out of the way again, wincing as cement dust driven up by the bullets stung his eyes.

Chee was operating the searchlight with one hand and the machine-gun with the other, Solo guessed. He started a reckless run forward. Illya was jumping back and forth like a madman. The light followed him.

Solo poured on the speed, heedless of how much noise he was making. Shielding his eyes at the quay's edge, he made out the shape of another launch moored between the quay and the launch from which Chee was firing. He tensed, jumped, landed on the nearer deck

with a thud. Chee heard the noise.

Around came the searchlight and the machine-gun muzzle. The searchlight blinded Solo. He used his thumb to set the pistol on automatic fire. The gun bucked and barked in his hand as he fired into the heart of the light and kept firing, moving his aim slightly to the right.

Glass broke. The searchlight element sizzled and sparked and went dark. Alfred Chee screamed.

In the echoing confines of the secret marina, the machine-gun noise lingered long after the gun itself had stopped. The weapon swung gently on its upright mount, creaking.

Solo and Illya jumped aboard the second launch a moment later. Illya produced a pocket torch. He shined it down on Chee's blood-flecked shirt, then up to his lifeless face. Chee's mouth was open. Two of his teeth were noticeably shorter than those alongside.

"Mr. Waverly won't be happy about this," Solo said.

"Mr. Waverly was not down here the last few minutes."

"Well," said Solo, though he sounded rather dubious, "I guess you have a point. But I wouldn't bet on it"

The interior of the U.N.C.L.E morgue was chill, blue-lit, uncomfortable. Solo shivered. Mr. Waverly dropped the white sheet over the corpse of Alfred C. Chee.

An attendant rolled the slab back into place and latched the locker door. Mr. Waverly's breath clouded as he said, "His death is regrettable, though I suppose you had no alternative. But now it is impossible to execute our plan to have you follow his contact route from Hong Kong. Therefore -"

Mr. Waverly sighed. "Yes, I'm afraid you'l1 have to take the more dangerous route into Tibet. By parachute."

"Tibet!" said Solo. "By parachute?"

"Why, Tibet's practically the end of the world!" Illya exclaimed.

"It may well be just that for all of us, if you fail," Mr. Waverly said soberly.

Act II: World's End This Way, Two Miles

Dawn arrived with chill magnificence.

In the east the snowy crests of the Himalayan peaks slowly glowed golden. The light rose behind the peaks and spilled down the western slopes, but it did little to relieve the stark, basalt severity of the landscape. Napoleon Solo groaned and thrashed in his bedroll.

His bones ached with cold. The rarified air stung his lungs. But he was getting used to it.

Five hours had passed since he and Illya jumped from the hatchway of the disguised cargo plane into abysmal blackness and the howling slipstream…

At the top of his lungs, Solo had raised the same question he had been raising ever since he discovered, back at the secret U.N.C.L.E. airstrip outside Macao, that it was to be a night drop:

"I hope you people know what you're doing." The wind tore his words away as he hung in the cargo plane door, fat in his para-suit which contained appropriate disguises and weapons. "I don't see anything down there but a big black nothing."

"We would regret landing atop Mount Everest by accident," Illya shouted.

The U.N.C.L.E. jump-master was a swarthy, jolly Portuguese from Macao. He showed his gold teeth. "Be assured, gentlemen, this aircraft has been equipped with the finest of computerized sensors. You will be dropping on to an open plateau between major peaks. The plateau is at least three miles across. Perfectly safe. You will land but a few miles from your target areas. Everything is in order."

"And U.N.C.L.E. always sends flowers if it isn't. Very comforting," Solo said, and jumped.

The ache in Solo's right ankle had not lessened very much. He stuck his right arm down into his bedroll and rubbed. They hadn't landed on one of the peaks, true enough. But Solo had conked against the side of a sizeable boulder, and twisted his right leg as he

slid down the boulder's side.

They had made their camp inside a ring of boulders, on a slope which was the beginning of a majestic peak. Illya was already working a short distance up the slope, burying his parachute and jumpsuit in the shale with a trenching tool. Solo enjoyed the comparative warmth of the bedroll a moment longer. Then, with a nothing-for-it groan, he tumbled out.

Soon he was working alongside Illya, burying his own gear.

The younger agent finished. He tossed the trenching tool into the shallow depression remaining and covered the tool by pushing more shale on top of it with his hands. When Illya stood up, Solo was grinning.

"'What's so comical, may I ask?" Illya's breath shot out in a cloud as he spoke.

"You. If you wore a get-up like that in New York, you'd get arrested."

Illya glanced down. He was clad in crude goatskin shoes, which were simply bags pulled up around his ankles and tied with cord, and an ankle-length garment, much like a brown maternity costume, made of yards and yards of coarse wool. A rope cinched it in at his middle.

On his head he wore one of those curious ear-flapped pieces of headgear peculiar to Tibet. His face, hands, and in fact every inch of him, were dyed to a walnut color. The U.N.C.L.E. plastic surgeons had even managed to slant his eyes a bit, and wrinkle his skin so that it had a rough, wind-roughened texture.

"May I remind you, holy father," Illya replied, sarcastically, "that I am not the only one in the crowd in this outlandish get-up. I have played many strange parts in my time. But never one like this. If we can actually pass as Tibetan holy men, I'll be surprised. Probably the first Red Chinese soldier, peasant or THRUSH agent who sees us will call for our arrest while laughing himself into hysterics."

"Well, that's the way the prayer wheel revolves." Solo finished burying his gear. "Shall we dine and be off down the Yellow Brick Road?"

"I'm glad someone's cheerful," Illya said. They sat munching their field biscuits. These dry, flaky, utterly tasteless items were concealed, along with an assortment of weapons and other necessary gear, inside special pockets sewn into the voluminous material of their robes. Solo felt as if he was weighed down with lead. It didn't help his throbbing ankle.

Illya crunched the last of his biscuits. He stood up and brushed crumbs off his hands.

"I always thought Tibet was exotic. Chiming temple bells. Ronald Colman in brocade discovering the secret of eternal youth. Lowell Thomas riding into the sunset on a yak. This is a wasteland."

So it was. The plateau across which they now began to tramp showed no sign of human habitation. Vegetation was sparse and gray. They moved down from the slope and reached a faint symbol of civilization, a rutted road winding across the plateau. It came from behind them and stretched ahead, most of its course invisible because frequently twisted out of sight behind big rocks.

The sun climbed higher. The wind whistled incessantly in their ears. Even with the sunlight, they were cold.

"Are you sure we're going in the right direction?" Illya asked after twenty minutes.

Solo pulled a compass from his robe. The needle danced and steadied.

He nodded.

"The bearing checks. Besides, there isn't any other road. The instructions said go south. We're supposed to come to a crossroads, and meet our contact there. Let's keep walking and see if we can't get into the spirit of the part. Practice internal tranquility. Think uplifting thoughts."

"In the middle of several hundred thousand Red Chinese soldiers and sympathizer?" Illya asked. "Very funny."

Solo's teeth chattered. The landscape was savage, so empty and ringed around by those incredible peaks with cruel snow-spear tops, that he wanted to keep talking to keep their spirits up.

"It should be much further to -" Solo was saying, when he saw Illya freeze.

"Napoleon, listen!"

Illya whipped around, stared back up the road.

Scowling, Solo lifted one of the earflaps of his hat. He heard it. A motorized growl.

With the skirts of their lama robes flapping wildly, they dived toward the side of the road. The rumbling and growling grew. Illya tripped on the hem of his robe. He fell, letting out an explosive, "Damn!"

The gray-painted hood of a heavy truck appeared around a bend in the road.

Solo grabbed Illya's shoulder and dragged him bodily over the shale, into cover. And with hardly a moment to spare.

A second truck appeared behind the first. Then a third. The trucks were massive, gray, at least ten years old. They clunked and lumbered at a slow speed. Each had a big open bed to the rear of the cab. Solo peered cautiously from behind a rock as the lead truck drew abreast of their hiding place.

The driver of the truck had a flat, yellow face. He wore an olive uniform cap. The bed of the truck was jammed with Chinese soldiers. Rifles and pistols bristled. A tall officer stood spraddle-legged just behind the cab. He was scanning the landscape through field glasses which hung from a cord around his neck.

As the truck rumbled by, the officer let the field glasses fall.

Solo sucked in a breath. A slender white scar made an S-curve down the left side of the officer's face, from hairline to jaw. Altogether it was one of the cruelest faces Napoleon Solo had ever seen.

Barely even whispering, Solo said to Illya over his shoulder, "If we're lucky, they'll go on without –"

Suddenly a soldier in the first truck pointed and tugged the officer's sleeve. The officer raised his right hand. He barked a command in Chinese. The brakes of the truck squealed.

Solo's eyes grew grim. The truck had stopped not ten yards away, just a little way past their place of concealment. The officer was leaning over the side slats of the truck bed. He was staring at the shale where Illya had stumbled and fallen.

The officer's face animated with a sudden, cruel pleasure. He pointed to the all too visible marks in the loose earth. The soldier who had called attention to them nodded.

The officer began chattering more commands.

The soldiers in the truck unshipped the tailgate. Two soldiers jumped down, then two more. The officer scanned the boulders to the left and right of the hiding place of the U.N.C.L.E. agents.

"Well, it was a short trip," Solo said. He snaked out his pistol. So did Illya.

Cautiously the soldiers advanced to the place where Illya's fall had left traces in the shale. There they halted, rifles at the ready.

The officer still stood gripping the top slat the side of the truck. His expression was one of delight, anticipation. Then he appeared to grow annoyed at the timidity of his men. Shouting in Chinese, he waved them forward.

Straight toward Solo and Illya, the soldiers shuffled slowly.

Hot breath hit Solo in the back of the neck. Something wet and cold nuzzled him. He jerked his head around, as did Illya. The younger agent's eyes popped. He opened his mouth to let out an involuntary yell of surprise. Solo clapped his free hand over Illya's face and stifled the cry just in time.

Somewhere on the other side of the huge rock the boots of the soldiers crunched, coming closer.

And closer.

A huge, horned hairy yak, the Tibetan wild ox, had wandered out of the rocks behind the U.N.C.L.E agents and now stood with its forepaws planted beside Solo. The yak's large moist eyes regarded the interlopers with curiosity. The animal nuzzled Solo's face again with its damp, chilly snout.

"I think it liked you," Illya breathed.

At the back of his mind Solo was listening to the tramp of the boots of the soldiers. Surely they had reached the boulder by now. In another second they would round the rock and find their quarry.

What would happen when the shooting started? Could he get a shot past the yak's head? Doubtful. The damned thing kept sniffling and snuffling at him as though he were a long-lost relative. Solo also expected that the first shots would startle or anger the yak. Probably it would pick him up on its sharp, glittering horns and that would be that.

On the other side of the rock, the soldiers were whispering to one another. The yak's huge, sandpapery tongue licked Solo's cheek affectionately. Solo glanced desperately at Illya, who reached up and slapped the yak lightly on its hairy flank.

The yak reared back and trumpeted. The soldiers beyond the rock let out startled cries. The yak kicked up its rear hoofs, snorted, put its horned head down and went charging out toward the road.