"I pray thee tell to me:"

backs to the wall!" A certainty, an assured competence in the voice that made for instant obedience. "Take a good look at them, Sergeant." Almost conversational now, the tone, but neither torch nor gun barrel had wavered a fraction. "No shadow of expression in their faces, not even a flicker of the eyes. Dangerous men, Sergeant. The English choose their killers well" Mallory felt the grey bitterness of defeat wash through him in an almost tangible wave, he could taste the sourness of it in the back of his mouth. For a brief, heart-sickening second he allowed himself to think of what must now inevitably happen and as soon as the thought had come he thrust it savagely away. Everything, every action, every thought, every breath must be on the present. Hope was gone, but not irrecoverably gone: not so long as Andrea lived. He wondered if Casey Brown had seen or heard them coming, and what had happened to him: he made to ask, checked himself just in time. Maybe he was still at large. "How did you manage to find us?" Mallory asked quietly. "Only fools burn juniper wood," the officer said contemptuously. "We have been on Kostos all day and most of the night. A dead man could have smelt it." "On Kostos?" Miner shook his head. "How could?' "Enough!" The officer turned to someone behind him. "Tear down that screen," he ordered in German, "and keep us covered on either side." He looked back into the cave, gestured almost imperceptibly with his torch. "All right, you three. Outsideand you had better be careful. Please believe me that my men are praying for an excuse to shoot you down, you murdering swine!" The venomous hatred in his voice carried utter conviction. Slowly, hands still clasped above their heads, the three men stumbled to their feet. Mallory had taken only one step when the whip-lash of the German's voice brought him up short. "Stop!" He stabbed the beam of his torch down at the unconscious Stevens, gestured abruptly at Andrea. "One side, you! Who is this?" "You need not fear from him," Mallory said quietly. "He is one of us but he is terribly injured. He is dying." "We will see," the officer said tightly. "Move to the back of the cave!" He waited until the three men had stepped over Stevens, changed his automatic rifle for a pistol, dropped to his knees and advanced slowly, torch in one hand, gun in the other, well below the line of fire of the two soldiers who advanced unbidden at his heels. There was an inevitability, canon digital camera red a cold professionalism about it all that made Mallory's heart sink. Abruptly the officer reached out his gun-hand, tore the covers off the boy. A shuddering tremor shook the whole body, his head rolied from side to side as he moaned in unconscious agony. The officer bent quickly over him, the hard, clean lines of the face, the fair hair beneath the hood high-lit in the beam of his own torch. A quick look at Stevens's pain-twisted, emaciated features, a glance at the shattered leg, a brief, distasteful wrinkling of the nose as he caught the foul stench of the gangrene, and he had hunched back on his heels, gently replacing the covers over the sick boy. "You speak the truth," he said softly. "We are not barbarians. I have no quarrel with a dying man. Leave him there." He rose to his feet, walked slowly backwards. "The rest of you outside." The snow had stopped altogether, Mallory saw, and stars were beginning to twinkle in the clearing sky. The wind, too, had fallen away and was perceptibly warmer. Most of the snow would be gone by midday, Mallory guessed. Carelessly, incuriously, he looked around him. There was no sign of Casey Brown. Inevitably Mallory's hopes began to rise. Petty Officer Brown's recommendation for this operation had come from the very top. Two rows of ribbons to which he was entitled but never wore bespoke his gallantry, he had a formidable reputation as a guerrilla fighterand he had had an automatic rifle in his hand. If he were somewhere out there. . . . Almost as 'if he had divined his hopes, the German smashed them at a word. "You wonder where your sentry is, perhaps?" he asked mockingly. "Never fear, Englishman, he is not far from here, asleep at his post. Very sound asleep, I'm afraid." "You've killed him?" Mallory's hands clenched until his palms ached. The other shrugged his shoulder in vast indifference. "I really couldn't say. It was all too easy. One of my men lay in the gully and moaned. A masterly performancereally pitiablehe almost had me convinced. Like a fool your man came to investigate. I had another man waiting above, the barrel of his rifle in his hand. A very effective club, I assure you. . . ." Slowly Mallory unclenched his fists and stared bleakly down the gully. Of course Casey would fall for that, he was bound to after what had happened earlier in the night. He wasn't going to make a fool of himself again, cry "wolf"

"Then by my sooth," King Henrie said,

quietly until the last of the passengers had descended or been carried from the tractor cabin, then waved us all into a straight line facing towards Corazzini and himself. Both of them had their backs to the canvas screen, while we were placed just far enough clear of the shelter to be blinded by the increasingly heavy snowfall that swirled down into our eyes, but not so far off as not to be clearly seen by them. Whatever these two did, I was beginning to discover, betrayed that economy of movement and unquestioning sureness of the complete professionals who had long ago worked out the answers to and counters against any of a vast range and permutation of situations they were ever likely to encounter. Smallwood beckoned me. "You haven't finished your radio call, Dr Mason. Finish it. Your friend Hillcrest must be wondering at the delay." The gun in his hand came forward a fraction of an inch, just enough for the movement to be perceptible. Tor your own sake, do nothing to arouse his suspicions. Don't be clever. Keep it brief." I kept it brief. I excused the interruption of transmission on the grounds that Mahler had taken a sudden turn for the worseas indeed, I thought bitterly, he hadsaid that I'd guard the missile mechanism with my life and apologised for cutting the call short, but said it was essential to get Mahler to Uplavnik with all speed. "Finish it off," Smallwood said softly in my ear. I nodded. "That's the lot then, Captain Hillcrest. Will make the noon schedule. This is Mayday signing off. Mayday, Mayday." I switched off, and turned indifferently away. I had taken only one step when Smallwood caught my shoulder and whirled me round. For such an apparently slight man, he was phenomenally strong. I gasped as his pistol barrel dug into my stomach. " 'Mayday', Dr Mason?" he asked silkily. "What is 'Mayday'?" "Our call-sign, of course," I said irritably. "Your call-sign is GFK." "Our call-up is GFK. Our signing-off is 'Mayday'." "You're lying." I wondered how I could ever have thought this face meek and nervous and colourless. The mouth was a thin hard line, the upper eyelids bar-straight and hooded above the unwinking eyes. Flat marbled eyes of a faded light-blue. A killer's eyes. "You're lying," he panasonic lc43 digital camera repeated. "I'm not lying," I said angrily. "Count five and die." His eyes never left mine, the pressure of the gun increased. "One . . . two . . . three" "I'll tell you what it is!" The cry came from Margaret Ross. 'Mayday' is the international air distress signal, the SOS... I had to tell him, Dr Mason, I had to!" Her voice was a shaking sob. "He was going to kill you." "I was indeed," Smallwood agreed. If he felt either anger or apprehension, no trace of either appeared in the calm conversational voice. "I should do it nowyou've lost us four hours' head start. But courage happens to be one of the few virtues I admire. . . . You are an extremely brave man, Dr Mason. Your courage is a fair match for yourahlack of perspicacity, shall we say." "You'll never get off the ice-cap, Small wood," I said steadily. "Scores of ships and planes are searching for you, thousands of men. They'll get you and they'll hang you for these five dead men." "We shall see." He gave a wintry smile, and now that he had removed his rimless glasses I could see that the man's smile left his eyes untouched, left them flat and empty and lifeless, like the stained glass in a church and no sun behind it. "All right, Corazzini, the box. Dr Mason, bring one of the maps from the driver's seat." "In a moment. Perhaps you would care to explain" "Explanations are for children." The voice was level, curt, devoid of all inflection." I'm in a hurry, Dr Mason. Bring the map." I brought it and when I returned Corazzini was sitting on the front of the tractor sled with a case before him. But it wasn't the leather-covered portable radio: it was Smallwood's robe case. Corazzini snapped open the catches, pulled out Bible, robes and divinity hood, tossed them to one side then carefully brought out a metal box which looked exactly like a tape-recorder: indeed, when he shone his torch on it I could clearly see the word 'Grundig'. But it soon became apparent that it was like no tape-recorder that I had ever seen. The twin spools he ripped off the top of the machine and sent spinning away into the darkness and the snow, the tape unwinding in a long convoluted streamer. By this time I would have taken long odds that anyone suspicious enough to investigate would have found that tape perfectly genuine: probably, I thought bitterly, Bach's organ

Thy spindle and twine unto me resign,

I had struck her across the face. I hadn't meant to be brutal, just clinical. "We'll do what we can for him. It's not much, I'm afraid." Finally we had him securely lashed to the stretcher, his head cushioned against the shock as best we could. When I got to my feet, the stewardess was just pulling her coat down over the caribou pants. "We're taking him back to our cabin," I said. "We have a sledge below. There's room for another. You could protect his head. Want to come?" "The passengers" she began uncertainly. "They'll be all right." I went back inside the main cabin, closing the door behind me, and handed my torch to the man with the cut brow. The two feeble night or emergency lights that burned inside were poor enough for illumination, worse still for morale. "We're taking the wireless operator and stewardess with us," I explained. "Back in twenty minutes. And if you want to live, just keep this door tight shut." "What an extraordinarily brusque young man," the elderly lady murmured. Her voice was low-pitched, resonant, with an extraordinary carrying power. "Only from necessity, madam," I said dryly. "Would you really prefer long-winded and flowery speeches the while you were freezing to death?" "Well, do you know, I really don't think I would," she answered mock-seriously, and I could hear her chucklingthere was no other word for itas I closed the door behind me. Working in the cramped confines of that wrecked control cabin, in almost pitch darkness and with that ice-laden bitter gale whistling through the shattered windscreens, we had the devil's own time of it trying to get the injured wireless operator down to that waiting sledge below. Without the help of the big young stranger I don't think we would ever have managed it, but manage it we eventually did: he and I lowered and slid the stretcher down to Jackstraw and Joss, who took and strapped it on the sledge. Then we eased the stewardess down: I thought I heard her cry out as she hung supported only by a hand round either wrist, and remembered that Jackstraw had said something about her back being injured. But there was no time for such things now. I jumped down and a couple of seconds later the big young man joined me. I hadn't intended that he should come, but there was no harm in it: he had to go sometime, and there was no question of his having to ride on the sledge. The wind had eased a casio ex-v8 exilim digital camera little, perhaps, but the cold was crueller than ever. Even the dogs cowered miserably in the lee of the plane: now and again one of them stretched out a neck in protest and gave its long, mournful wolf call, a sound eerie beyond description. But their misery was all to the good: as Jackstraw said, they were mad to run. And, with the wind and ice-drift behind them, run they did. At first I led the way with the torch, but Balto, the big lead dog, brushed me aside and raced on into the darkness: I had sense enough to let him have his head. He followed the twisting route of the plane's snow-furrow, the bamboos, homing spool and antenna line as swiftly and unerringly as if it had been broad daylight, and the polished steel runners of the sledge fairly hissed across the snow. The frozen ground was smooth and flat as river ice; no ambulance could have carried the wireless operator as comfortably as our sledge did that night. It took us no more than five minutes to reach the cabin, and in three more minutes we were on our way again. They were a busy three minutes. Jackstraw lit the oil stove, oil lamp and Colman pressure lamp, while Joss and I put the injured man on a collapsible cot before the stove, worked him into my sleeping-bag, slid in half a dozen heat padswaterproof pads containing a chemical which gave off heat when water was addedplaced a rolled up blanket under his neck to keep the back of his head off the cot, and zipped the sleeping-bag shut. I had surgical instruments enough to do what had to be done, but it had to wait: not so much because we had others still to rescue, urgent enough though that was, but the man lying at our feet, so still, so ashen-faced, was suffering so severely from shock and exposure that to touch him would have been to kill him: I was astonished that he had managed to survive even this long. I told the stewardess to make some coffee, gave her the necessary instructions, and then we left her and the big young man together: the girl heating a pan over a pile of meta tablets, the young man staring incredulously into a mirror as he kneaded a frost-bitten cheek and chin with one hand, and with another held a cold compress to a frozen ear. We took with us the warm clothes we had lent them, some rolls of bandages, and left. Ten minutes later we were back inside the plane. Despite its insulation, the temperature inside the main cabin had already dropped at least thirty degrees and

Or far Elysian plain, shall we meet those

seven feet. What had happened to the pilot sitting on that side at the moment of the telescopic impact just didn't bear thinking about: but at least we had found our way in. I set the searchlight so that its beam illuminated the wrecked control cabin, gauged the distance to the lower sill of the windscreenit must have been fully nine feetand jumped. My gloved hands hooked on firmly but slipped almost at once on the ice-rimed surface. I grabbed for a purchase grip on one of the windscreen pillars, felt my fingers striking against solid glass on both sidesthe windscreen hadn't been as completely shattered as I had imaginedand was on the point of losing my hold altogether when Jackstraw moved forward swiftly and took my weight. With my knees on his shoulders and a fire axe in my hand it took me no more than two minutes to smash away the glass that clung to the pillars and the upper and lower edges. I hadn't realised that aircraft glasstoughened perspexcould be so tough, nor, when it came to clambering through into the control cabin in my bulky furs, that windscreens could be so narrow. I landed on top of a dead man. Even in the darkness I knew he was dead. I fumbled under my parka, brought out the torch, switched it on for a couple of seconds, then put it out. It was the co-pilot, the man who had taken the full impact of the crash. He was pinned, crushed between his seat and the twisted, fractured wreckage of what had been control columns, levers and dashboard instruments: not since I had once been called out to the scene of a head-on collision between a racing motor-cyclist and a heavy truck had I seen such dreadful injuries on any man. Whatever any of the survivors, the shocked and injured survivors in the plane, must see, it mustn't be this. It was ghastly beyond description. I turned and leaned out the windscreen. Jackstraw was directly below, cupped gloved hands shielding his eyes against the flying ice spicules as he stared upwards. "Bring a blanket," I shouted. "Better, bring a full gunny sack. And the morphia kit. Then come up yourself." He was back in twenty seconds. I caught both sack and morphia box, placed them on the twisted cabin floor behind me, then reached out a hand to help Jackstraw, but it wasn't necessary. Athleticism wasn't the forte of the short arid stocky Greenlanders, but Jackstraw was the fittest and most agile man I had ever met. He sprang, caught the lower sill of the left windscreen in his computer control of digital cameras left hand, the central pillar in the other and swung legs and body through the centre screen as if he had been doing this sort of thing all his life. I gave him my torch to hold, rummaged in the gunny sack and dragged out a blanket. I spread it over the dead co-pilot, tucking the corners down among twisted and broken ends of metal, so that it shouldn't blow free in the icy wind that swirled and gusted through the wrecked control cabin. "Waste of a good blanket, I suppose," I muttered. "Butwell, it isn't pretty." "It isn't pretty," Jackstraw agreed. His voice was quite steady, devoid of all inflection. "How about this one?" I looked across at the left-hand side of the cabin. It was almost completely undamaged and the chief pilot, still strapped in his seat and slumped against his sidescreens, seemed quite unmarked. I stripped fur glove, mitten and silk glove off my right hand, reached out and touched the forehead. We had been out of doors now for over fifteen minutes in that ferocious cold, and I would have sworn that my hand was about as cold as the human flesh could get. But I was wrong. I pulled the gloves back on and turned away, without touching him further. I wasn't carrying out any autopsies that night. A few feet farther back we found the radio operator in his compartment. He was half-sitting, half-lying against the for'ard bulkhead of his shack where he must have been catapulted by the crash. His right hand was still clutched firmly round the handgrip of the front panel of his radio setit must have been ripped clear off the transmitter, which didn't look as if it would ever transmit anything again. On the bulkhead, behind his head, blood gleamed dully in the torch-light. I bent over the unconscious man -1 could see that he was still breathingremoved my gloves once more and gently slid my fingers behind his head. Just as gently I withdrew them. How the hell, I thought, part hopelessly, part savagely, am I to carry out a head operation on a person with a telescoped occiput: the state he was in, I wouldn't have given a fig for his chance in the finest operating theatre in London. At the very least he would be blind for life, the sight centre must have been completely destroyed. I reached for his pulse: racing, faint, erratic to a degree. The thought came to me, a thought compounded as much of cowardice as of regret, that in all likelihood the possibility of my having to operate on him was

With the general for to dine;

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 There was he were of fifteen forresters, 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

I will gar hang you hie."

above. "Splendid. Really splendid. The perfect end to the perfect day." I looked round them slowly, one by one, then gestured at the smashed transmitter. "What bloody idiot was responsible for thisthis stroke of genius?" "How dare you, sir!" The white-haired man whom I had mentally labelled as the Dixie colonel took a step forward, face flushed with anger. "Mind your tongue. We're not children to be" "Shut up!" I said, quietly enough, but there must have been something in my voice rather less than reassuring, for he fell silent, though his fists still remained clenched. I looked at them all again. "Well?" "I'm afraidI'm afraid I did it," the stewardess faltered. Her brown eyes were as unnaturally large, her face as white and strained as when I had first seen her. "It's all my fault." "You! The one person here who should know just how vital radio really is. I don't believe it." "You must, I'm afraid." The quiet controlled voice belonged to the man with the cut brow. "No one else was anywhere near it at the time." "What happened to you?" I could see he was nursing a bruised and bleeding hand. "I dived for it when I saw it toppling." He smiled wryly. "I should have saved myself the trouble. That damned thing's heavy." "It's all that. Thanks for trying anyway. I'll fix your hand up later." I turned to the stewardess again, and not even that pale and exhausted face, the contrition in the eyes, could quieten my angerand, to be honest, my fear. "I suppose it just came to pieces in your hand?" "I've told you I'm sorry. II'was just kneeling beside Jimmy here" "Who?" "Jimmy Watermanthe Second Officer. I" "Second Officer?" I interrupted. "That's the radio operator, I take it?" "No, Jimmy is a pilot. We've three pilots -we don't carry a radio operator." "You don't" I broke off my surprised question, asked another instead. "Who's the man in the crew rest room? Navigator?" "We don't carry a navigator either. Harry Williamson iswas -the Flight Engineer." No wireless operator, no navigator. There had been changes indeed since I'd flown the Atlantic some years previously in a Stratocruiser. I gave it up, returned to my original question and nodded at the smashed RCA. "Well, how did it happen?" "I brushed the table as I rose andwell, it just fell." Her voice trailed off samsung h210w digital camera uncertainly. "It just fell," I echoed incredulously. "One hundred and fifty pounds of transmitter and you flicked it off the table just like that?" "I didn't knock it off. The legs collapsed." "It's got no legs to collapse," I said shortly. "Hinges." "Well, hinges, then." I looked at Joss, who had been responsible for the erection of the table as well as the radio. "Is it possible?" "No." His voice was flat, definite. Again the silence in the cabin, the hush, the tension that grew from the merely uncomfortable to the all but unbearable. But I was beginning to see that there was nothing to be gained now by further questioning, much to be lost. The radio was wrecked. Finish. I turned away without a word, hung up my caribou furs on nails on the walls, took off goggles and gloves and turned to the man with the cut brow. "Let's have a look at your head and your handit's a pretty nasty gash on your forehead. Forget the radio for the moment, Josslet's have coffee first, lots-of it." I turned to Jackstraw, who had just come down the steps from the hatch and was staring at the smashed radio. "I know, Jackstraw, I know. I'll explain later- not that I know anything about it. Bring seme empty cases for seats out of the food tunnel, will you. And a bottle of brandy. We all need it." I'd just started to wash the cut foreheada nasty gash, as I had said, but surprisingly little signs of bruisingwhen the big amiable young man who had helped us lower the second officer from the wrecked plane came to us. I looked across up at him, and saw that I could be wrong about the amiability: his face wasn't exactly hostile, but his eyes had the cool measuring look of one who knew from experience that he could cope with most of the situations, pleasant and unpleasant, that he was ever likely to come up against. "Look," he began without preamble, "I don't know who you are or what your name is, but I'm sure we are all most grateful to you for what you have done for us. It's more than probable that we owe our lives to you. We acknowledge that. Also, we know you're a field scientist, and we realise that your equipment is of paramount importance to you. Agreed?" "Agreed." I dabbed iodine fairly liberally on the injured

Thus is with life's fitful fever:

the comunit. Damage report! Sir, came the disembodied voice from the bowels of the cruiser, casing blown, foam applied, no injuries. As you were! An acrid stench. a combination of odors arising from the intense heat on the crystal casing and on the foam, was still being exhausted by fans when Killashandra, Engineering Officer Fernock, and Lars reached the drive deck. The captain had hurried to inform Elder Torkes of the delay. Killashandra winced as she caught residual echoes from the other crystals of the drive. Or perhaps more than one element had blown. That could happen. Fernock quickly directed his men to sweep up the now hardened foam and remove the cover. The durametal had been fractured by the explosion and came off in piece . See if stores have a replacement. Fernocks expression suggested this was unlikely. Id not want to drive unshielded crystal. Thered be no problem so long as the remaining brackets are secure, Killashandra said, reasonably sure that she was correct. After all, there was no shield at all around black crystal. And they generated far more power than greens. Suction was used to clean foam from the intact blocks but both Killashandra and Fernock warned the seaman to stay away from the fragmented shaft. Bracketing came adrift, Killashandra announced, remembering her manners enough to look to Fernock for confirmation. Youre right. See, here? Fernock pointed to the lopsided bracket at the greens base. Now how could that happen? You said the seas were turbulent. And that you were overdue an overhaul. Doubtless the discrepancy would have been seen and corrected. No fault of yours, Officer Fernock. I appreciate that. All right, then Killashandra squatted by the drive, reached for the shattered green crystal. What are you about, Guildmember? Fernock grabbed her wrist and Lars moved forward. Well, until this crystal is moved, we wont. And she again reached for the crystal. But youve no gloves and crystal Cuts clean and heals quickly. For me. Allow me Fernock. The man continued to protest, but he made no further attempt to stop her. The first splinter did not cut her. Fortunately the broken bracket also made it easier for her to lift out the pieces. She pointed to a metal oil-slop pail and when it was fetched, she laid the crystal in it. recommended entry level digital cameras She removed the remaining portions with only one slice, when the final fragment resisted her initial pull. She held up her bleeding hand. Behold, before your marveling eyes, the incredible recuperative powers of the crystal singer. One of my professions few advantages. What is another? Lars asked. The credit! She reached for the suction device. This wont be good for anything, and no one is to touch it on its way to the disposal unit. She depressed the toggle and made sure that the few loose slivers were cleared. Ill check all the brackets to be sure none are loose. More problems are caused by faulty bracketing than anything else. That was a tedious enough process but it was her own safety she was ensuring, hers and Larss. With Fernock and Lars handing her the appropriate tools, she released each bracket in turn and reseated the five squat crystal shafts remaining. Then she struck each in turn for tone. They were all Gs, of course, in a crystal drive, and to her intense relief, each emitted a pure unblemished tone. She glanced up at Lars, to see him nod at the true G she had just sung. He had not been the only one fascinated by the process. There had been a constantly changing if discreet audience on the catwalk above the drive floor. As well. This would only enhance the image of the crystal singer. And it might just safeguard her against any more nonsense from the Elders. There now. Mr. Fernock, she said at last, arching her back against the crick caused by awkward positions. I think you can safely proceed with reconnections. I dont think theres any danger if the load is properly apportioned. A five-shaft drive should generate enough power to get us to the Mainland. She held up the hand that had been profusely bleeding an hour before. See? All better. Guildmember, do you know how long it would have taken me and my men to make such repairs? I couldnt begin to guess, Mr. Fernock, but do get on with the job. She smiled at the disconcerted officer and then, with Lars a step behind her, retraced her steps to the upper deck. Citizen, youre too much for this island boy. Huh! I was showing off again, and, leaning backward on one hand, kissed him lustily. Just in time to avoid the exchanges being witnessed by Captain Festinel, who was hurrying to check on repairs. You were a very deft assistant, Captain Dahl. I must