‘I very much doubt it,’ said Bond. ‘Your dream, whatever kind of twisted nightmare it is, doesn’t have a chance of becoming a reality. You’re not invisible any more. You’re soon going to have a lot of very inquisitive visitors.’
‘I will show you how we deal with uninvited guests, Mr Bond.’ Drax bit off the words and turned to the technician who had given warning that the Kalinin was changing course. ‘What news of the Russian satellite?’
‘On course to intercept us. Range two hundred miles. Three minutes to interception.’
Drax’s face set like a death mask. ‘Activate laser and destroy it.’
‘It’s not going to make any difference,’ said Bond. ‘You can’t hold out for ever.’
‘On the contrary,’ said Drax without emotion. ‘Time is on my side. Soon there will be no one left on Earth to defy me.’
A disembodied voice came from the monitor. ‘Target coordinates matched. Ready to fire.’
‘Fire!’ Drax did not hesitate.
The moment he spoke, a ruled line of green light became visible streaking from a position corresponding with a turret on top of the centre globe of the space station. At an indefinable distance in space a brilliant splash of flame burst across the star field before disappearing as suddenly as it had appeared.
Drax turned to Bond with a smile of understated triumph. ‘You see, Mr Bond, we are well able to take care of ourselves. Something which only a liar or a deranged optimist could say about you in your present situation.’
Again the monitored voice spoke from the roof. ‘On schedule for tertiary launch position in T minus thirty seconds.’
‘Proceed with launch.’ Drax spoke calmly and moved to Bond’s side. ‘Perhaps you would like to watch, Mr Bond. Not every man has the opportunity to be present at the creation of a new world.’
‘It’s a refrain I’ve heard before,’ said Bond.
‘But never played on such a finely tuned instrument.’ Drax waved his arms about him. ‘Come, Mr Bond. Do not grudge me your admiration. Surely, even with English understatement, you would describe me as a genius?’
‘With English understatement I would describe you as a blackguard,’ said Bond. He advanced to the long window and looked down upon the spout of the launch tube loaded with the final sphere of the first batch of nerve-gas. As he watched, it was discharged into space and quickly drifted away, to disappear against a glowing pin cushion of stars.
Drax’s voice purred out of the shadows. ‘No doubt you have already divined the splendour of my conception. First, a necklace of death around Earth. Each of those spheres is capable of killing one hundred million people. I am releasing fifty of them at pre-programmed intervals. The human race, as we have had the misfortune to know it, will cease to exist. Then will come a renaissance, a rebirth, a new world.’
‘Why?’ asked Bond. ‘Forgive me asking, but the question does spring to mind.’
Drax’s brow contracted into an unforgiving frown. ‘The reason is one that any man of normal intelligence and powers of observation should be able to grasp in seconds. It concerns population, Mr Bond. You are no doubt aware that the population of the world has increased from a figure beneath 2,300 millions in 1940 to over 4,000 millions at the present time. Have you any idea what the demographers prognosticate for the year 2070? A world population of 25,000 million! Does that figure not horrify you? A world crawling like a barrel of maggots and its population dying like flies. Pestilence, starvation, war. How can we hope to feed all those people, Mr Bond? By that time we shall have irrevocably poisoned our last remaining unexploited source of food, the oceans. There will be nothing left. Only one tried method exists for man to control his numbers: war. And what happens when there is war? Destruction. Not only of human life but of the one thing that still makes man’s existence worthwhile: art. Books, paintings, buildings, the finest legacies of countless civilizations, all that can enrich the human spirit, will be lost as man’s capacity for self-destruction exceeds his ability to control it. I revere this artistic heritage too much to allow it to be destroyed. I could turn my back and form my own civilization in space, but I believe that this would be to renege upon my responsibilities. I will not abandon Earth, I will save it! Our current civilization, if I can use such an implicitly laudatory term for it, will surely destroy itself. By accelerating the process I can protect those priceless monuments of history that it would demolish at the same time. I can give the Earth time to replenish its plundered resources, the sea will become pure, the air breathable again. I do not exaggerate, Mr Bond. Our own scientists have told us that within twenty years the trashy waste materials with which we pollute the atmosphere will have depleted the ozone layer around Earth dangerously. Skin cancer will increase alarmingly and the weather become more unpredictable. Droughts, floods, typhoons, holocausts. The precursors of the inevitable end. The slow, maimed, painful, purposeless end. Can you not see the irrefutable wisdom of what I am in the process of doing, Mr Bond? Without any racial discrimination I have selected the finest specimens, combining both mental and physical excellence. It is they and their offspring who will colonize the new Earth when the nerve gas has done its work and time has been left for nature to take her course. A new civilization can be built upon the framework of all that was best in several million years of human existence.’
‘And the knowledge that it was born from the greatest act of mass murder in history.’ Bond’s tone was cold and contemptuous.
Drax shook his head sadly. ‘It is always a mistake to bandy words with fools. I will not repeat it.’
He was turning towards Jaws when the observer spoke urgently from his console. ‘Unidentified craft closing distance fast. Recognition signals indicate U.S. space shuttle.’
‘Laser it!’ Drax spat out the words and turned back to Bond and Holly. His face was blotchy and glistening. A maverick tick invaded his misshapen eye. ‘It occurs to me that your view of the demise of our last visitor was limited. I think you should be nearer to the next spectacle.’ He smiled obscenely. ‘Much nearer.’
Now the pinpoints of red in the mad eyes were growing larger. Bond followed Drax’s gaze to the circular door set in the outer wall of the globe. With a new surge of fear he realized what was in Drax’s mad, bad mind.
‘Jaws... the airlock chamber.’ Drax turned back to Bond and Holly. ‘Observe, Mr Bond, your route from this world to the next. At least you will not be travelling alone. It appears that you will have some American companions. Doubly pleasing for you, Dr Goodhead. Your compatriots will be able to see you achieve your ambition to be America’s first woman in space.’
Jaws moved forward with grim relish and depressed the metal lever on the door. It opened with a hiss to reveal a small compartment in which two men might stand crouched. What was clearly the outer hatch to space had a transparent window which was a twin of that in the first door.
Drax addressed his guards. ‘Take them!’
Two men stepped forward, their laser torches trained on Bond and Holly. Bond shrugged and started to move across the platform. Within a few paces of the airlock chamber was an unmanned console. Prominent across its top were the words ‘Rotation Thrusters — Artificial Gravity’. Bond’s pulse quickened as he remembered Holly’s words when they had been docking: ‘We’d all be floating around like balloons if we went outside. Once the rotation thrusters are turned on, the station will start to rotate and we’ll have artificial gravity.’ And if counter-rotation thrusters were turned off? Bond glanced again and saw a handle recessed behind a transparent cover. On the cover were printed the words ‘Emergency Stop. Do not use unless station secured’. If he could just get to that handle there might still be a chance. Even as he thought, the hard knob of the laser torch jabbed him forward.