The President was on the line again from the White House, this time to enquire about the spacemen’s families. Klaber said, “They’re not too good, sir. You can’t blame them for that, I guess.” He didn’t add, out of consideration for the immense load the President was carrying, that Linda Morris hadn’t eaten since the first news of the fault had come through, and that now she was lying in her bed at the Schuster home, dry-eyed, without speaking, but with her lips moving ceaselessly in prayer and her body quite rigid. In the event, she had taken things worse than Mary Schuster. Klaber preferred to keep off the subject of the families. He asked, “How’s the situation politically, sir?”
“There’s been a lot of activity,” the President told him. “I’ve just seen the Russian Ambassador. He’s emphatic the East has nothing to do with any threat. Naturally, that’s the fine he’d be expected to take… but I have to confess he sounded completely genuine. He’s been in touch with the Kremlin and they’ve sounded out Peking with the same result. And he left me in no doubt the East are definitely not bluffing when they say they’ll regard any attack by our ships or aircraft as an outright act of war. If we attack anything that can be considered within their spheres of influence, World War Three starts, Klaber. Time’s getting short and it seems we are not going to get Skyprobe V up into orbit after all. Do you have any suggestions at this stage for cutting out the threatened interference, if we assume it to be a radio interception?”
Klaber said steadily, “Mr. President, we have not stopped thinking along those lines. The only suggestion is that we jam all we can when the capsule re-enters, but frankly I doubt if that can be effective in the absence of any information as to the kind of signal… there’s just one man who might be able to help and he’s right up there in the capsule — and I guess you know I’m not referring to Schuster or Morris.”
There was a pause, then the President said quietly, “All right, Klaber, I know you’ve done your best. I’ll call you again if anything comes through.”
The line went dead. Klaber sat on at his desk, his head in his hands. His mind was spinning with fatigue and worry and an angry impotence — and concern, as ever, for his men in space. Everyone was going mad, he felt… the world’s Press was in a state of uproar and he was right at the storm centre. The newspapers in the States were demanding immediate action by the government; the scare stories about a foreign power being involved had had their due effect — the State Department had been forced to admit the possible existence of some unspecified threat and this admission had been seized upon by the extremists, by the emotional-reactors, and they were dynamite in the current situation. Skyprobe and its possible horrific fate if anything went wrong were on every man’s Ups. If the astronauts couldn’t be brought down, public opinion insisted, extreme pressure should be brought to bear on the Eastern Powers, in whose territories the threat, if it existed at all, must obviously lie. There should be counter-threats of massive retaliation to be put into effect at once if anything should actually happen to the capsule and its crew.
The Communist reaction to all this was to be seen in the newspapers from the East — in Pravda, in Izvestia, in the Press of Peking, the satellite countries and the Afro-Asian Bloc. Official spokesmen utterly rejected, as the Russian Ambassador to the United States had done, any suggestion of Eastern interference. War, they said, was being fomented by the West — the excuse was being prepared in the usual wicked, cynical way of the capitalist societies — perhaps the West was even preparing to sacrifice its own astronauts so as to provide a valid excuse for attacking Communism. War, if it came, would be in all senses of the term upon the capitalists’ own heads. There was most decidedly nothing in the way of a threat from the East, they said, but Communism was ready and waiting for any intrusion upon the sovereignty of its member-states, and any display of force would be met instantly with all the nuclear weapons the East could muster.
Ewan MacAllister met Shaw and Ingrid at Sapporo as Dahl had promised, driving up in a battered Land Rover. MacAllister was tough. His fist, as he took Shaw’s hand, was like a ham. He was dressed like a bushman, in a faded khaki shirt with rolled up sleeves and creased slacks stained with oil. His gaze swept over the two of them as, without comment at first, he took Dahl’s letter. He read it, then nodded.
“Right,” he said briefly. “This is dinkum. I’m considering myself under your orders from now, Commander.” His eyes narrowed. “Can you tell me what this is all about, or not?”
Shaw said, “I’m sorry. I can’t. I hope you’ll accept that, Mr. MacAllister.”
“Most people call me just plain Mac. Right, I’ll accept that. Reckon I wouldn’t be too far off the beam, though, if I said it had to do with all the trouble going on around that spacecraft!”
“Mac,” Shaw said, grinning at the Australian, “you’re entitled to all the theories you want so long as you get us airborne fast. Once we’re up, I’ll tell you what to look out for… as near as I can, that is. Frankly I’m not too sure myself.”
MacAllister nodded. “What about the lady? She coming?”
“Yes,” Ingrid said promptly. MacAllister glanced at Shaw, who confirmed what the girl had said. He’d half intended to leave her at Sapporo if he could find someone to take charge of her, but she’d talked him out of that. She was capable enough, she said, to look after herself and she wanted to see this business right through to the end. In any case, they were only going on a reconnaissance mission.… MacAllister waved a hand towards the Land Rover.
“Let’s get going,” he said. He climbed in behind the wheel and was already moving off before Shaw and Ingrid had settled themselves. He drove at breakneck speed, raising clouds of dust, and within an hour of reaching Sapporo they were airborne in Dahl’s helicopter and heading out on a course for the Sea of Okhotsk. Before they had gone aboard MacAllister had brought a pile of warm clothing out from a hangar on the private airfield.
“The weather’s not so bad here,” he said, “but it can be a bastard up that way. Like as not the islands’ll be covered with fog anyhow and we won’t see a flaming thing.”
“I know that,” Shaw agreed. They would have to take a chance on it. He was quite familiar with the reputation of the Kuriles. The temperature dropped sharply as the helicopter went northwards from Hokkaido, cutting across an icy wind coming down from the Bering Sea. Beside Shaw Ingrid was shivering, despite her Scandinavian blood. Soon they began to come over the southernmost of the Kurile islands, and MacAllister brought the machine lower. He and Shaw stared down from the windows. Shouting over the engine sounds Shaw said, “I’m looking out for anything that looks like a camp, or any improvised habitation really… huts, that sort of thing. Probably a radio mast. Sorry I can’t be more precise!”
“What if we do spot anything?”
“It depends on what we spot, Mac. I’m keeping an open mind in the meantime.”
“Just as you say, Commander.” The machine roared on, both the men and Ingrid keeping a sharp watch on the islands and the bitter seas between them. Nowhere was there the least indication of any human activity. The
Kuriles were bare, windswept, icy — inimical to human life. Currently there was no fog, but Shaw knew that it could come down very suddenly. They went on, crossing island, after island, skimming over the bare, desolate earth, still seeing nothing. MacAllister said, “Reckon we might take a look farther in, right? If what you’re after is meant to be hidden right away, then maybe it’ll be in one of the remoter islands — there’s a number of ’em detached from the main group, farther inside the Sea of Okhotsk. Okay?”