"Then all we have to do is sit still and wait for them to get a new Central running. After all, it's not as if Ward's whole livelihood depended on Thrush."
"Essentially my own conclusion," said Baldwin. "We may have to suspend portions of our operation and curtail some of the more expensive projects, and I shall be crippled without a computer – let us consider leasing a local service. Life itself should go on much as usual. Probably quieter." He sighed and finished his cup of tea. "Ah well, back to pure research."
That afternoon, a few miles away in downtown San Francisco, Joan was officially Told All. Her clearance was granted in conjunction with Mr. Waverly's briefing of Napoleon and Illya on the earliest results of their successful capture of Thrush Central and the Ultimate Computer. She listened open-mouthed as the magnitude of the coup was gradually revealed to her.
"According to Mr. Gold, the emergency dump transmission from Darjeeling went perfectly. The Master Catalog Index has already been copied out and everything seemed to check as they began analysis. There are, by the way, a number of valuable programs we expect to adapt to our own system."
"And you did all this through Baldwin's old terminal?" Joan asked incredulously.
"Well, that was the keyhole we opened, and once we had a janitor inside to tap the wine-kegs, we were able to put a whole army through the keyhole and take over."
Illya choked and Joan laughed warmly. "You haven't changed all that much."
"Well, okay. It was a lot more abstract and theoretical than that. But Illya explained it all to me as we went along."
The intercom flashed and buzzed, and was answered.
"Simpson here. I thought you'd like to know – we've just been destroyed. An outside source seems to have activated the terminal's remote destruct circuit."
"I'm gratified we came through it so well," said Mr. Waverly. "When did this disaster occur?"
"About a minute ago. Before the terminal was brought in here, all the autodestruct devices had been neutralised. I thought we should know if anybody tried to set them off, so I traced that particular circuit and connected it to an alarm."
"An alarm?"
"Just a buzzer and a large red light saying BOOM. I wanted to be sure and notice if it went off."
"Baldwin?"
"No, the remote destruct command can only be generated by the Ultimate Computer. You can imagine the chaos that could result if any terminal could blow up any other terminal."
"I see what you mean," said Napoleon.
"You also mean Thrush Island has a fully programmed stand-by unit running things," Illya realised.
"Capable of running things-," said Mr. Simpson. "Or possibly with only a few transmission channels, so it couldn't really handle the whole huge network all at once."
"If they have copies of the operating executive programs and data banks, which they should," Waverly mused, "and adequate hardware, which they must, they might be able to recover their losses yet. Is there any way of telling how long it will take to find Thrush Island?"
"The data files we're sorting now will take at least another week to reduce and cross-check. We'll analyse the flight programs, all of which are coded, and find how far it is from two or three different airports."
"No, you can't," said Joan unexpectedly. "It's only served from Tokyo. I don't know where it is, but I was told that by everybody there."
"You were there?"
"I spent about eight months on what must have been Thrush Island, from what you've said about it, though I don't think it was ever referred to as anything but 'here.' "
"How recently?"
"About four years ago."
"Where?"
"I don*t know. We left Tokyo in a sealed private jet and went back the same way."
Mr. Waverly tapped his knobbly fingers on the black leather desktop and studied Joan from under-bushy white eyebrows. "Mrs. -ah- Solo," he cleared his throat. "What else can you tell us about this place? How long did it take you from Tokyo?"
"Quite a while. It was about two in the morning when we took off, and there was quite a liquor stock on board. The crew never came out of the cabin, and it was daylight when we were escorted from the plane to our quarters. And I remember I looked at my watch and said something properly horrified about it being eight o'clock already. And the maid said no, it was only seven, and I should reset my watch and go to bed' because Orientation Tea was at four o'clock that afternoon.".
"Very good," said Waverly. "Do you remember what kind of jet?"
"A twin – custom interior like a club car. Oh, one of the other men on board was trying to impress everybody, said his Satrapy had one just like it; cruised at 500 miles per hour."
"Capital," said Mr. Waverly. "Three thousand miles from Japan, and fifteen degrees west," said Illya, who'd worked it out by eye on the. huge polar projection wall map. "Was it warm or cold?"
"Oh, warm! I went swimming almost every day while I was there. I got the most beautiful tan – you should have seen me;"
Joan and Napoleon exchanged sappy looks as Illya continued. "Three thousand miles south puts it within five or ten degrees of the equator around 120 East Longitude."
"I don't suppose you noticed the sun's elevation much while you were there," said Mr. Simpson's voice unexpectedly.
"I'm afraid not. It did get pretty much directly overhead at noon. And it got pretty hot. I burned badly my first week there, but after that I was all right. I remember the lagoon side faced east, if that's any help."
"It could be." Mr. Waverly addressed the intercom. "Mr. Simpson, contact NASA for a full set of mapping photographs, maximum size, covering the area from 5° South latitude, between 110° and 125° East longitude, omitting major land areas like Borneo, of course."
Mr. Simpson recited the figures back and rang off as Waverly said, "Mrs. -ah- Solo, you may have been of immense help to us. Every speck of land in that area has been photographed from space in recent years, and one of those pictures may strike you as familiar."
He touched another intercom button. "Miss Hoffman, would you ask the correlation section downstairs to abandon analysis of flight-plan data in favor of a scan for anything we may know about small islands around the Equator near 120° East." He turned in his chair and squinted up at the wall map. "It would appear to be somewhere in Central Indonesia: the Molacca Sea, the Celebes, the Banda Sea, the Ceram Sea – we have observers in that area. Check with the Djakarta office. See if they've heard anything unusual about an island."
"First Kashmair, now Indonesia…" Illya mused. "Thrush seems to like the security afforded them with an insecure and touchy host."
"Nevertheless, even if it means massive paramilitary action against a fortified base, they must be found and rooted out before we can count this Hydra-headed bird moribund."
"Unless we could convince them logically to surrender," Napoleon said. "Or asked them politely."
"We'll have to start with some sort of infiltration to hit power and communications," said Illya, "as soon as we know where we're going."
"Napoleon," Joan asked, "are you likely to lead the infiltration force?"
"I'd expect to," said Solo, glancing at his chief.
"I don't know anything about offshore contours or outer defenses, but I can tell you a lot about the island you can't get from satellite photos, like what's in which building, and what goes on where. They might have moved one or two of the test shacks, or put up a new quonset in the last couple of years, but the main buildings looked as if they'd been there quite a while. I could probably draw you a rough map – not really detailed, but I think I remember the layout pretty well."
Illya pushed a blank manila folder with a nylon-tipped pen clipped to it across the table towards her, and she began.