Bluebolt One (32 page)

Shaw took a deep breath, eyes seeking the dot again. He saw that brilliant green speck coming up to Cape Farewell—so aptly named, he thought bitterly. And then, within the next few seconds, everything seemed to happen at once.

Hartog said quite calmly, “I’m going to bring it down now.
On Moscow
.”

He reached out slowly for the main transmission key. Shaw had a profile view of him; his face was strangely moved and yet oddly peaceful, filled with a kind of radiance. His hand came down on the key, pressed it. There was a super-brilliant flash of blinding white light from above, a flash which laid everything starkly bare in the control-room; at once Gillian Ross gave a high, sobbing scream, and every one looked upward, gasped; Wiley seemed literally to be on fire . . . a keening sound came from the policemen; their attention was entirely distracted and in that split-second, Shaw took his chance.

Flinging his body sideways he turned and smashed a fist into the face of the man who was holding the gun in his spine. He heard the sudden shattering roar of the revolver, smelt the gunsmoke, felt the sharp agony in his lower ribs as the bullet glanced across them, saw another of the policemen twist and fall as the bullet caught him in the chest, and then his left fist took the first man in the stomach and he doubled up, gasping. Instantly the place was in confusion, the rest of the Africans running in terror for the steps. As Hartog swung round, livid, a gun in his hand now, Shaw got hold of the

policeman’s revolver and fired blind, four shots in swift succession. They took Hartog in the stomach and he slumped back, across the transmission key. Shaw heard the continuous blast of the signal whining out and up into space as Hartog’s body kept the key pressed down. The whole instrument-panel was splashed with blood, and Hartog’s stomach seemed to be hanging out. . . and then, as Shaw raced over to grab the body and free the key, his eye was caught by something which bobbed and gyrated, held on the lower webbing of the mast above his head.

Something that smoked horribly with a small blue flame curling round it, something that looked like an overdone joint on a spit, something that was no longer a man, was just a charred, blackened lump of roasted flesh. . . .

Edo must have taken upward of a million volts through his big body when Hartog pressed that key, and, caught in the steel webbing, he’d gone on taking them all the time the scientist’s corpse held the key down.

Shaw picked Gillian up and ran with her out of the tower, across the compound which had now been deserted by the Africans. Reaching the store where he’d been locked up with Geisler, he smashed in the window and yelled out to the base commander, telling him briefly what had happened.

Geisler, his face white, scrambled through the window. With Shaw, he raced for the tower, went up the steps almost in one, and dashed across to the blood-splashed instrument-panel, readjusted knobs and dials.

Dreading the answer, Shaw asked, “Well?”

“It’s all right.” Geisler’s voice was shaking. “He. . . didn’t finish the transmission. I can put her back to safe. . . just. You got him just in time—only just in time.”

Shaw let out a great sigh of relief as Stephen Geisler’s fingers moved confidently over the set. He looked over at the green spot and the flat ‘globe’ screen beneath it. That tiny dot, untroubled and riding high, circled down towards the Eastern Mediterranean again, bound south once more, and peacefully, for the Cape, to come up on the other side of the world. How many people, Shaw wondered, asleep in their beds or going to work or sitting out in the garden on a summer’s night in their different parts of the world to watch Bluebolt sailing across the skies ... how many of them would ever guess what this night’s work had been?

Geisler turned up the loudspeakers and looked round at Shaw. His thumbs went up. Once again that interrupted
bleep-bleep
came through, but this time it was sending out a different signal altogether, a signal to say that the load was re-seated and safe.

They all went out into the compound and they heard the low, moaning sound coming out of the rain-slashed night, saw a handful of blacks who remained looking up at the burned trunk of Edo still hanging like a dead fly on the mast, blacks who now seemed scared and uncertain, blacks who mouthed that same curious keening noise that the policemen had made in the tower when they’d seen their leader die; but this keening was soon overladen with the start of another noise: shouts, angry shouts against the man who had died—and who in dying had failed them. Then the remaining tribesmen got on the move, joining those who had run, going off dispiritedly back into the jungle which was their home, hangdog-like, shambling, all fervour gone.

Edo had failed them and Edo was dead, and the white man’s voodoo was demonstrably the stronger, after all.

The reports began coming in from the West’s monitoring stations, the reports which said wonderingly that Bluebolt had been brought near to firing-point. There were urgent calls from the British and American Embassies in Jinda, and Shaw advised them that nothing whatever should be said until his full ciphered report reached Whitehall and at all costs the Press must be fended off. As soon as he could he prepared this report and it went out at once on the radio to Latymer. After that, Geisler drove him over to the Hartog home where they had a difficult task in breaking the news to Hartog’s wife and daughter. Shaw, however, managed to leave behind the impression that Hartog had died in the line of duty—he felt he owed that to a man whose brain had so clearly been affected and who could hardly be held responsible for his actions; and he felt pretty safe in doing that, for he knew that Latymer would find a way—would have to find a way—to keep the whole business as quiet as death itself outside top-brass circles.

That done, they drove back to Geisler’s bungalow, where the Navy man’s wife dealt with the superficial damage to Shaw’s ribs, and then they went to bed.

Next day Shaw had a talk with the American.

Running a hand through his hair, Geisler said, “Still gives me the shakes when I think what might have happened. It’d have been all-out war.”

Shaw said tersely, “Forget it. It didn’t happen. Everything’s all right—except that I’d say we’ve lost Canasset for good, from what Wiley told me. I don’t suppose it matters all that much, though. As for Hartog—he’s better off where he is than facing a charge of treasonable activities or whatever it would have been. In a way, that would have been even more of a tragedy.” He added, “My impression was that he wasn’t a bad chap really.”

Geisler nodded. “That’s right. I’m more sorry than I can say. Sure, we didn’t get along all that well sometimes. . . but that’s the way of the world, I guess. He’ll be a helluva loss as far as his work’s concerned.” He thought for a while, his face in his hands, then he looked up. “It’s too much responsibility for any man to carry—that kind of destruction-potential. It’ll go on, too, for some poor bastard. Still, there won’t be any more Edo, or any more Cult.”

Shaw studied his face. “You really do think that’s all over?”

Geisler said, “Yeah, sure I do. I’ve been piecing things together already, getting the reports in, you know? Edo had told his audience. . . well, what Julian said he told ’em. And it didn’t happen. And he tried to bum you in that village, and all that happened was he got burned himself. So nuts to Edo, who’s been an all-time flop. The riots are just about over and the blacks are going back to work.” He got up stiffly and walked across the room. “That’s the way it goes out here. Nothing succeeds like success—or flops like failure.”

That afternoon another military plane, sent up this time by Prime Minister Tshemambi personally, flew into Manalati airport to take Shaw and Gillian into Jinda, and after nightfall they went aboard the jet for London. As the Nogolian jungle faded away beneath the thick cloud-bank Shaw turned and looked at Gillian, sitting quietly by his side. He reached out impulsively and took her hand, pressing it gently. He said, feeling how inadequate it was, “I’m sorry—about all that’s happened. I never thought when I asked you to obey that phone-call that—-”

She stopped him. “That’s all right. You kept your promise, didn’t you? You got me out of it again. That’s all that matters really.”

“Nice of you to see it that way!”

They sat silently after that as the plane flew on. Shaw’s thoughts were already speeding ahead of the plane, homeward across the skies for London, looking forward to a little spot of relaxation. . . looking forward to spending a little time alone with Debbie, which was a thing he could so seldom do.

Thinking of Debbie, he came to with a jump and found the stewardess smiling down at him.

He said, “Sorry—you were speaking to me?”

“Yes, Commander Shaw. There’s a message from the flight-deck to all passengers. Just a matter of interest. If you’d care to look out of the starboard windows you can see one of those new radio-communications balloons, the big one—it’s passing to the east of us now.”

Shaw said, “Oh—thanks. I’d like to see it very much.” He thought, almost with amusement, No, she can’t mean Bluebolt! He got up and went across with Gillian. They stared out. There she was—and it was Bluebolt right enough. A big, shining ball of yellow light—not green like on the ‘globe’ back at the control-station . . . like a fast-moving planet, arcing across the star-spangled night sky to dip down once again for Cape Town. Shaw thought to himself: Whatever the outcome was, there’s too much blood on that satellite’s axis ... and then the stewardess came up behind them and peeped out through the window between their heads.

She said, “I do think it’s so interesting to see it from an aircraft, don’t you? It’s so pretty, and sort of. . . peaceful, somehow.”