The World's End Affair (13 page)

A huge hole appeared in the top of the tarpaulin. The smoky-white flames ate their way to the mast and began to climb higher. As Solo flung the second bucket, everything blurred. His left leg was giving out.

The decking was afire. General Weng's trousers were afire. The fisherman's bench was afire. But the generator remained untouched, unharmed. Solo fell again. This time he couldn't rise. His leg and shoulder wounds combined to make him helpless.

The white fire boiled around him. Its heat made his skin crawl.

"Farewell, Mr. Solo," General Weng said through the smoke. His eyelids were nearly closed, life nearly gone from his body. "I would suggest that we exchange greetings—in hell - except for the fact that I - shall not be joining you there. Hell is - reserved for failures. I have – succeeded -" With a vast shudder of his paunch, Weng died.

Solo lay blinded with pain on the deck. His right pants leg was sending up shoots of smoke. He had to save himself to tell the true story of the storm generator. With almost his last remnant of strength, he took the deadly belt and managed to put it on.

The junk was burning like matchwood. All around, the white brilliance leaped and crackled. Solo knew it was the windup. "Weng was right. THRUSH would achieve its malevolent ends after all.

Dazed, he fortunately remembered the THRUSH pistol which he still held in his right hand. He gaped at it a moment. He groaned in pain as he flopped over on his stomach, aimed below the waterline and emptied the pistol into the hull.

A bit of orange peel floated in through the small hole his clustered shots had opened. Some of the fire fizzled out. Solo began pummeling at the edges of the hole. In a minute he had made an opening the size of his fist. More water poured in.

The junk began to list. Water rolled over the gunwale. The junk was sinking.

Solo paddled from beneath the edge of the burned tarpaulin, using one leg and one arm. He managed to reach the mooring line of a nearby sampan. He got the line around his waist so that he would not sink.

The junk disappeared from view, carrying the storm generator and Weng's corpse to the bottom of the harbor.

Thus tethered, semi-helpless, yet somehow alive and conscious, it was as though little incidents, usually unnoticed, came into sharper, more vivid focus.

Solo saw a head emerge from over the taffrail of a crazily bobbing sampan, not twenty feet away. A saffron face, mouth open in surprise, looked solemnly into his, rolled its eyes in abject terror, and disappeared.

Half delirious, Solo laughed. "Can't blame the silly fellow," he said to the empty waves. "I really am not at my best. Lucky Bernice can't see me now."

For some reason, the idea seemed very funny to him. Bernice, who shuddered with distaste if a single lock of her auburn hair got out of place!

As if to bring him back to the unpleasant present, a large and fragrant bit of offal floated past his face.

High above him, in the city itself, he could see that a large cornice on the roof of the Continental had torn loose and was hanging and was swinging precariously over the street. One of the new apartment projects was afire. Through the smoke, as though framed in some nightmare, he saw a man, pajama coat flapping in the wind, poise on an upper windowsill and jump, turning slowly end over end as he plummeted down.

The end of some poor devil. He wondered what the fellow was thinking as he saw his end rushing up to meet him. Probably nothing. For a man to do the Dutch act, forces stronger than conscious thought would have torn his brain away from any semblance of reality, so that fear retreated, and nothing remained but the dreadful certainty of the thing that he must do.

Someone was groaning softly. With a shrug of distaste, Solo realized that it was he who was making the noise.

He grinned bleakly up at the storm-tossed sky.

Waverly had always said that he, Solo, had a bit of madness in him.

This would make the old devil suck on his pipe and nod, all right.

Then, so gradually that he was not even aware of it, conscious thought went away, and only half dreams remained. Finally those too went away…

A harbor patrol boat discovered him bobbing unconscious among the orange peels an hour later.

Three

String music filled the candlelit room. The room was intimate, paneled in wine velvet. A rich curtain of the same material isolated. it from the remainder of the restaurant. Across the stubs of the candles which had burned down during the meal, Illya Kuryakin took Mei's hand.

"It's been a delight to dine with you, my dear." Illya kissed her hand in his best continental manner. "Especially here in Hong Kong, with the city relatively intact, the generator recovered by U.N.C.L.E., and those two antagonistic countries back to the conference table. I must say you look radiant."

"Only because you have been kind enough to show me so many new and wonderful things these last few days," Mei said.

A remarkable change had come over the Tibetan girl. She had adopted a Western wardrobe. Her lustrous dark hair was done up in the latest bouffant style. She looked quite sophisticated and gorgeous. Rather maliciously, Illya decided he was glad Napoleon was still confined to the hospital.

Mei sipped the last of her wine. She glanced at him warmly. "I never believed we would live through it all. You showed such amazing courage."

"Well," Illya said, "I hate to sound stuffy about it, but it is nice of you to admit that someone else besides my dear friend Na -"

The curtains whooshed back. Dapperly dressed, Napoleon Solo grinned down at them.

"Someone mention my name?"

He walked with a slight limp, hut his arm was out of the cast. He whipped the curtains together behind him and pulled a chair over.

"That doctor is a gentleman. He didn't want to release me yet. But when I told him I wouldn't miss this party for the world, he listened to reason. Well, here we are, the three of us again. Mei, you're ravishing." He patted her arm.

The girl's eyes glowed. Illya raised his napkin to hide a dyspeptic expression.

Solo rubbed his hands together. "What's on the menu? I'm starved. I would have been here sooner -"He reached for the wine bottle "- but it's raining outside. From natural causes, I'm happy to report."

Solo stopped in the act of pouring. "You know, I completely forgot. Mr. Waverly signaled the hospital to see if I knew where you were. He wants to talk to you right away. I think it'd be better if you stepped outside. Sometimes the communicator does make a lot of noise."

Jaw rigid, Illya rose. "Very well. But I'll be back."

"No need to hurry."

Solo turned to Mei and looked deep into her eyes. She seemed mesmerized.

"Mei," he said, "listen to a great idea. I have a few weeks' vacation due, the wounds and all, and I was wondering whether we could use that time to get you ready for a beauty contest coming up in the States. I think you'd be sensational as Miss Free Tibet -"

The curtain rings gave an angry clatter as Illya Kuryakin left. Napoleon Solo kept right on talking.