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recording stuck in one groove.
God! This was unbearable! He wondered if he were cracking up  if he
already had cracked up. This was worse, many times worse, than the old
routine when he had simply acknowledged the danger and tried to forget it
as much as much as possible. Not that the bomb was any different  it was
this five-minutes-to-armistice feeling, this waiting for the curtain to go
up, this race against time with nothing to do to help.
He sat up, switched on his bed lamp, and looked at the clock. Three thirty.
Not so good. He got up, went into his bathroom, and dissolved a sleeping
powder in a glass of whiskey and water, half and half. He gulped it down
and went back to bed. Presently he dozed off.
He was running, fleeing down a long corridor. At the end lay safety  he
knew that, but he was so utterly exhausted that he doubted his ability to
finish the race. The thing pursuing him was catching up; he forced his
leaden, aching legs into greater activity. The thing behind him increased
its pace, and actually touched him. His heart stopped, then pounded again.
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He became aware that he was screaming, shrieking in mortal terror.
But he had to reach the end of that corridor; more depended on it than just
himself. He had to. He had to! He had to!
Then the sound hit him, and he realized that he had lost, realized it with
utter despair and utter, bitter defeat. He had failed, the bomb had blown
up.
The sound was the alarm going off; it was seven o'clock. His pajamas were
soaked, dripping with sweat, and his heart still pounded. Every ragged
nerve throughout his body screamed for release. It would take more than a
cold shower to cure this case of the shakes.
He got to the office before the janitor was out of it. He sat there, doing
nothing, until Lentz walked in on him, two hours later. The psychiatrist
came in just as he was taking two small tablets from a box in his desk.
"Easy . . . easy, old man," Lentz said in a slow voice. "What have you
there?" He came around and gently took possession of the box.
"Just a sedative."
Lentz studied the inscription on the cover. "How many have you had today?"
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"Just two, so far."
"You don't need a sedative; you need a walk in the fresh air. Come, take
one with me."
"You're a fine one to talk  you're smoking a cigarette that isn't
lighted!"
"Me? Why, so I am! We both need that walk. Come."
Harper arrived less than ten minutes after they had left the office.
Steinke was not in the outer office. He walked on through and pounded on
the door of King's private office, then waited with the man who accompanied
him  a hard young chap with an easy confidence to his bearing. Steinke let
them in.
Harper brushed on past him with a casual greeting, then checked himself
when he saw that there was no one else inside.
"Where's the chief?" he demanded.
"Gone out. Should be back soon."
"I'll wait. Oh  Steinke, this is Greene. Greene  Steinke."
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The two shook hands. "What brings you back, Cal?" Steinke asked, turning
back to Harper.
"Well . . . I guess it's all right to tell you  "
The communicator screen flashed into sudden activity, and cut him short. A
face filled most of the frame. It was apparently too close to the pickup,
as it was badly out of focus. "Superintendent!" it yelled in an agonized
voice. "The bomb  "
A shadow flashed across the screen, they heard a dull smack, and the face
slid out of the screen. As it fell it revealed the control room behind it.
Someone was down on the floor plates, a nameless heap. Another figure ran
across the field of pickup and disappeared.
Harper snapped into action first. "That was Silard!" he shouted, "in the
control room! Come on, Steinke! He was already in motion himself.
Steinke went dead-white, but hesitated only an unmeasurable instant. He
pounded sharp on Harper's heels. Greene followed without invitation, in a
steady run that kept easy pace with them.
They had to wait for a capsule to unload at the tube station. Then all
three of them tried to crowd into a two-passenger capsule. It refused to
start, and moments were lost before Greene piled out and claimed another
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car.
The four-minute trip at heavy acceleration seemed an interminable crawl.
Harper was convinced that the system had broken down, when the familiar
click and sigh announced their arrival at the station under the bomb. They
jammed each other trying to get out at the same time.
The lift was up; they did not wait for it. That was unwise; they gained no
time by it, and arrived at the control level out of breath. Nevertheless,
they speeded up when they reached the top, zigzagged frantically around the
outer shield, and burst into the control room.
The limp figure was still on the floor, and another, also inert, was near
it. The second's helmet was missing. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]