David McDaniel: The Final Affair

"What it does and how, to start with," said Illya.

"Ah. Well, we don't know. In fact, we hope you will be able to tell us when you get back."

"Then how about explaining what a plasmoid is, for us language majors in the audience," said Napoleon. "How powerful is it and what kind of power?"

"Electrical, magnetic, mechanical and thermal. Especially thermal. If you take a quantity of gas and heat it to a point where the atomic particles begin to disassociate and the substance ionises…"

"How hot?"

"Oh, ten thousand degrees or so – you can have them as cool as seven thousand degrees, and there's really no upper limit short of mass-energy conversion, which only happens inside stars. We don't know yet, of course, what temperature the KugelBlitzGewehr generates. Oh, that's ten thousand degrees Celsius, I should say."

"Celsius?"

"Centigrade. The ionized gas is probably released with a spin on it, and since a moving electric charge generates a magnetic field it is temporarily self-sustaining. Surface turbulence tends to prevent the heat escaping, and its own field holds it together until something stops its motion."

"Releasing the heat."

"Releasing whatever volume of super-heated electrically charged gas went to make it up. If it was the size of a pinhead it wouldn't last very long, and would likely burn a hole in your coat. Naturally they lose some heat, unless Dr. Warfield has come up with a better way to hold them together."

This time Illya interrupted. "Dr. Warfield?"

"I'm confident this is his creation. He should be rather elderly now, but he has been involved in research of this nature for many years. Been with Thrush since a few years after the War. Decades ahead of his time."

"Granting that this could be generated from a handgun, how would you project it? How far would it go and how fast?"

"Well, how far would partly depend on how fast, since they tend to cool off even before they dissipate. This is something else we hope you can find out for us in San Francisco."

Napoleon and Illya looked at each other, then back to Mr. Simpson. "I don't even know enough to ask questions," said Napoleon. "Is there anything else you can think of? If I have this straight, the thing should shoot very bright balls."

"You might mention that anomaly of relative size versus energy," suggested Mr. Waverly.

"Oh, yes. A larger plasmoid would not necessarily be more powerful; its destructive capacity would be more governed by the amount of energy stored in it – temperature, charge, turbulence, all would be more important than size. A film of this device in operation would be most informative."

"We'll do our best."

"If there are no more questions – by the by, did you see the report on the Thrush suicide corps? If not, look it up. I must be going." And so saying, he went.

"Indeed," said Mr. Waverly. "San Francisco already has a few."

"I think I missed that," said Napoleon. "What was it?"

"They're called 'stim-heads'," said Illya. "Agents of no particular value whose services call for special rewards. Remember those wolves in Transylvania? With remote-controlled cortical stimulation of pain or pleasure centers, they could be made to do all sorts of things. This is a little simpler, since it's designed to be plugged into a fixed installation and only stimulates the pleasure center of the cerebral cortex. It has a long technical name in Japanese – I forget the literal translation, but it means 'Once you've had it you'll kill to get -it.' "

"Reports on the few we've identified indicates they tend to wear their hair long – to conceal the terminal implanted in the scalp," said Mr. Waverly. "San Francisco is a city full of surprises, isn't it," said Napoleon.

"The surprises I worry about," said Illya, "are the ones we won't know about in advance."

"Those will be kept to a minimum," said Mr. Waverly, "as long as Ward Baldwin has no reason to suspect you are in town. If you gentlemen can avoid attracting attention, for a change…"

"Believe me, sir," said Napoleon sincerely, "my deepest desire is to remain as far as possible from the mind of Ward Baldwin. I would wear a false beard if I thought it would fool him. But he'd just make a snide remark about my costume."

"Forget Ward Baldwin," said Illya. "As I said earlier, this job will be a creampuff."

"Yeah. I didn't believe it then, and I don't believe it now." He stood and picked up his manila envelope. "But I guess that doesn't matter. Let's go."

All nightclubs look alike during the day. Chair legs bristled from tabletops and the garish decor seemed tawdry in the merciless glare of a couple of thousand-watt lamps in standing birdcages in opposite corners.

The faint chemical smell of cedar-sweeping compound mingled with stale smoke and sweat left from the night before, and there was a tang of ammonia in the cool air somewhere. FM jazz was piped into the sound system, like a ghostly combo on the empty stage.

Napoleon and Illya looked around the place, having found the front door open, the checkstand deserted and the cashier's desk unguarded with the cash drawer gaping empty. Behind a partition to the left they heard a telephone ring and a voice answer it; following the clue they found an office and a balding man saying, and the last show starts at 1:15. Thank you."

He hung up the phone and looked up at Napoleon and Illya. "One of these days I'll get a gadget to answer that. What can I do for you gentlemen?"

"Is Little Sirrocco here?"

"What for? You don't look like fuzz."

"We're family friends," said Napoleon. "You can tell her we work for her Uncle."

"Tell her yourself. She's back in the dressing room, unless she left without me hearing her – cleaning up after rehearsal. I can buzz her."

"Tell her we're coming. Where's her dressing room?"

"Around behind the stage, on your left. Green door with a gold star on it. Not the one with the gold crescent – some wiseacre put that on the men's john." He reached for a box with buttons on it as they left.

The corridor curved around behind the stage, and a door was open ahead of them. Inside, a girl sat at a dressing table doing things with her long blonde hair. She saw Solo in the mirror as he looked cautiously around the doorframe.

"Come on. in and close the door," she said. "This place is safe to talk – I can fill you in on the situation as it's developed." Her voice was soft and husky, but her speech was crisp and precise.

Illya closed the door behind them as Napoleon pulled a couple of folding chairs from a corner and sat down straddling one with his arms folded across its back. "Okay. Mr. Waverly said you could bring us up to date on Harry Stevens and his current project".

"Good," she said. "That proves who you are. I was pretty sure. See, something came up and we've got a pickup for you to make in the next couple of days. You are Solo and Kuryakin, by the way?"

"None genuine without this signature," said Napoleon, gracefully flipping out his gold identification card. Illya's appeared beside it – Sirrocco looked at each a moment and then returned to her mirror and her comb.

"Okay. How much did Mr. Waverly tell you about Harry's condition?"

"The fundamentals. He's running on a constant posthypnotic and you see him once a week."

"Yeah. And when he reports in we can set him onto a specific track – which can get pretty complicated. You know all about the KBG?"

"As much as anyone outside of Thrush."

"Somebody named Simpson back in New York was asking about anything that fired along with the fireball, like for sighting or ranging, and Harry found out there was such a thing. It's like a laser, but not in the visible spectrum, and Harry said it ionizes a path in the air and the plasmoid runs down it. This came up day before yesterday when he came over to my place to report. So we set him to get one of those things and bring it to us. You'll pick it up."