Duncan Kyle - Whiteout!

Reilly, the maintenance chief, wandered over as I was admiring her. The inevitable unlit cigar was clamped in the side of his mouth and he spoke round it as he offered the equally inevitable coffee. I was awash with coffee, and had been so virtually since my arrival at Hundred, but the game has rules and one of them is that it pays to be nice to maintenance crews. Reilly was still reading the manuals and hadn't been round the TK4 on hands and knees yet, but he reckoned there weren't nothin' he couldn't handle. I sensed, too, that he was impressed by the hovercraft's swiftness and efficiency on the Belvoir trip.

'Tell you what,' I said. 'First chance I get, we'll take a spin in her.'

He nodded brusquely, but under that matter-of-fact manner an enthusiast lurked. 'If I'm a-goin' in that thing,' he said, 'I'd sure better look after her. That right?'

'Right,' I said, grinning.

'You psychin' me, mister ?'

'I hope so.'

He walked away, then, tough and hard. But he patted the steel side of the TK.4 as he passed. It was the last good moment of that day.

On my bed, when I got back to my room, lay an envelope. Even before I opened it, I sensed somehow that it was ticking like a time bomb. Inside was a note from Master Sergeant Allen to the effect that Barney Smales wished to see me, and the word immediately was underlined. In the outer office Allen gave me a wry look thatcontained a trace of sympathy, and pointed to the door. I knocked, entered as bidden, and found Barney's eyes directed at me like a pair of shotguns. He gave me two or three minutes of level, low-voiced, furious abuse. It was what I'd expected that morning and hadn't collected - my come-uppance for : a) smoking in bed and carelessly; b) blundering out alone on to the icecap; c) failing to tell anybody I was going; d) behaving in general like a goddam cross between Sherlock Holmes and Captain Oates. My degenerate parents, apart from not enjoying benefit of clergy, had also passed on to me various congenital mental conditions. About thirty seconds into the tirade, I found myself surprisingly unimpressed. After a minute, it would have become almost funny, if the whole TK4 deal hadn't rested in large measure on Barney Smales's assessment. Finally, I said, with deliberate rudeness, 'Why wait ? What was wrong with this morning?'

'What in hell do you mean ?'

'All that jazz,' I said, 'about the beauties of bloody ballpoint pens.'

He blinked. 'Now listen, mister, I don't know - '

I said, 'It's got real functional beauty, that's what you told me.' I grabbed the pen off the desk-top and held it up. 'You liked the pretty colours, remember.'

He snatched it from my hand. 'Now listen - '

By now I was almost as angry as he was, but as our eyes met I saw something in his gaze that had no right to be there .. . Fear? Puzzlement? I said, 'You don't remember, do you?'

'You can forget this morning.'

I said, 'Why? Were you drunk?'

I really thought he'd go off pop. His face flushed with rage and his eyes seemed to bulge.

'Drunk!'he roared. Then he paused and there was one of those abrupt shifts so characteristic of him. 'I looked drunk, eh?' He spoke, for him, gently, interested in the answer.

'Something like it.'

He rubbed his temples. 'Woke up this morning with a goddam migraine. White lights, the whole deal. Sick as a dog. Used to have 'em as a kid, but I haven't had one in years.'

'Has it gone?'

'Almost.'

Tm sorry. Sorry about last night, too. It won't happen again. But at the time, the logic seemed compelling.'

He stood up and bent his brows at me. 'This time, Englishman, we'll forget about it.' His tone was deep and measured, the accent British, and some trick of memory dragged recognition out of the dusty attics of my brain.

'Say it again.'

He grinned. 'Remember this, Englishman . . .'

I said, 'Colonel Sapt. The Prisoner of Zenda. C. Aubrey Smith talking to Ronald Colman a long time ago.'

'Great movie.'

'I saw it,' I said, 'the third time round.' And then, since the opportunity was at hand, grabbed at it: 'Why do you object to hovercraft?'

He blinked. 'Who said I objected?'

'You did.'

'Was that this morning, too?'

'Two hours ago.'

'Jesus,' he said. 'I woke with this damn migraine. Head was in a vice. I went to the hospital and helped myself to pills. Wonder what in hell I took?'

'Obviously not aspirin,' I said. 'But it seems to have done the trick, if in a roundabout way. About the hovercraft. . . ?'

He shrugged. 'Not enough weight, that's what I feel.'

That was hardly news, but it was a salesman's opportunity. Flat statements often are. I said, 'Who did you vote for in I960?'

Barney Smales cocked an eye at me. 'Kennedy,' he said warily.

'You a Catholic?'

'No.'

"The first Catholic candidate?'

He laughed. 'Oh, you bastard! Listen, Kennedy had it all turned round. He was cunning, too. The way he set it out, you didn't vote for a Catholic, you were the bigot.'

"That's right. He had to make the breakthrough.'

'Okay, okay. You'll get your chance.' He paused and added, 'Englishman.'

As I closed the door of Barney's office, Allen gave me an interrogative look. Or perhaps I only thought he did, but in any case I answered the unasked question.

'Nasty thing, a migraine,' I said. 'But it seems to be improving.'

I was crossing to the hut door when the phone rang. Allen said, 'Hullo,' and listened. Then he said, 'Jesus Christ!' He put the phone down quietly.

I said, 'What's the bad news?'

Allen didn't answer me. But he wrenched open Barney Smales's door. 'Sir,' Allen said, 'we got bad trouble in the reactor trench. They just told me Mr Kelleher's gone berserk.'

We came to the reactor trench at a dead run. Carson, the engineer captain in charge, was waiting inside, face very pale and with an angry red mark on his cheek.

'Where is he?' Smales demanded.

'In the office.'

Smales strode in. Kelleher lay on the camp bed used by the duty man. He, too, was very pale, but sweat shone on his face as he wrestled with heavy strappings that bound him to the bed. Smales dropped to his knees beside the bed. 'Can you talk, Kelleher?'

Kelleher's head moved. He looked at Barney, then away again, his face showing no recognition. His muscles strained more violently against the straps.

'What happened?' Smales rose and turned to Carson.

'I never saw anything like it,' Carson said. 'My God, the way he-'

'I said, "What happened?" '

'Sorry, sir. He'd been resting. Right here in this office. We have the lid off the reactor, sir, as you can see. Suddenly the door opened and he came out into the vault and . . , goddammit, he tried to climb into the reactor kettle!'

'To climb - V

'I grabbed at him, sir. So did two of the men. He tried to fight us off. He did, too, for a second, then we got him again. Jesus, he's strong!'

'He say anything?' Smales demanded.

'Not a word.'

I looked down at Kelleher, dumbly and desperately fighting to free himself; his eyes were wide open and he stared straight up at the ceiling as his body writhed.

Smales said crisply, 'Mr Allen, find me the medical orderly. Tell him Mr Kelleher's got to have a strong sedative injection.’

'Right, sir.'

As we waited, Barney again knelt beside Kelleher, talking gently, soothingly - and pointlessly, because it was clear not a word was getting through. The big nuclear engineer thrashed dementedly in the narrow bed, wrenching and straining at the webbing straps. I felt sick at the sight. I turned away and looked at Carson, who was absently fingering his bruised cheekbone, then through the door at the reactor. Kelleher was a nuclear engineer. Nobody knew the dangers better. So what crazy malfunction of his excellent brain had driven him to try to climb inside? Behind me there was a sudden exclamation from Carson, a scuffle of sound, and I turned to see Smales reeling back and Kelleher's fist raised for another blow. Carson and I flung ourselves at him more or less simultaneously, trying to hold down the arm that Kelleher had somehow wrenched free. Quick as we'd been, Kelleher had been quicker. He'd already wrested the other arm free and the strength of the man was unbelievable. I'd got hold of his right arm and was struggling to force it downwards, but he succeeded in lifting me bodily for a moment, then pulling the arm away, and the next second he'd smashed his forearm against my mouth. I heard myself whimpering with pain, but some defensive reflex snapped my hands to his wrist and I heaved my whole weight across his shoulder, and levered his arm downwards into immobility. I could feel my lips swelling like balloons and blood running from cuts in my mouth. And all the time not a sound from Kelleher beyond small grunts of exertion. I concentrated on gripping the arm I held; hoped like hell that Carson was holding on to the other one. If he wasn't... Kelleher's body heaved and pounded .., where the devil was the medic ? This couldn't go on. Kelleher would do himself serious injury. Or do the same for one of us. My hands were sweating, my grip consequently weakening. It seemed absurd to say it, but his one arm felt, and was in those long moments, far stronger than my two. I turned my head towards the door, waiting for the running footsteps - and in doing so, must have lowered my head. There was a sudden, fearful pain on my cheek and I felt his breath, and he'd got his teeth into my cheek and was tearing at my flesh like a terrier, a bloody powerful terrier! I shouted aloud at the pain and then somebody was rearing over us and I heard a thud behind me and the terrible grip was suddenly loosened. I jerked my head clear and hung on desperately, and moments later the medic rushed in and injected something into the back of Kelleher's outflung hand. Then he began to count. I could feel the tension going from Kelleher's arm by the time the count had reached ten. At twenty it was limp and I made to rise. 'Ten seconds more, sir,' the orderly said cautiously. Then I was up and the orderly was dabbing at my cheek and stripping the backing from a big plaster. Barney Smales watched him, then slapped my shoulder. 'A few more seconds, boy, and he'd have torn your cheek away.'