“When it destroys itself — ”
“Yes. If it does. There’s so much we don’t know … but that could be the biggest danger now. It’s being delayed by those blocks. I’d have preferred it to have a faster run through.”
Ashimov said nothing to that; the blame lay with Moscow. The terrible racket went on as the flanges bit. I could imagine Rollerball revolving and boring its way in, the shattered concrete flying out behind it like earth behind a digging dog. Ashimov moved back with me as we cleared out from Rollerball’s path. Most of the administrative staff, officers and ratings and civilians, had been evacuated right out of the area, out of the complex. A strong party of seamen remained handy in case of sudden need and the decontamination parties and medical teams were also waiting, for what use they might be. In addition, Ashimov had ordered fire-fighting parties to stand by; and there were army units with flame-throwers ready to go into action if called upon. I clutched Seiko’s canister, useless though it had appeared to be back in the fissure. It still seemed to mean something to those hard-faced men, watching from their makeshift funk-hole. If I discarded it, they might accuse me of all manner of dirty dealings …
The noise increased behind us as we moved away. “It won’t be long now,” I said.
The admiral’s face was grey. Probably he had more than Rollerball as such on his mind: the breaching of the blocks was laying the fissure open to British designs of which even now he hadn’t ridden his mind, nor undoubtedly had Moscow. For all they knew, anything could be coming through behind Rollerball. I could understand the fears and the dilemma; Britain and Russia were each other’s mutual bogeyman, had been ever since the start of the Bolshevik revolution itself. This was pointed up a matter of seconds later when a bleep came from Ashimov’s pocket transceiver, with which he was maintaining contact with his staff, and a report was made.
Ashimov acknowledged and then said to me, “The time is short.”
“What was that report, Admiral?”
“The firing ramps wait the final order from Moscow.”
I drew in my breath, feeling sick with apprehension. I knew that those firing ramps, something in the region of forty of them, were always targeted on Western Europe, Britain included. Each was equipped, according to our intelligence summaries, with nine triple-headed SS-20 nuclear missiles. In Western Europe itself, the NATO ramps would be ready also, with the US Pershing and ground-launched cruise missiles. The USSR would be all set to deal with the British nuclear submarines carrying the 6000-mile range missiles, the Trident 2 D-5s that would push out with their 475 kiloton warheads from beneath the ocean on course for the heartland of Russia if London and Washington got too nervous as the time was counted down. The US could even be contemplating the use of their Wyoming-based MX missiles if things went haywire. All this was going through my mind when the first cracks appeared in the concrete blocks. Those blocks were quickly riven from top to bottom; then they began to part and crumble away like sawdust. Rollerball emerged, massive, slow now but powerful, rolling ominously out from the fissure like a gigantic cannonball, debris scattering around it and its flanges grinding hard into the floor of the outer tunnel as the thing advanced in a crescendo of sound and fury.
Ashimov and I retreated before it. I shouted, “For God’s sake … report to Moscow — ask for time!”
Ashimov hesitated for a moment then brought up his transceiver, flicked it on and spoke briefly to his communications staff. I prayed that someone in Moscow would stay sane for just long enough when the message went through on the hot line … though long enough for what I still didn’t know.
Ashimov said suddenly, “Heat. The ball is exuding heat. Why is this?”
“I don’t know,” I said. I had felt the heat myself; a wave of hot air seemed to be moving ahead of Rollerball and there was a stench of hot metal heavy in the freezing air, a stench that followed us out as we went clear of the tunnel and joined the hardliners behind their blast wall.
“It’s on course,” I told them. “Straight as a die. That’s what I was hoping for.”
“You will use the canister?”
“Not just yet,” I said. Rollerball had to be got out to sea, then I would think again. It was a case of first things first. I don’t think any of us were prepared for what in fact did happen that morning. Rollerball moved on, even more slowly now as though the shattering of the concrete blocks had exhausted it, or given it a limp at an inopportune moment. Despite the slower speed there was a suggestion, no more, of a lack of control, as if the monster’s brain was beginning to wear out, to move into senility. I fancied that one half of the sphere was moving very slightly faster than the other; but this must have been an illusion because there was no visible join such as would have permitted that, and it didn’t slew off course.
The admiral’s transceiver bleeped, calling him. He answered, his face even greyer than before. He sent back a progress report, if progress was the word. Rollerball, he said, was moving towards the water. When the exchange was finished, he turned to me. “Moscow will not wait much longer,” he said.
“For God’s sake — ”
“They say the British have already achieved what they want — ”
“What Seiko wanted. Not us!”
“Rollerball is in Russia, Commander. That is what they say.”
I swore; but it was no use. Force majeure … this was, after all, the Soviet Union and there was nothing more I could say in the face of adamancy. Helplessly, we all watched Rollerball’s progress. It was still dead on course and going right where I’d hoped it would go. Then it stopped. There was an alarming noise coming from it, a kind of whine. The heat increased; lying snow melted around it as it lay stopped. Then it moved again; but this time backwards and a little sideways, confirming to me that all was far from well with it. It took a corner of the blast screen and shattered it in a shower of broken concrete. As we jumped clear I saw that Ashimov had been caught by a great lump of jagged concrete; he lay with his head smashed like an egg, his transceiver lying on the ground and smashed as well. Then Rollerball ground once again into forward movement, went once more on course towards the water.
It reached one of the vacated berths, teetered for a moment on the edge, then plunged in. There was an almighty splash; with the four men from Moscow I ran forward. Rollerball had disappeared in spray and steam; a moment after we got to the edge of the dock it bobbed up again, coming to the surface like a submarine, and thrashed on towards the anchorage and the open sea, again like the conning-tower of some giant submarine.
Then it stopped.
It didn’t sink; it lay there, motionless so far as any onward movement was concerned, but turning on its axis, slowly, as if showing itself off, as if saying to the Russians, just look at me and think about my power potential.
It was totally uncanny.
One of the men said, “The control box, the canister.”
“What about it?” I asked.
“It must be used. Now!” The man was sweating and his voice was high.
I said, “No. It’ll be safer farther out.”
“But the ball is still! It is not moving farther out! It may return. It may blow up where it is.”
“It may blow up if I use the canister. I’ve told you before, there’s a risk and a big one — ”
“It must be used! There is no more time.” The man, his eyes burning like a fever, pulled out an automatic and thrust it into my stomach. Well, the Russians were the bosses. I put Seiko’s box of tricks on the ground. As before, one button was as good as any other; it was all chance now. I selected what might be neutrality — the white one, in case red or even green caused instant disaster. In fact, I didn’t expect it to work anyway.
I pressed it hard, and kept my thumb on it.
I don’t know whether it was the use of the button or whether Rollerball was either still in malfunction or had reached the end of its mission. I never did know. Whatever the cause, Rollerball, still not making any headway, be
gan to glow in response to a sudden increase, a surge, in the heat it was producing. The process was very fast. Within no more than thirty seconds the great sphere was red-hot and was becoming obscured by a rising cloud of steam from the harbour water; even that semi-frozen Russian sea was starting to boil up in its vicinity. A little wind came up at that moment and the steam dispersed enough for us to see that Rollerball was now at white heat.
One of the Moscow men clutched suddenly at my arm.
“Something is emerging … something yellow … running down the ball!”
I saw it. “Fusarium Sporotrichoides,” I said. This had to be the end. The spores had reached Russia, plus the other filth packed into Rollerball, just as Seiko had threatened. He might be dead, but his schemes were active still. I yelled for the flame-throwers to be taken out in the fire-fighting floats that were standing by: what Max had reported from the Porton Down tests just might pay off — naked flame might work where plain heat did not. As the floats went out towards Rollerball I heard running feet and I turned to see one of the hard-liners belting towards the base HQ and the communications link. His mission was plain enough: to call Moscow and give them the go if they hadn’t pressed the nuclear button already, to tell them the British agent had failed. I felt numbed, useless, the failure striking home cruelly. I could see all the horror that was about to take the West in the released nuclear holocaust — the ports, London, Paris, Bonn, the big industrial centres, the power stations, the nuclear launching ramps as well, even the North American land mass in range of the nuclear subs. I was about to urge one of the naval staff to send in the decontamination teams as some sort of frail last hope when I saw a change come over the great gobs of yellow spores as they spilled glutinously down Rollerball’s metal.
I yelled it aloud. “The spores … they’re turning black! They’re bloody dying!”
With me, the three remaining hard-liners watched. There was no explosion. I reckoned there wouldn’t be, now; if there was to have been a blow-up, it would have taken place already with all that white heat around. I said, “It’s all over.” It was; Rollerball, as the spores blackened to dust and the outflow stopped, started to sink, very gently, very peacefully beneath the still fizzing water.
Like a madman, I ran flat out for the HQ communications link and the hot line to Moscow. Quite apart from anything else, it was going to be wonderful news for poor old Demichevich, probably languishing in custody in the base cell block. He would be back in favour again and due for hearty congratulations for being astute enough to back the Brits.
*
I flew back into Heathrow with the Minister and we met cheering crowds. I’d called Max from the naval base and by now both the successful outcome and the subsequent stand-down by all parties had been officially announced. The whole story had been on the TV news broadcasts. It was a hero’s welcome home. The political commentators were unanimous in predicting a Government win by a massive majority in the forthcoming election. The Minister went straight to the Foreign Office after the television cameras had done with him and I went to Focal House.
Max got up to greet me. He shook my hand. “Thank God,” he said. “The PM’s full of congratulations.”
“I’m glad about that,” I said, wanting to hear only one thing. “How’s Felicity?”
“Miss Mandrake,” Max said automatically. “Oh, she’s fine. Mending well — no worries. Forget your sex life, Shaw, and tell me all.”
“All right,” I said, sitting down in a comfortable chair. Max went over to his cupboard and poured two whiskies, stiff ones. “They think I did it by pressing the button. I doubt if I did, but there’s no harm in letting them believe it was a British act. In fact I’m pretty sure Rollerball did it all by itself.”
“The self destruct?”
I shrugged. “Could have been. If it was, then I’d say it over-destructed.” I added, “I only just got the message through in time. A matter of seconds.”
“They believed you, in Moscow?”
I grinned. “Their watchdogs saw it for themselves, didn’t they?”
“And afterwards? The spores and all that?”
I said, “Well, first off the cancellation of the strike was merely a postponement. They wanted reports, naturally enough. A party went out to check on the spot where Rollerball had gone down. The base medic and his staff were with them … the medic reported no evidence of spores or bacteria. I reckon it was second-stage heat that killed them — remember what you told me on the line to the base? The upsurge of heat that shouldn’t have taken place at all was too much even for them, and because of that upsurge the second stage followed very rapidly on the first. And salt water probably wouldn’t have helped.”
“And Rollerball itself?”
“Gone. A series of dives took place. Rollerball was reported as having sunk into the mud under its own weight. Some of the flanges had been spotted on the first dive, the subsequent ones showed nothing at all.”
“Still there, then?”
“Yes,” I said, “still there … and for all we know it’s on its way to Australia the short way. Like Seiko was supposed to have been!”
Max nodded. “His Japs were on their way there. They’ve been apprehended by Interpol — they didn’t get very far. France. They may yet talk.” He added, “All the cash has been saved, of course.” He paused, looked at me ruminatively. “As to Rollerball, it’s all theory. A metal developed by Seiko — and the formula died with him unless those Japs can throw some light. All very clever … ”
I said, “I’d like to know if my theory was correct — the small balls being programmed to form the directing mechanism.”
“It’s likely enough,” Max said, “but we’ll probably never know. You went and sank the evidence, didn’t you?”
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Rollerball (Commander Shaw Book 17) Page 18