Skyprobe

by Philip McCutchan

  The Communist reaction to all this was to be seen in the newspapers from the East—in Pravda, in Izvestia, in the Press of Peking, the satellite countries and the Afro-Asian Bloc. Official spokesmen utterly rejected, as the Russian Ambassador to the United States had done, any suggestion of Eastern interference. War, they said, was being fomented by the West—the excuse was being prepared in the usual wicked, cynical way of the capitalist societies—perhaps the West was even preparing to sacrifice its own astronauts so as to provide a valid excuse for attacking Communism. War, if it came, would be in all senses of the term upon the capitalists’ own heads. There was most decidedly nothing in the way of a threat from the East, they said, but Communism was ready and waiting for any intrusion upon the sovereignty of its member-states, and any display of force would be met instantly with all the nuclear weapons the East could muster.

  * * *

  Ewan MacAllister met Shaw and Ingrid at Sapporo as Dahl had promised, driving up in a battered Land Rover. MacAllister was tough. His fist, as he took Shaw’s hand, was like a ham. He was dressed like a bushman, in a faded khaki shirt with rolled up sleeves and creased slacks stained with oil. His gaze swept over the two of them as, without comment at first, he took Dahl’s letter. He read it, then nodded.

  “Right,” he said briefly. “This is dinkum. I’m considering myself under your orders from now, Commander.” His eyes narrowed. “Can you tell me what this is all about, or not?”

  Shaw said, “I’m sorry. I can’t. I hope you’ll accept that, Mr. MacAllister.”

  “Most people call me just plain Mac. Right, I’ll accept that. Reckon I wouldn’t be too far off the beam, though, if I said it had to do with all the trouble going on around that spacecraft!”

  “Mac,” Shaw said, grinning at the Australian, “you’re entitled to all the theories you want so long as you get us airborne fast. Once we’re up, I’ll tell you what to look out for . . . as near as I can, that is. Frankly I’m not too sure myself.”

  MacAllister nodded. “What about the lady? She coming?”

  “Yes,” Ingrid said promptly. MacAllister glanced at Shaw, who confirmed what the girl had said. He’d half intended to leave her at Sapporo if he could find someone to take charge of her, but she’d talked him out of that. She was capable enough, she said, to look after herself and she wanted to see this business right through to the end. In any case, they were only going on a reconnaissance mission. . . . MacAllister waved a hand towards the Land Rover.

  “Let’s get going,” he said. He climbed in behind the wheel and was already moving off before Shaw and Ingrid had settled themselves. He drove at breakneck speed, raising clouds of dust, and within an hour of reaching Sapporo they were airborne in Dahl’s helicopter and heading out on a course for the Sea of Okhotsk. Before they had gone aboard MacAllister had brought a pile of warm clothing out from a hangar on the private airfield.

  “The weather’s not so bad here,” he said, “but it can be a bastard up that way. Like as not the islands’ll be covered with fog anyhow and we won’t see a flaming thing.”

  “I know that,” Shaw agreed. They would have to take a chance on it. He was quite familiar with the reputation of the Kuriles. The temperature dropped sharply as the helicopter went northwards from Hokkaido, cutting across an icy wind coming down from the Bering Sea. Beside Shaw Ingrid was shivering, despite her Scandinavian blood. Soon they began to come over the southernmost of the Kurile islands, and MacAllister brought the machine lower. He and Shaw stared down from the windows. Shouting over the engine sounds Shaw said, “I’m looking out for anything that looks like a camp, or any improvised habitation really . . . huts, that sort of thing. Probably a radio mast. Sorry I can’t be more precise!”

  “What if we do spot anything?”

  “It depends on what we spot, Mac. I’m keeping an open mind in the meantime.”

  “Just as you say, Commander.” The machine roared on, both the men and Ingrid keeping a sharp watch on the islands and the bitter seas between them. Nowhere was there the least indication of any human activity. The

  Kuriles were bare, windswept, icy—inimical to human life. Currently there was no fog, but Shaw knew that it could come down very suddenly. They went on, crossing island, after island, skimming over the bare, desolate earth, still seeing nothing. MacAllister said, “Reckon we might take a look farther in, right? If what you’re after is meant to be hidden right away, then maybe it’ll be in one of the remoter islands—there’s a number of ’em detached from the main group, farther inside the Sea of Okhotsk. Okay?”

  “Okay,” Shaw yelled back. They would be going deeper into Russian airspace, but that couldn’t be helped now. It was better that he should do it on his own personal initiative than that the Air Forces should go in fighting. . . .

  * * *

  Still nothing.

  Nothing but a complete blank, and they were tired and cramped now, fingers almost numb, faces blue with the cold that crept into their very bones. They passed over the ice-bound sea, over upwards of a dozen tiny islands without seeing the smallest sign of man. And after a while, MacAllister began to worry about the fuel. “We’ll have to head back for base any time now,” he shouted in Shaw’s ear. “We can fuel up and come out again and head direct for any places we haven’t reached this leg. All right, Commander?”

  “If we have to, that’s it,” Shaw told him. This wasn’t the area for a forced landing. MacAllister turned for home and it was as they were passing over the last of the islands well west of the main and larger group that the incredible thing happened.

  TWENTY

  MacAllister said, “Something’s up.” His voice was sharp and high, edgy with alarm, and his sunburned face had gone suddenly yellowish. He was fighting the controls.

  “What is it, Mac?”

  “For Chrissake . . . I don’t know! She’s just not responding. Can’t you feel it?”

  Shaw said, “Yes, I’m beginning to.” There was a curious drag on the helicopter, a totally alarming feeling. Shaw glanced at Ingrid and slid his hand into hers. Her face was pale, her Ups sUghtly parted as she stared at MacAllister. MacAlHster shouted, “She’s losing height and I can’t get her back. It’s like someone else has taken over . . . a car with dual control.” A moment later he said, “Speed’s coming off . . . for Chrissake, mate, we’re going to do a flaming belly-flop any minute!”

  He was still fighting the controls but there was nothing he could do; the machine was completely helpless, as if in the grip of some force stronger by far than herself. Shaw, his heart thumping hard, watched the landscape reel past as the helicopter side-slipped, lurching downward fast. He took Ingrid in his arms, braced both himself and her for the crunch of the impact that was now inevitable. He looked ahead at the instrument panel in front of MacAlUster. The needles of the dials were moving, again as though they were under some kind of control from outside, and now the helicopter had steadied and was going down straight, fast and flat like a dropped stone. Once again Shaw looked down through the windows and this time he made out a small group of men, men who were staring up at the machine and making no move for cover. Then, suddenly, the fast descent slowed, slowed as if they had met a cushion of air, and a moment after that they hit the ground flat, in the belly-flop that MacAlUster had predicted. In spite of that last-minute cushioning effect they landed hard. Shaw hit his head on the metal-work of the cabin and passed out cold.

  * * *

  When Shaw came round he had been Ufted out of the helicopter and was lying on the bare ground and standing over him with a gun was Rudolf Rencke. The gun was smoking and MacAlUster was lying in a heap, blood pouring from his shattered chest, dead as mutton. The helicopter was resting, apparently undamaged, on a vast round metal plate that was slightly raised from the ground and seemed to be protruding on a thick stalk from a silo. As Shaw watched dazedly, there was the sound of electrically-operated machinery and the metal plate, with the helicopter still on it, descended into the earth. Afte
r it had vanished, a heavy, stressed-concrete cover slid slowly out from just below the surface of the ground to seal the silo. After this Rencke snapped an order and the men with him began rolling a camouflage net across the concrete slab.

  Rencke grinned down at Shaw. “Welcome, my dear Commander,” he said, sounding happy. “I congratulate you on finding your objective, even if the finding of it was somewhat involuntary. Now—get up!”

  Shaw’s head felt as though it had been hit by a ton of lead, but he wasn’t damaged otherwise. He climbed to his feet and saw Ingrid being held by one of the men behind him; this man was a Chinese, as were two other men, both armed, with their guns covering the girl and himself. He asked, “I assume you brought us down, Rencke. D’you mind telling me how?”

  Rencke said, “This you will find out later. For now, you will follow me.” He called out to the Chinese to bring the girl and then he pushed his gun into Shaw’s stomach. “Turn around,” he ordered brusquely. When Shaw had done so Rencke went on, “Walk straight ahead where you are facing now and you will come to some steps. You will go down these. Move.”

  Shaw shrugged and moved. Rencke kept the gun hard in his spine. The cold was intense now; it was like walking through a refrigeration chamber. Shaw’s breath condensed into a frozen film in front of him. Ingrid Lange was alongside him now, her teeth chattering. She looked blue and pinched already. As they moved on Rencke said, “You know, of course, where you are, Commander. You will know how remote the inner Kuriles are—you will know that your searching forces will never find us here, even if they are bold enough to violate Russian airspace and pass over this very island!”

  Shaw said, “I wouldn’t be too confident. My pilot sent out a signal before we landed, and by now—”

  Rencke’s sneering laugh cut him short. Rencke said, “Do not waste your breath, Commander! Your pilot sent no such signal. Our monitoring equipment would have told us instantly—besides which, the device that brought down the helicopter also inhibited your radio so that no transmission whatever could be made from the moment you came within the beam field.”

  “Beam field, Rencke?”

  “You will find out,” the Swiss said impatiently. Shaw walked on, crossing the perimeter of what appeared to be a large circle of round holes in the ground, holes lined with metal and roughly a foot in diameter. Outside this circle they passed other holes of varying sizes, all of them now covered with concrete slabs and more camouflage netting. Under yet more netting they saw what looked like heavy earth-moving equipment—excavators and bulldozers, all well screened from the air. It was complete anonymity. The general aspect was that of total desolation and Shaw felt as if they had arrived at some other planet, some nightmare world derived from the imagination of a film script-writer. An icy wind was howling over all, and, again in the distance, the surrounding sea was grim and grey and motionless in its ice; this was the bleakest thing Shaw had seen since his days on the Kola Peninsula some while before. He knew that all the Kurile group were of volcanic origin and as barren as a fiddler’s bitch. Ahead of him a group of Chinese came out from what seemed to be another hole in the ground and began stripping the camouflage netting from a number of the sealed pits, and then, after the stressed-concrete lids had been moved aside, a network of radar scanners and tall radio masts, plus two television cameras, began to ascend slowly from the silos. This, no doubt, would be part of the monitoring system, the means whereby the Communists would be watching out for the searching forces of the West. Around the whole area was set a perimeter fence—a high, treble-banked barricade of thick wire, heavily barbed, which Shaw didn’t recall seeing during their descent. Since this God-forsaken island seemed the most unlikely place in all the world to have intruders, the fence was most probably there to contain any of the workers who might have become disillusioned with their lot.

  And currently, of course, to contain other kinds of escapees.

  TWENTY-ONE

  They went down the hole in the ground up which the Chinese workers had come. This underground entry was lined with stressed-concrete and lead, and steps twisted down into the earth. The masts and radar scanners remained in position as Shaw went down the steps; no doubt they would be lowered into their silos for safety once they had picked up anything heading towards the island base.

  Ingrid was behind Shaw now, with Rencke holding his gun in her spine, while ahead a Chinese worker, also armed, led the way. Another armed man came down behind Rencke. As they descended a concrete lid moved smoothly into place overhead, sealing the entry. The steps continued downward for some thirty feet, then they came into the comparative warmth of an enclosed concrete-lined gallery in the form of a passage leading to left and right in a circle around the main pit housing the big metal plate that had brought the helicopter down. The man ahead led them to the left, past a number of doors. The place was quiet, though in the background was the deep hum of dynamos and the sound of forced-draught air intakes; and as they passed some of the doors there was the subdued but insistent whine of machinery, while at others they heard, faintly, the bleep-bleep of radar, or the high-speed shorts and longs of radio transmissions. The underground base was roughly built and had an unfinished look about it—it was thoroughly utilitarian and austere—but it was a monstrous place to find in this barren, bitter island off Russia’s north-east coast. Their footsteps echoed on the bare concrete floor, like so many knells of doom for Skyprobe IV, which was probably even now being continually tracked in its orbit from this pirate outfit in the Kuriles.

  Their guide stopped at a door some distance beyond the others. He turned smartly, covering the prisoners with his gun. The other man closed in in rear. Rencke said with an air of portent, “In a few minutes, after I have spoken to him, you will meet one of Communism’s most brilliant scientific brains, Commander ... a man of impressive achievement.”

  Rencke opened the door and went in, and one of the Chinese closed the door behind him.

  * * *

  Fifteen minutes later a green light glowed above the doorway and Shaw and Ingrid were pushed into the room ahead of the guns. The apartment was as bare and utilitarian as the passages, and it was stuffy with stale, used air. There were a number of steel filing-cabinets, some hard chairs, and a trestle desk with two telephones on it, one coloured red, the other white. The man behind the desk looked ordinary enough—a thin, pale man in his early forties, wearing heavy hom-rimmed spectacles and dressed in a long white coat over dark trousers. His eyes, hard and dedicated and much magnified by the thick lenses, reminded Shaw irresistibly of a frog.

  But—it was a familiar face in some respects. Shaw fancied he had seen that frog-like look before . . . in photographs, a few years earUer, though for the moment anyway he couldn’t place the man.

  Rencke moved round the prisoners towards the desk. “Doctor,” he said, “this is the man Shaw of the British Defence Intelligence Staff . . . and Ingrid Lange, of whom you also know.”

  The man behind the desk rose with solemn politeness and reached out his hand. He said, “I am so glad to meet you, Commander Shaw—it is a most unexpected but fortunate surprise. I have heard much of you, very much. I am Dr. Anatoli Kalitzkin.” He looked expectant. “You have heard of me also, perhaps?”

  Anatoli Kalitzkin! Shaw was rocked, but he remembered now. The face had altered from the photographs, probably as a result of plastic surgery, but it was Kalitzkin all right. He said, “Yes, I’ve heard of you.” Four years ago the Western security services had buzzed with rumours about this man. Kalitzkin, comparatively young as he was, had been until then one of the Soviet’s top scientists, a man of brilliant brain as Rencke had said, a man of great administrative ability and drive, a leading light in the Russian space research programme and one of the men behind the moon-probe—the nearest Russia could approach, in fact, to the West’s Professor Danvers-Marshall, a man of very similar calibre professionally. But Kalitzkin had the reputation of being a cold fish, unemotional and detached and ruthless in the intere
sts of scientific advance. He had never married and was believed to have few personal relationships. He lived for his work alone. Then four years ago he had suddenly vanished from the scene; his name had no longer been mentioned and his posts had been filled by other men, much lesser men by all accounts. It had been assumed that either he had died or had been liquidated, or imprisoned on some ideological charge, but the intrigued West had never learned the facts of what had really happened to him.

  Not until now. . . .

  Kalitzkin gave a tight, formal bow in Ingrid’s direction. Indicating the chairs he said, “Please will you sit.”

  Shaw and Ingrid each took a chair; Rencke followed suit. Kalitzkin resumed his own seat, while the armed guards stood back against the door with their guns ready for use. Kalitzkin pushed his spectacles up onto his forehead and rubbed at his eyes before replacing the lenses. Shaw noticed that the scientist looked tired and strained, as though from many months of unceasing work and responsibility. Kalitzkin wasted no more time on pleasantries now. Abruptly he said, “I should tell you this, that I am the head of the interception operation here in the Kuriles, and as such am in charge of the safe landing arrangements for the American capsule, and its crew, at this base. But I shall come back to this point in more detail shortly, Commander. First I believe you will want to know what we propose to do with you now that you have joined us. I shall satisfy your natural curiosity.” He leaned forward, elbows planted on the desk, palms together, his chin resting on the tips of his extended fingers. His expression was earnest and his eyes were bright behind the thick spectacles. “In the first place, I believe you can be a most useful person for us to have in our hands, both now and after the diversion, on account of your unrivalled experience and excellent knowledge of Western intelligence and its methods. There is much that you will be able to tell us—”