[Magazine 1967-­11] - The Volacano Box Affair - Davis Robert Hart (читать лучшие читаемые книги .txt) 📗

And because it did not utilize an excessive amount of electricity—in fact, it could operate on a self-contained power-pack attached to a gas generator—it could not be traced by means of its drain on conventional sources of electricity.

Of course, the workings of a volcano device might eventually be ascertained by seismograph, but that would probably make it too late, for the laser would probably bore into the magma beneath the earth's mantle a mere hour or two after causing an earthquake.

And even if you could locate a volcano box in advance of the final stage of destructiveness, there were still the problems of reaching and destroying it.

Illya said dourly, "We've been sitting in this room for eight hours. Why don't we go out and get some fresh air? Maybe it will clear our heads and help us think."

"I'd love to," Frieda said, sliding her hand into the crook of his arm.

They strolled out along the edge of the little pond in front of the building. It was a clear, crisp night, with stars blazing silver in the black night, and only a few puffs of black cloud scudding in front of the moon. They sat down on a bench and watched the ripples in the pond send charming designs through the reflection of the sky.

Illya looked up and named some constellations. As he was talking about the summer sky Frieda moved closer and put her head on his shoulder. He gulped but kept talking, trying to ignore the warm presence of her dark hair near his neck.

"Look," he said suddenly, turning his head towards the southeastern sky. Frieda turned her face up and followed the line of his out stretched hand to a tiny white dot moving slowly and steadily to wards the northeast.

"A planet?" she asked.

"No. It's moving too fast. It's either a satellite or a plane."

"How beautiful," she said.

Illya cleared his throat and rose. "Say, I'd like another look at Dacian's gadget. Do you think we could get into the compound?"

Frieda Winter sighed. "I suppose so. You really don't let anything stand in the way of your job, do you?"

She went through the steps involved to admit them into the com pound without setting off the alarms, and they passed into the grounds where the scaffolding stood. It seemed to float in the sky, silhouetted against the graceful clouds that drifted before the moon.

As they stood there Illya realized that the heat generating from the shaft blasted by the device was causing the air over the scaffold to ripple. The moon and stars seemed to shimmer as they were being seen in a pond. The effect was weird and hypnotizing.

All at once, as he let his associations drift, an answer came to him and he snapped his fingers. "A satellite!"

Frieda looked up, searching the sky for the object that had passed across it a few minutes earlier.

"We'll find them by satellite," Illya elaborated, leaving Frieda as much perplexed as before.

"What are you talking about?"

"The box does emit one kind of radiation: heat. The way to locate one in operation is through infrared scanners. The moment one of Dacian's devices is activated we can detect it with infrared. And what better way is there to do that than via satellite? We already have several in orbit geared to pick stellar sources of infrared, and one trained on Russia and Southeast Asia to locate possible atomic explosions or rocket blast-offs. So we'll train our surveillance satellites on possible volcano sites. Come on. I want to get in touch with headquarters at once."

They hastened back to the laboratory, where Illya Kuryakin communicated with Waverly.

"Very good," the chief said as he digested Illya's report. "We'll start work on it immediately and try to line up a detection system. But what about locating the boxes before they're activated? And what about destroying them after they're activated?"

"We're still trying to figure something out on the former, but at least we have an instant way of locating the boxes once they're turned on. As for destroying them, what about missiles?"

"Negative," Waverly said. We need to send personnel to the site to ascertain that it is a Dacian device and not some other disturbance. Besides, a missile would be throwing out the baby with the bath water. We don't want to destroy a city while trying to save it."

"In other words, once we've picked up a site on the orbital scanners, we have to verify it and destroy it in person."

"Correct. I always prefer to use something more dependable than human resources," Waverly said, "but if we can't figure out anything better we'll proceed with that line of defense."

Within moments after Waverly concluded his conversation with Illya, he was exerting his prodigious influence to cut through red tape in the space program bureaucracy, and quickly arranged for special signals to be sent to those satellites equipped with infrared detection equipment.

One of the satellites passed over the southern United States, and trained its sensors on the thermal turbulence created by Dacian's experimental device. It relayed its information to analysts on the ground who computed the special mathematical coordinates of this manmade volcanic device. Once they had determined the unique infrared characteristics of a volcano box in action, they could signal a program to other satellites equipped with infrared gear.

This was done promptly, and within six hours a network of satellites was observing the earth, especially the Asian sector, with instructions to alert ground observers the moment a thermal pattern was detected which matched the one in Texas.

Illya Kuryakin was rewarding himself with a few hours of sleep when a signal from Waverly aroused him. Dreamily he reached for his communicator and murmured a sleep-slurred acknowledgement.

"I want you to proceed to Singapore at once," Waverly ordered abruptly.

"Singapore?"

"Mr. Solo is there, and we have good reason to believe that that's where the action will be. I will brief you more thoroughly once you're aloft. Instruct Miss Winter and the rest of the staff at the laboratory to keep working on a better detection and destruction system than the one we now have, and to phone me as soon as they come up with something. But we'll have to make do with what we now have until then, and I need your services in Singapore."

As soon as they'd signed off Illya threw his personal effects into a kit bag. He slid into his jacket and signaled an agent in San Antonio to make arrangements for an U.N.C.L.E. jet to be ready to take off for Singapore as soon as Illya's plane arrived from the laboratory.

He scurried down the hail and knocked on Frieda's door.

"I'm going," he announced calmly.

She thrust her lower lip forward in a sad pout. "So soon? We haven't really—"

"You're to keep working on a solution and to call this number and ask for this man as soon as you have something." He handed her a slip of paper.

She put her fingers on his cheek. "You haven't shaved."

"I never shave for the end of the world," he said.

"Oh Illya—come back when you've done your job." She threw her arms around his neck and put her lips to his cheek.

He ran his fingers through her auburn hair, wondering if it were the last feminine thing he would ever know.

TWO

THE BIG PLANE settled on to the strip at Tengah Airfield and a moment later its back-up system roared, braking the forward momentum of the plane and sending a flock of tropical birds screeching angrily into the sky. Illya Kuryakin looked out of the portal and saw very little activity, which was the way he preferred it.