"Easy, Arnold," Armstrong was saying, a warning look in his eyes. "This
is one moment when we have to keep our heads, or more than just us will
lose them. Hold tight here for a day. Washington probably got Disney's
report on your trip to the Congo. I think I can talk my way out of the
mess. If I don't," he shrugged hopelessly, "it's all up to you."
* * * * *
All next day I sweated for a word from Armstrong. About five o'clock
a call came from one of his friends in Washington. He was under house
arrest but still striving desperately to wake the government up to
Chetzisky's threat.
I drink lightly but if at that moment I had a bottle I would have
emptied it at one swift sitting. Instead, I took an ice cold shower to
calm myself. Half-way through the shower I ran out and picked up the
phone to put in a long-distance call. I had an idea.
Nevil Oxford answered. I poured out my story. His voice shook as he
talked with me. I had him on the ropes and I kept pouring it on. The
earth had only six days to live unless the nation did something about
it. We were just a stone's throw, so to speak, from catching up with
Chetzisky. What was needed was to rouse public opinion and force the
complacent hand of the swivel-chair bureaucrat. As a crusher I told him
that the world-wide radioactive count had gone up five roentgens. If
only he knew how absurd that was ... but it turned the trick.
"All right, Arnold, I'll go on the air tonight with the story," he said
wearily with the tone of a man acquiescing in an inevitable surrender.
I dressed, arranged for a plane to take me and Johnny Eagle into
Tweedsmuir early next morning, and settled back with a drink for Nevil
Oxford's broadcast. The commercial came on. I gritted my teeth and
waited. Then Nevil broke in, his voice tense and pregnant with fear:
"Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Tonight I am breaking the biggest
story of my career. It has taken me a long time to decide on telling
it. But it must be told."
There was a pause. I sat bolt-upright. Had he lost his courage again?
Then Nevil was speaking again, his tone almost inaudible. "If a letter
that went out to the governments of the world a month ago is true--and
I fear horribly that it is--you and I have only six days to live. The
world will end next Monday. Yet nothing is being...."
The voice was cut off and organ music filled the air waves. I stood up
and flung my glass at the wall. You warn them and they throttle you;
the ostrich hadn't a thing on them.
I went down to the lobby and bought a few magazines to read myself
to sleep with, but at two in the morning I was still awake. I put on
the radio to get some slumber music. Instead there was a deluge of
breathless newscasts and special bulletins. Nevil had started things
popping all right, despite being cut off the air. Curious, angry
newsmen had dug up the story and spread it in the headlines of _Extras_
from coast to coast. At this moment it was being shortwaved to every
part of the world. Already public opinion was beginning to simmer. A
special dawn meeting of the cabinet was called. I fell off to sleep
smiling; there was hope.
4
In the morning when I read the newspapers on the way to Lulu Island
airport, my mood darkened. While public opinion shrieked for action,
successive conferences on what was to be done ended in decisions
to hold other conferences on what was to be done. Horn-rimmed
intellectuals argued hotly whether the Chetzisky question was not one
for United Nations discussion. And we make fun of Nero who fiddled
while Rome burned!
The day was clear, ideal for flying. It was the fifth day before the
end of Time. I bit my lips and looked out at the earth falling away
under us.
Four o'clock that afternoon our pontoon-equipped plane swept low over
the spruce and jack pine and meadows of wild hay for a smooth landing
on Burns Lake, our approach scattering a brood of mallard ducks. We
refuelled and were off again. I intended to fly on, watching for the
Twin peaks and when darkness fell, to land on one of the mountain tarns
and make camp.
Below us the somber stands of evergreen were being swallowed up in the
vast shadow spreading out from the western ridges. Turning up a valley
corridor I saw the peaks towering above us, summits capped with white
and the forested flanks gashed with couloirs in which the snow gleamed.
I blinked often. The air was rough now, tossing our cabin plane, and
the constant flickering of the view made my eyes uncertain and my
head ache. Suddenly I became aware of the clouds, a few bedraggled
tatters at first, close to the timberline, like wisps of angel hair
on a Christmas tree. Then as the plane swerved through a narrow pass
and up another valley, I saw the sky devil himself--a billowing,
black-bottomed cumulus rolled up on itself three miles high.
I went forward to the pilot. He was peering anxiously ahead of him.
"Don't you think we better land soon?" I asked.
"The sooner the better, sir. I was figuring on landing up at
Schwartz's, a trapper who has his diggings on a lake up aways but we
won't make it with that storm." He paused as a sudden current sent the
plane off keel and he struggled to bring it level again.
"I think I'll swing west over that ridge," he pointed to a low mountain
wall. "I remember a few lakes over there."
The plane banked obediently and swung round. He flipped on the radio,
dialing in only ghostly wheezes.
"This country plays the devil with radio, sir. Minerals I understand."
I went back to my seat. Across from me, Johnny Eagle sat motionless,
his eyes never leaving the cabin port, on guard for the Twins. The
ridge passed below us. Suddenly darkness enveloped us; we had run into
a squall. The plane nosed upwards to ride above it. I shuddered. Flying
blind with mountains sheering up on either side is suicidal.
When the plane finally broke through, the sun had set. Only a flash of
lavender over the western rim remained of the day and soon that faded.
The pilot now flew by a faint twilight that mountain snows reflected.
The thunderhead cumulus we had evaded was spreading laterally towards
us, threatening us with pitch black darkness. I was uneasy; so was the
pilot who sat tautly upright. Johnny Eagle remained gazing out at the
pallid landscape.
"We're all right now," the pilot shouted back. I went up front.
"There it is." He pointed down to the right. For a moment I saw
nothing; then the glimmering form of a lake appeared obscurely.
The plane dipped gently towards it. The pilot's eyes strained to
keep the fading glimmer in view, at the same time trying to judge
the mass of darkness that was the timber. He did a miraculous job
skimming in over the treetops and was just sweeping in over the water
for his landing when a sudden gust struck. The plane tilted its nose
up abruptly, bucked, then dropped like a load of lead. It slapped the
water hard and skidded straight for the wooded shore.
Desperately the pilot tried to bring the craft around, but it plunged
relentlessly forward and up on the narrow beach, skittering wildly as
it left the water. The tail cracked sharply as it whiplashed against
the trees.
* * * * *
Slightly bruised and shaken, we climbed out, but that's all. The pilot
got out his torch and we clustered about a map he spread on the ground.
"This is where we are." He indicated a spot bare of all place names and
west of the area in which Chetzisky was reported. In case of an air
search this would be the last bit of terrain searched. It was far off
our expected course. I recalled the story of the transport lost these
ten years in this wilderness and unpleasant tingling crept up my spine.
Then I remembered Chetzisky and realized with a sour humor that
worrying about time in terms of years was optimistic. Time now was only
a matter of three days.
And moping like this wouldn't add to them.
"Check the radio," I snapped, turning to the pilot; "see if you can
raise Burns Lake."
He climbed back into the plane. The lights went on; at least, they
still worked. I turned to Johnny Eagle, "You better get the sleeping
bags out and turn in yourself. There's nothing to be done till morning."