"Any chance of fixing it?" I asked, watching the pilot's frantic
flickering of switches.
"I'm trying to. It may only be a case of a broken tube from the jolt we
had. If so, we're all right; I have a few spares."
I stayed up all night with him. A damp, pallid dawn filtered through
a ceiling of clouds, their gray bellies heavy against the tops of the
evergreen timber.
The day passed fretfully under the heavy overcast. Johnny Eagle
had patched the opening in the tail and we spent the hours inside,
sheltered from the drizzling cold. The pilot gave up his despairing
tinkering with the radio and fell into an exhausted sleep. I followed
suit.
A loud, shrill squealing brought me to my feet hours later. The radio
was working again. The pilot was shouting excitedly to me. "I've got
'em. Listen."
"_CXRAP. We hear you. Come in._"
The pilot flipped the transmitter switch. "CXRAP calling Burns Lake. We
are down in area located...." He went on, giving co-ordinates of our
position, visibility, weather, and other data.
"Here, sir," he said, handing me the mike. "Someone wishes to speak to
you."
I almost dropped the mike at the sound of the voice that boomed over
the radio loudspeaker. It was Armstrong's.
Public opinion roused by Nevil Oxford's censored broadcast had forced
the government's hand and Armstrong had been placed in command of a
last minute effort to locate Chetzisky. Only two days separated the
earth from annihilation.
"We can't get to you in this weather, Arnold. Sit tight and pray."
"Don't bother about us, Jim," I told Armstrong. "We're well enough set;
don't waste time."
I knew he wouldn't. Afterwards I learned that he parachuted troops into
the suspected area north of Burns Lake and rounded up every trapper,
prospector, Indian guide and Provincial trooper to scour the region for
Chetzisky.
* * * * *
Late in the afternoon the low-lying clouds began to lift. Rifts
appeared in the solid grayness but the drizzle kept on. I put on my
raincoat and got out of the plane to stretch my legs.
The air was wet, cool, refreshing. I looked about. In places the slopes
were visible as far as the timberline and even before. In others the
gray pall remained. Somewhere out of it I heard a voice calling my
name, more loudly with each repetition. My eyes tried to bore through
the haze and shortly a stocky figure detached itself from it, coming
towards me. It was Johnny Eagle, his eyes more luminous than I had ever
seen them.
"I've found the Twins," he said simply and plunged back into the mist
with me close behind.
I stumbled eagerly up the slope for nearly two hundred yards. Johnny
Eagle was standing on a boulder, pointing north through a great break
in the low ceiling of cloud. I looked, my heart racing wildly. There
they were towering in the sky, the Twins, as similar as though they
were a double image seen in a badly focussed lens. I judged them to be
three miles off.
I yelled for Johnny to stay put while I scrambled down the slope,
ripping my pants and scraping my knees as my legs gave way under me in
a patch of loose scree. Back at the plane I found the pilot putting up
a makeshift antenna.
"Get Burns Lake quick," I ordered between gasps. "Ask for Armstrong."
Armstrong was elated but grimly realistic. "This must be it, Arnold; it
has to be."
I knew what he meant. This was our last lead; there wouldn't be time
for more.
Armstrong asked whether I could move out up to the peaks and radio
a report to him. I looked out of the cabin ports. Night had fallen
quickly, but in the cloud blankets the clefts were widening to let
feeble patches of starlight show through.
"I'll start right away," I assured Armstrong. "It's clearing here."
Johnny Eagle scouted around the lake till he found a stream flowing
from the direction of the Twin Peaks. With it as a guide we set
off, panting as we stumbled, slipped, crawled along and wincing as
needle-pointed evergreens stung our faces.
Sometimes the stream twisted out of sight, but Johnny pushed on
with the ancient woodland canniness of the great Frog tribe. There
were times, though, when this mystic sense deserted him and we stood
perplexed and barely visible to each other a foot away. We waited,
then, for some sudden glimmer to reveal our guiding stream.
* * * * *
My weary legs soon told me my estimate of four miles to the Twins was
way off. About midnight we broke out of the forest wilderness high
up on the timber line. The night was brilliantly clear by this time;
sharply etched shadows of dark pines lay about us. Towering into the
starry skies were our Peaks, their upper reaches capped with snow,
with here and there a thick dark scar where a fissure lay in shadow.
For the first time I saw the Twins were joined, Siamese-wise, by a low
truncated mass.
Even though the going became easier, I felt more tired than before. The
rarefied air sharpened the sense of fatigue and a tightness clutched
at my chest. But I forgot all about it when I saw the grave. I spotted
it even before Johnny Eagle cried out. The grave lay exposed in a bare
patch above a clump of stunted timber; a tilted rotting cross was its
only marking.
The almost unhoped-for discovery of this meager clue to the location of
Chetzisky infused me with new energy. My tiring legs revived. Johnny
Eagle was hard put to stay ahead of me.
On the bare rock shoulder of the granite bastion between the Twin Peaks
we came upon a trail. My pace redoubled. Johnny Eagle stared at me in
frank admiration and yielded me the lead.
The trail headed straight for the blank, inaccessible face of the
ridge. But as we drew near the sheer wall high up near its rim, a cleft
appeared, through which the trail led. The defile was narrow, shrinking
at times to the width of a man.
Suddenly the walls fell away and we found ourselves on the narrow
strand of a crater lake. In its center the dark mass of an island
stood out under the starlight.
I strained for some sign of habitation but the wooded isle remained
inscrutable. We began scouting around the lake. About twenty feet from
the defile entrance Johnny Eagle discovered a canoe hidden in a crevice
of the crater wall. I decided against using it to reach the island.
Chances of approaching unseen in it were too slim. Besides, the theft
of the canoe would reveal our presence. We couldn't afford that risk
with Chetzisky playing God.
We would swim out, I decided. But first we went along the shore to
reconnoiter the shortest route and in doing so we spied the clearing
on the island. I could make out a cabin and a long, slanting structure
resembling a ramp.
This was it, I was sure.
"Johnny, get back to the plane and have the pilot radio Colonel
Armstrong that I've found Chetzisky. Give him all the necessary
information."
5
I waited till Johnny Eagle had melted away and then, making my .45 as
waterproof as I could, I slid into the lake. It was a short swim to
the island--fifty yards or so--but I was pretty well exhausted when I
dragged myself out of the water. The cold air knifed into my back and
shoulder blades. It was welcome relief to crawl into the shelter of the
undergrowth and rest a while.
With some of my strength back, I pushed on cautiously through the
bushes and tightly-packed trees. The first washings of dawn now
appeared in the sky. It was the beginning of the day that Chetzisky had
chosen for the world to die.
When I came to the edge of the clearing, I stopped, my eyes probing the
morning grayness. Then I stepped quickly out of the brush. Suddenly I
stopped dead, afraid even to breathe. Two feet from me an Indian dozed,
a rifle across his lap. It was too late; his eyes blinked open. I
hurled myself on him. There was a brief scuffle and then he lay still,
knocked unconscious by the butt of my .45.
I faded back into the undergrowth and waited. I thought I heard the
door of the cabin in the clearing open. But nothing happened.
I let out a deep breath and started skirting the clearing, keeping in
the shadows until I was in front of the ramp-like runway. I stared hard
at it, trying to make out the details.
At the top of the sloping track was a cylindrical mass, the size of an
oil drum. It reminded me instantly of the beer-barrel nuclear reactor,
a portable affair, developed by the British physicist Robert Parker.
Its purpose dawned on me: This was the trigger of the atomic gun that
Chetzisky held at the temples of a planet.
I moved in for a clearer view. As I did I was brought up abruptly by a
calm, even voice, its tone of command sharpened in the crisp morning
air. "You needn't move any more, gentleman. Just raise your hands."
I looked in the direction of the speaker, as my hands went up. Out of
the shadows in front of us emerged a short man with a rifle. Chetzisky!
At last!
Bundled in a heavy mackinaw, wearing a fur cap with ear muffs, wool
socks rolled over the tops of his high boots, he looked grotesque,
hardly the intended assassin of a planet. More like a farmer who's
waited through a winter night to catch a chicken thief.
"What are you doing here?" he asked sharply. In his tone I detected a
worried uncertainty. I decided on the bold approach.
"Where is Professor MacRoberts?" I demanded sternly.
Chetzisky lowered his rifle slowly. He seemed surprised; relieved too.
"You're looking for Doctor MacRoberts?"
"Yes, the University became worried about him and hired me to find him,
fearing he might be ill or lost in this wilderness."
"How did you come to track him here?" Chetzisky cocked his head to one
side and squinted at me suspiciously.
"Well, it happens, sir, that I'm a private investigator, specializing
in missing persons," I lied with gusto. "When the University hired me
to locate MacRoberts, I interviewed the man's friends, talked with the
Indians, etc. And behold, here I am."
I grinned broadly with affected boastfulness. Chetzisky eyed me
intently. I felt grateful for my mask of beard at that moment.
"You came alone?" he asked, relieving me of the automatic in my belt.