could not be diverted from his evil purpose. While coming up in the cabin of the cable railway she had not dared even to raise her eyes to his; and, with a swift sinking of the heart, she suddenly realized that, now he had got what he wanted from Wash, he might even go back on his agreement to postpone laying a curse on her.
In a low, anxious voice she put that possibility to Wash. But he told her not to worry, because the Great Ram would still need him to fly him on to Moscow.
Shortly afterwards the Chinese cook came in and laid places for three at the long narrow table. Then the stocky, shock-haired Hungarian, Mirkoss, joined them. They exchanged bows and smiles with him but, when the food was served, on account of his presence they fell silent. The meal was simple but good: firm baked lake fish, a ragout of veal with mushrooms, and a selection of excellent Swiss cheeses.
After it, Mirkoss beckoned them outside and a few yards along the cave, then threw open the doors of two adjacent sheds. Each had only a single bunk. Wash's belongings had been stacked in the one that abutted on to the dining cabin, and Mary's suitcase reposed in the other. They smiled their thanks to the Hungarian, smiled at one another, then entered their narrow but solidly made quarters.
As Mary shut the door her strength seemed suddenly to drain from her. Although she had slept in the aircraft the strain she had been under for many hours had been so great that she felt as if she had not closed her eyes for weeks. There were no sheets, only blankets, on the bunk, but pulling her clothes off, except for her chemise, she crawled in between them and almost instantly fell asleep.
It was late in the evening when Wash roused her to say that another meal was being prepared for them by the Chinese cook. At the far end of her cabin there was a small basin with running water, and above it a nine by four inch mirror. Getting up, she washed and tidied herself as well as she could, then joined Wash in the dining cabin.
He mixed drinks for them, this time having first gone to the entrance of the cave and broken off some icicles to chill the spirit; then Mirkoss came in and the Chinese served them with a dinner of sorrel soup, wild duck and a vanilla souffle'. When coffee arrived Mirkoss declined it and left them, but they sat over theirs for some time drinking with it a Swiss Apricot Brandy that seemed positively the essence of the rich ripe fruit.
They were on their third glass of this delicious local liqueur when both of them instinctively turned round. Their senses, not their hearing, had told them of the approach of the Great Ram, and he was standing silently behind them in the doorway. Ignoring Mary, he said to Wash:
'I do not need your help to-night but I shall require it to-morrow morning. You will be called at first light and we will set to work soon after dawn.'
'Just as you say, Exalted One,' Wash replied submissively; then he added, 'It shouldn't be a long job to fit a coupla time fuses to it. Reckon we could be done and on our way in the aircraft round about midday.'
'It is not my intention to explode the war-head up here,' announced the Great Ram calmly.
Wash gave him a puzzled look. 'Not here! But for why, Chief? Where could you find a site more suitable?'
'In a narrow valley such as this the effect of the explosion would be too localized. The blast could wreck only a few small villages and the fall-out beyond them would be negligible.'
'Hey, have a heart, Chief! That'll be plenty for our purpose. There's no sense in blotting out more folks than need be.'
'Some thousands at least must die if we are to achieve our object of horrifying everyone in the N.A.T.O. countries,' declared the Great Ram in an icy voice.
'But, Exalted One,' Wash protested, coming to his feet, 'you've got the darned thing up here now. I saw Mirkoss's Chinks humping it in. It would be simple to time fuse it to go up a coupla hours after we've quit, but one helluva job to hump it some other place and rig electric batteries to set it off. If it disintegrates a single village that'll sure be enough to scare the pants off every citizen in Europe.'
'There will be no necessity to transport it anywhere. I intend to adapt its case so that it can be launched from this cave as the war-head of a rocket.' 'A rocket!'
'Yes. I had the parts manufactured by a number of different firms, and Mirkoss and I have assembled them here. I have also secured a supply of the latest rocket fuel; so nothing remains to be done but to work out the weight-fuel ratio, now that the weight of the war-head is available to me, and to attach it to the body of the rocket. The calculations I shall do to-night. Tomorrow your strength may prove of value in lifting the war-head into position for Mirkoss and I to fix it; and, unless some quite unforeseen difficulty arises, we should be able to launch it on Tuesday.'
'But what's to be your target, Chief? What's to be your target?' Wash asked in a puzzled, anxious voice. 'No one's ever accused me of having a yellow streak when it comes to taking life. No, sir! Not when it's been to forward Our Lord Satan's work, or my own. But to put this thing down on a city doesn't make sense to me. It'll get all the write-up we want without that; and there's mighty few places of any size that hasn't a few Brothers or Sisters of the Ram among its citizens. You sure can't wish to blot...'
'I did not say I intended to drop it on a city,' the Great Ram interrupted coldly. 'But I cannot afford to risk the effect being localized to this one narrow mountain valley and a radius of only a few miles of almost uninhabited country. For a target I have selected the small town of Sannen, in the foothills on the far side of this range. Apart from the mountain areas it is in one of the least populated parts of Switzerland, and almost equidistant from Berne, Lausanne and Interlaken. All of them are a good thirty miles from Sannen, so should not be affected by the initial shock. As for the fall-out, wherever we create the explosion that will be dependent on wind and weather, and Our Lord Satan's will. And now, on this question, you will not presume to argue further.'
Turning on his heel he left them, and for a few moments Mary and Wash stared after him in silence. Then, with a shrug of his great shoulders, Wash said, 'He's right. To put this thing over a hundred-per-cent, there's just gotta be at least one township blown sky-high. Must be, so as the newsreel boys can get their pictures and show the world what nuclear war would mean. And let's face it, honey, what do a few thousand deaths matter, if that
insures against millions being slaughtered in a few years time?' Mary found it difficult not to agree, providing that his basic premises were right. But she still could not believe that the United States would ever attack Russia without provocation, and that if matters were left as they were an all-out war between the East and West was inevitable. She said so, and they argued for another hour, but found themselves going round in circles, so at last broke off and went moodily to bed.
As Mary had slept most of the day she had a thoroughly bad night. For hours she tossed and turned in the narrow bunk, trying to think of some way in which she could get a warning of the Great Ram's intentions to the Swiss authorities; so that, even if they were not in time to stop him launching the rocket, they could at least evacuate the town of Sannen and it's surrounding district. Yet she knew that such mind-searching was utterly futile,
