Bond lifted his thumb from the button.
Nothing happened.
Bond waited an instant and saw that the button had indeed risen. He cried out but was unable to hear his own voice. The centrifugal force was holding him in an invisible vice. Only pain had freedom of movement through his body. His tortured, throbbing eyes looked down. Six Gs. Now he knew what was happening. They were going to kill him. Holly Goodhead.had been opportunely called away. The brutal slab of menace that was Chang had, done the rest. No doubt there would be mutual recriminations and many regrets. Terror, rage and desperation burned through Bond like a forest fire. He fought to apply pressure against the straps that held him but the centrifugal force made the raising of an eyebrow a labour of Hercules. Seven Gs. ‘Most people pass out at seven.’ He remembered Holly’s words and the mocking look in her eyes. Was he going to be like most people? Like hell he was!
The noise of the centrifuge was now a high-pitched screech that broke the mind apart like an ice-pick. The blur before Bond’s eyes was grey tinged with red. He felt as if every drop of blood was draining from his face. As if his eyeballs themselves were being pushed into his head. He opened his mouth to scream and felt his lips being pulled across his paralysed cheeks as if smeared by a giant hand. No sound emerged. Eight Gs. His head was going to explode and a shock wave of nausea and dizziness churned through his stomach. Bond knew that he had seconds before he lost consciousness, and with it his life. He must do something! He must not give up the fight! His eyes, glued to the counter, suddenly saw the strap around his wrist. The strap that Q had given him in the Operations Room. The sleeve of his jacket had ridden half-way up his forearm and now clung like a second skin. Bond felt a stab of hope. If he could somehow jerk back his wrist...
Finger by finger, Bond broke apart his clenched fist and extended his hand along the arm of the seat. Every movement required a force that was borrowed from the will to survive rather than any strength that could escape the death hug of the centrifuge. If he could fire down the rotor arm it would be like striking at the head of the octopus. His teeth ground together so that he expected to feel slivers of enamel in his mouth. He fought the pain and the mind-splitting wail and strove to prize his fingers from the seat arm. As if held by adhesive, the fingers trembled and then snapped clear to rise half an inch in the air. The thumb lagged behind. Bond summoned up all his remaining strength of spirit and will for the supreme effort. The black curtain flecked with red was being drawn for the last time. He dragged down his eyelids and his wrist arched, fingers spread, like a maimed spider making its death stand.
Bond’s eyes were closed, but the flash shone through the lids like torchlight playing on a blind. There was a deafening explosion and a crazed grinding noise that faded with the imperishable resonance of a steel heel being dragged across asphalt. As quickly as it had taken hold, Bond felt the grip loosening. His body detached itself from the seat and he came away like a sticky sweet from its wrapping. Sweat lathered his aching body. He was within half a breath of voiding the contents of his stomach. The hatch snapped open and hands tore at the straps that stopped him from slumping forward. He heard Holly’s voice above the others and pulled up his head to open his eyes.
Holly was looking at him, aghast. ‘What happened?’ It was difficult to doubt the concern on her face.
Difficult but not impossible. Bond opened his dry mouth and tried to find some saliva to lubricate his words.
‘Something must have gone wrong with the controls.’ Holly’s voice was incredulous. She stretched out a supporting hand as Bond started to pull himself out of the seat. ‘Let me help you.’
Bond brushed the hand aside. ‘No thanks, Doctor. I think I’ve had enough treatment for one day.’
6
BED AND BORED
Trudi Parker rested her beautiful blonde head against the pillow and sighed. It was eleven o’clock at night and the novel, closed, with Trudi’s finger inserted between pages 64 and 65, had long since failed to maintain its initial slender promise. It lay against the silk sheets with the author’s face on the back cover looking up at her sadly and reproachfully. In real life it was difficult to believe that any man finding himself where the author was would have had reason for either sadness or reproach. The sight of Trudi’s breasts inadequately concealed behind the fabric of her flesh-coloured silk nightdress might indeed have provided that vital fillip to the style which the book so desperately needed.
Trudi sighed again and wished that she did so because she was tired rather than bored. The writer’s style, though plodding, laboured and tortuous, fell just short of that exquisite tedium which can produce a printed soporific. On the contrary, it lumbered into the category of work that asks questions it cannot answer, raises expectations it can never fulfil and leaves the reader asking not for more, but something; in other words, unsatisfied.
Trudi stuck her tongue out at the lugubrious author and placed him face downwards on the marble-topped bedside table. What the hero’s philandering wife did when she found out that her philandering husband had fallen in love with his philandering secretary would never be revealed to her. The prospect of not sharing any more of their overlapping lives, which seemed to commute between Madison Avenue and the Adirondacks, came almost as a relief.
Trudi studied her even, white nails and reached idly for an emery board. Somewhere in the distance came the-mournful cry of a coyote. A warm desert wind stirred the curtains. Outside, the night was clear, and needle- points of stars shone with uneven degrees of brightness. Trudi put down the emery board unused and stretched out a hand for the bedside lamp.
There was a light tap on the door.
Trudi withdrew her hand and sat up. The door opened and James Bond came in. He closed the door behind him and leant against it, surveying her. He wore a navy blue polo-neck pullover and a pair of similarly coloured tropical worsted trousers. Trudi wondered where he had been and, with more immediate interest, where he was going. She pulled a sheet up before her demurely.
‘Mother gave me a comprehensive list of things not to do on a first date.’
Bond smiled his thin, hard smile and crossed to the bed. ‘Maybe you won’t need it. That’s not what I came here for.’
Trudi conquered her disappointment and hoped that no trace of it showed in her voice. ‘What do you want then?’
Bond sat on the bed and looked at her levelly. This time there was more warmth in his smile. ‘Would your
