the globe. In it, as if lined up for release, were three spheres like those he had seen in the laboratory at the Venini glassworks. Holly followed his eyes inquiringly.
‘Did you see those in Venice?’ asked Bond. ‘I saw them being filled with nerve gas. Two people died.’
Holly looked alarmed. ‘So what’s he planning to do?’ Bond’s expression hardened. ‘I don’t know what he plans to do, but I know what he
They stepped through a door and entered the command satellite of the space station. It was constructed on three levels, with an elevator shaft running like a spindle from it to the central globe. There were a number of apron stages. On one of these was a giant instrument resembling a telescope protruding from the roof of the chamber, and next to it a console incorporating three monitor screens and a bank of switches and buttons. Around the edge of the sphere was a circular walkway with more consoles and screens built into the outer walls. These were manned by technicians in light green tunics. Long windows positioned at intervals looked out into space and towards the attendant satellites. From these the newly arrived astronauts were entering the chamber by means of the corridor tunnels, which criss-crossed at all levels, and fanning out around the walls.
While Bond was looking about him in silent wonder, the elevator came to a halt behind the giant telescope and Drax stepped out. As he appeared, so the lights dimmed, and beyond the windows could be seen a million tiny pinpoints of distant stars. The feeling of being at the very hub of the universe was brilliantly conveyed. Bond was awed.
‘First there was a dream... Now there is reality.’ Drax’s voice echoed eerily, seeming to come not from his body but from the throbbing walls that surrounded his listeners. Lights began to play on the faces of the assembled astronauts to reveal that they were standing in couples. Their carefully selected beauty had a cold, impersonal quality which added to the feeling of unreality. Bond began to get an unpleasant pricking sensation down his backbone. The whole scene was like a meticulously orchestrated stage performance.
Drax slowly extended his arms to embrace the gathering. A penumbra of light played about his head and softened the brutish hardness of his twisted features. ‘Here, in the untainted cradle of the heavens, will be created a new super-race. A race of perfect physical specimens. You have been selected as its progenitors. Like gods, your offspring will return to Earth and shape it in their image.’ Bond looked towards Holly. Her face echoed his incredulity. The lights continued to shine and behind Drax, in the shadows, they glinted on the cruel, vulpine faces of armed men. With a start of horror, Bond realized what the scene reminded him of: one of the Nazi rallies of the 1930s. Excitement, pageantry, showmanship, distortion, lies, genocide. The last word flared up in his mind in blazing letters. Drax’s voice continued. ‘But you will not be ordinary gods. You have all served in humble capacities in my terrestrial empire. You have learned that humility which is the sovereign bond of kingship.’ Bond looked again at the faces. The words were getting through to them. Chins were lifting, jaws setting with a new edge- of purpose. They waited eagerly for what was to come. Drax extended his arms before him, his fists clenched. His voice rose slowly and demoniacally. Nobody could fault the delivery or the fervour. Only the words emerged as if dipped in some ghastly putrescence of the soul that made Bond feel physically sick. ‘Your seed, like yourselves, will pay deference to the ultimate dynasty which I alone shall have created. From their first day on Earth your descendants will be able to look up and know that there is rule and order in the heavens.’
There was a silence and then everything was plunged into darkness. Only the ghostly luminescence of space and its myriads of stars were visible like shining dust through the long windows. Seconds passed and a globe appeared to glow with light and slowly start revolving as if it had arrived from space. The familiar shape of Earth could be recognized, the continents black against the glowing white of the oceans. Almost imperceptibly at first, the dark shape of the continents began to melt into the sea. The surface of the globe became smooth as if a slate had been wiped clean. Then in a blaze of light the land masses appeared, dazzling with an ethereal brilliance, whilst the oceans became dark. The impression of rebirth was dynamically conveyed. There was a gasp of awe which spoke its effectiveness.
Bond drew Holly to him and whispered in her ear. ‘It’s more vital than ever that we get to that radar jamming system and kill it. The idea of Drax as God terrifies me.’
Holly squeezed his hand. ‘Me too. I guess it must be on another floor or in one of the satellites. We’d better take the elevator.’
The lights came on and the globe stopped spinning. Drax had disappeared. As if leaving an auditorium after a moving performance, the astronauts began to disperse slowly, their faces.drawn and preoccupied. Bond saw one girl wiping away tears. Poor fools. They had been brainwashed for victory like a college football team buoyed up for the big game. But Hugo Drax was much more sinister than any football coach. The side he was planning to destroy had over four thousand million people in it.
Mingling with astronauts and technicians, Bond and Holly followed one of the corridor tunnels to the elevator shaft. With a hiss the door slid open and Bond quickly turned to face Holly. Filling the elevator as if packed in it was Jaws. Bond pretended to be preoccupied by some detail on Holly’s uniform and waited until her wary eyes returned to his. ‘He’s gone.’
Bond saw the broad back retreating down the corridor and led the way into the lift. There were five buttons and he pressed the middle one. The elevator moved slowly along its shaft and came to a stop. ‘You must be careful—’ began Holly.
‘I know that,’ said Bond. Sometimes he wished with Messrs Lerner and Loewe that women could be a little more like men. One did not always need to be reminded to take care. The door hissed open and Bond moved forward. He immediately found himself falling on his face.
Holly grabbed him. ‘When I said you must be careful, I was referring to the fact that we have now arrived in a zero-gravity area.’ Her tone was gracious.
‘I’ll listen next time,’ said Bond apologetically.
‘Do that.’ Holly looked left and right along the gallery. ‘Move slowly and press your feet well down. There’s Velcro on your soles and on the floor.’
‘So we’re right in the centre of the space station?’
‘Correct. Hence the zero-gravity. The nearer you get to the —’
Holly broke off her lecture as two guards appeared, moving purposefully around the gallery. At the waist of their dark green combat uniforms hung silver cylinders a foot in length and three inches in diameter. The heads of the tubes swelled priapically. Bond guessed that they must be laser torches. The guards appeared to be fully absorbed by what was happening inside the viewing panels of the globe-like structure that the gallery enclosed. They hardly glanced at Bond and Holly.
Bond waited until the guards had moved on and then looked inside the sphere himself. At first he thought he was looking beneath the surface of a swimming pool. Half a dozen young men and women appeared to be gliding through water. Then he realized that they were drifting weightlessly in zero-gravity; that the sphere was being used
