I waited but that was all he said. The second half of the equation was tacit: compared with these disastrous eventualities, what value had the life of one man?

All right, Loman.

Pause.

You are prepared to complete your mission?

Did you think 1'd back out?

No.

Never make a mistake, do you?

Wished I hadn't said it but an hour from now he'd be alive and I wouldn't and I hated him for that, for that alone and for nothing else.

The most important mistake I could have made, Quiller, would have been to choose an executive in the field with a sense of responsibility less admirable than your own. Please accept my compliments.

A certain style: the man had a certain style, give him that.

Good of you.

She'd be there, I supposed, listening and not liking it, her own fault, she shouldn't have looked for work in this trade, her downy arms and her sooty face and her quick little way of nodding, all I knew, really.

Loman, is that girl there?

Yes. Do you want to -

No. Just do something for me. Get her out of it when this mission's over, get her out of this bloody trade, it's not for her. Do that for me.

Then it occurred to me that this was the final signal, so I ended it the way the little bastard would want me to, right out of the copy-book.

Tango out.

They flew up screaming as I neared them, one of them with meat hanging from its beak. I remembered them from the nightmare, and had to stand still for a while, the sweat running on me, until something inside the spirit of a dying man was roused to his last needs, and I managed to go on towards the freighter, the weight of the two containers slowing my feet through the sand.

The birds didn't go far away: I'd interrupted their feeding and by the time I reached the doorway they'd settled again. I thought it odd how the chemical processes of life were still going on: a minute ago I'd drunk the last of the water, and these birds were busy absorbing nourishment, but very soon we would no longer exist. The scene was surrealistic: a man and some birds perpetuating the motions of life in a desert landscape, without purpose.

The influence of the United Kingdom at the international conference tables,so forth. Purpose, yes.

I took great care going into the freighter because some of the cylinders had been lying at an angle and could fall if I caused vibration. This is characteristic of the end-phase of a mission: you take pains to see that at the eleventh hour you don't wreck everything you've been working for.

I didn't think I could go into the actual freight section and set up the device without the risk of inhaling gas: the movement of my feet could stir up the bubble pooling there. The flight-deck wasn't contaminated because it was at a higher level, so I carried the containers inside and slid the door closed after me, switching on the torch.

Stifling heat, tendency to claustrophobia, not because the cabin was small but because I knew I would never leave it in the form of a living creature. Rapid increase of sweating, pulse accelerated, mouth dry: the organism mortally afraid and the forebrain alone driving it on, forcing its hands, arranging the movement of its fingers, performing the necessary motion's that would assemble the black-painted components as required.

Annular clamp, the brass threads smelling of silicone lubricant and an additive, the toggle action precise and almost silent as I brought the levers home and set the pins.

By-pass conduit, the channels lined up by a sprung ball-and-socket: I listened for the click and the lingering musical tone of the spring.

Main body-locking, the three-start thread fairly coarse, but even so there was provision for alignment by sighting, to avoid the risk of crossing them. Push-fit pin location, precise to less than a thousandth: the entire mechanism was built to maximum-security specifications, giving me confidence in it.

It had to perform with absolute satisfaction and somewhere in the last confused interplay of thoughts I felt adamant about this: since I was prepared to detonate it I didn't want it to fail me because of slip-shod work at some stage during its manufacture.

Oven heat.

Aware of my breathing, rather loud in the confines and faster than normal. Sweat in the eyes, stinging. Some area of the brain noting the immediate environment, instinct plus training: appraisal of physical factors in hazardous situation. Instruments and controls, parachutes, pair of tennis shoes in the open locker, carved teakwood statuette, copy ofPlayboy, so forth. Nothing significant.

As I worked I could hear them cackling outside. The sand was still piled against the Perspex windows and I couldn't see them but they were much in my mind, adding to the incipient terror that was trying to overwhelm conscious thought.

Cackle cackle.

The awful thing was that I couldn't hear them without seeing them in my imagination, tugging and pulling as they fed. If they'd been doing anything else, if they'd simply been flying around like ordinary birds, they would have kept me company in these last minutes. As it was, the world I was leaving had the aspect of nightmare.

But I was ready now.

The activator was a cylindrical spigot, not very different from a press-button but two inches across, its surface grooved to mate with the grooves I'd seen on the timing-mechanism. The extent of travel was less than half an inch, the extent by which the activator stood proud of the casing. Thumb pressure would suffice: the mechanism of the timer had been sensitive rather than heavy. I put my thumb on the grooved surface.

The organism was at this point in a state of excitation: the blind instinct to preserve itself was in fierce conflict with the will. I think it would have been easier for me if I'd been in fit condition: there wouldn't have been this need to drive a bruised and terrified subconscious into contributing to the final act of extinction. In the confused cerebral state there was only one area with any kind of ability to reason, and here the technician in me was observing the situation in his own terms, and noting things like the complementary factors of requirements and facilities available, the requirements being to press the activator and detonate the device, the facilities being my thumb and its motor nerves.

At some time this idea became linked with philosophicalconsiderations containing a marked awareness of self: the activator has to be pressed, therefore all we need is pressure; I can exert pressure with my thumb, but I'd rather it were something else because if I press this thing with my thumb it's going to kill me.

Cerebration is very fast and I doubt whether more than half a minute had passed before the whole idea took shape. I could still hear them cackling, and another sound, a kind of secret laughter, gloating and vengeful, rising from the vortex of myown subliminal.

Vaguely aware that I was laughing at the birds out there, the horrible sounds inside me echoing theirs, but not a lot of time to think about it, the need was to move back from the edge of clinical hysteria and perform acts.

The first was to remove my thumb from the detonator.

Of the various objects on the flight-deck I thought the carved teakwood statuette was most suitable. For a little while I held it, feeling its shape with my fingertips. It was a couple of feet long, the carving quite good except where the tool had slipped and one of the feet had been narrowed; or it could have been damaged at some time and the break smoothed off. It was Nahudian, obviously a god, wide nosed and with tribal markings on the forehead, a burning brand held at the side: perhaps it was N'Gami, god of lightning.