TWO

THE GOVERNMENT of Singapore had read Sarabando's letter with barely stifled amusement. The dictator of the almost invisible little federation of islands to the south was extending to one of the primary centers of trade in the Asian complex an "invitation" to join, in exchange for certain privileges and prerogatives.

With elaborate oriental politeness the government had declined the invitation, explaining that its commitments to other interests made it more feasible to keep its hands untied.

Under any other circumstances such a rejection would have satisfied an insolent petty tyrant like Sarabando. But a week later he issued another invitation to Singapore. This time, cheerfully and patiently, he explained that the honorable governors of the city must have misunderstood his first note. That initial invitation was not so much a cordial expression of good will as it was a subtle suggestion of the unpleasant consequences that might follow if Singapore held out.

So, in case Singapore did not clearly get the implied message, Sarabando spelled it out a little more explicitly.

This note too provoked mirth in the cabinet of this queen of Southeast Asia, except for the response of one minister, who was convinced that Sarabando had a weapon of grave potential, and believed that the dreadful spectacle of Tapwana's volcanic destruction had been no accident.

But his pleas were rejected by his colleagues, and though Sarabando's final message—an undisguisedly severe warning—caused some serious discussion in the higher echelons of the government, no serious measures were considered to defend against, let alone look into, Sarabando's "ravings."

A few days after the diplomatic positions jelled Kae Soong made his appearance in the secret Singapore laboratory of Edward Dacian. Dacian, who had never carried much meat on his bones, had become gaunt and stringy. His hands shook and his muscles twitched, and he had begun to blink frequently.

"I understand you are in the final stage of preparing the liquid reflectors," the chunky, tall THRUSH agent said to him.

"Y—yes, if my hands will stop trembling long enough."

"Why are you so nervous?"

"Hungry, tired."

"You're being mistreated?"

The scientists nodded jerkily.

"You know why, don't you?"

Again Dacian nodded.

"Would it not be easier, then, simply to let us have the formula for the reflectors? Then we would require no further work from you, and we would send you some place pleasant where you would dine well and sleep and never trouble with formulas."

"Heaven," Dacian said.

"You must realize that we are on the verge of deducing your formula anyway. We know what materials you have been using, we even know their measurements and combinations, and it is only a matter of time before we put together our own."

It was sheer bluff, for in spite of all attempts to assess the work Dr. Dacian was doing, his captors hadn't the slightest idea where to begin. Once they had entered the laboratory after Dacian left it for the night, and taken samples of the material he had created, by the next morning Dacian told them that by so tampering with it they had altered its nature, and he would have to start all over. Whether it was true or not, Dacian knew how to play the game of bluff as well as they.

"Why are you letting them kill you by inches?" Kae Soong asked as if "they" were on one side and Soong was on Dacian's. "If you would only be reasonable they would release you from this torture and roil."

"I'm down, not out," said Dacian in one of those American phrases which made little sense to the Oriental mind.

"You mean you will not alter your course?"

"I agreed—one device at a time," Dacian droned, his eyes shutting involuntarily, then snapping open.

"I don't know if they will tolerate such tardy progress any longer. There is too much at stake."

"Learn my formula, then kill me. But you won't learn any more from me."

Trembling almost as if palsied, the scientist returned to his worktable where, crouching over his formulas to prevent televised eavesdropping, he continued his painstaking development of the key device for the next volcano box.

The location for the next eruption had been tentatively settled on the week before. The island of Singapore is for the most part a low and of twenty or thirty feet above sea level, but the central portion is a granite formation dominated by a mountain called Bukit Timah.

It is not high as mountains go, and is really more of a hill than anything else, being less than 600 feet high. Nevertheless its position is enough to radiate destruction in all directions, and a volcanic eruption there would have at least disruptive, and probably critical, effects on rail, shipping and air traffic. And if the eruption were of greater intensity than calculations predicted, the effects would carry into the city itself, with its magnificent skyline and superb harbor facilities.

Bukit Timah, then, was the location of THRUSH'S next display and possibly its last. It was beginning to look dubious that Dacian would ever reveal his formula, and even less likely that he would survive to make the reflectors for even one more box. The threat of suicide became a consideration now. Though Dacian was a coward, his suffering could reach the point where he would be performing a kindness to himself to take his life.

And to his physical suffering must be added the mental torture of realizing that his device was responsible for countless lives lost and an unimaginable number of lives threatened.

But THRUSH was not as disturbed over the prospect of losing or killing Dacian as it could have been. It was planning to use the destruction of Singapore as the key chess piece in its game of world domination. Kae Soong and his colleagues had hoped that the destruction of Tapwana would be a broad enough hint to the nations of the planet that failure to heed a THRUSH warning would result in a spasm of volcanic fury.

But obviously the hint hadn't been broad enough. Some people were convinced that Tapwana's destruction, after rebelling against the Boruvian Federation, was strictly a coincidence. A similar event on Singapore, however, would leave no doubt in anyone's mind. Nor would anyone wonder how far THRUSH would go in its bid for conquest.

Thus, when Singapore fell, THRUSH would issue its warning to the governments of the world, and none, witnessing the awful havoc wreaked on the island-nation, would be able to resist. Without the possession of another volcano box, THRUSH could nevertheless secure its goals.

On Bukit Timah, a pair of observers emerged from a helicopter and examined the structure of the ground. On the north side evidence of a great fissure in the granite suggested itself to their trained eyes, and a series of tests confirmed it. It was here that Dacian's next volcano box would be placed.

ACT VI

A NETWORK OF SATELLITES

ILLYA KURYAKIN and Frieda Winter had spent almost every minute together in the two days since his arrival at the Texas laboratory. But by the end of the second day they were no nearer a solution than they'd been at the beginning of the first.

There were two problems: to devise a way of locating volcano boxes, and to devise a way of destroying them once they were spotted. The first difficulty arose out of the fact that the Dacian machine emitted no special radiation, either while in operation or while dormant. True, it did project the polarized light of a laser beam when it was activated, but all of that light was directed downward into the earth, and could not therefore be detected by a conventional scanning device.