Fear is the Key

"We buried him in the kitchen garden." Royale was still moaning and swaying, but he was putting everything he could muster into his reeling thoughts to try to express them coherently: his nerve, for the moment, was gone beyond recall, he was talking for his life and he knew it.

"Who's behind Vyland?"

"Nobody."

"Who's behind Vyland?" I repeated implacably.

"Nobody." His voice was almost a scream he was so desperate to convince me. "There were two men, a Cuban minister in the government, and Houras, a permanent civil servant in Colombia. But not now."

"What happened to them?"

"They were — they were eliminated," Royale said wearily. "I did it."

"Who else did you eliminate since you've been working for Vyland?"

"Nobody."

I showed him the button between my teeth and he shuddered.

"The pilot. The pilot flying the fighter that shot down this plane. He — he knew too much."

"That's why we could never find that pilot," I nodded. "My God, you're a sweet bunch. But you made a mistake, Royale, didn't you? You shot him too soon. Before he'd told you exactly where the DC had crashed… Vyland give you orders for all this?"

He nodded.

"Did you hear my question?" I demanded.

"Vyland gave me orders for all of that."

There was a brief silence. I stared out the window, saw some strange shark-like creature swim into sight, stare incuriously at both bathyscaphe and plane, then vanish into the stygian blackness beyond with a lazy flick of its tail. I turned and tapped Royale on the shoulder.

"Vyland," I said. "Try to bring him round."

While Royale stooped over his employer I reached above him for the oxygen regenerating switch. I didn't want the air getting too fresh too soon.

After maybe a minute or so Royale managed to bring Vyland to. Vyland's breathing was very distressed, he was pretty far gone in the first stages of anoxia, but for all that he still had some breath left, for when he opened his eyes, stared wildly around and saw me with the button still between my teeth he started screaming, time and again, a horrible nerve-drilling sound in that tiny confined metal space. I reached forward to smack his face to jolt him out of his panic-stricken hysteria, but Royale got there first. Royale had had his tiny fleeting glimpse of hope and he meant to play that hope to the end of the way. He lifted his hand and he wasn't any too gentle with Vyland,

"Stop it!" Royale shook him violently. "Stop it, stop it, stop it! Talbot says he can fix this machine. Do you hear me? Talbot says he can fix it!"

Slowly the screaming died away and Vyland stared at Royale with eyes where the first faint flicker of comprehension was beginning to edge in on the fear and the madness.

"What did you say?" he whimpered hoarsely. "What was that, Royale?"

"Talbot says he can fix this machine," Royale repeated urgently. "He says he lied to us, he says that switch he left up top wasn't important. He can fix it. He can fix it!"

"You — you can fix it, Talbot?" Vyland's eyes widened until I could see a ring of white aE round the irises, his shaking voice was a prayer, the whole curve of his body a gesture of supplication. He wasn't even daring to hope yet, his mind had gone too deeply into the shadow of the valley of death even to glimpse the light above: or rather he didn't dare to look, in case there was no light there. "You can get us out of this? Now — even now you-"

"Maybe I will, maybe I won't." My voice, for all its rasping hoarseness, had just the right shade of indifference. "I've said I'd rather stay down here, I mean I'd rather stay here. It all depends. Come here, Vyland."

He rose trembling to his feet and crossed to where I was standing. His legs, his whole body were shaking so violently that he could barely support himself. I caught him by the lapels with my good hand and pulled him close.

"There's maybe five minutes' air left, Vyland. Perhaps less. Just tell me, and tell me quickly, the part you played in this business up until the time you met the general. Hurry it up!"

"Get us out of here," he moaned. "There's no air, no air! My lungs are going, I can't — I can't breathe." He was hardly exaggerating at that, the foul air was rasping in and out his throat with the frequency of a normal heart-beat. "I can't talk. I can't!"

"Talk, damn you, talk!", Royale had him round the throat from behind, was shaking him to and fro till Vyland's head bounced backwards and forwards like that of a broken doll. "Talk! Do you want to die, Vyland? Do you think I want to die because of you? Talk!"