[Magazine 1967-­01] - The Light-­Kill Affair - Davis Robert Hart - Страница 11

He was slumped upon his knees, half supported by two men, neither of whom even looked at him.

Things took shape before him. He saw that he was in a brilliantly illumined office-lab. Rows of equipment led away toward the greenhouses, where the lush tropical plants appeared to be growing visibly, as they might when seen in time-lapse photography.

Solo shook his head, trying to clear it.

"Ah, our guest is waking up."

Solo tilted his head, gazing at the man who had spoken.

He was a tall man with a wide frame upon which the flesh hung loosely. He was turned away from Solo at first and Solo was struck by the resemblance between this man and the statues of Julius Caesar— the strong chin, the fine Roman nose, the intelligent forehead, the balding head.

Then the man in the white smock turned full face and Solo caught his breath, wincing. The scientist's face was badly disfigured, the left eye sitting in the corner of its misshapen socket, the skin mottled, rutted.

"Dr. Nesbitt," he whispered. Nesbitt fixed his glowering gaze upon Solo so intently that the young agent turned away, and then caught his breath, shocked a second time.

A few feet from him Illya Kuryakin was slumped in a chair, battered, scarcely more than half alive.

Illya gave him a faint salute. Solo whispered it. "How did you get here?"

"It was a lot easier than I thought."

"What happened to you?"

Illya shrugged. Blood showed at the corner of his mouth. "You don't tell me your woes, I won't tell you mine."

Dr. Nesbitt came around the cluttered desk where he had been working. Turning his scarred face at an angle away from Napoleon Solo, he smiled.

"So now you and your friend have found me, Mr. Solo. Are you pleased?"

Solo spoke ruefully. "This isn't exactly the way we planned it."

"I suppose not. Still, you must have known, you and your interfering spy organization—"

"We were only trying to help, sir—"

"Help? Did it occur to any of you that I might not want help? You must have learned from what happened to your agents in Central America when they came prying that we could have easily have killed you and Mr. Kuryakin."

"We couldn't let that stop us, Doctor. We still believed you might want to communicate through us with your friends in the outside world."

Nesbitt's voice slashed at him. "I have no friends in the outside world. I have only my work."

"But that's it, sir. That's what puzzled us. You turned your back on a most rewarding and selfless career—disappeared. The world was puzzled. We couldn't turn our backs on you."

"I assure you there is no puzzlement. I'm here doing what I want to do. I have my experiments. I am successful beyond my most fantastic expectations."

"Jungle plants growing in Montana," Illya said.

Nesbitt heeled around, the scarred half of his face livid. "That is only the smallest part of it. Mr. Kuryakin. Plants that are like living things, plants growing to huge trees overnight. Incredible, wonderful plants."

Solo kept his voice low. "Your friends are deeply concerned, Doctor."

"I said it once, Solo. I have no friends. None. Except here. My plants. My living, breathing plants."

Solo continued trying to appeal to Nesbitt's reason. "You do have friends. Evidently more than you know, or care to admit. You have one friend who may have given his life searching for you."

Nesbitt straightened slightly. "Oh?"

"Sam Connors," Solo persisted. "Does the name mean anything to you?"

Nesbitt hesitated the space of a breath. He shrugged. "Connors? Once an under-professor of mine."

"At Northwestern. He thought he was a close friend."

"Well, he was wrong."

"He's disappeared. He may be dead. He was looking for you, deeply worried."

Nesbitt shrugged again. "Sorry to hear that."

"But you're not really concerned about his fate?"

Nesbitt straightened his wide, thin shoulders. "No. Not particularly. I am in no wise responsible for a misguided man like Professor Connors—"

"But he was looking for you!"

"I am very busy here. The people who are financing my experiments expect quick results. Nothing else concerns me."

"Not even the life or death of Sam Connors?"

"Nothing! I have no knowledge of Sam's death. I have no wish to kill—not even two meddlers like you—but I wish to be let alone. And I will be let alone—at whatever cost!"

Solo brought the "summons to death" which had been delivered to Sam Connors, from his pocket. The two guards were alert.

Solo handed the paper to the doctor. Nesbitt took it, scanned it calmly.

"Does it mean anything to you?" Solo persisted.

"Nothing. It looks like some one's tasteless idea of a joke."

"Whoever sent it had a deadly sense of humor."

At this instant whistles wailed throughout the laboratory. The guards leaped to attention.

A white-smocked man ran into the office from the corridor. "Dr. Nesbitt, there's a woman in the walled yard."

Swearing, Nesbitt ran from the room, following the white-smocked assistant.

A moment later an intercom blared, "All guards to the yard. At once."

The guards standing beside Solo and Kuryakin snapped to attention and ran like robots from the room.

"Mindless," Illya whispered. "They're mindless slaves."

Napoleon Solo jerked his head toward the doors opening off the office. "We've got less than two minutes. We've got to find out anything we can."

Illya nodded, agreeing. They ran toward the long hothouse beyond Nesbitt's rows of equipment.

Illya jerked open the door and they entered the room. They hesitated, staggered by the unnatural heat and humidity. It was almost impossible to breathe.

Quick scanning showed them the plants were all of one species, but there was every size from one inch to huge tubular plants with six foot leaves and twisting, snake-like branches.

The room was loud with a rustling, stirring of leaves and limbs.

"This is far enough," Solo said, gasping for breath and already sweating profusely. "Let's get out of here."

Illya nodded and heeled around. There was no handle on the inside of these doors. Illya thrust against them. They were securely locked and would not open from this side.

Solo wiped the sweat from his eyes. "Never mind. There's got to be more than one way out of here."

They saw another door far through narrowing aisles to their right. They ran toward it.

As they ran the large leaves brushed them, dripping water as hot as tears on them. The smell was sickeningly sweet, the smell of death. When they brushed one of the tentacle-like limbs, it adhered to their clothing and they had to break free.

The rustling was louder and the limbs stirred faster all through the hot-house, although there was not the slightest breeze.

"Out that door," Solo said, the horror mounting in him.

He pushed through overhanging leaves and limbs that seemed to fight back at him, almost like human arms.

He broke clear and lunged to ward the door. His feet brushed something and he stumbled to his knees.

"Solo!"

Illya's voice cried out behind him, but for the moment Solo stared at the dead man on the floor.

"Connors," he whispered, shaking his head. He'd seen the photograph Bikini carried of her father, but Sam had resembled his daughter in life, and he recognized him instantly.