And in U.N.C.L.E.‘s San Francisco communications room. Alexander Waverly leaned back from his console and smiled. The first knot in a fatal skein had been tied, and the web which might ensnare Thrush was strengthened. A chance encounter and an unlikely friendship had spun the first strands three years ago, and now for the first time in nearly a quarter of a century he could Almost foresee the beginning of the end to which his life had been devoted.

He smiled the smile of patience rewarded, the smile of the hunter who has finally cornered the old grizzly, and began to pack his pipe.

CHAPTER FIVE

“Great Balls of Fire.”

Illya got to see it the following afternoon. In twelve hours a mixed bag of technicians from Sections Four. Five and Eight had disarmed the autodestruct mechanisms in the Thrush terminal. and now it rested on a table in the basement laboratory of U.N.C.L.E.‘s San Francisco office. No complex of cables sprouted from its comfortably paneled sides — only a single well-shielded AC cord which terminated in a standard two-prong locking plug.

Instead of the wall socket, this was plugged into the front of a tall wheeled rack which displayed eleven panels including three quite different oscilloscope traces. This rack was plugged into the wall.

Napoleon stood behind a white-coated technician, watching as she expanded a small portion of the complex waveform on the second ‘scope into close focus and made some notes. Illya stared over his shoulder for several seconds before he spoke.

“Is that signal going in or coming out?”

“It IS coming in,” said Mr. Simpson. who had appeared quietly. HIt’s part of a multiplexed carrier-current signal which can be received at least in the central San Francisco area — we haven’t started carrying the terminal around to find just how far the signal extends.”

“It looks like white noise.” said Napoleon critically.

“Well, it is, pretty much,” said Mr. Simpson. “Except mathematically.

There are about fifty channels, I’d guess, and they’re all scrambled.”

“But the system has a key which our computer can work out?”

“Oh, no. That would be simple. This unit has broken synchronization with the Ultimate Computer; effectively, it has been disowned. Any direct attempt to signal into the operational banks would result in the erasure of the terminal IS own working core, as well as triggering its autodestruct circuits.”

“That IS what we need the maintenance access code for.” said Napoleon accurately, if ungrammatically. “Well, Harry’s on the job. Are you ready to start work as soon as you get it?”

“Well. I won’t be doing that part. Once we have communication established a Mr. Gold will be taking over. My expertise gives way to his once you get away from how the machines think into what they think about.”

“Communication? Two-way?”

“Of course. We have to be able to tell it what we want. Otherwise all we could do with this would be tap Ward Baldwin’s private line to Central.”

“I can remember when that alone would have been worth all we’ve gone through,” said Napoleon, impressed.

“Then they left the unit fully functional,” said Illya. “They didn’t disable it.”

“It wasn’t destined for the scrap heap; Thrush is never wasteful.

According to Mr. Stevens’ last report. it was to have been overhauled.

reconditioned, modified in a few modules and sent to one of the emerging African Satraps.”

“But won’t anybody notice an unauthorized signal coming in?”

“They have no reason to monitor terminal channels — Central has nearly fifteen thousand anyway, some of which only call once a month. And security on the terminals themselves is much easier than questioning each call. Yes, it’s a weakness; it took us some effort to find it, and we hope to make the roost of it.”

“Then the whole. contents of the Ultimate Computer will fall into our hands like ? like an egg?”

“Well, not that simply. Thrush doesn’t trust most of its own workers -which you must admit is reasonable —and the roost interesti”9 sections require the highest priority and the most obscure passwords. This is what Mr. Gold will be doing for us. In the persona of a qualified and cleared Thrush system analyst, he will identify himself convincingly and proceed to talk his way into the vaults.” ,

“You’re anthropomorphizing,? said Illya.

“A bad habit.”

“And the Ultimate Computer won’t get suspicious?” asked Napoleon-.

“Remember,” said Mr. Simpson, “a computer is an idiot. And a big computer is a big idiot. You just have to handle it more carefully.”

“And I suppose the Ultimate Computer would be the ultimate idiot,” said Napoleon.

“We hope so, Mr. Solo. We sincerely hope so.”

Nobody heard from Harry all that day. Napoleon and Illya were called into Mr. Waverly’s office late that evening to meet Mr. Simpson again and view some ninety feet of Super-8 film shot by an agent near Gilroy.

“Miss Fletcher’s camera was over a mile from_the Thrush test site,” said Mr. Waverly, “and a lens of some magnitude was used. You will notice interference from atmospheric haze and several intervening trees; also the image is not as steady as we might wish. Several sequences have been analyzed fr~~e by frame for computer study, but I thought you might like to see the KugelBlitzGewehr in action.”

He dimmed the lights with a finger-touch, and the opposite wall lit up to display a block-lettered title with a long code number. It was replaced by a vertical white line which took exactly a second to cross the screen. Then, through blurred foliage, a group of men could be seen clustered around a lean deadly-looking device mounted on a tripod on a small concrete slab. A husky backpack with cables running to the stock hung by its straps between the legs of the tripod, and another single line ran through a coil to a control box.

The image jumped and the figures vanished. A second later some thing which was rather 1ike a bubble and rather like the sun burst into existence at the tip of the tapering muzzle and spat away out of the picture in a dazzling blur of flame.

“Gawp,” said Napoleon.

“You can see that frame by frame if you’d like,” said Mr. Waverly. “Here comes another one.”

It seemed to take about a quarter of a second to swell up to the size of a basketball and vanish to the left.

“Yes, I would,” said Illya.

The image flickered, and a streak of light appeared at the left and was sucked into the needlepoint at the center of a deep two-foot dish of clear plastic with wires laced through it; a few seconds later another was drawn after it. The picture flickered again and grain pattern suddenly appeared as a single frame was held. The wall darkened and brightened alternately four times before a spot of intense light could be seen at the tip of the muzzle.

“That would seem to be about half an inch wide,” said Mr. Simpson. “The temperature is somewhere over ten thousand Celsius, but I can’t tell how far over. It could be twenty thousand.”

The screen changed, and a three-inch sphere of brilliance obscured the tip of the discharge point. Dark and light alternated again and the circle of burnt-out emulsion on the film doubled its size. On the fourth frame a globe a foot or so in diameter was only inches from the point and slightly elongated. On the fifth frame a streak of light ten feet long blazed beyond some bushes, flaring among the frozen leaves.

“It’s not really very fast,” said Mr. Simpson. “The plasmoid has a peak velocity in the neighborhood of five hundred feet per second.”

“That’s stil1 a little too fast to duck.”

“Well, it’s not really intended as an anti-personnel weapon. There is more film…”

The second fireball was launched again, followed some seconds later by a third. Then the scene cut to an awkward angle of a number of test walls —apparent1y brick, wood, concrete and stucco. There wasn’t much left of the wooden one, and the stucco was distinguished by shiny stubs of fused chickenwire which stuck out from its shattered edges. A piece had been knocked from the brick structure, and as they watched a ball two feet in diameter slapped into it and in a flare which fogged to the edges of the frame it vanished, taking a quarter of the wall with it.