To speak with her speedilie.

others had been a redundant or a failed musician. Perhaps that was the necessary requirement. It certainly made sense for the installer to have an instrumental background. She rephrased her question to apply to all thirty-seven available singers. Nineteen fit that category. Lanzecki appeared reluctant to offer her the assignment but she oughtnt to fault him. She was acutely aware of past concessions from her Guildmaster. She had no right to expect an interrupted flow of benefits simply because he chose to share his bed with her. Nor, she decided, would she jeopardize their relationship by referring to the assignment again. Lanzecki might well be doing her a favor by not recommending her. She must keep that aspect of the situation firmly in mind. She might not be thrilled to vacation on the four systems to which her available credit would take her, but that was another string in her deplorable luck. She would get a rest from crystal and that was the essential requirement. Her reawakened appetite reminded her that it had been some hours since breakfast. During lunch, shed decide where to take herself. When, refreshed and revitalized, she returned to her labors for the Heptite Guild, shed find a fresh vein of black crystal and then shed get to the planet Maxim. Before she could plan her vacation in any detail, Antona rang her from the Infirmary. Have you eaten, Killa? Is that an invitation or a professional query? Because I just finished a very hearty lunch. Antona sighed. I should have liked your company for lunch. Theres not much doing right now down here. Fortunately. If its just the company you want while you eat Antona smiled with genuine pleasure. I do. I dont enjoy eating by myself all the time. Could you drop down here first? Youre still listed as inactive and youll want that status amended. On her way down to the Infirmary level, Killashandra first worried then chided herself for fearing there was more to Antonas request than a simple record up-date. It might have nothing to do with her fitness to take on the Optherian job. Nor would it be discreet to imply that she knew such an assignment was available. On the other hand, Antona would know more about the amenities of the nearby worlds. The medical formality took little time and then the two women proceeded to the catering section of the main singers floor of the Guild Complex. Its so depressingly empty, Antona said in a subdued voice as she glanced about the dimly lit portions of how mount flash to digital camera the facility. I found it a lot more depressing when everyone else was celebrating a good haul, Killashandra said in a glum tone. Yes, yes, it would be, I suppose. Oh, fardles! Antona quickly diverted Killashandra toward the shadowy side. Borella, Concera, and that simp, Gobbain, she murmured as she made a hasty detour. You dont like them? Killashandra was amused. Antona shrugged. One establishes a friendship by sharing events and opinions. They remember nothing and consequently have nothing to share. And less to talk about. Without warning, Antona caught Killashandra by the arm, turning to face her. Do yourself a sterling favor, Killa. Put everything youve experienced so far in your life, every detail you can recall from cutting expeditions, every conversation youve had, every joke youve heard, put everything when Killashandra affected surprise, Antona gave her arm a painful squeeze and yes, I do mean everything, into your personal retrieval file. What you did. what you said, what you felt and Antonas fierce gaze challenged Privacy how youve loved. Then, when your mind is as blank as theirs, you can refresh your memory and have something with which to reestablish you! Her expression became intensely sad. Oh, Killa. Be different! Do as I ask! Now! Before its too late! Then, her customary composure restored, she released the arm and seemed to draw the intensity back into her straight, slim body. Because I assure you, she said as she took the last few steps into the catering area, that once your brilliant wit and repartee become as banal and malicious as theirs, she jerked her thumb at the silent trio, Ill seek other company at lunch. Now, she said, her fingers poised over the catering terminal, what are you having? Yarran beer. Killashandra said the first thing that came to mind, being slightly dazed by Antonas unexpected outburst. Antona raised her eyebrows in mock surprise, then rapidly dialed their orders. They were served quickly and took their trays to the nearest banquette. As Antona tackled her meal with good appetite, Killashandra sipped her beer, digesting Antonas remarkable advice. Till then, Killashandra had had no opportunity to appreciate the viewpoint of a colleague who would not lose her memory as an occupational hazard. Stubbornly, Killashandra preferred to forget certain scenes in her life. Like failure. Well, you

At every stroke, he made him to smoke,

hunter at a five-barred gate or climbing the crags of the Peak district or sailing a boat in a storm. All these things they had made him do and often he had failed in the doing, and neither his father nor his brothers could ever have understood how he had come to dread those violent sports in which they excelled, for they were not cruel men, nor even unkind, but simply stupid. And so to the simple physical fear he sometimes and naturally felt was added the fear of failure, the fear that he was bound to fail in whatever he had to do next, the fear of the inevitable mockery and ridicule: and because he had been a sensitive boy and feared the ridicule above all else, he had come to fear these things that provoked the ridicule. Finally, he had come to fear fear itself, and it was in a desperate attempt to overcome this double fear that he had devoted himselfthis in his late teensto crag and mountain climbing: in this he had ultimately become so proficient, developed such a reputation, that father and brothers had come to treat him with respect and as an equal, and the ridjcule had ceased. But the fear had not ceased; rather it had grown by what it fed on, and often, on a particularly difficult climb, be had all but fallen to his death, powerless in the grip of sheer, unreasoning terror. But this terror he had always sought, successfully so far, to conceal. As now. He was trying to overcome, to conceal that fear now. He was afraid of failingin what he wasn't quite sureof not measuring up to expectation: he was afraid of being afraid: and he was desperately afraid, above all things, of being seen, of being known to be afraid. . . . The startling, incredible blue of the Aegean; the soft, hazy silhouette of the Anatolian mountains against the washed-out cerulean of the sky; the heart-catching, magical blending of the blues and violets and purples and indigoes of the sun-soaked islands drifting lazily by, almost on the beam now; the iridescent rippling of the water fanned by the gentle, scent-laden breeze newly sprung from the south-east; the peaceful scene on deck, the reassuring, interminable thump-thump, thump-thump of the old Kelvin engine. . . . All was peace and quiet and contentment and warmth and languor, and it seemed impossible that anyone could be afraid. The world and the war were very far away that afternoon. Or perhaps, after all, the war wasn't so far away. There were occasional pin-pricksand constant reminders. Twice a German Arado seaplane had circled curiously overhead, and a Savoia and packard bell user manuals digital cameras Fiat, flying in company, had altered course, dipped to have a look at them and flown off, apparently satisfied: Italian planes, these, and probably based on Rhodes, they were almost certainly piloted by Germans who had rounded up their erstwhile Rhodian allies and put them in prison camps after the surrender of the Italian Government. In the morning they had passed within half a mile of a big German caiqueif flew the German flag and bristled with mounted machine-guns and a two-pounder far up in the bows; and in the early afternoon a high-speed German launch had roared by so closely that their caique had rolled wickedly in the wash of its passing: Mallory and Andrea had shaken their fists and cursed loudly and fluently at the grinning sailors on deck. But there had been no attempts to molest or detain them: neither British nor German hesitated at any time to violate the neutrality of Turkish territorial waters, but by the strange quixotry of a tacit gentlemen's agreement hostilities between passing vessels and planes were almost unknown. Like the envoys of warring countries in a neutral capital, their behaviour ranged from the impeccably and frigidly polite to a very pointed unawareness of one another's existence. These, then, were the pin-pricks-the visitations and bygoings, harmless though they were, of the ships and planes of the enemy. The other reminders that this was no peace but an illusion, an ephemeral and a frangible thing, were more permanent. Slowly the minute hands of their watches circled, and every tick took them nearer to that great wall of cliff, barely eight hours away, that had to be climbed somehow: and almost dead ahead now, and less than fifty miles distant, they could see the grim, jagged peaks of Navarone topping the shimmering horizon and reaching up darkly against the sapphired sky, desolate and remote and strangely threatening. At half-past two in the afternoon the engine stopped. There had been no warning coughs or splutters or missed strokes. One moment the regular, reassuring thump-thump: the next, sudden, completely unexpected silence, oppressive and foreboding in its absoluteness. Mallory was the first to reach the engine hatch. "What's up, Brown?" His voice was sharp with anxiety. "Engine broken down?" "Not quite, sir." Brown was stifi bent over the engine, his voice muffled. "I shut it off just now." He straightened

"Come tell it to me for good:"

Majesty's latest Sclass destroyer Sirdar, looked round the cramped chart- room and tugged thoughtfully at his magnificent Captain Kettle beard. A scruffier, a more villainous, a more cut and battered-looking bunch of hard cases he had never seen, he reflected, with the possible exception of a Bias Bay pirate crew he had helped round up when a very junior officer on the China Station. He looked at them more closely, tugged his beard again, thought there was more to it than mere scruffiness. He wouldn't care to be given the task of rounding this lot up. Dangerous, highly dangerous, he mused, but impossible to say why, there was only this quietness, this relaxed watchfulness that made him feel vaguely uncomfortable. His "hatchetmen," Jensen had called them: Captain Jensen picked his killers well. "Any of you gentlemen care to go below," he suggested. "Plenty of hot water, dry clothesand warm bunks. We won't be using them to-night." "Thank you very much, sir." Mallory hesitated. "But we'd like to see this through." "Right, then, the bridge it is," Ryan said cheerfully. The Sirdar was beginning to pick up speed again, the deck throbbing beneath their feet. "it is at your own risk, of course." "We lead charmed lives," Miller drawled. "Nothin' ever happens to us." The rain had stopped and they could see the cold twinkling of stars through broadening rifts in the clouds. Mallory looked around him, could see Maidos broad off the port bow and the great bulk of Navarone slipping by to starboard. Aft, about a cable length away, he could just distinguish two other ships, high-curving bow-waves piled whitely against tenebrious silhouettes. Mallory turned to the captain. "No transports, sir?" "No transports." Ryan felt a vague mixture of pleasure and embarrassment that this man should call him "sir." "Destroyers only. This is going to be a smashand-grab job. No time for dawdlers to-nightand we're behind schedule already." "How long to clear the beaches?" "Half an hour." "What! Twelve hundred men?" Mallory was incredulous. "More." Ryan sighed. "Half the ruddy inhabitants want to come with us, too. We could still do it in half an hour, but we'll probably take a bit longer. We'll embark all the mobile equipment we can." Mallory nodded, let his eye travel discount digital camera asseccories along the slender outlines of the Sirdar. "Where are you going to put 'em all, sir?" "A fair question," Ryan admitted. "5 p.m. on the London Underground will be nothing compared to this little lot But we'll pack them in somehow." Mallory nodded again and looked across the dark waters at Navarone. Two minutes, now, three at the most, and the fortress would open behind that headland. He felt a hand touch his arm, half-turned and smiled down at the sad-eyed little Greek by his side. "Not long now, Louki," he said quietly. "The people, Major," he murmured. "The people in the town. Will they be all right?" "They'll be all right. Dusty says the roof of the cave will go straight up. Most of the stuff will fall into the harbour." "Yes, but the boats?" "Will you stop worrying! There's nobody aboard themyou know they have to leave at curfew time." He looked round as someone touched his arm. "Captain Mallory, this Is Lieutenant Beeston, my gunnery officer." There was a slight coolness in Ryan's voice that made Mallory think that he wasn't overfond of his gunnery officer. "Lieutenant Beeston is worried." "I am worried!" The tone was cold, aloof, with an indefinable hint of condescension. "I understand that you have advised the captain not to offer any resistance?" "You sound like a B.B.C. communiqu6," Mallory said shortly. "But you're right. I did say that. You couldn't locate the guns except by searchlight and that would be fatal. Similarly with gunfire." "I'm afraid I don't understand." One could almost see the lift of the eyebrows in the darkness. "You'd give away your position," Mallory said patiently. "They'd nail you first time. Give 'em two minutes and they'd nail you anyway. I have good reason to believe that the accuracy of their gunners is quite fantastic." "So has the Navy," Ryan interjected quietly. "Their third shell got the Sybaris's B magazine." "Have you got any idea why this should be, Captain Mallory?" Beeston was quite unconvinced. "Radar-controlled guns," Mallory said briefly. "They have two huge scanners atop the fortress." "The Sirdar had radar installed last month," Beeston said stiffly. "I imagine we could register some hits ourselves if" "You could hardly miss." Miller drawled out the words, the tone dry and provocative. "It's a helluva big