Pulp Fiction | The Finger in the Sky Affair by Peter Leslie (17 page)

"And it was one of these which brought down the planes?"

"No. It was a ruby laser which Helga used to set fire to the room—and which I used to burn the hole in the steel shutter. But there were two other kinds of laser in the apparatus also. Remember the thing had three barrels?"

"Yes, of course."

"The one they used to bring down the planes was a so-called 'cold' laser—a gas laser using a mixture of helium and neon at very low pressure. The irradiation in this case comes from an ordinary radio transmitter: you probably saw the one they had on the bench. It works rather like fluorescent light, in a long thin tube of Pyrex...But this was a rather special one: there was a third gas mixed in the tube, which gave the beam very—shall we say?—
special
qualities."

"And those were?" Sherry asked idly, waving to Solo and Matheson, who had appeared at the far end of the terrace and were making their way through the tables towards them.

"The beam in the infrared range, like the others, and therefore invisible to the eye—passes through many normal substances without burning them. But it is warm enough to affect toridium, a soft, heavy metal tremendously subject to heat changes. And there is a toridium core in the memory unit of the altitude stage of the Murchison-Spears box."

"And so when the beam fell on the box..."

"The toridium expanded, altering the altitude reading of the equipment and causing the controls of the plane to change in such a way as to make it crash. Once the beam is switched off, though, the metal returns to normal and shows no sign that it has been tampered with."

"And the adjustment is so fine that the beam would affect gear in the front of the aircraft but not at the back?"

"Up to a range of seven or eight miles—yes."

"Hello, hello, hello," Matheson called, dropping into a vacant chair at the table. "Have you solved the secret of the secret weapon yet, young man? There was hardly anything of the bally thing left after that fire. My chaps don't know where to start."

"It was very ingenious, really," Illya said seriously. "A triple-barreled affair. The operator could select an optically pumped ruby laser, a gas laser using a mixture of helium, neon and phrenium, or an injection laser—the usual forward-based semiconductor diode of gallium arsenide."

"In a cryostat, I suppose?"

"Yes—a double bottle of liquid helium and liquid nitrogen. I imagine THRUSH used it for long range communications."

"Enough of this love talk," Sherry Rogers interrupted sweetly, her nose wrinkling at Illya. "Mr. Solo has a plane to catch, and we have a holiday to take..."

* * *

"It's all very well for you people, lazing in the sun," Napoleon Solo said crossly as they said goodbye in the departure lounge. "
I've
got to go back and make out my report. I should have realized it was Helga, the moment that Mustang came at me on the sidewalk of Fifth Avenue: she was the only one who could have known I'd be leaving the building at that time...I'm not sure I approve of all this intercontinental dependency; it's most unsettling, being whisked from country to country like this. Especially when you've lost the girl..."

He was still looking disgruntled as he settled himself comfortably into the seat of the luxurious Air France 707 and fastened his seat belt.

"If you please, monsieur," a husky voice breathed in his ear. "You take something for the take-off, no?"

The French stewardess holding out the tray of chewing gum and candy was young and slim. Beneath the dark blue uniform cap, raven hair framed a face that was all lustrous eyes and full, wide lips.

"You permit, monsieur, that I sit beside you during take-off?" she inquired, sinking into the empty place beside him and picking up the two halves of the belt.

"All the way across, baby," Napoleon Solo said feelingly. "All the way...Maybe there's something to be said for N.A.T.O. after all...And vive l'Air France too!"

The silver plane hurtled along the runway, soared into the air over the speedboats creaming the Baie des Anges, banked steeply, and climbed rapidly until it was lost to view in the intense cobalt of the sky.

THE END

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posted 6.16.2002, transcribed by Graculus