Vladimirov glanced at Gant, as if to assure himself that the American was not eavesdropping, then nodded. 'He does.'
'Very well, then. Let us see what occurs.'
Gant heard the static, the mechanised voices, the clicks and bleeps of communication; recognising them, knowing them as well as he knew his own past. UHF communication between a pilot and his ground control. The sound seemed all around him, enveloping him as if he were wearing a headset, as if he were the pilot. He listened, his eyeballs moving slowly, rustily; unfocused. He absorbed the conversation, his awareness pricked and heated and engaged by the brief exchanges. His hands hung heavily at the ends of his wrists, and his body seemed a great way below him. His attention seemed like a little peak rising above dense jungle foliage which nothing could penetrate. He listened. The words enveloped him. He was back in the cockpit of the Firefox.
'I've got him!.. vapour-trail, climbing through sixty thousand… must get into the tail-cone to avoid his infra-red:' Whose infra-red — ? 'I'll have to slot in quickly behind him… climbing past me now… contrail still visible… seventy-thousand now, climbing up past me… come on, come on — please confirm orders…'
'Kill,' Gant heard.
'Two missiles launched… he's seen them, the American's seen them, come on— he's got the nose-up, he's into a climb, rolling to the right… missed… Bilyarsk control, I'm reporting both missiles failed to make contact…'
Gant listened. It was him, and yet he remembered what was being described… his violent, evasive action… it was strange, inexplicable. It was in Russian, it was a MiG-31, yet not him. There was a pressure, almost too strong to resist, which suggested he was the pilot, the speaker… yet somehow he knew it was the test pilot he had killed, flying the second prototype Firefox. It enfolded him after that moment of lucidity. He was back in the cockpit.
'Missed him again…! Wait, he's going into a spin, he's got himself caught in a spin. he's losing altitude, going down fast, falling like a leaf… I'm diving, right on his tail…' Gant heard his own breathing accelerate, become more violent, as if the white room — dimly seen — were hot and airless. His blood pumped wildly, he could hear his heart racing. He sweated. 'I'm right on his tail — he can't pull out of the spin — he's going to fall straight into the sea, he can't do anything about it-!' Gant groaned, hearing the noise at a great distance. 'Thirty thousand feet now, he's falling like a stone-he's dumped the undercarriage… wait… the nose-down's getting steeper, twenty thousand feet now… he's levelling out, he's got her back under control… I'm right on his tail…' Gant was groaning now, stirring his hands and legs against the straps, moving his head slowly, heavily back and forth like a wounded animal. He might have been protesting, repeating No, no, no over and over, but he could not be sure of that. He knew the end of the story, the climax. He knew what was going to happen to him as he followed the American down and levelled out behind him, the cold Arctic Ocean below them — he knew.
'Careful, careful… I'm on his tail… careful… he's doing nothing, he's given up… nothing — he's beaten and he knows it… I've got — ' Gant was minutely, vividly alive to the change of tone, the terror that replaced excitement. He knew what would happen… he could see the other Firefox ahead of him, knew what the American was going to do, knew he hadn't given up… 'Oh, God — !'
Gant, too, screamed out the words, then his head lolled forward as if he had lost consciousness. The tape ran on, hissing with static. Tretsov was dead. Vladimirov was watching Gant with a look almost of awe on his face. He shuddered at the identification of the American with the dead Tretsov. The manner in which the American had played Tretsov's role, acted as if he, too, were suddenly going to kill, then die — uncanny. Unnerving. Gant was nobody now, or anybody they cared to suggest. Perhaps he could believe himself anyone at all, anywhere they said?
'Mm,' the interrogator said beside him. 'Perhaps not quite the effect you wished for… but, from his file, I suggest the effect is not without merit.'
'How?'
'He has his own nightmares — his delayed stress syndrome. I think he will be sufficiently easy to convince that it was his own nightmare he experienced…' He smiled. 'When I heard your tape, I projected we might make such an impression on him.' One of his assistants nodded obsequiously as the interrogator glanced at him. 'Illness,' he continued, 'shock. We can work on this now. Very well — bring him round again, to the same level of awareness, no lower… and bring in our mimic.' He looked at Vladimirov. 'I hope the voice is good enough. We have tapes of the Englishman, of course — innocuous material, mostly gathered at long range in outdoor situations. The imitation seems to me sufficient.' He smiled again, studying the unconscious Gant and the white-coated doctor bending over him, pointing the needle down towards Gant's bared arm. 'He'll probably accept the man whatever he sounds like…'
The light, the resolving faces and the familiar voice all came to Gant in the same moment. White room… He was sitting up-why had he expected to be lying down? Yes, nurse's uniform, he was in hospital… nightmare? He listened to the voice; familiar — changed, somehow foreign-tinted, but familiar. He listened to Kenneth Aubrey as he spoke slowly and soothingly. His eyes concentrated on the only two figures he could see, a nurse and a doctor. They stood directly in front of him… Aubrey must be behind him as he murmured gently, confidentially in his ear. Nurse, doctor — where was he? What had happened to him? His body felt dull, heavy, but without pain. What had happened?
The voice explained.
'You're recuperating very quickly, very fully, Mitchell,' Aubrey said soothingly. 'We're very pleased with you… but time presses us. You're the only one who can help us… time is pressing, you must try to remember-'
Remember?
There were things to remember, yes…
What?
Street, shambling figure, black car -
Who? Where?
Aubrey continued, frightening him, making him cling to the familiar voice. Crash, he thought. Crash? Dead. 'You seem to have been suffering from some sort of local amnesia, Mitchell. Even from delusions… You've been very ill, my boy, very ill. But, you're getting better now. If only you could remember — if only you could tell us where the aircraft is!'
Street, shambling figure, father… black car, gates, corridors, white room… remember -
'Do you remember, Mitchell?' Aubrey asked soothingly.
Gant felt his head nod, as distant a signal as another's head or hand might have made. 'Yes.' he heard himself reply, but the voice was thick with phlegm, strangely flat. 'Yes…'
A murmur of voices, then, before Aubrey said, 'You remember exactly what happened after you destroyed the second MiG-31 — the second Firefox?' Aubrey's voice was silky, soothing, gentle. Gant nodded again. He remembered. There had been things to remember. These things — ?
Street — blank — car — figure ahead-huge sculpture of a rocket's exhaust — street — blank — figure, catch up with the figure, see his face — blank — house — steps — corridor — blank — watch — blank — watch — blank -