North Cape

When he poked his head out through the tent flaps, the mask, still heated from the tiny stove, warmed the air passing into his lungs to a breathable temperature. The combination of aurora borealis and moonlight illuminated the surrounding tundra with midevening intensity. After a moment he caught sight of Gadsen coming up from far to the east. The sailor was walking slowly, stopping every now and then to search the horizon carefully through the field glasses.

Teleman squirmed through the flaps and in a crouching run started south. After two hundred yards he flung himself flat in the snow and wriggled around to see if Gadsen had spotted him running from the tent. Gadsen had not and was now coming around the far side of the tent, almost a mile away from where he lay. Teleman decided to stay put until Gadsen had completed that part of the circle and started around again to the east. In his white parka he would be invisible at half the distance. So he lay unmoving in the snow, watching as the distant figure traveled farther around in his wide orbit. What chain of reasoning had prompted him to leave his companions and strike out on his own he did not quite understand.

He realized that he was carrying extremely vital information the American state-of-theart in electronic countermeasures, aircraft and engine design and sensor technology. He also knew that this information locked away in his brain could easily be unlocked by the Soviets, and, therefore, he was much too valuable to let himself fall into their hands. Folsom, McPherson, Gadsen — all, or one, meant to kill him. Only that factor was ice clear in his drug-crazed mind.

What Teleman had endured in the past seventy-two hours might easily have killed a lesser man. Instead of recovering in the special-care unit of a military hospital, he was staggering around the North Cape of Norway in the midst of the century's worst Arctic storm. His body still contained microresidues of the various psychic and-physical energizers and, without the compensating PCMS, was on the verge of a complete nervous breakdown. The momentary hysteria hours before, which had sent him into a shallow coma that Folsom and Gadsen had mistaken for sleep, had been the beginning. The deepening cold endured since then was affecting the action of the drug residues, changing and catalyzing their effects to an extent never before tested. As a result Teleman's mind burned with the steady intensity of an arc lamp. As he lay in the snow his mind was busy collating drug-affected impressions, misunderstood facts, and skewed extrapolations, all of which only served to reinforce his conviction that those helping him were actually his assassins. Forgotten was the intense effort, at the risk of their own lives, that had already been expended to aid him.

As Gadsen disappeared around the far side of the tent, Teleman got shakily to his feet and hegan to run at little more than a half trot due south. He had no firm plan in mind for his escape. The sudden awakening minutes before had brought only the galvanizing need for escape. Somewhere deep in his mind was the idea of heading south for several miles, then turning east into a shallow arc that would bring him to the naval base from the southeast at an angle great enough to pass unseen by Folsom and the others. If they had already arrived at the base he would simply denounce them as his would-be killers and claim asylum.

Teleman trotted on for several more minutes under the wavering streamers of electrons decorating the sky. The weird light made seeing difficult and twice he tripped and fell headlong. The third time he fell he found that he could not immediately get up. Stunned more by the lack of movement in his legs than by the force of the fall, Teleman lay prone, able to move only his head. The few minutes of running had taken him well away from the vicinity of the tent. He lay now in a blank white desert where the only movement was the aurora borealis dancing solemnly overhead. After several minutes during which the cold penetrated his furs with ice-fingers, he was able to get to his knees and, using the carbine as a crutch, pull himself to his feet.

Teleman staggered forward again at a shuffle, leaning heavily on the carbine. But to his mind's eye he was running as swiftly as an arrow. Only a few more hours, he thought happily to himself, and he would reach the naval station — well ahead of the others. Once there, he would tell them all that had happened in the past two days, tell them that both Americans and Russians had violated their territory. Maybe they would even let him go along when they went out to round up the intruders.