"I don't know. I don't intend to launch an atomic warhead. But I can't stop short of that if he stays stubborn. I've no way of knowing what his breaking point will be. But I do know that if he keeps control of the Station he'll be in a position to wipe out New York or London."
"But you'll make your intentions unmistakably clear before you open fire, sir?"
"Yes," Hayes said, wearily. "Yes ... of course I will."
11
Corriston took a deep breath and let it out slowly. So far luck had favored him. Now he felt as though he were walking through a deadly jungle where all the animals had suddenly turned friendly. The teeth they bared at him were smiling. The grins were their masks. But the commander didn't pretend at all ... whoever the commander really was!
And then that single question began to gnaw at Corriston like some rat feeding on his flesh: Where was the real Clement now? Was he alive? Was he accessible? Or was he dead?
Corriston's mental processes were now governed by the most evanescent of impressions: the depth of the shadows on both sides of the corridor; his own shadow lengthening before him; the drone of machinery deep within the Station; the muffled beating of his own heart. Suddenly he was at the end of the corridor and approaching the main control room, his face as grim as death.
Violence he had determined upon, but it would be a very brief, a very effective kind of violence. It takes only a second to rip a mask from a man's face.
Something was happening just outside the main control room door. The three executive officers guarding the door had moved eight or ten paces down the corridor, and the door itself was standing ajar. The executive officers had their backs turned to Corriston and were making no attempt to conceal their agitation. They were very pale, at least, one of them was. Two had their backs completely turned, but Corriston caught a brief glimpse of the third man's profile, and it seemed completely drained of color, as if the mask had stopped mirroring emotion artificially and had allowed the wearer's actual pallor to seep through.