LITMIR.BIZ

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      Looking up, Duane glanced about the headquarters office used by the Strata-shooters, as the corps termed itself when not on field duty. Blount sat working at the corner desk, and Duane called to him.

      “Hey, Blount! Where’s a place called Korla?”

      Blount gave him a grin. “Same location it was two thousand years ago, maybe three. Turkestan, or Sinkiang as the Chinese call it. It’s the capital of the province now, and going great guns since the peace was signed.”

      “Thanks.” Duane scowled again at the memorandum. “Turkestan or the South Pole, I don’t care which. Why in hell doesn’t the Chief quit calling me Captain? That went out when the war ended.”

      Duane was just in bad humor, that was all, and looking for trouble. This corps of picked men were treated with deference by Stratolines. Even that enormous air-freight network covering most of the earth, handled its trouble shooters cautiously. They were all former war pilots. Further, they were sworn officers of the International Air Control, which gave them wide powers. They had to have exceptional ability in a dozen ways, for there was no telling what they might run up against. Stratolines had become practically a world power. It handled long-haul freight exclusively, but handled it everywhere, and ran into some queer things that needed fixing. Men like Duane did the fixing, and some of them were not particular how they did it, either.

      Duane, for example. He had started out married; his wife died in childbirth while he was bombing Tokio. He went to work for Stratolines a hard-boiled, unhappy man. Now, three years after the war, he had been in love again, only to be turned down rather cruelly. It hurt. It left him, as on this particular morning, looking for trouble and not giving a damn where it might turn up.

      He walked into Upshott’s office promptly at 10:40. The Stratolines president, who looked not unlike a bulldog, gave him a cigar and a barked greeting.

      “Hiya, Jim. Know anything about Turkestan or Sinkiang?”

      “Not a solitary thing, Chief.”

      “Good. You got a lot to learn; but ignorance is one advantage. Only an outsider can help us here. Carter and Browne have been there and know it well, and they step around the subject like a cat around a pool of water.

      “Why?” demanded Duane, to the point as usual.

      “Why? Because it’s devilish unhealthy, that’s why.” Upshott chewed a cigar, unlit. “We’ve got a special run going—Korla, Urga, Yakutsk—as a feeder to our main Siberian lines; it’s doing a tremendous business, and we’re dickering now with the Soviet people, who want to take it over.”

      “So what?” asked Duane, biting at his cigar.

      “So trouble at Korla, or somewhere near there. The trouble is named Ming Shui, which means Clear Water. She is a woman. She is the abbot of a monastery at the back door of nowhere—”

      “Wait a minute,” said Duane. “You’re getting off the track. An abbot is a man; a monastery holds monks.”

      “Shut up,” snapped Upshott. “This is a Buddhist monastery. Of course it doesn’t make sense! If it did, the trouble would have been adjusted before this. It’s all cockeyed; that’s why I’m sending you. Any arrangement is impossible; our Siberian headquarters say so flatly. Here’s their report. Read it and you’ll go crazy like I did. Go to Yakutsk and hop one of our ships down to Korla and do anything possible.”

      “When?”

      “Now.”

      “Okay.” Duane took the typed report and stood up.

      “Wait, dammit.” Upshott blinked up at him. “Don’t get yourself killed. We need you other places.”

      “Thanks. I’ll not. Any particular instructions?”

      “Nope. The sky’s the limit. Stratolines backs any play you make.”

      Duane said goodby and walked out. He knew nothing about the trouble or what he was to find or do. He knew this would be in the report, and that it was probably something so utterly insane that everyone had flung up their hands and quit. So it was, too.

      That evening found him snugly berthed seven miles high aboard the giant six-engined Planetoid that made only one stop, at Edmonton, before Irkutsk in the heart of the booming Siberia…a hurtling 26-hour flight.

      The post-war world, arising on the wings of invention and science and progress from the destruction and ashes of global conflict, had reached almost fantastic heights. Siberia, once a barren frozen waste, was now pouring forth wealth in metals and oil; China and central Asia were close behind. Even during the war, Russia had withdrawn from Turkestan, restoring this desert province to China by one of those great-hearted gestures which the Soviets made in so many directions.

      Turkestan, under the wise guidance of the new China, was waxing rich and great. Swept bare for centuries by jangling armies, now she enjoyed all the blessings that had come to a world where war was done forever. Great water and power systems, a flood of new population, an outpouring of economic wealth, marked her advent in this air-age. Korla, once a miserable huddle of mud houses, was now a city of half a million. Within her borders, however, the new still elbowed the old; Tibet, across her southern frontier, still blocked progress.

      * * * *

      The ancient Buddhist monasteries that had studded the wastes of the Gobi and Taklamakan deserts were still existent, although the deserts were becoming fertile gardens. Duane, poring over the typed report in his snug berth, was quick to perceive the astonishing situation which he—and Stratolines—now faced.

      Bounding the great Tarim Basin, formerly all desert, were the Tien Shan or Celestial Mountains. In their heart, still almost unknown territory, was the Eternal Peace Monastery, of which Ming Shui was the abbot or ruler. She was a woman. She was also an incarnation of the Living Buddha. She had enormous influence, and the monastery controlled mineral deposits being opened up by the new government—deposits of such incalculable wealth that she was a personage of real importance.

      Duane still did not see how a woman could hold such a position, nor did he care a hang. The fact was sufficient. But now arose something composed not of facts but of foggy superstition. Ming Shui was willing to play ball provided her ends were served. She declared—and the Turkestan government took its orders from her—that air traffic over the Celestial Mountains must cease because it frightened the spirits away.

      Stratolines was working under an expired franchise from the Turkestan government, and was seeking a new twenty-year franchise. Ming Shui was willing that it be granted, provided Stratolines placed in the Eternal Peace Monastery—within ninety days—the famous Buddha of Miracles. Otherwise, not. Stratolines, and its airfields under construction at a cost of a hundred millions, could clear out and stay out.

      The catch lay in this Buddha of Miracles; there was no such thing. It was, supposedly, a miraculous image of Buddha that talked and performed miracles. It was a legend, and nothing else. And yet, on this perfectly fantastic basis, Stratolines stood to lose not only fat profits but huge construction works. For the government calmly backed up Ming Shui. Duane realized what it all meant, and cursed savagely. No wonder.

      “Either this dame is sincere, and a superstitious fool, or else she wants a fat slice of graft,” said he. Studying the report, he concluded that she was sincere, and a staggering conclusion it was. However, his first job was to get into contact with her and decide for himself; then he could go to work.

      The Planetoid settled down at Irkutsk, and an hour later Duane was heading south in one of the ships on the Korla run. He landed in Korla at dawn; no one met him, he was entirely on his own, and he went straight to the Yakub Beg Hotel, an enormous modern structure run by the government.

      He bathed, shaved, left his room—and came slap upon two figures struggling in the corridor by an open room door. The man was cursing and fighting wildly, the woman was trying to control him. White-faced, she looked at Duane and cried out.

      “Help me—help me! He has fever—”

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