James Bond and Moonraker

by Christopher Wood

  Now the bottom of the gorge was fifty feet away and all the air seemed to belong to the rushing water. There was nothing Bond could do to stay up. Only prolong the agony for as long as possible. A sheer rock face loomed up before him and he veered away at the last moment, dropping a heart-stopping ten feet with the suddenness of the turn. Angry spurts of water snapped at his heels and the gorge closed in above his head. The torrent jinked to the left and another wall of rock threw itself in his path. Bond forced his right arm up and pulled with his left. As the water rose high to whip against the cliff, he saw a scatter of jagged rocks and stones on the other side of the stream. An untidy mane of creepers strained against the current. Bond veered left away from the full force of the water and braced himself for impact. He came in close enough for the tip of wing to scrape against the cliff and fell clumsily into a frothing mill-race of water.

  The first impact drove his knees against his chest and the freezing water cut him to the bone. The battered framework of the glider was torn from his grasp and bounced away like a broken rainbow. Bond narrowly avoided being disembowelled on a submerged rock, and snatched at a cluster of creepers. His hands started to slip down the slimy tendrils, stopping at a joint to which he clung with desperation born of the threat of imminent death. The current swung him to the side so that he was within reach of a narrow beach of water-washed shale. Feeling the current relax its hold, he kicked sideways with his feet and threw out an arm to grab at a twist of root which projected from the rock face. His fingers brushed against it and then gripped. A last muscle-wrenching effort, and with both hands clinging to the root, he pulled himself from the maelstrom of pounding water. He lay on the wet stones and sucked in mouthfuls of air, thankful and surprised to be alive.

  The roar of the water around Bond was still terrifying. Tucked on a ledge of shingle, he seemed almost to be beneath it. As he looked back upstream, the full might of the falls was hidden by the bend in the river, but a thick cloud of spray and mist hung in the air, grey and foreboding against the black mass of rock. The water only needed to rise a few inches to sweep him away again. As if prompted by the terror behind the thought, it began to rain. Bond knew what this could mean. A sudden storm upstream and the mighty weight of water being swept over the falls would rise by feet in seconds. He began to look around him desperately. The rock swelled out above his head and before him was an untidy jumble of glistening stones, the residue of a cliff fall. As Bond’s eyes reached up, they narrowed incredulously. It was scarcely possible to believe what he could see through the fine net of spray and the falling rain. Revealed through a fading rainbow was a beautiful girl standing on a promontory of rock. She wore a long green robe split to the waist and a head-dress like a cap with streamers before and behind the ears. She looked not at Bond but upstream towards the falls. Bond turned away as the water surged against his foot alarmingly and when he looked back the girl had gone. Had she really been there? Had the journey and this terrible gorge begun to play tricks with his imagination? The roar of the water dinned into his ears and the cold pinched his limbs. If he could not find his way to higher ground within seconds he would be dead. The rain was now falling heavily, driving in under the rock. Bond edged along the thin shelf of glistening stones with the cliff face scraping his back. He could not see what lay directly above him, but his view of the opposite side of the gorge was depressing. A sheer cliff face loomed out like the bow of a ship, pitted only by horizontal contours of erosion. To climb it in his present condition would have been impossible.

  Bond reached the end of the shale and launched himself clumsily at the lowest of the boulders. The shifting stones made an indifferent springboard and he was hard-pressed to get a handhold and haul himself up. A glance behind showed him that he had acted only just in time. The small beach had disappeared and the trailing tentacles of creeper that had saved his life were invisible beneath an angry white froth of wild water. Bond continued to climb, wondering how far the swollen stream could pursue him. Every surface was wet and covered with a green slime that felt like the skin of an eel. The cliffs towered above him like the walls of a deep tomb. He hauled himself up to the spot where he had seen the girl and rested, shivering uncontrollably.

  At first he thought that he must have been dreaming. He stood precariously on an uneven surface of slippery, rain-lashed rock with a mass of glistening creeper trailing down the cliff. Then he saw that there was a dark shadow behind the creeper. He tugged the foliage aside and found that he was looking into the mouth of a cave. He pulled out his pencil torch and moved forward. The cave was small but the torch showed an opening and a flight of rough-hewn steps leading upwards. Bond’s heartbeat quickened in excitement. He forgot about the cold and moved swiftly and silently up the steps. He climbed for a long time, his breath visible in the faint light of the torch, until he eventually emerged in a wide tunnel which sloped gently upwards. He followed it stealthily, and rounded a bend to see a glow of light far ahead. Silhouetted in its centre was the outline of the girl. As Bond extinguished his torch and shrank against the wall, she disappeared again.

  Bond quickened his stride and began to feel the numbing cold losing its grip. The circle of light grew larger and glowed green with sunlight. It was like approaching another world after the watery tomb of the gorge. A few more paces and he was actually able to stand at the mouth of a cave and feel the hot sun playing on his limbs. Above him was an escarpment and before him the jungle crowding in again with a profusion of giant cedars weighed down with flowering creepers. Of the girl there was no sign.

  Bond stirred himself and pressed forward down a narrow, overgrown path that was obviously rarely used. Where did the girl in the strange costume come from? Bond racked his brains to remember -where he had seen something like that costume before. The track opened into a narrow clearing and Bond found himself face to face with a mass of creeper-covered stones that had clearly once been a building. He looked about him and saw other piles of stones almost obliterated by the jungle. He had arrived at the ruins of an ancient city. There was a long wall that might have belonged to a public building; there a well choked by fallen masonry; a row of truncated pillars snapped off like broken teeth. And everything covered by a trelliswork of creepers that lay across it like a camouflage net. Bond picked his way between the buildings with difficulty, looking about him for the girl. There was no indication that the place was inhabited. He came out in another overgrown clearing and looked up to the tree line. Poking above the tangle of creepers were the uppermost stones of a building. Bond moved forward warily, brushing through some predatory thorn bushes. to find himself before a squat stone pyramid that soared a hundred feet into the air and was topped by a small temple. A flight of steps led up the face of the pyramid, and poised in the middle of theM was the girl. She did not look at Bond but there was something about the way she stood, half turned towards him, that suggested she was waiting for him.

  Hardly had he appeared than she moved forward and disappeared between two enormous stones. Bond felt uneasy but at the same time fascinated. He looked about him again, but there was no sign of human life. Birds called from the tops of trees and there was the swift liquid jabber of a monkey. He waited a few seconds and then crossed to the foot of the pyramid.

  Q had spoken of the Mayan civilization in the Yucatan. This was what the pyramid reminded him of. And the clothing worn by the girl. Was it possible that some offshoot of the Mayas had been forced to emigrate south because of famine or internal strife? Surely he was not following the survivor of a supposedly extinct race which had somehow managed to propagate itself in the unexplored wastes of the South American rain forests? He started to climb the giant steps and marvelled that stones of this size could have been quarried by hand-held implements. Some of the blocks were upwards of five feet in height and twelve feet long. Bond reached the spot where the girl had disappeared and found himself at the mouth of a narrow passageway leading down into the heart of the pyramid. On the two stones at the en
trance were superimposed paintings of warriors with spears. Bond looked behind him to see the jungle stretching away in all directions and then stepped down into the interior. Below him was a glow of light and half-way down the staircase the beautiful girl. This time she turned to face him, and her face split in a welcoming smile. As if confident that no other invitation was necessary, she turned and continued down the steps. Bond followed. To left and right, the walls were adorned with faded frescoes showing lines of marching men in short tunics and caps like the one worn by the girl whom Bond now considered his guide. The girl did not look round but continued down the steps towards the source of light. Bond was keyed up in the knowledge that a great secret was about to be revealed to him. The heart of the enigma must reside in the centre of the pyramid. With quickening pace he came to the end of the tunnel and looked about him in amazement.

  His first impression was that he was in a cathedral. Great walls of coloured glass rose into the air and formed the back of the pyramid. Against them pressed the jungle, and the effect of integration was increased by the plants and creepers that climbed to meet the glass from the inside. Crystal rocks glowed as if illuminated internally and there was a serpentine pool traversed by a silver bridge. Nature had been harnessed as if in a Japanese garden, but here everything was on a giant scale and less formalized. Beside the arched bridge the girl waited for Bond like a refugee from a willow-pattern plate, and he had the strange feeling that he was in a world of make-believe. For a chilling moment he wondered. if he had perished in the falls and been wafted straight into a purgatory that obliterated memory. He advanced to the girl and suddenly realized that he had seen her before. At the Venini Glass shop. Now the feeling of being in a dream. took on nightmare proportions. The girl started to cross the bridge, then paused to see if he was following. Something about her look further agitated Bond’s disturbed mind. The girl was looking, not to see if he was following, but to make sure that he was following. Bond started to skirt the pool. The water was clear, the surface merely disturbed by the gentle trickle of a waterfall at its far end. Only an alarmist would have been suspicious. But Bond was an alarmist when it came to the question of life expectancy. He traced the pattern of the paving stones around the pool and spun round as two more figures materialized through the foliage — girls dressed like the first. Again he recognized them. Astronaut trainees from California. They looked at him with smiling, expectant faces as if waiting for hiM to do something. He turned to the first girl. She was still on the bridge. She too was smiling. Waiting.

  Bond put his foot down and immediately realized that something was wrong. The stone beneath his feet was not anchored but balanced over a void. Before he could move forward, it sprang into the air and hurled him into the pool. Bond hit the water and straight away struck out for the side. Subsequently it seemed to him that he had started swimming while still in mid-air. Whoever wanted him in that pool was not thinking of his cholesterol level.

  His hands had just thudded against rock when a force like a steel whiplash wound itself round his chest. Bond was plucked backwards and received a terrifying glimpse of what had happened to him. Rearing before his eyes was the hideous open mouth of a giant anaconda. Its coils tightened round his chest and he started to shout before being dashed beneath the surface. The pressure on his chest might have been exerted by an enormous pair of nutcrackers. It seemed that at any moment his rib cage must break and crush his lungs in a jagged fist of broken bone.

  Bond struggled and tore with his hands but the strength of the snake was too great for him. The breath was being systematically choked from his body. Bond took in half a mouthful of water and began to panic. His fingers clawed at the bottom of the pool and closed about a rock. He snatched it up and lashed at the swaying shape before his face. A blow connected solidly with the anaconda’s head and its grip relaxed. Given new hope, Bond began to fight his way free of the coils. His fingers brushed against the side of the pool. Then the coils snatched tight again like a contracting spring. The huge weight of the snake bore him down. Beyond the knot of its coils Bond glimpsed ten feet of tail lashing the water like a hose. Twisting desperately, he pushed his fingers into the breast pocket of his tunic. Like a subliminal image he saw a picture of the retractable pen he had taken from Holly’s room in Venice. His fingers closed about the tip and he drew it out folding it in his hand. As his tortured ribs seemed to meet beneath the pressure, he forced the point of the pen against the straining flesh of the snake and pressed the tip. Seconds passed and nothing happened. The grip did not weaken and the snake was still trying to force his mouth open so that he would drown. Then suddenly the coiled body was a weight that had no strength. Bond wriggled free and felt his rib cage expand. The snake hung in the water as if in suspension. It gave three convulsive twists and then lay still.

  Bond swam to the side of the pool and hung on, breathing painfully. Then he hauled himself out and closed his eyes as he cleared his lungs. When he opened them it was to see a small mountain of wet leather against his face. The leather which gleamed dully belonged to the toecap of a shoe. Above the shoe was a tree trunk of sodden material that formed a trouser leg. Above the trouser leg was Jaws. His mouth was open and his teeth parted in a grin that shone down like a naughty deed in a naughty world. Bond rested his head on his hands and regularized his breathing. Something told him that he was going to need every ounce of breath that he could find.

  ‘Mr Bond —’ the voice echoed down from above, and conveyed a note of genuine regret ‘— you defy all my attempts to plan an amusing death for you.’

  Jaws’s hand reached down and picked up Bond as if he was a floating toy being retrieved from a bath. With disdainful ease he dumped him down before the owner of the voice.

  Drax appeared down a flight of steps from what had presumably been a vantage point on a high rock. ‘Why did you break off the encounter so summarily?’

  ‘I discovered he had a crush on me,’ said Bond.

  Drax brushed the front of his black silk tunic as if picking off Bond’s remark like a speck of dust. ‘Always jokes, Mr Bond. A concomitant of the stiff upper lip, I suppose. The Englishman always laughs in the face of adversity. Well, I can promise you plenty to laugh at. It will be interesting to see if your sense of humour can keep pace with it.’ He nodded to Jaws and turned on his heel. Jaws thrust out a hand and Bond staggered forward. The familiar faces of two more girls had appeared and he noticed that they shared a common expression with the first three: disappointment.

  ‘I’m sorry about your pet,’ said Bond.

  The girls looked at him coldly and followed on like bridesmaids at a wedding.

  Drax led the way towards heavy metal doors that slid open at his approach and revealed a scene totally in contrast to the conservatory calm of the glass chamber. Tiers of technicians sat before ascending screens of overprinted monitors and the sounds of disembodied voices calling out technical information rang out like those of brokers in a stock market. Bond quickly saw that all the monitor screens had one thing in common. They revealed different stages of rockets being prepared for take-off. Rockets that were clearly intended to propel something into space. Bond watched giant claws swing slowly back from the winged spacecraft and saw the familiar lettering on the hull: MOONRAKER. Fresh words and symbols continuously flooded on to the flickering screens and Bond realized that he was watching the pre-launch procedure not for one but for several space shuttles. He turned to Drax, who was looking about him like a bishop in a newly consecrated cathedral.

  ‘What the hell are you up to here, Drax?’

  Drax did not deign to look at him. One of his brutish hands rose and plucked reflectively at the red fur on his face. ‘It is a convention of the fiction beloved by parlour maids that the villain explains all before disposing of his victims. I do not intend to follow that precedent.’

  ‘Not even the briefest elucidation, Drax?’

  Drax turned away from the hustle and bustle of the control chamber and looked
towards a domed glass case resting in an alcove. In Victorian days it would have contained an arrangement of small, brightly coloured stuffed birds. Now it held a beautiful black orchid, its flowers tipped with scarlet as if they had been dipped in blood. Bond recognized the slide he had been shown in Q’s workshop: Orchidaceae negra.

  Under Jaw’s watchful eye, Bond moved to Drax’s side. ‘What about that orchid?’

  Drax spoke as if to himself. ‘The curse of a civilization. It was neither pestilence nor war that wiped out the race who built the great city lying around us. It was their reverence for this lovely flower.’

  Bond looked again at the bland face of the orchid. Behind its sheen of surface beauty there was an impression of evil conveyed more subtly than through its colour. The very shape of the flower suggested that of a praying mantis. ‘Come too near me and I will dev9ur you’ it seemed to say. Even within the heart of the flower there was a tiny foetal face crushed so tight that it seemed to be crying out in pain and despair, as if bemoaning a life it could never have.