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The woirl looked in at him When he didn't lift his head she went back into her room and left hiet himself another drink He said perfunctorily, "Honey, you look wonderful" He glanced at the clock on the wall and went back and drank his drink and put on another of the idiotic kimonos, a plain black one
In due course there came the soft knock on the door and the two of theracious corridor May stopped at the lift Its doors were held open by another eager Chinese gui They walked in and the doors shut Bond noticed that the lift wasin the prison was de luxe He gave an inward shudder of distaste He noticed the reaction He turned to the girl "I'm sorry, Honey Got a bit of a headache" He didn't want to tell her that all this luxury play-acting was getting him down, that he hadn't the smallest idea what it was all about, that he kneas bad news, and that he hadn't an inkling of a plan of how to get them out of whatever situation they were in That was the worst of it There was nothing that depressed Bond's spirit so e that he hadn't one line of either attack or defence
The girl moved closer to hio away You're not angry with ed up a sry withJust leave the talking to me Be natural and don't be worried by Doctor No He may be a bit mad"
She nodded solehed to a stop Bond had no idea how far down they had gone-a hundred feet, two hundred? The autoirl stepped out into a large rooed roo, lined on three sides with books to the ceiling At first glance, the fourth wall seelass The roo paper-strewn desk in one corner and a central table with periodicals and newspapers Comfortable club chairs, upholstered in red leather, were dotted about The carpet was dark green, and the lighting, from standard lamps, was subdued The only odd feature was that the drink tray and sideboard were up against the lass wall, and chairs and occasional tables with ashtrays were arranged in a semi-circle round it so that the room was centred in front of the eht a swirl of lass He walked across the rooer fish in pursuit fled across the dark blue They disappeared, so to speak, off the edge of the screen What was this? An aquariu, slass Above the waves was a strip of greyer blue-black, dotted with sparks of light The outlines of Orion were the clue This was not an aquariuht sky The whole of one side of the roo straight into its heart, twenty feet down
Bond and the girl stood transfixed As they watched, there was the gliolden sheen of head and deep flank showed for an instant and was gone A big grouper? A silver swarm of anchovies stopped and hovered and sped away The twenty-foot tendrils of a Portugueseviolet as they caught the light Up above there was the dark mass of its underbelly and the outline of its inflated bladder, steering with the breeze
Bond walked along the wall, fascinated by the idea of living with this slow, endlessly changingslowly up thefroel fish and a ruby-red ainst a corner of the glass and a sea centipede quested along, nibbling at the row every day on the outside of theA long dark shadow paused in the centre of theand then moved sloay If only one could see ht, from off the 'screen', lanced out into the water For an instant they searched independently Then they converged on the departing shadow and the dull grey torpedo of a twelve-foot shark showed up in all its detail Bond could even see the piglike pink eyes roll inquisitively in the light and the slow pulse of the slanting gill-rakers For an instant the shark turned straight into the converged beam and the white half-moon mouth showed below the reptile's flat head It stood poised for a second and then, with an elegant, disdainful swirl, the great swept-back tail caone
The searchlights went out Bond turned slowly He expected to see Doctor No, but still the room was e mysteries outside theBond looked back What must this be like in the colours of day, when one could see everything perhaps for twenty yards or more? What must it be like in a storlass, delving alht What olden shafts of the sun shone into the upper half of the rooht of this fantastically beautiful conception, and what an extraordinary engineering feat to have carried it out! How had he done it? There could only be one way He lass wall deep inside the cliff and then delicately removed layer after layer of the outside rock until the divers could prise off the last skin of coral But how thick was the glass? Who had rolled it for hiot it to the island? How many divers had he used? How much, God in heaven, could it have cost?
"Onevoice, with a trace of American accent
Bond turned slowly, almost reluctantly, away froh a door behind his desk He stood looking at thenly, with a thin s about the cost My guests usually think about the material side after about fifteen minutes Were you?"
"I was"
Still set used to that thin smile), Doctor No came slowly out frolide rather than take steps His knees did not dent the unmetal sheen of his ki hem
Bond's first iht Doctor No was at least six inches taller than Bond, but the straight immovable poise of his body ated and tapered from a round, completely bald skull down to a sharp chin so that the impression was of a reversed raindrop-or rather oildrop, for the skin was of a deep almost translucent yellow
It was ie: as far as Bond could see, there were no lines on the face It was odd to see a forehead as smooth as the top of the polished skull Even the cavernous indrawn cheeks below the prominent cheekbones looked as s Dali-esque about the eyebrohich were fine and black, and sharply upswept as if they had been painted on asjet black eyes stared out of the skull They ithout eyelashes They looked like theand totally devoid of expression The thin fine nose ended very close above a wide compressed wound of a mouth which, despite its almost permanent sketch of a smile, showed only cruelty and authority The chin was indraards the neck Later Bond was to notice that it rarelythe impression that the head and the vertebra were in one piece