They were long, thin, perforated with countless holes rammed deep into the slope under Axilia's direction. The tanks Mtouba had supplied contained a blend of chemicals which, when mixed, generated a high-pressure, low-temperature gas of extreme permeability. Blasted from the nozzles it should create a bond to hold the loose detritus by the creation of ice.

  "Ready?" Axilia stooped over the couplings. "Here we go!"

  Frost whitened the union and nozzles, more coating the slope with a thin, glistening film. The miner lifted a warning hand as Tocsaw moved in.

  "Hold it!"

  "Why? Let's get at it."

  "Sure—and maybe run into a blow-back from an open pocket. If you want to die there are less painful methods. I'll tell you when to start." Axilia lowered his hand, lips moving as he counted seconds. "Right. In you go!"

  It was like chopping at a giant sponge made of grit and ice, the brittle matter falling in enlarged granules, in clumps and streams to leave a gaping hole. Quickly the miner curved the upper surface to make a rounded arch, testing as he worked, calling a halt as he pumped more freezing gas into mass.

  "Get some shoring," he ordered as the hole widened and deepened. "Move, damn you! Earl, just where the hell is this stiff?"

  Somewhere in a space a dozen feet wide and who knew how long? An area bounded by the walls, the floor and the open air at one end, where they stood the other. To clear it all was impossible.

  "Isobel?"

  She was reluctant, coming forward to stand at the mouth of the opening, face pale, breath a pluming vapor in the numbing chill.

  "I don't know, Earl. I was the other side, looking into the shaft, seeing Rudi where he stood. How can I be sure?"

  Dumarest was patient. "Try, Isobel. There might be something—you mentioned a lantern." He saw the shake of her head. "Rudi then?" he suggested. "You saw him?"

  "Lying, buried, broken—oh, Earl, must I?"

  "Lying where? In the center of the shaft? To one side?" His voice grew harsh with impatience. "Which, woman? Left? Right? In the middle?"

  "The middle. It must have been the middle."

  A slender guide but better than none and the hole deepened but without success. How to tell if the shaft itself ran straight?

  Axilia warned as Dumarest ordered traverse cuts, "Be careful, Earl. This stuff's as weak as dampened dust."

  "I know."

  "I guess you do. Cut too much away and you'll create a trap. One sneeze and the lot will cave in."

  A chance to be added to the rest and another to be ignored. The narrow passages delved deeper, formed a winding complex, a low-roofed maze. Crouched, the short-handled shovels rasping at the frozen grit, his hands numbed by the cold, Dumarest squinted through the cloud of vapor formed by his breath at something lying before him.

  "Earl?" Zalman whispered the name as he came to kneel beside him. "What's wrong?"

  "Nothing."

  "Then—" Zalman sucked in his breath as Dumarest plied the shovel. "By God you've found it!"

  A thing, old, desiccated, fleshless. A crumpled mass of bone and clothing, the skull grinning in eternal mockery and, between the empty sockets of the eyes, a neat, round hole.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Isobel said, "So you found it, Earl. I wish to God you hadn't."

  She had come up behind them, silent on thick-soled shoes, now standing to one side, the gun in her hand as steady as the shovel in Dumarest's own.

  "Drop it!" The gun moved a little to emphasize the command. "Just drop it, Earl. You're fast, I know, but, believe me, I can shoot before you could throw it. I know how to use this."

  "The university?"

  "I was the champion of the pistol team three years running." She nodded her satisfaction as the shovel fell to the floor. "That's better. Now back away a little. More. You too, Hans." The gun twitched toward him, returned immediately to cover Dumarest again. "Back, damn you! Back!"

  She was like a spring wound and ready to explode at the slightest touch. Backing Dumarest studied her, the gun in her hand. It was small, a solid-shot thrower, primitive when compared to a laser but just as lethal and far more rugged in field conditions. An ideal weapon for a woman thrust into a hostile environment.

  Halting he said, "Why?"

  "Why?" Her voice was brittle with tension. "You're always asking that. Why do you think?"

  "You were bored, frustrated, angry at the man who had promised so much and delivered so little. But why kill him? Was that necessary? Why not simply leave Rudi?"

  "And done what? Gone back home to be laughed at as a failure? The young fool who had trusted an old man and had been taught a lesson?" She felt the pressure of metal against her flesh, the gun hard in her closing grip. God, the wasted years! "Why did you do it, Earl? I pleaded with you to forget him. Begged you to take what I offered but, no, that wasn't enough. You had to chase your foolish dream."

  And still had to chase it. The corpse was still buried but the skull and upper part of the torso had been cleared and, around the bone of the neck, he could see a metallic glint. The chain which held the medallion? A few seconds and it could be safe in his hand.

  "Earl—no!" Zalman rasped the warning, his face tormented, guessing at the urge, the motivation which would force Dumarest to act against all judgment. "She'll fire if you go for it."

  The truth as Dumarest could read for himself. One emphasized with a savage jerk of the gun.

  "Back, Earl. Move back!" She watched as he inched farther from the body. "Why are men such fools? You risk your life for an illusion yet scorn the comfort of reality. Wasn't I enough for you? Me and the wealth I own. You could have had it all, Earl. My body, my riches, the house, the mine—everything. Why did you have to yearn for a corpse?"

  Her voice was shrill, the glare of her eyes too fixed, too glazed. An animal, frightened of possible attack, trapped and confused would look like that. As would a person driven to the brink of insanity by the torment of guilt and terror.

  Dumarest said, gently, "You have nothing to be afraid of, Isobel. No one will judge you. No one condemn. Rudi is dead—let him lie. Just let me get the medallion and we can all leave this place."

  "No!"

  "Why not? It's cold here. You must be cold. Let's go to where it's nice and warm. Anyway, you promised—"

  "Nothing! I promised nothing, damn you! I gave and you took! I offered and you refused! You refused! You refused me! Me!"

  A woman imagining herself to have been scorned and so dangerous. Dumarest eased his legs, the cramped muscles of calves and thighs. The cold numbed and would rob him of speed but more than speed was needed to save him now. Even if he managed to deflect her aim and so avoid the bullet the report of the weapon would bring down the roof. As would her scream.

  Zalman?

  Reading his question the man whispered, "Don't cross her, Earl. She's a bomb poised to detonate. A word, a look and she'll use that gun."

  A man dazed by the obvious, numbed by the death he read in the woman's face, the poise of her body. Weakened by the talent which was his strength.

  "Isobel." Dumarest was calm. "Just get the medallion and let's go."

  "The medallion?" Frowning she looked at the skull, the chain. Her eyes when she looked again at Dumarest were bleak. "Once you have it you'll leave me. That's all you want, isn't it? All you've ever wanted. That damned medallion!"

  "The medallion and you."

  "A lie!"

  "No. I can prove it."

  "How? By using my wealth to finance your dream? That's what Rudi wanted. He expected me to understand him and be grateful. To live like an animal while he amused himself. The patronizing bastard! All I ever had from him were promises. Once we found the juscar we'd go and search for Earth and then we'd be rich and famous—God, how childish it was! How it sickened me! But I needed the juscar. To go back home without it would be to admit failure. Can you understand that? I would have failed!"

  To her a shame beyond bearing.

  "The fault would have been Rudi's not yours," said Dumarest. "Surely they would have understood that?"

  Keep her talking, her attention distracted while he fought to gain flexibility in legs and back. If he could lunge forward, knock her out before she could fire or scream he had a chance.

  She ignored the question. "You knew," she accused. "When you saw the body you weren't surprised."

  "No."

  "So you knew I'd killed him."

  "And I can guess why." Dumarest kept talking, holding her attention, hoping Zalman would move forward toward the precious medallion. A message the man seemed unable to read. "He betrayed you. You relied on him and he let you down. He was weak." As Zalman was weak—why didn't he grasp the opportunity? Inches could make all the difference when the time came to make their move.

  "Weak," she said. "Old and weak."

  "At first you didn't suspect," said Dumarest. "When you learned the truth it was too much. All your hopes and dreams lost because he lacked your strength of purpose. He couldn't resist the lure of manna. But it doesn't matter now, Isobel. It doesn't matter."

  She hadn't heard him. "He laughed," she said dully. "He thought it amusing. He just stood there in the shaft laughing at me and offering that filth in a jar."

  "Which you took and threw down the tunnel?"

  "I saw it break. Rudi didn't even turn. He just handed me that nugget and told me to go and buy him some more. Ordered me to buy it. The shit!"

  "So you shot him?"

  She looked at the gun in her hand. "I didn't even know I'd done it. There was a bang and he was down and there was blood and, suddenly, I was afraid. So horribly afraid. But it was all a dream really and then you came and you wanted to find him and it didn't matter because I knew you never could and yet you did and… and…"

  She was bewildered and Dumarest moved slowly toward her as Zalman grunted and rasped a foot on the floor. A harsh sound which broke the spell even as Dumarest tried to cover the mistake.

  "The medallion," he said. "Please, Isobel, the medallion."

  "What?"

  "Around his neck. You can see the chain."

  "Yes." She moved a little, the moment lost, the gun moving to freeze Zalman in his tracks, moving again to halt Dumarest. "That damned chain." She sneered at the grinning skull. "Look at him! My wonderful, intelligent, sophisticated husband. The man who was going to give me paradise on a plate. Daddy!" She kicked viciously at the skull. "Stop staring at me, you bastard!"

  The skull rolled, metal glinting from where it rested, a broad disc on which Dumarest could see incised markings. Details lost as the skull rolled back to its former position.

  "You bastard! I told you to stop staring at me!"

  "No!" yelled Zalman. "Earl—"

  Dumarest lunged forward, the roar of the gun a thunder blasting his ears. He saw bullets smashing the fragile bone into flying shards, the slugs pounding at the medallion beneath, tearing into the soft metal, hammering the marks into indecipherable ruin.

  A scene lost as the thunder of the gun was echoed by the cascade of dirt from the roof, slamming on the woman's head, pressing her flat as it rained over her body to rush toward Dumarest like water from a ruptured dam. A fall which caught Zalman to smash his chest and stain his lips with the vomit of his blood. Which caught Dumarest's legs and held them for a long, agonizing moment before something wrapped around his waist and almost cut him in half as he was dragged from the detritus which filled his eyes and nose and lungs with vicious chill.

  "It was close," said Axilia. "Damned close." His eyes grew bleak with the memory of it. "You were in there too long and I guessed something was wrong. As it was we managed to pump more freeze-gas into the mass as she talked and it held long enough to get you clear."

  A matter of seconds but it had been enough. Bruised, frozen by the sub-zero temperature, the line the miner had snaked around his body leaving ugly welts, but, once again, he'd been lucky.

  Dumarest said, "You saved my life."

  "As you did mine—forget it." Axilia scowled. "A pity about Hans. I liked him." The scowl deepened. "She was mad. Crazy!"

  "A woman lost." Anna Sefton set down a pot of steaming tisane and joined them at the table. Isobel's table as it was her house, her supplies. Things she had yielded with the ending of her life but her ghost still remained. "I didn't know her well but I feel sorry for her. A woman trapped, wanting to run yet having nowhere to go. Friendless. Alone."

  "A murderess."

  "Who paid every second of her life for that one act of impulsive violence. You should understand her, Sven. I know Earl does."

  A woman reared in a culture where violence was confined to words and spiteful essays and physical combat regarded as unspeakably primitive. Yet she had tried to break free, had carried her gun with her, had used it when the pressures grew too great. Used it and paid for it with anguish hard for others to understand.

  Rising, Dumarest said, "The Mercador is due later today. I'll be leaving with it."

  "Leaving?" Axilia glared his disbelief. "You can't! Damn it, man, you just can't go off like that. We've things to settle. The mine. The juscar—no, Earl, you have to stay."

  To look at a mound, the dirt covering the woman, the ruined medallion, the end of a hope. This world held too many ghosts.

  "I'll take what juscar is left after expenses as my share," said Dumarest. "You can have what's left in the mine."

  "All of it?" Axilia was dubious. "It's a hell of a lot, Earl."

  "You begrudge it?"

  "The juscar? Hell, no, you've earned far more than that. I'm talking about what's left."

  "You'll have to dig for it," reminded Dumarest. "And settle with the others."

  He left to end further argument, mounting the stairs to stand on the roof and look toward the loom of the distant hills. High above them patches of color swirled in smears of orange and green and brilliant yellow; pennants draping the altar of some pagan god, flags fluttering in brave defiance—what had Isobel called them?

  "Devils," mused Anna. She had followed and now stood just behind him. She had taken the time to don perfume and its scent was heavy in his nostrils. "Dancing devils—I wonder how often she saw Rudi's face?"

  Too often even when blurred by the illusion she had created to explain his end. The lie which had made life bearable and which she had believed so strongly that even Zalman had been fooled. A mistake which had cost the reader of lies his life. Had death been smiling at the jest when it came?

  Dumarest said, "Do you blame her?"

  "For having killed? No. Who am I to judge? And who can tell when they, too, might do the one deed they will always regret."

  The delay, the carelessness, his own impatience—things which had cost him the medallion. A word to Axilia would have kept her from the diggings. His own suspicions should have ensured her absence from the face, but how could he have guessed the extent of her illusion? The savage reaction following the sight of the skull? The madness triggered by the naked bone?

  The pain of the lost opportunity was a knife twisting in his guts. The coordinates of Earth, inches from his hand, now gone forever.

  And she spoke to him of regret!

  As if sensing his mood she stepped closer and he could feel the radiated heat of her body, the stronger scent of her perfume. Feminine weapons used to divert his train of thought from the dead to the living. Yet when she spoke it was of the dead.

  "I miss Hans," she said. "He was a gentle and lonely man. One who needed a friend. As Isobel needed a friend and something more. As every woman does. Did you love her?" Then, as he made no answer, she added, softly, "You must have done. Even if only for a little while. The time it took for you to share her passion—but during that time you loved her. As you must love all women who— Earl, must you leave so soon? Can't you wait until the next ship at least?"

  Far above the hills new color rose to join the old; a plume of scarlet caught and shaped by the wind into the form of a somber figure, cowled, faceless. An image which threw blood against the sky.

  "I'm intruding," she whispered as the silence lengthened. "You want to be alone. To mourn a little, perhaps. But there is so little time and such limited joy. Sven is a good man but—"

  "He's a good man."

  Dumarest heard the sharp inhalation as she stepped away. "A good man," she agreed. "And I can make him happy. But, Earl—can you ever be that?"

  In the confines of his office Master Elge, Cyber Prime, watched as a galaxy died. First the rim, the thin and lonely stars with lonelier worlds, the blackness eating into the spiral, dulling the sheets and curtains of luminescence, the clusters, the scintillating points, the ebon patches of accumulated dust, the sullen furnaces of red giants, the nacreous fury of white dwarfs, the vivid blues and golds and lambent oranges, the entire spectrum of color which illuminated the firmament. Part by part all died until only a solitary speck hung suspended in the air before his eyes.

  Elysius.

  A fleck reflected in the orbs shadowed by the arching brows. One which shimmered to move to blink and appear again. The answer to the problem which had threatened his newly won position. The source of the word culled from Nequal's sacrifice.

  At his desk Elge touched a button, speaking as a lamp glowed into life. "Continued summation of details appertaining to the Elysius affair. It is now obvious that the attempt to extract useful information from the catatonic unit was futile from the beginning and we still have no clue as to the initial cause of the mental decay. The threat to Central Intelligence therefore still exists. The catatonic unit has been totally destroyed."

  As had the other, and Elge paused, stilling the tape, his eyes brooding as he looked at the tiny fleck which hung in the darkness. Had he been premature? Nequal's mind, contaminated by association with the decaying intelligence, had been a danger yet need it have been destroyed? The Council had insisted and he had yielded to the Council—a weakness which never again would he repeat now that his position was secure.

 

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