A Private Cosmos

"Podarge! But I thought she had used one of the gates in the cave to get off the moon," Kickaha said. "I wonder. ... Do you suppose?"

Despite the seriousness of the situation, he couldn't help chuckling. One of the gates would have taken her to a cave in a mountain on the Atlantean level. There would have been six or seven gates there, all marked to indicate the level to which they would transport the user. But all lied, and only Kickaha, Wolff, and Chryseis knew the code. So she had used a crescent which would presumably take her to the Amerind level, where she would be comparatively close to her home.

But she found herself back on the moon, in the very same cave.

Why, then, were there only four crescents, when her return should have made the number five?

Podarge was Crafty, too. She must have gated out something to leave only four crescents. And since Do Shuptarp had not mentioned finding great white ape cubs in the cave, she must have gated them out. Why didn't she try some of the other crescents? Perhaps because she was suspicious and thought that Kickaha had used the only good one. Who knows what motives that mad bird-woman had? In any event, she had elected to remain on the moon. And the Bellers may have been hunting her in the ruins of Korad when Kickaha saw them while he was in the resonant circuit.

Luvah had been forced out of the control room by the soldiers, some of whom had beamers. This surprised Kickaha. The Bellers must have been very desperate to give the Drachelanders these weapons.

So Luvah had had to retreat, but he had killed a number of his pursuers while doing so. Then he had been badly burned but even so had managed to burn down those left. Six of the killed were wearing caskets on their backs.

"Wolff! Chryseis!" Kickaha said. "We have to get up there right now! They may need us!"

Despite his frenzy, he managed to check himself and to proceed cautiously as they neared the control room. They passed charred bodies along the way, evidences of Luvah's good fight.

Kickaha led the others at a pace faster than caution demanded, but he felt that Wolff might be needing him at the moment. The path to the control room was marked with charred corpses and damage to the furniture and walls. The stink of crisped flesh became stronger the closer they got to their goal. He dreaded to enter the room. It would be tragic indeed, and heart-twisting, if Wolff and Chryseis survived so much only to be killed as they came home.

He steeled himself, but, when he ran crouching into the room, the vast place was as silent as a worm in a corpse. There were dead everywhere, including four more Black Bellers, but neither Wolff nor Chryseis were there.

Kickaha was relieved that they had escaped— but to where? A search revealed where they had taken a last stand. It was in a corner of the back wall and behind a huge bank of video monitors. The screens were shattered from the beamer rays, and the metal of the cabinet was cut or melted. Bodies lay here and there behind consoles— Drachelander troops caught by Wolff's or Chryseis' beams.

Von Turbat (Graumgrass) and von Swindebarn were dead, too. They lay by the big projector, which had continued to radiate until its power pack had run down. The wall it was aimed at had a twelve foot hole in its metal and a still-hot lava puddle at its base. Von Turbat had been cut almost in half; Von Swindebarn was fried from the hips up. Their caskets were still strapped to their backs.

"There's only one Beller unaccounted for," Kickaha said. He returned to the corner where Wolff and Chryseis had fought. A large gray metal disc was attached to the metal floor here. It had to be a new gate which Wolff had placed here since Kickaha's last visit to the palace.

He said, "Anana, maybe we can find out where this gate goes to, if Wolff recorded it in his code book. He must have left a message for me, if he had time. But the Bellers may have destroyed it.

"First, we have to locate that one Beller. If he got out of here, gated back to your universe or Nimstowl's or Judubra's, then we have a real problem."

Anana said, "It's so frightening! Why don't the Lords quit fighting among themselves and unite to get rid of the Beller?"

She edged away. Her anxiety and near-panic at the tolling in her brain, generated by her nearness to the Bellers' caskets, was evident.

"I have to get out of here," she said. "Or at least some distance away."

'Til look over the corpses again," he said. "You go—hold it! Where's Nimstowl?"

"He was here,"she said. " I thought that.. .no, I don't know when he disappeared!"

Kichaha was irked because she had not been keeping her eye on the little Lord. But he did not comment, since nothing was to be gained by expressing anger. Besides, the recent events were enough to sidetrack anyone, and the tolling in her mind had distracted her.

She left the room in a hurry. He went through the room, checking every body, looking everywhere.

"Wolff and Chryseis sure gave a good account of themselves," he muttered. "They really banked their shots to get so many behind the consoles. In fact, they gave too good an account. I don't believe it."

And Podarge?

He went to the doorway, where Anana crouched on sentry duty.

"I can't figure it out," he said. "If Wolff killed all his attackers, a very unlikely thing, why did he and Chryseis have to gate on out? And how the hell did Wolff manage to beam the two Bellers when they should have fried him at the first shot with that projector? And where is Podarge? And the missing Beller?"

"Perhaps she gated out, too, during the fight," Anana said. "Or flew out of the control room."

"Yeah, and where is Nimstowl? Come on. Let's start looking."

Anana groaned. He did not blame her. Both were drained of energy, but they could not stop now. He urged her up and soon they were examining the bodies in the corridors outside the control room on the staircase. He verified that he had killed two Bellers with the spy-missiles. While they were looking at a burned man rayed during the fight with Luvah, they heard a moan.

Beamers ready, they approached an overturned bureau from two directions. They found Nimstowl behind the furniture, sitting with his back against the wall. He was holding his right side while blood dripped through his fingers. Near him lay a man with a casket strapped to his back.

This was the missing Beller. He had a knife up to the hilt in his belly.

Nimstowl said, "He had a beamer, but the charge must have been depleted. He tried to sneak up and kill me with a knife. Me! With a knife!"

Kickaha examined Nimstowl's wound. Though the blood was flowing freely, the wound wasn't deep. He helped the little Lord to his feet, then'he made sure that Nimstowl had no weapons concealed on him. He half-carried him to the room where Luvah lay sleeping, put pseudoffesh on Nimstowl's wound and gave him some blood re-plenishers.

Nimstowl said, "He might have gotten me at that, he jumped at me so quickly. But this"—he held up a hand with a large ringjust like An ana's— "warned me in time."

"All the Sellers are dead," Anana said.

"It's hard to believe!" he replied.-"At last! And I killed the last one!"

Kickaha smiled at that but did not comment. He said, "All right, Nimstowl, on your feet. And don't try anything. I'm locking you up for a while."

Again, he frisked Nimstowl. The little Lord was indignant. He yelled, "Why are you doing this to me?"

"I don't believe in taking chances. I want to check you out. Come on. There's a room down the hall where I can lock you up until I'm sure about you."

Nimstowl protested all the way. Kickaha, before shutting the door on him, said, "What were you doing so far from the control room? You were supposed to be with us. You weren't ru