More Than Fire

Weak, weak! he thought. But it's the best I could come up with. I hope what I said doesn't make Khruuz suspect that I suspect him.

"Very well," Khruuz said. "He stays. I like Clifton, and he does provide companionship. But he must want to be with his own kind, and I offered to send him here because of that."

He paused, then said, "I thank you for considering my feelings of loneliness."

"You're welcome," Kickaha said. The Khringdiz certainly did not behave as if he wished to get Clifton out of the way. If Khruuz was up to no good-but why should he be?-he could easily kill Clifton, who would not be on his guard.

"I would like to return immediately so that I may get started quickly on the research," the Khringdiz said. "I'm eager to grapple with the problem."

He punched a button on the control panel and rose from the chair. Suddenly, the room seemed to crackle with emotional static. Khruuz was smiling, but that did not make his face seem less sinister. It looked that way no matter what his expression. The tendril on the end of his tongue was writhing; his stance was subtly changed. Like a lion who's been drowsing but has just smelled a strange lion, Kickaha thought. He's ready to defend his territory. Ready to charge the intruder.

But the Khringdiz spoke calmly. "You are making much from nothing. I sense that you have unaccountably become hostile. I ca

"You're right," Kickaha said as he withdrew his beamer from its holster and pointed it at Khruuz. "I may be completely wrong to doubt your intentions. If I am, I'll apologize. Later, that is. But the stakes are too high for me to take a chance with you. For now, you'll be locked up until I determine if I'm right or wrong. I'll explain later."

He waved the beamer. "You know where the gates to the special cells are. I'll be right behind you. Don't try anything. If you do, I'll know you're guilty."

"Of what?" Khruuz said.

"Get going."

They walked toward the door. Khruuz, instead of making a beeline toward it, veered a few feet to the left. Kickaha said, loudly, "Stop!"

The Khringdiz took two more steps, halted, and began to turn. Kickaha had his finger on the trigger. He had advanced the power dial on the side of the beamer to a setting for a more powerful stun charge. Khruuz, he calculated, would have more resistance to the normal charge than most human beings.

Khruuz was saying something in his native language while he turned around to face Kickaha. Then he was gone.

For several seconds, Kickaha was too surprised to react. When he recovered, he smacked his forehead. "Code word! That's what he was saying! For God's sake! He'd set it up! Slick! They don't fool me often, but...!"

The Khringdiz had formed a gate inside a loop of the symbol for eternity, the figure eight, one of the designs on the carpet. Standing in the area of the gate, he had uttered the code word and was now, most probably, in the underground fortress in his planet.

Clifton was doomed. Khruuz would kill him at once.

Kickaha strode to the control panel and called for an all-stations attention. Then he ordered Wemathol and Ashatelon to report to the nearest screen. A minute later, both their faces were in the panel screens. He told them what had happened. Both looked alarmed. Wemathol, distinguishable from his brother by his green headband, said, "What do you think he's pla

"I don't know," Kickaha said. "Listen! He may pop back through the gate or another gate at any moment. Can either of you set up a one-way exit gate covering the floor of this room? That'll stop him if he tries to reenter."

Wemathol said, "We both know how to do that."

"Then get up here on the run and do it!"

Ashatelon, wearing a crimson headband and crimson boots, was the first to appear. Several seconds later, his brother entered the room. Ashatelon, breathing hard, said, "The Khringdiz could have set up gates anywhere in the palace."

"I know that, but we can't cover the floors in every room! Can we?"

"Yes, but it would take time. If we did that, then the gates we use now would be closed. You could not transport food to my father, for instance. Not that I would mind if he starved to death."

"Besides," Wemathol said, "Khruuz could have set up gates in the walls. Or even in the ceilings."

"Just cover the floor of this room," Kickaha said. "Get to work, you two."

They seated themselves before control panels. Kickaha called the captain of the guards and told him some of the situation. "Put your men on a twenty-four-hour roving patrol. Work in three shifts. If the Khringdiz shows, shoot him."

He doubted that Khruuz would come back soon. He suspected that the scaly man would be returning to Zazel's World, or trying to do so. Khruuz wanted the data for the creation-destruction engine as fiercely as Red Orc desired it. Or so it seemed reasonable to assume. Just why, Kickaha did not know. But he would not put it past the Khringdiz to use it to destroy all but one universe.

Doing that would make him the most solitary of all sentient beings. Unless he had means for cloning himself and changing some of the duplicates into females. He might even have the data in his files for altering the genes of the clones. That would make a genetically varied people.

No use speculating. Get done at once what needs to be done.

He used a recorder to send a message to Manathu Vorcyon and had it taken by a ru

Wemathol said, "It does not interfere with the operation of the controls, however."

When Kickaha was convinced that there was nothing more to do, for the moment anyway, he went to Anana's suite of rooms. The entrance to this was a door with a huge monitor screen on it. He called to her. The screen became alive. He saw her walking back and forth just beyond the door. A caged tigress, he thought, and even more beautiful. She hates me and would kill me if she could. That was a thought to choke his mind. Whoever would have thought that his beloved would one day tear him to bloody rags of flesh if she had the opportunity?

He asked for permission to enter. She stopped pacing and whirled around, her face twisted with anger.

"Why do you keep up this charade of politeness and of caring for me? You're the master here! You can do anything you wish to do!"

"True," he said. "But I would never harm you. However, I can't trust you-as yet. I'll be gone for a while. I don't have time to explain the situation to you, and it wouldn't change your mind about me, anyway. I'm putting you in a special suite for your own safety and for mine. Someday, maybe you'll understand why I'm doing this. That's all."

He had intended to enter her suite and talk face-to-face with her. But he had changed his mind. He went to another screen section on the wall and called Wemathol and Ashatelon.

"New plan," he said. "Here's what you must do at once. Gate Anana into Cell Suite Three. Pick four trusted women servants to gate food and water and other necessary supplies to her and Red Orc while we're gone. Send all but fifty guards off on a paid vacation. Those left-and they must be the most trusted men you know-will continue the twenty-four-hour patrol. After that's done, close up the palace, bar all gates, lock all lowerstory windows. I give you two hours and thirty minutes to do the job. Then report to me. Be ready to go to Zazel's World."