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For a few minutes he lay drowsily back in the seat, then bestirred himself, checked distances in the locator. Two-thirds of the distance. He looked behind. Lights, swinging black shapes blurred in the distance. The same to all sides, all around the horizon. Without the locator he would be lost.
Minutes passed; Barch began to grow tense. Easy, he told himself. Either you do or you don't.
At the extreme edge of the locator the green square became visible. Barch looked ahead. There-that tall blocky tower, that irregular bluish shape.
Barch snapped off the locator, pulled the speed-control out to slow, dropped to a lower level. The tower soared above him, and Barch saw that it indeed glowed faintly green.
He started a circle, carefully threading the vertical avenues and lanes. Barges cut across his course; he caught the flash of startled faces. Easy, Barch, watch what you're doing. You don't want to meet any traffic cops now.
At the foot of the tower, he saw a wide opening-a ground-level landing deck.
He lowered the barge. A raft with a crystal dome drew alongside and Barch could see the pilot peering curiously in his direction. Barch paid no heed. The raft drifted reluctantly away.
A vast sound like a siren rattled the air. Alarm? Danger signal? Barch raised in his seat, looked in all directions. Nothing untoward seemed under way.
The ground was close; the opening, lit by greenish-yellow light, was on his level. He flicked off the anti-collision circuit; started the barge toward the opening. Slowly, give him time to get clear. He watched a moment. Dead center. Good.
He opened the door, clambered back to his raft, climbed aboard. He stopped; my God, the locator! He ran back. The hole was very close. With his one hand he fumbled with the clips. One came loose, then the other. He caught it under his arm, sprinted back. The hole almost engulfed him. Aboard the raft, cast loose, away…
The air bit into his face; he hunched down, urging the raft ahead. Faster, faster. Better lie flat. He fell forward on his face.
Light splattered the sky, painted the overcast dazzling violet-white. Ah, thought Barch, the explosion. Success! He clung to the raft. Faster, faster.
There came a great wind, lifting the raft like a chip on the surf, flinging it high and miles ahead. Barch glimpsed the great tower toppling, falling, smashing. There came a second explosion. Barch saw a blue blast, a tremendous fan-shaped flare, reaching instantaneously up, breaking through the overcast. Where the tower stood was a seething puddle of lava. The massive structures beside were mangled, torn awry, and as the great blue blast quietly died, the buildings glowed red and slumped.
The second air-wave caught Barch now, a milder, sharper impact, one which he heard as sound. Looking behind once more he wondered how many people had died, how many Klau, how many slaves. The Klau-Barch shrugged. The slaves -death was small loss to the slaves.
The raft was riding on an even keel, under control. Barch looked into the locator-peered in astonishment. The viewer showed blackness, nothing. Barch shook it, pounded it to no avail.
In sudden thought he looked behind. Did the Central Organ control the locator? In disgust and panic he tossed the mechanism behind him. He looked ahead. How had he come? Was this the right direction? All directions looked alike. There was no moon, no stars.
He looked over the side, searching for some half-noticed landmark.
The buildings bulged up, the myriad lights and vast motions were the same.
He looked behind. The tower was gone. But-there was something subtly different about the approach. Barch got the raft around, circled to the left, looking toward the former tower. Building planes shifted, flares and fires took on different patterns. Now, this looked right. It was a gamble-but the whole exploit had been a gamble. So far he had won.
Barch turned the raft away from the tower, set out at full speed.
Now the minutes dragged where before they had sped. Surely he had not been so long over these monstrous shapes, with the bristling trusses like moth ante
He had come wrong. And yet-a few more miles. And what was that vague blankness ahead? "Thalasse, thalasse!" had shouted Xenophon's myriad. "The seal" muttered Barch. "Good old Tchul Sea!"
The mud flats gleaming with murky phosphorescence like dead fish passed below; ahead was the mass of the Palamkum. It was almost like home, thought Barch. Now rest. His fingers relaxed. If they spent five years in space, he'd sleep the first year. Rest, sleep. No more driving, no more plotting and pla
Below passed the lonely lights of the stone quarry; there was the ridge of Mount Kebali. He slid down the long slant into Palkwarkz Ztvo, noticing that there was grayness in the sky. Had the night passed so soon?
There was the blasted bluff, there the seared flat, there the black opening into Big Hole.
Barch landed the raft, jumped to the ground, ran up the hill toward the cave mouth. He whistled in case anyone should be on guard, but there was no challenge.
He reached the crevice, stopped short. He frowned. Where was the thin trickle of firelight that always glowed from the gap. Had they let the fire die? Had they extinguished the lamps?
He stepped into the hall. The hearth glowed with dull coals. "Hey," Barch cried out. "Is everybody dead?"
No response, no whisper, no murmur, no slightest stir of sound. Barch ran up the passage into Big Hole. Gray light poured in through the opening. The double-barge was gone. Big Hole was empty.
Barch walked slowly to the opening. Wide. He looked up into the sky. The overcast came racing fast across Mount Kebali.
He returned to the hall, sat on the bench, held his hand to his head. The coals glowed, winked, and one by one died out. Barch sat in the cool silence.
Gray light seeped in through the crevice. Barch rose, went slowly outside. He banged the stump of his left arm on the stone and felt no pain. "Well," said Barch aloud, "so much for that."
CHAPTER XI
Barch stood in the cave opening. Light rain fell slanting down the wind, so cold as to be near-sleet; perhaps the Magarak winter was begi
He returned inside the cave, threw wood on the coals, watched the smolder start up into little flames, grow to a blaze.
He turned away, and without reason climbed the passage into Big Hole. Watery gray light entered through the gap, twenty feet high, fifty feet wide; he could not possibly fill it in alone. He shrugged turned away, looked around the cavern.
He was still lord of vast properties-the cargo of sustenators, less the three for the ship and one in the hall. There were crates of welding tape, the igniter, the cutting tools, spools of cable, a respectable pile of decking. The explosives were used up, all the accr had gone with the double-barge. Oddments, scrap, broken crates littered the uneven half of the floor. Nothing of value or immediate usefulness.
Barch started back down to the hall, then stopped. Something had to be done about the hole. With only one hand, piling up a wall of rocks was out of the question. But he could rig a makeshift screen, lashing up the deck-sheets with cable and maybe throwing a few branches against the outside for camouflage.