"That would probably be the best way. Make sure he"s inside and lob it in through the window."
"Is he alone?"
"Well-- No. But it wouldn"t exactly be murder. Once you get the tapes you can bring back the girl."
"Who is she?"
"Her name is Kathy. I don"t know her."
"She was my wife," I said.
"Oh. Well, I guess that idea is out. We have to go in."
"Perhaps," I said. "If we have to, I"ll take care of Shandon and you get Kathy out of the way."
"He wouldn"t hurt her."
"Oh?"
"It"s been several months since we woke up, Frank. We didn"t know where we were or why. And this green guy said he didn"t know any more about it than we did. For all we knew we were really dead. We only found out about you when he and Mike had the argument. Green dropped his guard one day and Mike picked his brains, I guess. Anyhow, Mike and the girl--Kathy, yes--sort of have a thing going between them. I guess they"re in love."
"Green, why didn"t you tell me this?"
"I did not deem it important. Is it?"
I didn"t answer because I didn"t know. I thought quickly. I leaned my back against a rock and pushed the gas pedal of my mind to the floor. I had set out to find and kill an enemy. Now he stood by my side while I sought a different enemy in his stead. Now to find out that he was shacking up with the resurrected wife I"d come to rescue . .. This did change things. How, I was not sure. If Kathy was in love with him, I was not about to burst in and shoot him down in front of her. Even if he were just using her, even if he didn"t care anything for her, I could not do that--not with him meaning something to her. It seemed that Green Green"s earlier suggestion was the only thing left--to contact him and try to buy him off. He had a new power and a pretty girl. Add to that a wad of money, and he might be persuaded to lay off. It still troubled me, though, that he had tried to kill me with his hands.
I could just turn around and go back. I could climb aboard the _Model T_ and in less than a day be scooting toward Homefree. If she wanted Shandon, let her have him. I could settle my score with Green Green and return to my fortress.
"Yes, it is important," I said.
"Does it alter your plans?" Green Green asked me.
"Yes."
"Just because of the girl?"
"Just because of the girl," I said.
"You are a strange man, Frank, to come all this way and then change your mind because of a girl who is Only an ancient memory to you."
"I have a very good memory."
I did not like the idea of leaving my Name"s enemy running around in the body of a capable and clever man who would not mind seeing me dead. It was a combination that could keep me awake nights, even on Homefree. On the other hand, what good is a dead golden goose--or pigeon, as the case would be? Its funny how, if you live long enough, friends, enemies, lovers, haters move around you as at a big, masked ball, and every now and then there is some maskswitching.
"What arc you going to do?" Nick asked.
"I"m going to talk to him. Make a deal if I can."
"You said he would not sell his _pai"badra_," said Green Green, "I thought so when I said it. But this thing with Kathy now makes it necessary that I try to buy it."
"I do not understand."
"Don"t try. Maybe the two of you had better wait here, in case he starts shooting."
"If he kills you, what are we to do?" asked Green Green.
"That"ll be your problem then. --See you in a little while, Nick."
"Check, Frank."
I moved on down the trail, maintaining my mental shield, I used the rocks for cover, crawling among them as I neared. Finally, I lay flat on my stomach about a hundred fifty feet above the place. Two huge boulders shielded me and cast heavy shadows. I rested the pistol on my forearm and covered the back door.
"Mike!" I called out. "This is Frank Sandow!" and I waited.
Perhaps half a minute pa.s.sed while he decided, then, "Yes?"
"I want to talk."
"Go ahead."
Suddenly the lights went out below me.
"Is it true what I"ve heard about you and Kathy?"
He hesitated, then, "I guess so."
"Is she with you now?"
"Maybe. Why?"
"I want to hear her say it."
Then, after everything, her voice: "I guess it"s true, Frank. We didn"t know where we were, or anything--and I remembered that fire. . . . I don"t know how to--"
I bit my lip.
"Don"t apologize," I said. "That was a long time ago. I"ll live."
Mike chuckled.
"You seem confident of that."
"I am. I"ve decided to do it the easy way."
"What do you mean?"
"How much do you want?"
"Money? You scared of me, Frank?"
"I came here to kill you, but I won"t do it if Kathy loves you. She says she does. Okay. If you"ve got to go on living, then I want you off my back. How much will it take for you to pick up your marbles and go away?"
"What are marbles?"
"Forget it. How much?"
"I hadn"t thought you would offer, so I never thought about it. A lot, though. I"d want a guaranteed income for life, a large one. Then some really large purchases in my name--I"d have to make a list. --You really do mean it? This isn"t a trick?"
"We"re both telepaths. I propose we drop our screens. In fact, I"d insist on it as a condition."
"Kathy has been asking me not to kill you," he said, "and she would probably hold it against me if I did. Okay. She means more to me. I"ll take your money and your wife and go away."
"Thanks a lot."
He laughed.
"My luck is finally good. How do you want to handle this?"
"If you"d like, I can give you a lump sum and then have my attorneys set up a trust."
"I like. I want everything to be legal. I want a million, plus a hundred thousand a year."
"That"s a lot."
"Not to you."
"Just commenting. --Okay, I agree." I wondered how Kathy was taking all this. She could not have changed so much in a few months but that this would not sound a bit sickening to her. "Two things," I added. "The Pei"an, Gringrin-tharl--he"s mine now. We have a score to settle."
"You can have him. Who needs him? --What"s the other thing?"
"Nick, the dwarf, comes away with me, in one piece."
"That little--" Then he laughed. "Sure. In fact, I kind of like him. --That"s all?"
"That"s all."
The sun"s first rays tickled the belly of the sky and the volcanos flamed like t.i.tan torches out over the water.
"Now what?"
"Wait till I pa.s.s a message to the others," I said.
--_Green Green, he"ll deal. I have his pai"badra. Tell Nick. We depart in a few hours. My ship will come for me later today_.
--_I hear you, Frank. We will be with you shortly_.
Now only the Pei"an remained to be dealt with. It was almost too easy. I was still on the lookout for a trick. It would have to be an awfully elaborate one, though. I was inclined to doubt the possibility of collusion between Green Green and Mike. Anyhow, I would know in a few moments, when Mike and I dropped our screens.
But after all my preparations, to settle the whole thing like a couple of businessmen...
I could not tell whether I had chuckled or snorted. It was something that felt somewhere in between.
Then I felt that it was wrong. It? Something, I do not know what. It was a feeling that probably goes back to the caves or the trees. h.e.l.l, maybe even the oceans. Flopsus shone through the ash and the smoke and the mist, and she was the color of blood.
A quietness seemed to settle over everything as the breezes grew still. Then that old gut-grabbing fear was back with me again, and I fought it. A big hand was about to come down out of the sky and squash me, but I lay still. I had conquered the Isle of the Dead, and Tokyo Bay burnt all about me. Now, though, I looked down the slope into the Valley of Shadow. It is so easy for me to find things to be morbid about, and all things came to remind me of this. I shuddered and stilled my shaking. It would not do for Shandon to find fear in my heart.
Finally, after I could wait no longer, "Shandon," I said, "I"m dropping my shield. You do the same."
"All right."
. . . And our minds met, moved about inside one another.
--_You mean it_. . . .
--_So do you_. . . .
--_Then it"s a bargain_.
--_Yes_.
And the "No!" that slammed back from the subterranean recesses of the world and echoed down from the towers of the sky clashed like cymbals within our minds. A flash of red heat pa.s.sed through my body. Then, slowly, I stood, and my limbs were as firm as the mountains. Through lines of red and green, I saw everything as clearly as by daylight. I saw where, down below me, Mike Shandon emerged from the chalet and slowly turned his head to rake the heights. Finally, our eyes met, and I knew then that what had been spoken or written in that place where I had stood with a thunderbolt in my hands had been true: --_Then there must be a confrontation_. Flames . . . --_So be it_. Darkness. There had been a patterning of events from the time I had departed Homefree up until this moment, which overrode, defeated the agreements of men. Ours had been a series of subsidiary conflicts, their resolution unimportant to those who controlled us now.
Controlled. Yes.
I had always a.s.sumed Shimbo to be an artificial creation, conditioned into me by the Pei"ans, an alternate personality I a.s.sumed when designing worlds. There had never been a clash of wills either. He had come only when summoned, delivered and departed.
He had never taken over spontaneously, forced any sort of control upon me. Perhaps deep down inside I wanted him to be a G.o.d, because I wanted there to be a G.o.d/G.o.d/G.o.ds somewhere and perhaps this desire was the animating force, and my paranormal powers the means for what was happening. I don"t know. I don"t know. . . . Once there was a burst of light when he came, so bright that I cried, not knowing why. h.e.l.l, that"s no answer. I just don"t know.
So we stood there regarding one another, two enemies who had been manipulated by two older enemies. I imagined Mike"s surprise at this turn of events. I tried to contact him, but my faculty was completely blocked. I imagined that he was remembering that strange, earlier confrontation himself, however.
Then I saw that the clouds were ma.s.sing overhead, and I knew what that meant. The ground beneath my feet gave a gentle shudder, and I knew what that meant, too.
One of us was going to die, though neither of us wished this.
--_Shimbo, Shimbo_, I said within me, _Lord of Darktree Tower, must this thing be?_ . . . And even as I said it I knew that there would be no reply, not even for me--save for what followed.
The thunders rolled, soft and long, like a distant drumbeat.
The lights out over the water grew brighter.
We stood as at the ends of a dueling field in h.e.l.l, waves of light washing about us, clotted with mist, dotted with ash; and Flopsus hid her face, edging the clouds with blood.
It takes the powers a time to move, after they"ve been built to the proper point. I felt them pa.s.s through me from the nearest power-pull, then move away in great waves. I stood, unable to move a muscle or to close my eyes against the stare of the other. In the twisted light through which I saw, he occasionally flickered, and I glimpsed the outline of the one I had come to know as Belion.
I was diminishing and expanding, simultaneously; and long moments pa.s.sed before I realized that it was I, Sandow, who was becoming more and more inert, pa.s.sive, smaller. Yet, at the same time I felt the lighthings take root in my fingertips, their swaying tops high above me in the sky, waiting to be turned and prodded and drawn crashing to the ground: I, Shimbo of Darktree, Shrugger of Thunders.
The gray cone to my left was slashed down the side like an arm and its orange blood spilled forth into Acheron, to sizzle and steam in the now glowing waters; its fingers flexed high and ruddy in the night. Then I split the sky with my lines of chaos and sent them down below me in a deluge of light, as the cannons of heaven saluted and the winds of the sky rose again, and the rains came.