stirring of the sand immediately beneath him seemed to increase, to
become a loud and continuous rustling sound that filled him with a
vague sense of disquiet. He could not quite dismiss from his mind a
feeling that he was still in danger, that in some strange, almost
terrifying way Saddler was still a menace, and that the terrible
reality of his death had not destroyed all of the hatred and savage
violence which had forced Corriston to kill him in self-defense.
Suddenly Corriston realized that what he heard was not the wind
stirring the sand at all, but something quite different. It was closer
to him than the sloping rim of the dunes, and it was accompanied by
movements directly under his hand, a sudden tightening of the dead
man's skin, a contraction more pronounced than could have been produced
by the abrupt onset of rigor mortis, however freakishly violent or
premature.
The rustling continued for perhaps ten more seconds. Then, abruptly, it
stopped and the heads of two lamprenes came into view, moving slowly
across Saddler's unstirring flesh until their writhing mouth parts were
less than two inches from Corriston's outspread hand.
The sight of them brought an instant of terror, an awareness of peril
so acute that Corriston's breath caught in his throat. His hand whipped
back and he leapt to his feet with a convulsive shudder.
It was suddenly very still on the dune again. Corriston stood for a
moment with his body rigid, fearing to look downward, his mind filled
with a growing sense of panic.
Had Helen Ramsey been attacked by lamprenes too? No, no, she was all
right; she had to be. Everything confirmed it, her quietness, her
steady breathing, the simple fact that her eyes had been closed and not
opened wide in torment.
He descended the dune like a man ploughing in frantic haste through a
snowdrift, sinking to his knees and floundering free again, lurching
backward and sideways, sliding a third of the way.
She was all right when he got to her. He dropped down beside her and
lifted her into his arms, and for an instant there was complete silence
between them. She just looked at him, looked up into his face steadily
and calmly, as if she could read his mind and had the good sense to
realize there could be no more certain way of reassuring him. Then
her arms tightened about him. "Darling," she whispered. "Darling,
darling...."
Corriston started fumbling with his oxygen mask and suddenly he had it
off. He held his breath and more slowly helped her free her lips so
that he could kiss her. Their lips met and the kiss was longer and more
intense than any they had ever before shared.
* * * * *
A half hour later the tractors were in rumbling motion again, their
destination Ramsey's Citadel. And Corriston had a plan. He knew that it
was riddled with risks and that he was perhaps quite mad to think that
it might succeed. But the fact that Helen Ramsey was now completely
safe and had dropped off into a brief, outwardly untroubled sleep
at his side made him feel reckless to the point where a cautious,
level-headed man like Drever could only stare at him and shake his head.
There was a swaying and a creaking all about them, the slow, steady
rumble of caterpillar treads, and Drever had almost to shout to make
himself heard. He stood directly opposite Corriston, supporting himself
by a guard rail, and watching the desert through the weather-shield
change color in the wake of the heavy vehicle's heaving, churning,
torpedo-shaped rear-end.
"Stone's been unconscious now for an hour," Drever said, dividing his
gaze between Corriston, and the loosely strapped-in, sleeping girl at
his side, both swaying with the swaying tractor. "We can't count on
getting any more information out of him. I can't wake him up. Drugs
would be dangerous. I don't think he'll live, but we can't deliberately
kill him to get him to talk."
"I know that," Corriston said.
"But he's the only one who knows why Henley is staying so long at
the Citadel. He should have been back hours ago. He left before you
escaped from the ship. For all we know, he may be dead. Ramsey may have
lost his head and had him shot, although that seems unlikely. Ramsey
would go to any length to save his daughter. But we've no way of
knowing whether he believed Henley's story or not. Anything could have
happened. Henley may have attacked Ramsey."
"I've a feeling that he's still at the Citadel," Corriston said. "I'll
have to gamble on that--the one-in-five chance that for some reason the
negotiations have been prolonged. He may be lying dead in the desert
somewhere. He may have been attacked by lamprenes. As you say, anything
could have happened. But when I make up my mind to do something I
usually go through with it. It's just a matter of plain common sense.
You don't toss aside a decision you've given a great deal of thought to
just because the arguments against it are weighty, too."
"I see. So you're still determined to walk right up to the gate and
tell them you're Stone."
"Why not? They've never laid eyes on Stone and they don't know me from
Adam. I won't be wearing this uniform. I'll tell them that Henley's
expecting me, that he left orders for me to join him if he failed to
come back at a specified time. I'll watch the guard's face and change
my story a little--if I have to--as I go along."
"It's a _very_ long gamble. I hope you realize that."
"It's either that or no gamble at all. And we've _got_ to gamble. We're
holding at least two high cards and a joker. Henley has had the ground
shot right out from under him. He's completely alone, and the only
thing he has left to gamble with is his nearness to Ramsey, his ability
to terrify Ramsey by making him believe that his daughter's life is
still in danger. Ramsey has to be told that Helen has been freed, has
to be warned in time, before he does anything foolish.
"Don't you see? With that threat hanging over him, Ramsey would never
let us get within fifty yards of the Citadel, let alone walk through
the gates. And if Henley finds out that we've got Helen, he'll know
that he has nothing left to gamble with except that desperate bluff.
And he may doubt his ability to win with a bluff. That would be the
worst tragedy of all. He may turn on Ramsey in blind rage, and kill
him. He gets a horrible, pathological pleasure out of killing. I've
told you how he went berserk on the Station."
Drever nodded, and, quite suddenly and unexpectedly, the look of
stubborn opposition was gone from his eyes.
"I guess you're right, Lieutenant. You can't always tell how the cards
will fall."
"You can never tell," Corriston said. "And there are some games where
the important moves can only be made by just one player, and he usually
has to be something of a reckless fool."
22
Corriston left the tractor a hundred and seventy yards from the gate,
well hidden behind a hundred foot dune. The other tractors had come to
a halt a much greater distance from the Citadel, and were spread out
across the desert in a slightly uneven, double line.
He walked slowly forward across the rust-red sand, with a feeling in
his bones that he was going to be lucky. Yet he knew that he'd have to
be convincing, or he wouldn't stand a chance. If there was more than
one guard at the gate he might never get inside. With luck he might be
able to convince two guards--even three--but never four or five, for
you couldn't forge words into persuasive enough weapons to disarm the
suspicion of that many observant men. Not the kind of men who would be
guarding Ramsey, at any rate.
The massiveness of the fortified gate shook his confidence a little
as he drew near to it. It was at least fifty feet in height, a solid
oblong of inches-thick steel with a desert-mirroring surface. He could
see his own reflection as he advanced, but it did nothing to reassure
him.
He knew what he'd have to do, of course. Walk right up to the gate and
trust to luck that he could find some way of announcing his presence
without getting himself killed. How _did_ you gain entrance to an
impregnable fortress? Surely there had to be some way by which a man
could gain admittance without being instantly shot down as a hostile
intruder.
He was surprised by the simplicity of the answer. There was no need for
him to press a bell or a buzzer, to manipulate a mechanism of any sort.
There was not even any need for him to proclaim his arrival by shouting.
The gate swung inward without a sound, and in the shadows cast by
its moving bulk two figures silently materialized. They were guards,
heavily armed, one tall with shaggy brows and piercing dark eyes, the
other a wiry little man with reddish hair, his expression peculiarly
bland and non-committal.
It was the little man who said: "All right, come inside. We've been
expecting you."
It was impossible, but true. There was nothing threatening in the way
the words were uttered, just calm acceptance, just the matter-of-fact
indifference of a man who has a duty to perform and doesn't care what
happens afterwards.
But it would have perhaps been better if Corriston had not moved so
quickly forward, for almost instantly the second guard barred his
passage and laid a firm hand on his arm.
"Hold on. Just a minute," the tall guard said. "You're Peter Stone,
aren't you?"
With a quick pretense of anger Corriston jerked his arm free and looked
the guard up and down. "Naturally I'm Stone. Who in hell did you think
I was."
"Sorry," the guard said, shrugging. "Don't take it out on me. I just
had to be sure."
"Well, you're sure now. I guess you know why I'm here."
The guard nodded. "Ramsey just phoned down about you. Your friend is
with him now. See that big gray building, the one on the left with the
shuttered windows? There's a guard stationed at the door, but he won't
stop you. He has his orders. Climb two flights of stairs and go down
the long corridor on the third floor. Ramsey and your friend are in the
last room on the left."
Corriston drew a deep breath, wondering if the guard had noticed the
tightening of his facial muscles. He turned away from the gate slowly,
staring out over the interior of the fortress, letting his emotions of
the moment take complete possession of him.
He had entered as if by magic a world apart, a small, shutin world
of massive magnificence, of undreamed of material power and wealth.
There were five buildings within the encircling wall of the fortress,
each monumental in architectural sweep. Each was a citadel alone and
apart, monuments to man's creative genius erected by one man with a
determination to make himself unique.
It was a folly almost beyond belief, a terrifying distortion of human
creativeness that could lead only to ultimate disaster and defeat.
But greedy and cruel and ruthless as Ramsey undoubtedly was, there
still burned in him a little of the spark that had created Athens in
white marble. Had it not been so, he could not have even commissioned
men of creative genius to transport to Mars the materials for such a
project and have taken pleasure in its completion.
"Your friend got here two hours ago," the tall guard said. "They've
been talking ever since. He came down to the gate once and said we
should let you in, you and another man. Saddler, I think his name was.
I see he's not with you."
"No, Saddler is not with me," Corriston said.
"What happened to him?"
"The big gray building with the shuttered windows, you said. If the
guard tries to stop me, what do I say."
"I told you he had his orders."
Corriston looked up at the massive gate swinging shut behind him. For
good or ill, he was completely trapped, completely at the mercy of the
armed guards inside the citadel.
They hadn't taken his gun away from him, but, nevertheless, he was
trapped. What chance would one armed man have against seventy-five or
a hundred guards? They were keeping out of sight, all but the two at
the gate. But at any moment they could converge upon him and shoot
him down. They could choose their own moment, precisely as a research
medical man could choose his own moment to experiment upon a laboratory
animal, knowing that the creature was safe in its cage and couldn't
possibly get away.
Corriston's lips tightened and from a shadowed corner of his mind came
a determination to brush all that aside, to ignore it completely. The
guards at the gate might very well be telling the truth. It stood to
reason that Ramsey would have remained secretive about his daughter.
Kidnappers do not like to have their ransom demands discussed too
openly. If Ramsey had been a complete fool he would have gone down
to the gate and taken the guards completely into his confidence, but
Corriston could not believe that Ramsey was that much of a fool.
In all probability Henley had threatened Ramsey and provoked him almost
beyond endurance. There had arisen the questions of how the ransom was
to be paid, the girl set free.
Damn it, Corriston thought, the thing for me to do now is to go
straight toward that building and straight up the stairs to the third
floor and straight down the corridor until I'm confronting Ramsey face
to face. I'm Peter Stone. I'm one of the two men who helped Henley
kidnap the girl and I've come to help Henley convince Ramsey. I've
come to help him really put the screws on Ramsey. I can improvise from
that point on.
He moved away from the guards without looking back. Within the citadel
there was silence, stillness, the five massive buildings cutting a
rampart of pure, fragile design across the sky. There was a strange
kind of perfection about the interior of the citadel. It was akin,
somehow, to the perfection of solitude and even the sky seemed hushed,
expectant, remote from reality, as if awaiting the unfolding of some
impossible event, some terrifying drama of violence and retribution
that could take place nowhere else.
But Corriston's reason told him that to believe any such thing would
have been the height of folly. The sky inside the citadel was just as
real, just as cloud-flecked and palely blue as the sky outside, and the
notion that architecture or scenery of any kind could influence events
was absolute nonsense. Things would happen exactly as he willed them to
happen, provided nothing stood in the way of immediate drastic action
and the kind of luck which had saved him at the gate continued to smile
upon him.
The big gray building with the shuttered windows continued to occupy
most of his attention, and he walked very resolutely toward it, his
eyes on the glimmer of pale light which marked its wide doorway. He was
still fifty feet away when he saw the guard, standing very quietly just
inside the door with his hand on his gun holster.
Corriston's lips tightened, but he did not moderate his stride. He had
a reply ready if the guard challenged him. He preferred to believe that
he would not be challenged, but he had no intention of taking anything
for granted.
He continued on until he reached the doorway and then he stopped
abruptly. He waited for the guard to say something, but the man did not
speak at all. He simply stared quietly at Corriston for an instant, and
then stepped quickly back into the shadows. Corriston went on past him,
and advanced along the wide corridor that stretched before him.
The wide central staircase that circled up did not seem appropriate
to a building that was not a residence and Corriston found himself
wondering if Ramsey had turned the other four buildings into similarly
unusual expressions of his own strong-willed orientation to reality.
The buildings had undoubtedly been designed as administrative units
of an industrial empire--a beginning empire in a new world. An empire
predatory, avaricious, merciless. Yet Ramsey had seemingly allowed his
desire for a home to gain dominance here, had allowed the emotions
common to all men to influence his taste in interior architecture in at
least one of the buildings.
Chalk up that much to Ramsey's credit. In that respect at least, he
was superior to Henley. In that respect at least a man of good will
could take sides, all apart from the personal issues involved. Henley
was a predatory vulture on all counts, his talons constantly spread,
constantly crimson-tipped. Ramsey was a vulture too, but in the depths
of his mind he knew it. Part of the agony was shared by him, and in
one desperate, despairing part of his personality he had tried to be
creative.
Corriston ascended the staircase swiftly, casting one brief glance at
some murals and then ignoring them. The second floor landing stretched
away into shadows, bisected by a wide corridor dimly lighted by
overhead lamps. The second floor had an administrative building aspect
and so did the third floor, which seemed in all respects its exact
duplicate.
Corriston's excitement grew as he mounted the stairway. He felt like
a man poised on the brink of a precipice with no assurance that he
would not be hurled to his death; a man aware that tragedy would not
strike him like a thunderbolt at any moment; and yet also like a man
who thought and felt differently from the trapped and the desperately
despairing.
He felt very confident, very sure of himself, and it seemed to him that
there was no danger that he could not surmount, and deep within him
there was something that exulted in the thought and kept him moving
steadily upward.
The third floor was like the second, its long central corridor
dwindling away into shadows. Down it he moved cautiously, remembering
what the guard at the gate had said. The third floor, the last door on
your left.
Ramsey was in conference. But it wasn't a conference of industrial
associates planning a division of spoils. Ramsey was talking to a
killer under duress.
Corriston was half way down the corridor when he heard the shot. It
rang out in the stillness with a terrible clarity, sending echoes
reverberating throughout the building, stopping Corriston in his tracks.
For an instant the silence remained absolute, as if the shot had
somehow silenced all life within the building. Even Corriston's
breathing was affected by it, so that for an instant he remained like
a man horror-blasted into immobility, frozen, a statue with waxen
features and widely dilated eyes.
Then, abruptly, he ceased to be a statue. He broke into a run, heading
for the door from which the shot had come.
He came to the door and saw that it did not slide open on a panel. It
was massive, with a knob jutting out from it, and when he grasped the
knob it swung inward instantly and soundlessly and he found himself in
a large, blank-walled room brightly illumed by three circular overhead
lamps.
Ramsey was sitting stiff and straight before a desk that was cluttered
with reference files, manuscripts in folders, pens, pencils and other
writing materials. His face was drained of all color, and his eyes were
wide and staring. He was looking directly at Corriston, and yet he did
not seem to see Corriston.
He did not appear to be staring at anything in particular, that small,
shrunken, unimpressive-looking little man with graying temples and a
look of blank incomprehension in his eyes that chilled Corriston to the
core of his being.
Shaking, wishing that the eyes would close or brighten with relief, or
do anything but remain so stonily indifferent, Corriston moved closer
to the desk.
He saw at once that Ramsey was close to death. He had been shot in the
chest. There was a dull red stain on his chest, and even as Corriston
stared it widened, a butterfly pattern of red, like a Rorschach seen
through the eyes of a homicidally inclined psychotic.
Suddenly Ramsey moved. He caught hold of the desk edge, and swayed a
little, but his eyes remained filmed, blankly staring.
Corriston was bending above him when a familiar voice said: "He's done
for. Nothing you can do for him. We had an argument and he lost his
head. He just couldn't see it my way. So I made a mistake and shot him.
It was a mistake, all right. I lost _my_ head. Now I've got nothing to
lose by killing you."
Corriston raised his eyes slowly. He had one chance in a hundred
perhaps. He knew it; he sensed it. Henley had somehow managed to stay
out of sight for an instant. The room was very large. There were
shadows in it, and Henley had apparently flattened himself against the
wall behind the desk, in deep shadow.
But now he was standing very straight and still behind the desk,
ignoring the shuddering form of the man he had shot, little dark
deathheads dancing in his eyes.
Henley's nearness did not bother Corriston. Death at ten feet could be
no more final than death at a hundred yards.
Only one thing bothered him. Events could move fast when you were close
to a killer.
He didn't intend to let them move fast. Not for him, at any rate. He
let his eyes rest for an instant on the gun in Henley's hand, his
thoughts racing. He knew that he'd be as good as dead if he made a
single concession.
Don't let him know that the gun worries you. Pretend that the odds are
even, even though he's got the drop on you.
Corriston said: "How do you know he's fatally wounded? The wound's
three inches below his heart. You're taking a hell of a lot for
granted. You just said you made a mistake in shooting him. If he's
rushed to a hospital that mistake may not be your last. You'll have a
chance to go to work on him again."
Henley shook his head, his lips tightening. "Don't be a fool. He'll be
dead in five minutes."
"I'm not being a fool," Corriston said. "What will you stand to gain by
shooting me and letting him die? You've got his daughter, but a dead
man won't be able to ransom her."
For a moment, nothing happened. Henley had made no attempt to draw
his gun, and he did not draw it now. He stood very quietly staring at
Corriston, breathing heavily, a strange, withdrawn look in his eyes.
Perhaps he was thinking over what Corriston had said. Corriston
wondered about that for an instant, and then dismissed it from his
mind. You did not take anything for granted when you were standing that
close to a killer.
It was probably too late to save Ramsey. But for the first time he was
standing very near to Henley with a weapon beneath his hand. If he drew
his gun instantly and shot Henley through the heart Ramsey might have a
chance. Otherwise....
Somehow he couldn't do it; not without giving the other some slight
warning, not without whipping his hand to his gun with a vigor that
was clear and unmistakable. In matters of crime a fair man is at a
disadvantage. He can only deal with a murderer in one way.
He drew a split second ahead of Henley. He shot Henley three times, the
gun blazing in his hands, and it did not seem important to him that
Henley had also drawn his gun. A tight knot reached into his stomach as
Henley's gun blazed, but he kept right on firing.
Henley died missing him, not scoring at all. That was the incredible
thing. Henley, an expert shot, a genius at massacre, had missed him
clearly with five shots and now he was down on the floor, clutching at
his stomach, dragging himself along, while beneath his fingers a dull
red stain grew.
His eyes turned glassy suddenly. He tried twice to raise himself but he
fell back each time. He did not speak at all. Blood from his punctured
lungs flooded up into his mouth, and with a terrible, convulsive
trembling of his entire body he rolled over on his side and lay still.
Corriston's hands began to sweat beneath the hard, cold gun. He wanted
to drop the weapon, to hurl it from him, but he couldn't somehow. He
had killed Saddler in immediate self-defense. This had been a little
different--a new experience, a frightening experience and he had been
forced to grit his teeth even in firing, and now that it was all over
he was tormented inwardly in a way that left him badly shaken.
Henley was gone now. Dead and still and forever removed from a world
he had contaminated. Henley had been warped and twisted largely by
circumstances outside himself; nevertheless a deadly reptile has to be
crushed when it is about to strike.
Corriston looked up from the limp form sprawled out on the floor, and
for a moment the tight lines of his face relaxed a little. Henley was
no longer a menace; the breath of life that had sustained him had
expired so completely that he had become now a kind of hollow mockery
of something monstrous and distorted that could never harm anyone again.
It was Ramsey who had to be considered now, Ramsey who was in peril.
The light in the room seemed somehow a little dimmer than it had been.
He turned slowly back to Ramsey, and for a moment could not quite
believe what he saw.