"You risked discipline for something so foolish?"
"What else? I can't bring any of the machines back to the village; you
would throw them out. I can't power the tubes and go back to Earth."
It was all so glibly logical; yet I knew he was lying. I moved toward
him, snatching the fringe of his cloak in my clenching fists. "I'm
asking once again, Baiel: What did you expect to find here?"
* * * * *
"My Lord! My Lord!"
Baiel and I both whirled toward the open cabin door. Dayhan was
outside, slowly crossing the last fifty feet of icy meadow toward the
ship. When Baiel saw her, the smile sagged on his lips and he sprang
from the ship.
"You're on tabooed ground!" he cried. "Go back!"
"I have no fear." Her words were brave, but her voice was a choked
whisper as she looked up at the towering undulations of the glacier
glaring in the sun. "Where my Lord can go, I will follow. Brother
glacier is no god. See! I defy him." She raised my Hayden and aimed it
unsteadily at the wall of ice above the _Olympus_.
"No!" Baiel screamed. "The sun god will destroy you!"
Baiel was ten paces ahead of me. He reached her as she fired. He
knocked the Hayden from her hand with such force that Dayhan was
thrown sprawling on the slick ground.
Above us tons of ice, dislodged by the Hayden blast, broke and slid
down the face of the glacier upon the _Olympus_, rocking the ship over
on its side. Baiel flung up his hands in terror, but lowered them a
moment later. Behind his facial mask of stark fear, I saw a strange
expression of uneasy surprise and calculation.