There was Christina, and there was Shearing, and there were two more he
did not know, leaning over him. The drug was wearing off a little, and
Hyrst could see them more clearly, see the bitter disappointment in
their eyes.
"Is that all?" Christina said. "Are you sure? Go back again--"
They took him back again, and it was the same.
"That's all MacDonald said? Then we're no closer to the Titanite than we
were before."
Hyrst was not interested in the Titanite. "Vernon," he said. Something
red and wild rose up in him, and he tried to tear away the straps that
held him. "Vernon. I'll get him--"
"Later, Hyrst," said Shearing, and sighed. "Lie still a bit. He's on
Bellaver's yacht, remember? Quite out of reach. Now think. MacDonald
said, You won't get it, it's where nobody will ever get it--"
"What's the use?" said Christina, turning away. "It was a faint hope
anyway. Dying men don't draw obliging maps for you." She sat down on the
edge of a bunk and put her head in her hands. "We might as well give up.
You know that."
One of the two Lazarites who had done the latent probe on Hyrst said
with hollow hopefulness, "Perhaps if we let him rest a while and then go
over it again--"
"Let me up out of here," said Hyrst, still groggy with the drug. "I want
Vernon."
"I'll help you get him," said Shearing, "if you'll tell me what
MacDonald meant when he said _nobody will ever get it unless I show them
how_."
"How the devil do I know?" Hyrst tugged at the straps, raging. "Let me
up."
"But you knew MacDonald well. You worked with him and beside him for
years."
"Does that tell me where he hid the Titanite? Don't be an ass, Shearing.
Let me up."
"But," said Shearing equably, "he didn't say _where_. He said _how_."
"Isn't that the same thing?"
"Is it? Listen. Nobody will ever get it unless I show them where. Nobody
will ever get it unless I show them how."
Hyrst stopped fighting the straps. He began to frown. Christina lifted
her head again. She did not say anything. The two Lazarites who had done
the probe stood still and held their breath.
Shearing's mind touched Hyrst's stroking it as with soothing fingers.
"Let's think about that for a minute. Let your thoughts move freely.
MacDonald was an engineer. The engineer. Of the four, he alone knew
every inch of the physical set-up of the refinery. So?"
"Yes. That's right. But that doesn't say where--Wait a minute, though.
If he'd just shoved it in a crack somewhere in the mountains, he'd know
a detector might find it, more easily than before it was dug. He'd have
put it some where deep, deeper than he could possibly dig. Maybe in an
abandoned mine?"
"No place," said Shearing, "is too deep for us to probe. We've examined
every abandoned mine on that side of Titan. And it doesn't fit, anyway.
No. Try again."
"He wouldn't have brought it back to the refinery. One of us would be
sure to find it. Unless, of course--"
Hyrst stopped, and the tension in the sick-bay tightened another notch.
The ship lurched sharply, swerved, and shot upward with a deafening
thunder of rocket-blasts. Hyrst shut his eyes, thinking hard.
"Unless he put it in some place so dangerous that nobody ever went
there. A place where even he didn't go, but which he would know about
being the engineer."
"Can you think of any place that would answer that description?"
"Yes," said Hyrst slowly. "The underground storage bins. They're always
hot, even when they're empty. Anything hidden near them would be
blanketed by radiation. No detector would see anything but uranium.
Probably even you wouldn't."
"No," said Shearing, looking amazed. "Probably we wouldn't. The
radioactive disturbance would be too strong to get through, even if we
were looking for something beyond it, which we weren't."
* * * * *
Christina had sprung up. Now she bent over Hyrst and said, "But is there
a way it could have been done? Obviously, the Titanite couldn't have
been put directly into the bin with the uranium--if nothing else, it
would have been shipped out in the next tanker."
"Oh, yes," said Hyrst. "There would be several ways. I can think of a
couple myself, and I've never even see the layout. The repair-lift
shaft, I know, goes clear down to the feeder mechanism, and there's some
kind of a system of dispersal tunnels and an emergency gadget that trips
automatically to release a liquid-graphite damping material into them in
case the radiation level gets too high. I don't remember that it ever
did, but it's a safeguard. There'd be plenty of places to hide a lead
box full of Titanite."
"_Unless I show them how_," repeated Shearing slowly, and began to undo
the straps that held Hyrst to the table. "It has an ominous sound. I'll
bet you that locating the Titanite will be child's play compared to
getting it out. Well, we'll do what we can."
"The first thing," said Christina grimly, "is to get rid of Bellaver. If
he has the slightest suspicion where we're headed he'll radio ahead and
have all Titan alerted."
Hyrst, sitting up now on the edge of the table, hanging on against the
lurching of the ship, said, "That's right--he owns the refinery now,
doesn't he? Is it still working?"
"No. The mines around there played out, oh, ten, fifteen years ago. The
activity's shifted to the north and east on the other side of the range.
That is what may possibly give us a chance." Shearing staggered with
Hyrst across the bucking deck and sat tailor-fashion in the bunk, his
eyes intent. "Hyrst, I want you to remember everything you can about the
refinery. The ground plan, exactly where the buildings are, the hoists,
the landing field. Everything."
Hyrst said, showing the edges of his teeth, "When do I get Vernon?"
"You'll get him. I promise you."
"What about Bellaver? He's still behind us."
Shearing smiled. "That's Christina's job! Let her worry."
Hyrst nodded. He began to remember the refinery. Christina and the other
two went out.
A short while later a number of things happened, violently, and in quick
succession. The ship of the Lazarites, pursuing its wild and headlong
course through the swarming debris of the Belt, was far ahead of
Bellaver's yacht but still within instrument range. Apparently in
desperation it plunged suddenly on a tangential course into a cluster of
great jagged rocks all travelling together at a furious rate of speed.
The cluster was perhaps two hundred miles across. The Lazarite ship
twisted and turned, and then there was a swift bright flowering of
flame, and then nothing.
"She's blown her tubes," said Bellaver exultantly, on the bridge of his
yacht. The instruments had lost contact, chiefly because the cluster was
so thick that it was impossible to separate one body from another.
Vernon said, "They're not blanking my mind any more. It stopped, like
that."
But he was still doubtful.
"Can you locate the ship?" asked Bellaver.
"I'm trying."
Bellaver caught his arm. "Look there!"
There was a second, larger and more brilliant, flash of flame.
"They've hit an asteroid," he said. "They're done for."
"I can't locate them," Vernon said. "No ship, no wreckage. It could be a
trick. They could be holding a cloak."
"A trick?" said Bellaver. "I doubt it. Anyway, we're running low on
fuel, and I'm not going to go into that cluster and risk my own neck to
find out. If by any chance they do come out again later on, we'll deal
with them."
But they both watched the cluster until it had whirled on out of sight.
And neither eye nor instrument nor Vernon's probing mind could
distinguish any sign of life.