It was cold and dark and infinitely sad. Hyrst wandered through the
rooms, feeling like a ghost, thinking like one. Everything had been
removed from the buildings. The living quarters were now mere cubicular
tombs for a lot of memories, absolutely bare of any human or familiar
touch. It felt very strange to Hyrst. He kept telling himself that fifty
years had passed, but he could not believe it. It seemed only a few
months since MacDonald's death, months occupied by investigation and
trial and the raging, futile anguish of the unjustly accused. The long
interval of the pseudo-death was no more than a night's sleep, to a mind
unconscious of passing time. Now it seemed that Saul and Landers should
still be here, and there should be lights and warmth and movement.
There was nothing. He could not bring himself to stay in the living
quarters. He went into one of the storerooms and sat on a concrete
buttress and waited. It was a long and dreadful wait. During it all the
emotional storms occasioned by the murder and its aftermath passed
through his mind. Scenes with Saul and Landers. Scenes with the
investigators, with MacDonald's family, with lawyers and reporters.
Scenes with Elena. The whole terrible nightmare, leading inevitably to
that culminating moment when the door of the airlock opened and he
joined the sleepers on the plain. When it was all over Hyrst felt shaken
and exhausted, but calm. The face of Vernon burned brightly in his
mind's eye.
Without bothering to open the steel-shuttered windows, he watched the
two young men force their way out of the hoist tower. He watched them
run to their ship and chatter excitedly over their radio. By the time,
much later, that Bellaver's yacht came screaming down to the landing
field on a flaming burst of jets, he could watch it with almost the cool
detachment of a spectator. He was careful to keep his shields up tight
against Vernon, and he did not think the other Lazarite would be likely
to look for him. Vernon seemed to be fully occupied with Bellaver.
"_What else would they be stealing, you fool? You should have, killed
Hyrst before, when you had the chance._"
"_Somebody had to take the blame for MacDonald. Anyway, you had him
aboard the_ Happy Dream. _Why didn't you hang onto him?_"
"_Don't get insolent with me, Vernon. I can turn you over to the police
anytime, for any one of a hundred things._"
"_Not without tipping your hand, Bellaver._"
"_It would be worth it._" A string of foul names, delivered in a furious
scream. "_You couldn't locate the Titanite, but they did, just as soon
as they got hold of Hyrst._"
"_All right, Mr. God Almighty Bellaver, turn me in. But if it was the
Titanite they took, you haven't a chance of finding that starship
without me._"
"_You haven't done very well at it so far._"
"_In the excitement, they may get careless. But it's up to you._"
More foul language, but Bellaver did not repeat his threat. He and
Vernon, with a couple of other men, got into vac-suits and lumbered
across the snow to the hoist tower. From inside the cold dark buried
building, Hyrst watched them, and thought hard and fast, and smiled.
Presently he left the building and circled cautiously through the snowy
gloom until he was in range of their helmet-communicators. He could hear
them aurally now, but he kept watching them, esper-fashion.
* * * * *
They inspected the empty lead box, and the young men told what had
happened, and Bellaver turned his raging fury against them. There was no
longer any doubt that the Titanite had been found and taken away, and
Bellaver saw the stars and worlds and moons, the bright glowing plunder
of a galaxy, slipping away from him. He threatened the two young men
with every punishment he could think of for not having stopped the
thieves, and one of the young men turned white and anxious, and the
other one flushed brick red and shook his fist close to Bellaver's
helmet.
"You go to hell," he said. "I don't care who you are. You go to hell."
He walked out of the hoist tower, with his companion stumbling at his
heels, and Bellaver screamed after them, and behind him the crewmen
looked shocked and contemptuous, and Vernon laughed openly, showing the
edges of his teeth.
The two young men got into their ship and went away. Bellaver turned and
stood looking at the empty box. He seemed exhausted now, hopeless, like
a child about to break down and cry. Vernon went over and kicked the
box.
"Hyrst had the advantage," he said. "He knew MacDonald and he knew the
refinery. Even so, it must have been pure guesswork. Nobody could probe
through that fog."
"What are we going to do?" asked Bellaver. "Vernon, what are we going to
do?"
Hyrst spoke for the first time, his voice ringing loud and startling in
their ears.
"Don't ask Vernon," he said. "Ask me."
There was a moment of complete silence. Hyrst felt Vernon's mind brush
his, and he permitted himself one cruel flash of triumph. Then everybody
spoke at once, Vernon explaining why he hadn't spotted Hyrst--who could
have figured he'd stay behind at a time like this?--the crew-members
nervously fingering their guns, and Bellaver crying,
"Hyrst! Is that you, Hyrst? Where are you?"
"Where I can get the first shot at anybody coming out of the tower, and
where nobody from the yacht will ever reach me. Tell them all to stay
put. Go ahead, Bellaver, you want to hear me out, don't you?"
"What do you want to say?"
"I can find you that starship. Tell them, Bellaver."
He told them. And Vernon said to Bellaver, "If he's willing to betray
his friends, why would he get them the Titanite?" He laughed. "It isn't
even a good trick."
"Oh, yes, it is," said Hyrst softly. "It's a very good one. The best.
You see, I don't care about the starship or the Titanite. All I care
about is the man who killed MacDonald. They were sort of bound up
together. Ever hear of latent impressions, Vernon? I was unconscious,
but my ears heard and my eyes saw, and my brain remembered, when it was
shown how."
"That was fifty years ago," said Vernon. "People don't understand about
us. Nobody would believe you if you told them."
"They would if Bellaver told them. They would if Bellaver explained out
loud about the Lazarites, about what happens to men when they go through
the door. They'd listen to him. And there must be others who know, or at
least suspect." Hyrst paused, long enough to smile. "The beauty of that
is, Bellaver, that you're in the clear. You're not responsible for a
murder your grandfather had done. You could swear you didn't even know
about it until now."
Vernon said to Bellaver, "If you do this to me, I'll blast you wide
open."
"What can he do, Bellaver?" Hyrst shouted. "He can talk, but you have
the money, the position, the legal powers. You can talk louder. And when
they know the truth, will anybody take the word of a Lazarite against a
human man?"
His voice rose higher and louder, drowning out Vernon's cry.
"Are you afraid of him, Bellaver? Are you so afraid of him you'll let
the starship go?"
"Hold him." Bellaver said, and the crewmen held Vernon fast. "Wait a
minute, Hyrst," he said. "What's your angle? Is it just revenge? Are you
selling out your friends for something over and done half a century ago?
I don't believe it, Hyrst."
Hyrst said slowly, "I can answer that, so even you will understand. I
have children. They're getting old now. They've lived all their lives
thinking their father killed a man, not for love or for justice or in
self-defense, but for sheer cold-blooded greed. I want them to know it
wasn't so."
"Hold him!" Bellaver said. The crewmen struggled with Vernon, and Vernon
said viciously to Bellaver,
"He'll never lead you to the starship. I can read his mind. When you've
turned me in and blackened your grandfather's name to clear him, he'll
laugh in your face. What are you, Bellaver, a fool?"
"Am I, Hyrst?"
"That's for you to find out. I'm offering you the starship for Vernon,
and that's fair enough, because I want him as bad as you want it. And I
can tell you, Bellaver, if you decide to play it smart and call in your
guards to hunt me down, it will do you no good. I won't be alive when
they take me."
Silence. In his mind's eye Hyrst could see the beads of sweat running
down Bellaver's face behind his helmet. He could see Vernon's face, too.
It gave him pleasure.
"It should be an easy decision, Bellaver," he said. "After all, suppose
I am lying. What have you got to lose but Vernon? And with his record,
that isn't much."
"Hold him," said Bellaver. "All right, Hyrst. I'll do it. But I'll tell
you now. If you lie to me, there won't be any re-awakening in another
fifty years. This will be for good."
"Fair enough," said Hyrst. "I'm putting my gun away. I'm coming in."
He walked quickly through the snow toward the tower.