"You know these old water temples. One narrow entrance, no windows.
He can't get out, that's for sure, but we can't get at him without
losing a lot of men." Weiss put a hand on Hale's arm, and Hale moved
impatiently and Weiss took it away, saying, "You know Randy better'n
any of us."
"We came to Mars together," said Hale. "We worked our way out on the
same crate. We started our farm, but Randy didn't stick. He said
there was always easy money on a frontier, and Mars shouldn't be any
different. Said he preferred four ladies to a hoe."
"He should've stuck to cards," said the man who had cleared his throat.
George Weiss said, firmly, "We want you to go in and talk to him. You
were his best friend. He'll listen to you. Tell him it's no use."
Hale said, "That's what I figured." He turned to look at the temple,
squat and white in the gloom. The doorway was tall and thin and dead
black, and behind it, part of the blackness, was Randy and his gun. And
he'd be desperate. As Hale turned back he caught a faint, acrid odor,
and he knew that a Martian was nearby, crouching, waiting to see that
this was done right.
"There've been a hundred temples stripped of their twin-stones in the
past year," Weiss said. "Our redboys are getting fed up with it. The
C. A.'s too busy whipping the climate to tend to looters, and the
Patrol buys its liquor and mammas with loot money. Half the law is too
damned busy, and the other half's crooked--and we're in the middle. The
redboys have run out of patience."
Hale nodded. "My own redboys are ready to go on the warpath. Okay. So
Randy's the goat elect. So relax and starve him out."
"They want him tonight. We promised--"
"All right, go keep it. Hell, I didn't promise anything. Damned if I'll
risk my neck to--"
"--promised to deliver," Weiss went on flatly, "because we had to.
We're in a nut-cracker, Hale. The _Lhrai_ priests are set to trigger
another Green Spot unless they get Randy to play with. Deadline's dawn."
Hale remembered Green Spot. It was a bloody, terrible memory. Green
Spot had been one of the earliest and largest farm-settlements on Mars.
One night, for some other-worldly reason that the Colonial Authority
was still puzzling about, the Martian workers had slit two hundred
Terrestrial throats and vanished into the red desert. The _Lhrai_
priests had conveyed regrets, assuring the Authority at the same
time that there had been adequate provocation for the act. And the
Authority, horrified for its sixty thousand colonists, had admitted
that there must have been.
Hale thought back, in conflicting terms of personal friendship and unit
survival. These men in the shadows; most of them were his friends. He
had worked with them, leaning on hoes in the fields or sitting in the
enclosed warmth of a back porch discussing the perversities of Martian
geochemistry. He had helled around Firstport with them, had often led
them in the helling. His wife was the friend of their wives. While
Randy--
Randy was five years ago. Randy was thirty acres of crops dumped in
Hale's lap when they'd needed working. Randy was a bitter girl named
Susan who waited on tables in New Chicago halfway across Mars, and the
son he never cared that he'd given her before he went away.
"Wait here," said Hale in a sour voice, and tossed away his cigarette.
"I'll see what I can do."
* * * * *
The temple was hexagonal, featureless save for the black slit of the
doorway, smooth native marble gleaming under Phobos' dim silver.
He stopped a few feet away and called, "Randy, it's me. Hale. Don't
shoot. I'm coming in to talk to you."
Randy's voice, soft and oddly echoed by the temple walls, floated from
the black slit. "Come on in, Hale. I won a bet with myself, that they'd
holler for you."
Hale walked on, slowly, one hand brushing his blaster butt at each
step. Again the sensation of strangeness, of wrongness, that he should
be afraid of being shot by Randy. Five years ago Randy had been a lean,
fox-eyed kid, inclined to be touchy, but no hard-case. But after five
years in the excrescent canal-towns, the smoke-filled dives where a
coin on the bar bought a drink or a drug and, more covertly tendered,
a life--five years in a sour pool, floating with the scums that even
fresh water collects when it settles--and now, a looting and a killing--
Hale felt cold, and he was perspiring. The blaster was a solid weight
on his thigh.
He reached the doorway and stood uncertainly, knowing the men behind
him were watching him. Wondering if he'll kill me, he thought. Maybe
he's turned into a ring-tailed killer. Kid, kid, why did you have to do
it? Why didn't you get off Mars, like I told you to?
The hollow, echoed voice said, "Come on in. I wouldn't shoot you,
Hale." But the voice had a thin sound to it, and Hale thought, He
might.
The doorway was about two feet across, in a wall six feet thick. Smooth
marble rustled the leather at Hale's shoulders as he entered the thick
blackness. Three paces, echoing, and his fingertips told him he had
reached the interior. He felt with his feet, located the top of the
shallow steps that every such temple contained--five steps down into a
trench which had once held precious water, then three steps up to the
temple floor. His bootheels rang sharply--five, two across the trench,
three--then he stood in darkness, waiting.
Randy said, "You've gained some weight, Hale. Or is it the jacket?"
Sort of amused, but with that same thin sound.
Hale said, "Both." He took a forward step, at an angle, and saw the
faint flood of moonlight appear on the temple floor and knew that Randy
could no longer see him. He said, "Weiss said to tell you it's no use."
"George's out there, eh? Thought I recognized his voice. I wonder who
tipped them off. I've made some enemies along the canals, I suppose."
Startlingly, a match flamed in the blackness, became an orange glow
that rose to the cigarette between Randy's lips. He was over near a
wall, his gun in his other hand. He puffed hard and his face glowed
masklike, his eyes seeking Hale.
Hale, blinking, saw that Randy hadn't changed much. He was still dark
and slender, his brown eyes large and bright. But now his hair came
down fully to the fur collar of his jacket, in the manner of the canal
crowd. The movement that brought him to Hale's side was graceful.
"How many are they, Hale? Think I could break for it?"