He had been here several times before. This was one of the gates he used to get to the lowest level, the Garden level, on his "vacations."
Though numbed, he knew that he had been caught in a resonant circuit. Somewhere, somebody had set up a device which would trap a person who stepped into any of the gates in the circuit. The caught one could not step out because the activation time was too short. That is, he could but he would be cut in half, one part left behind, the other gated on to the next circle.
The cave disappeared, and he was on top of a high narrow peak set among other peaks. Far to one side, visible through a pass, was what looked like the Great Plains. Certainly, that must be an immense herd of buffalo which covered the brown-green prairie like a black sea. A hawk soared by, screaming at him. It had an emerald-green head and spiraling feathers down its legs. As far as he knew, this hawk was confined to the Amerind level.
Then that was gone, and he was in a cave again. This was larger than the Garden cave and darker. There were wires clipped to the crescents of the gate; these ran across the dirt floor and behind a huge boulder about twenty feet away. Somewhere, an alarm was ringing. There was a cabinet with open doors by the far wall. The shelves contained weapons and devices of various kinds. He recognized this cave and also knew that here must be where the reasonance originated. But the trapper was not in sight, though he soon would be, if he were within earshot of the alarms.
Then that was gone, and he was in a chamber of stone slabs which were leaning in one direction as if they had been pushed by a giant hand, and part of the roof was fallen in. The sky was a bright green. The monolith of which he could see part was thin and black and soaring, so he knew by this that he was in an Atlantean chamber and that the shaft of stone was that which supported the palace of the Lord, a hundred thousand feet up.
Then that was gone, and he was where he had started his hopscotch willy-nilly journey. He was standing in the crescents in the room in the palace. Two Sellers were goggling at him, and then they were raising their beamers. He shot first, because he expected to have to use his weapon, bringing the ray across the chests of both.
Thirty-four down. Sixteen to go.
That was gone. Anana and the Thyuda were standing by the gate now. He shouted to her, "Resonant circuit! Trapped!" and he was back on the moon. The aircraft was a little closer now, coming down the hillside. Probably the occupants had not seen him yet, but they would on the next go-around or the one after that. And all they had to do then was a keep a ray across the gate, and he would be cut down as soon as he appeared.
The Drachelander soldiers were running toward him now; several were standing still but were winding up the wires of their crossbows. Kickaha, not wishing to attract the attention of the Belters in the craft, refrained from discouraging the soldiers with his beamer.
Followed the Garden cave. And then he was upon the top of the peak in the Amerind level and very startled because the hawk flew into the area of the gate just as he appeared. The hawk was as startled as he. It screamed and landed on his chest and sank its talons in. Kickaha placed one hand before his face to protect it, felt agony as the hawk's beak sank into the hand which was burned, and he shoved outward. The hawk was torn loose by the push, but it took gobbets of flesh of chest and hand with it. It was propelled out of the circle but was not cut in half. The feathers of one wing-tip were sheared off, and that was all. Its movement coincided with the border of the field as the gate action commenced. And it passed over the border in the cave on the Dracheland level, and into the chamber itself.
It was unplanned split-second timing.
The enormously fat man who had just entered the cave was holding a dead, half-charred rabbit in one hand and a beamer in the other. He had expected a man or woman to appear though he could not, of course, know just when. But he had not expected a shrieking fury of talons and beak in his face.
Kickaha got a chance to see Judubra drop the rabbit and beamer and throw his hands up in front of his face. Then he was in the ruins of the Atlan-tean chamber. He squatted down and leaped upward as high and as straight as he could so no part of him would be outside the limits of the circle. He was at the height of his leap, with his legs pulled up, when he appeared in the palace room. His leap, designed to take him above a ray which might be shot across the circle to cut him in half, was unnecessary. The two Sellers lay on the floor, blackened, their clothes burned off. The odor of deeply burned flesh choked the room. He did not know what had happened, but the next time around, there should be Sellers in this room. They would not, he hoped, know any more than he did about what was happening. They would be mys-
tified, but they would have to be stupid not to know that the killer had popped back into the gate and then popped out again. They would be waiting.
He was in the gate of the temple in Talanac. Anana was gone. The priest, Withrus, shouted at aim, "She jumped in! She's caught, too, and she..."
He was on the moon. The craft was closer but had not increased its speed. And then a beam of light shot out from its nose and centered full on him. The Sellers in the craft had suddenly noticed tile excitement of the troops running toward the gate and the crossbowmen aiming at it. They had ' turned on the light to find out the cause of the uproar.
There was a twang as the crossbowmen released their darts. And he was in the cave on the Garden level. Next stop, the little flat area on top of the peak. He looked down at his chest, which was dripping blood, and at his hand, which was also Woody. He hurt but not as much as he would later. He was still numb to lesser pains; the big pain was his situation and the inevitable end. Either the fat man in the cave would get him or the Sellers would. The fat man, after ridding himself of the hawk, could hide behind the boulder and beam him as he appeared. Of course, there was the hope that the fat man wanted to capture him.
He was in the cave. The hawk and the fat man lay dead, blackened, and the odor of fried feathers and flesh jammed his nostrils. There was only one explanation: Anana, riding ahead of him in the circuit, had beamed both of them. The fat man must still have been struggling with the hawk and so Anana had caught him.
If he had doubted that she loved him, he now had proof that she did—she had been willing to sacrifice her life in an effort to save him. She had done so with almost no thought; there had been very little time for her to see what was happening, but she had done it quickly and even more quickly she had hurled herself into the gate. She must have known that only if she went through exactly after activation would she get through unsevered. And she had no way of telling the exact moment to jump; she had seen him appear and disappear and then taken the chance.
She loved him for sure, he thought.
And if she could get in without being hurt, then he could get out."
The Atlantean ruins materialized like a gigantic pop-up, and he leaped outward. He landed on the floor of the room in the palace, but not untouched. His heel hurt as if a rat had gashed it. A sliver of skin at the edge of the heel had been taken off by the deactivating field.
Then something appeared. Anana. She said, "Objects! Throw them in..." and was gone.
He did not have to stop to think wjiat she meant because he had hoped before that she would take these means to stop the resonant circuit. Aside from turning off the activating device, the only way to stop the circuit was to put objects with enough mass into an empty gate. Eventually, when all the gates were occupied, the ciruit would stop.