I started back up, checking the ceilings of several rooms as I passed; here and there were faint remains of other ceiling murals, very ancient and in a bad state of repair. But my mind was on more immediate things.
Laser in hand, I crept up the curving steps, my light off, with only the faint glow from above to guide me. It was day, and as my head cleared the rock and I was into the lowest level of the crystal palace I was fully alert, with all senses out at the extremes.
I hardly glanced at the rainbow of sunlit glories that I found, from lemon yellow, intimate enclosures to curved-ceiling sanctums of positive and negative green rosettes, from snowy white salons of milky smooth lumps flowing and blending to tiny cells of patterned intersecting circles, each a convoluted, three-dimensional design of pinpoint-faceted crystals. My eyes followed my gunpoint and I went as silent as a shadow, crossing colorless crystal floors, looking down into a forest of stalagmites that seemed random from some points and clearly designed from others. I went swiftly over smoky, delicate bridges that spanned what seemed like liquid crystal pools of many colors, and through grottos of crimson swirls, and past nooks and niches of amber and azure and palest pink. I went as swiftly as possible through the familiar and the unfamiliar, feeling my way, moving fast, then moving slowly to the final portico and the sight of the sands beyond.
After a period of listening and looking I ran as fast as I could
straight out into the sands, threw myself over a dune, rolled, and ran to the right. I moved around the Palace until I found what I hoped was my own track, then followed it, coming in from the desert where, if they were still here, they might least expect me.
I hoped.
I lay on the sand, behind a tiny crystal growth, like a bush in the desert, and surveyed the openings around the base of the big building. Here on this side the prevailing wind had not piled the drifting sand, and there was more open space. And another set of sandcat tracks. They had stopped here, then turned left. But had they dropped off someone with a Magnum Laser equipped with a heatscope and some experience with it?
I backed out into the desert and went to the left. I found their sandcat parked in another compartment a quarter circle on, and saw where they had carelessly backed in and had broken off the edge of the opening, grinding the crystals under the treads. Somehow that made me angrier than their unexplained attempts to murder me. Like the behavior of that mad fool who had used a hammer on Michaelangelo’s Pieta or of the suicidal Arab who had taken a laser to the Wailing Wall, this was a totally senseless act of destruction. I raised my weapon and sliced into the cab with vicious cuts, trusting the resistance of the metal to keep the beam from going through to the back of the chamber.
The pressurized cabin blew outward but as the pressure inside was not that much greater than that outside there was not much noise. I dropped the muzzle and put a series of pulses through the forward drive train, ruining forever this particular sandcat.
If they were going to get me they would have to walk home—and I didn’t think they’d make it.
As soon as I finished firing I started running, for I knew they’d have telltales as well. I went out into the desert, then curved again toward my own vehicle. I had to check it quickly, while they investigated the killing of their cat.
I ran quickly out of the shelter of the dunes, my breath coming hard in the thin air, my heart pounding wildly, fully expecting to feel the silent sword of a laser pulse ripping through me at any moment. I gained the shelter of a crystal opening, but felt no protection behind the millenium-old walls. Their polished surfaces might reflect a portion of the tight light beam, but not enough. I had to move fast.
I zig-zagged in and out of two more arches and then I was at my machine. Nothing seemed wrong until I saw they had neatly cut away the lock. I jumped up on the step and looked in, wary of booby traps, and saw that they had fused the ignition switch with a low-intensity burn. I jumped back down and then I heard the voices.
“Goddamn it, Ashley, watch that cat!”
I heard the crunch of footsteps in the sand and I ducked into the dark behind the cat, trying to control my ragged breathing. There was a sudden surge of something that was almost joy. It rushed over me in a hot wave, making me tremble, mixing with the fear. Just for a second, just for a fleeting nanosecond or three I was glad to be able to strike back, to do something. I crouched, primitive and ready, the laser tight in my fist, my finger tense.
Someone came into the crystal cave, paused, grunted faintly as if satisfied no one had been near, and then came quickly around the cat to hide in the dimness behind.
If I hadn’t been ready, and scared, he might have gotten me. He was very fast. My beam sliced into his chest and my nervous finger held down the trigger, but by then he was falling, falling through the beam, falling in bloody hunks and sections and gobbets of meat. He hit and sloshed over my feet and rolled against my leg, and his laser scraped the back of the cat but never went off.
The sounds of still-functioning organs were nightmarish. I fought vomiting as I wrenched my foot from under the lump of his head and one shoulder and shoved back against the wall. The blood was soaking into the sands, and he had lost all sphincter and bladder control. The growing stench was nauseating and unforgettable, but I scuffed my bloody feet in the sand and threw myself on the ground just behind the forward track, looking under the machine toward the entry from which the other—or others—should come.
“Ashley!”
Ashley had nothing to say, so they came on carefully and cautiously. I could see two of them.
Grading your opponents should be quite automatic, I heard Shigeta say. When combat comes, if it comes, you take the most dangerous man first . . . and fast.
I shot the one who was the closest through the chest. My hands had been shaking too much for a head shot. I knew I hit him, but I couldn’t wait to watch him fall. I rolled over and shot around the bottom of the track at the other one, and missed. I fired again but I was a millisecond late and he burned through the headlight over my head, showering me with glass and bits of molten metal. But he was too far from shelter and I hit him with my next shot. He fell, but I could see I had only slashed into his leg, and before I could aim again he had dragged himself past the curve of the base and out of my sight. Were there more?
Could I fix the fused ignition and drive away? Could I leave the wounded man? There is something odd about wounded men. By the rules of the game they are supposed to be neutralized, out of the fight, so you treat them with respect and love and care. But that son-of-a-bitch had tried to kill me. And might again. Game!
I hesitated, then dodged around the arch and ran back up into the Star Palace. I moved through a space composed of latticed crystal fancies and a bowl-shaped atrium of tiered rosettes, open to the dark Martian sky, then onto a wandering balcony, fringed with spires no bigger than my arm, no two alike. I moved along, gun at the ready, trying to estimate where the wounded man had hidden. I kept up a scan of the ground below and the balconies above, nervous as a cat. It is not so important to win a fight, Shigeta said with unbidden intrusion, but it is important not to let the other man win. I saw scuffmarks in the sand and a few droplets of blood. I climbed over the balcony, careful of the crystal fancies, and went down the slope on the facets of the lower base. I angled off to the right, beyond where he was secreted. I moved slowly and carefully, watching my shadow, fully exposed should he or another step out into the sand. Finally I crawled into a flat spot and edged slowly to the rim. I could see one foot. I debated shearing it off and if he had moved it I might have. I felt no bloodlust, only a very desperate need to survive. The removal of his foot would have been no more painful than firing a grossly inefficient employee. I was feeling calmer now, and a bit more confident.