“Near Carsewell, New York,” she heard herself whimper as she tried to avoid the hand. “On a ridge called Cotter’s Edge, just west of the Greenways enclave.”
“Thank you.” Lorrest retreated and left the room, and a few seconds later she heard a rush of water from the bathroom. She buried her face in a pillow, trying to suppress a gory kaleidoscope of after-images, and waited for any sound which would indicate that Lorrest had left the apartment. There was a brief silence and then, with the unexpected suddenness of a reptile attack, something warm and pliable fell across her legs. She sprang upright with a sob of panic to find that Lorrest had returned to the bedroom and had thrown one of her overcoats on to the bed.
“On your feet,” he said tersely. “Let’s go.”
She raised her hand, symbolically warding him off. “Go? With you?”
“What did you expect? If one man traced me here others could do it and, believe me, there’s no way you could get out of telling them where I’d gone. Besides, you don’t want to go on sharing your apartment with a corpse, especially if the police come nosing around.”
“You’re the killer. You!”
“In our special circumstances, that hardly matters. On top of all this, I need you as insurance.
“I don’t understand,” Gretana said, pushing the coat away with a trembling hand.
“Don’t you?” Lorrest’s smile was barely recognisable as such. “I don’t trust you any more, Gretana—you’ve been too long on Earth. The only way I can be sure that node location is correct is to take you with me. If it is. vou can skord yourself off to Station 23—which would be the safest place for you anyway—and blab everything you know to the Warden. Perhaps he’ll give you a vacation.”
Gretana dredged far into her reserves and found the strength for defiance. “Perhaps he’ll give you one.”
“He’d have to find me first—and there’s an awful lot of galaxy out there.” Lorrest tilted his head and stared for a moment in the direction of the unseen Moon. “And in two days’ time nothing the Warden does is going to make any difference.”
Chapter Seventeen
The animal had been watching Hargate all day.
Its body was the best part of a metre in length and had an asymmetrical green-and-grey pattern which camouflaged it so effectively that Hargate was still unable to decide whether it was shaped like a beaver or a wolf. He was equally uncertain about the creature’s intentions. When he was wakening from a doze he would notice a clump of grass a few paces away and while he was trying to recall if it had been there earlier the clump would blink a green-gold eye, letting him know he was under close surveillance.
Shouted swear words and sudden movements of his arms were always enough to drive the creature off—it scuttled away backwards, eyes filled with mute reproach—leaving him to speculate about whether it had been motivated by friendship, curiosity or hunger. The third possibility seemed the most likely to Hargate, and he was deeply uneasy about his prospects during the coming hours of darkness.
After being abandoned by Vekrynn on the previous evening he had resigned himself to, and had almost been reconciled to, the idea of dying of exposure while the bright ciphers of alien star groupings wheeled overhead. It would have been a more dignified and exotic death than he had ever anticipated, even in his brief sojourn in the Aristotle colony, but the night had remained warm, and at dawn his physical condition had been comparatively good. He guessed that the Mollanian drugs and other therapies were helping sustain him because, during the second day, apart from occasional bouts of double vision and pins-and-needles in his legs, his chief source of discomfort was hunger—and the attentions of the alien quadruped.
By mid-afternoon it seemed to him that the creature—he had dubbed it a bealf—was becoming bolder and more persistent with its approaches, that it would soon have to be deterred by something more concrete than bellowed obscenities. Trying not to lose sight of his adversary while it inched its way through the grass, he took inventory of his resources.
The weakness of his arms precluded the use of club or missile, but there was the possibility that draining some electrolyte from his chair’s batteries would provide the semblance of a useful weapon. A major drawback to the scheme, however, was that he had no suitable lightweight container from which to hurl the acid. He scanned his surroundings and steadied his gaze on the clump of palm-like trees some two hundred metres away. Could their resemblance to terrestrial palms extend as far as the production of large, thin-shelled nuts? He had no idea what the odds might be, but the chance of finding a source of armament and food in one place was something he could not ignore.
At least I don’t want to die any more, he thought, sardonically amused. Vekrynn has made me realise that being dead isn’t everything in life.
Hargate switched on his power circuit and tentatively advanced the drive lever a short distance. The chair stirred itself reluctantly, but by using all his strength on the wheels he got it to lurch forward out of the grooves it had created in the turf. He glanced triumphantly in the direction of the bealf and saw it slowly backing away, eyes intent.
Didn’t think I could move, did you? Well, friend bealf, with any luck that’s nothing to the next surprise you’re going to get. Grinning malevolently at his thoughts, Hargate urged his chair towards the trees, aided by a slight incline.
“Don’t leave,” a man’s voice said from close behind him. “We’ve got things to talk about.”
Gasping for air, Hargate slewed himself around and saw that a very tall, black-haired man had materialised at the spot from which Vekrynn had disappeared. He had his left arm tucked into the front of his slate-grey overcoat and in his right hand was carrying an ordinary plastic shopping bag, garishly decorated, which stood out as totally incongruous in the alien setting. The newcomer looked like a Terran—he did not have the extreme breadth of skull that Hargate had observed in Vekrynn and other Mollanians—but the fact that he could skord was significant, and possibly threatening. Could it be that Vekrynn had sent someone to complete his work for him?
“Maybe I’m too busy to talk,” Hargate said, trying to make his voice hard. “Who are you?”
“I’m Lorrest tye Thralen.”
“That tells me bugger all.”
The stranger’s smile was unexpectedly boyish and amiable. “I’m a friend of Gretana and an enemy of Warden Vekrynn—is that any better?”
“Some.” Hargate saw the tall man’s image become two, realised he was squinting again and fought to bring his eye muscles under control. He had persuaded himself that he was prepared to die in a short time, with an entire alien world for a marker, but now that it no longer seemed necessary he could admit to himself just how much he wanted to stay alive.
“Well, I must say I’m glad to…” Hargate stopped speaking and swallowed as he heard a tremor come into his voice. “Are you just going to stand there and grin?”
“Sorry, sorry, sorry!” Lorrest came towards him with exaggerated deference. “I thought you might be dead by this time, but I took a chance and brought some beer and sandwiches. May I presume that you eat such humble food?”
Slightly disconcerted, Hargate watched in silence as Lorrest took off his overcoat, spread it on the grass and emptied the contents of his plastic bag on to it. As well as the cans of beer and wrapped sandwiches there was a packet of chocolate chip cookies.
“That looks good,” Hargate said. “I don’t know how I got so hungry inside a day.”