Mark's head felt it was splitting under the hammer blows of a throbbing ache. The light was painful. He closed his eyes and felt better.
"You would not have the stomach to watch me die," he said, having glimpsed the half-fear, half-arrogance in the man's eyes.
The voice laughed jerkily. "Me? No, I admit it. But I will not have to. Soon I will be gone from here. It is your stomach that will have the fear."
April's voice said: "Thanks, darling. You gave the temporal blow almost to perfection. A half an inch to the right and you'd have killed the big swine. They had to carry him out, though. Are you okay?"
"Your voice is an alka-seltzer, me old darling."
"Well, fizz you too—what a compliment!"
"Crazy, you are," said the man. "In your coffins, yet you can make the jokes."
"Hey, gorgeous!" April called. "How come these coffins? You expecting a bunch of zombies?"
"These are from the old days when sick people came here. Sometimes we had to ship their bodies back to their own country. Sometimes we bury them here."
Mark said: "How would you like ten thousand dollars, friend?"
The man chuckled. "Me? I have ten thousand dollars. You offer the bribe, yes? Don't be silly. If you have a million dollars you do not bribe me. It is worth nothing. In a few days—nothing at all. Now—if you have ten thousand esparas, that would mean something."
"And to think I had my hands on hundreds of thousands of them!" said Mark.
"You did? You have seen our new esparas currency?"
"Certainly I have. Very pretty too."
"How do you see them?" The man's face again peered down into Mark's coffin. "We see only pictures of them. How do you see them?"
"In France—a place where they printed them. We blew it up after we cleaned out the esparas."
"Ah! Yes, a plant was blown up—this I heard. You still have the esparas?"
"We still have them. Not here, of course, but we've got 'em right enough."
"Make it twenty thousand," said April. "All you need to do is to slit this muslin on me, leave me the knife and forget to collect our gear from over by the wall before you leave."
"It is tempting. It needs thinking about. With twenty thousand esparas I could live like a millionaire. An esparas will be worth fifty dollars." He obviously was pacing around the plinth, for they could hear his feet thumping. "But—how do I get paid?"
At that moment a repeater alarm began to sound. They could hear its echo, or some other amplifier, relaying its call. The man's face appeared over the coffins.
"We all must obey that call. It means there are more intruders." He grinned lopsidedly. "Don't go away—I'll be back. My name is Mindano—Josef Mindano. Maybe we work something out."
"Sure, Jo," said April. "We'll lie around and wait for you.',
"I like you," said Josef. "You are fun—and so pretty."
He disappeared. They heard his footsteps pounding away.
"One of us," said April slowly, "one of us is going to have to think up a good line to feed our Josef, else I'm going to become a dead mummy before I've had a chance to become a live one."
"Chance, me old darling, is something of which you've had nothing else but," said Mark, equally slowly. "it's taking them that makes mummies."
"If you live," said April, "they won't retire you––they'll put you out to stud."
"A horse of my acquaintance tells me it's a wonderful life. All the vitamins you need and a field full of fillies." He paused. "April, darling—you are a lovely, sweet piece."
A short silence. "And you're a swashbuckling dog."
Mark sighed. "Heigh-ho! I suppose this is the nearest I'll ever get to being next to you in compromising circumstances."
"Yes," she said. "It can't be much fun for mummies."
In the silence which followed they heard the soft swish-pad of slithering footsteps coming towards them. These halted somewhere beyond the coffins. There were rustling movements and a gasp.
"Hi, Jo!" April called softly. "Is that you?"
Quick, pattering footsteps; then a face peering down at them.
"Oh, Jimmy!" said Randy Kovac. "So there you are!"
"I won't ask it," said April, adding swiftly: "Knife—fast. Come on, Randy—move!"
Randy moved, slit the lower folds, then up one side. April's hand appeared. "Okay, give it me. Go and unwind Mark. Pull out the underfold around his ankles."
Mark raised his legs. Randy worked feverishly at unwinding the muslin. April got free and began slitting the muslin from the top. At last they climbed to the floor. Mark swayed a little, head buzzing, but this soon cleared.
"Gear!" he snapped. "They didn't have time to tamper with it."
They fitted it on, drew their U.N.C.L.E. guns, gave Randy a small automatic for his own protection, then stood at a vantage point near the opening.
"Okay, hero!" said April to Randy. "Now talk. How?"
Randy gulped. "Mr. Waverly told me I could go with some of the C.I.A. men in one of the encirclement cars—just for experience in field work and to see how an incident is escalated into a resolvement…"
"Oh Gawd!" Mark interrupted. "Spare us the Pentagon prattle. You're here—how?"
Randy grinned. "They didn't want me. I didn't want them. I took to the hills. I knew your position." He hesitated. "You weren't really smooching, were you?"
"Peeping Tom!" April exclaimed. "You were it!"
"Not peeping—honest."
"Okay, honest. So?"
"I saw a woman—back of the ridge. Sneaked up on her hideout. She must have been there for weeks. A cave stocked with stuff. There's a sort of crack in the hills over that side."
"A fissure," said Mark. "Let's be correct. We know it."
"It's a way down," said Randy.
"Dammit, there usually is in a great crack!"
Randy grew brisk again. "You mean fissure."
Mark raised a fist. "In your head if you don't get on."
"Under an overhang—another cave. The other side of the fissure a track wide enough to take a small car. Inside the cave, a doorway into a passage. Very steep, then levels out. Rooms lead off it—rooms like this. Some well furnished. One is a monitoring room. Screens show all the garden, every part of the house. A big room next, with almost empty racks and hangers. A few metal suits and some containers still left."
"Their stockpile," said April. "And they've distributed it. Anything else?"
"Passageways to this end. I kept ducking in and out. I think I set off an alarm."
"He thinks!" said Mark, then grinned. "We thank you. How many men?"
"Ooh, dozens!"
"Well, thank you again!"
"They've gone. They went hours ago by that fissure cave."
"They'll have been collected by now," said April.
"There's a big man groaning in a room with four beds. And one or two others roaming about the passages," said Randy. "I hid under one of the bunks until they'd gone. Then I came into this part and heard your voices."