Dalt he inspected the smooth metallic surface.
"This has to be it."
He found a recess large enough to admit four fingers; he inserted them and pulled.
Nothing.
He scanned the door again and found three small disks at eye level.
"The code — I forgot."
He reached into a pouch in his belt and pulled out a slip of paper. The combination was: Clear, 1-3-1-3-2-3-1-2.
"Clear? How do you clear?"
The transcript had never said. It gave the combination sequence, but never explained how to clear the circuit.
Playing a hunch, Dalt pressed all three disks at once and was rewarded by a soft glow within each. He tapped in the sequence. When he put his fingers into the notch and pulled this time, a panel swung out on silent hinges, revealing a small chamber. The ceiling began to glow as they stepped inside.
Before them was another door, a narrow one, secured by four steel bars, each as thick around as a man's thigh. Dalt noticed a wheel on the wall to his left and began to turn it. The bars moved. The first and third bars began to withdraw to the right, the second and fourth to the left.
Dalt stopped turning when the bars had moved half their distance.
"All right," he said. "We know we can get you in. Do we want to?"
Jon cocked his head questioningly.
"I mean," Dalt said, "can you make it? Is there really a decent chance of your getting to the cache and back again through that…that nightmare in there?"
He was having second thoughts about this plan. He had never thought it would be easy, but the Hole had turned out to be a more awesome obstacle than he had ever imagined. So he was offering Jon a way out, and hoping he'd take it.
For despite all Jon's strength and cunning, Dalt seriously doubted he could last very long in there.
"I must go."
"No, you mustn't anything. You…" He paused briefly as his throat tightened. "I don't want you to die, Jon."
He meant it. He sensed something in this misshapen young man that he wanted to preserve and keep near. He didn't know whether to label it innocence or nobility or a combination of both. But it was good and it was alive and he didn't want to see it torn to pieces in the Hole.
Jon tried to smile — it was a practiced grimace that did not come naturally to his face.
"I will not die."
"You may. You may very well die in there. So think hard before deciding."
"There is nothing to decide, Tlad. I am the only one who can go. A human — I mean, one who looks like a human — cannot. Only a tery has a chance of sneaking through. So I must go. There is no one else."
"No! We can find another way. Mekk won't be able to get through there, either. He'll never reach the cache. The Talents can hide in the forests and grow and maybe wait this out. You don't have to die for them!"
"I will not die. I will save them, and then they will have to recognize me as a human. They will have to accord me the honor of thinking of me as a man."
So that's it, Dalt thought.
This was Jon the tery's trial by combat into the human race.
"That's not necessary, Jon. You —"
"I am going, Tlad." Again, that note of finality. "Tell me what to find."
"If you go at all, you're going to have to go twice," Dalt said, then waited for the expected effect.
Jon remained impassive. "Then I shall go twice. But tell me why. I was to find the cache and bring back sufficient weapons for the Talents to — "
"There will be no weapons for the Talents," Dalt said. "I fear the weapons will harm the psi-folk as much as they'll help them. The arms in the cache will give them too much power; they may even lead to the rise of another type of Mekk…a worse type…one with the Talent."
A nightmare scenario had been running through his brain. He saw the Talents overthrowing Mekk with their newfound energy weapons; he saw them executing Mekk's troopers and the True Shape priests. All well and good, all to be expected. But then he saw them eliminating all followers of the True Shape religion as well as all supporters of the Extermination Decree. And after that, all those who hadn't actively opposed the decree. And on and on until only Talents remained.
"You do not trust Rab?" Jon said.
"Rab is a good man. But I don't know if his character — or anybody else's — can withstand the corrosive effect of absolute power. And even if he proves to be a match for it, he will not be the only leader the Talents ever have. The cache must be destroyed."
Jon made no comment; he merely locked his eyes with Dalt's.
"Do you trust me?" Dalt asked finally.
"I would be dead if not for you."
"That doesn't mean I'm right and that doesn't mean you should trust me. It only means I — "
"I trust you," Jon said softly, his voice echoing in the tiny chamber.
"Good," Dalt said in a low voice. "Because I trust you, too. I believe in you."
In the dust on the floor of the chamber he drew a picture of the explosive device he wanted Jon to procure from the cache: ovoid in shape, small enough to fit comfortably in the tery's hand, and powerful enough to set off a chain reaction among the other weapons hidden there. From the inventory described in Dalt's transcript, enough explosive power was stored in the cache to make a shambles of Mekk's fortress above, permanently ending his petty empire of fear.
The device had a timer that could be set only by hand — no capacity for detonation by remote control, unfortunately — and the procedure was too complex for someone who had never handled a timer before. That was why the tery would have to make two trips: The first to bring it back to Dalt for the time-setting; the second to return it to the cache.
"And the Hole dwellers? What happens to them?" Jon asked.
"This entire cavern will collapse. Their misery will be over, along with Mekk's rule."
The tery considered this in silence.
"I think that's for the best," Dalt said. "Don't you?"
"Can we decide this for them?"
The question rattled Dalt for a moment. He had not expected his ethics to be questioned by a forest-dwelling savage like Jon.
But then, why not? Jon killed, but only in defense or out of hunger. And he killed one to one, looking his victims in the eyes. Why wouldn't he question the killing of thousands of creatures who were locked away and posed no threat to him?
Why didn't I question it? Dalt thought, uneasily.
"Jon, if you can see another way, tell me."
"I trust you, Tlad."
That seemed to be enough for Jon, but those four words were dead weight on Dalt's shoulders.
Dalt then showed him how to work the combination studs. Jon would find an identical set on the door to the cache. He drilled him until he had the sequence firmly committed to memory.
After a final run through of the description of the device and the combination, Dalt leaned back.
"That's all I can do for you. A door identical to this outer one here is imbedded in a wall of rock adjacent to the central pool. Head straight out from here and you should find it. And keep moving!"
He turned the wheel until he’d fully retracted the bars on the inner door, then he stepped out to the window to make sure all was clear. Returning to the chamber he grasped Jon's huge right hand in his own.
"Good luck, brother."
Jon growled something unintelligible, then together they pulled the door open. Dank, sour, fetid air poured over them as the tery leaped through and began to run. Dalt pushed the door closed and turned the wheel until the bars just overlapped the edge of the door — just enough to keep some Hole dweller from lumbering through by accident, but not enough to cause any significant delay when Jon returned.