Malacar switched on the light.
"You're right," he said. "How did you know?"
"It is a representation of the goddess Mar'i-ram, the queen of healing and of disease. It was doubtless beneath her picture that von Hymack lay, somewhere between life and death. He bears, in a strange way, the blessing and the curse of that entity."
"You've lost me. Are you trying to say that the goddess is real?"
"In a sense, yes. There is a complex of energies which somehow possesses the attributes ascribed to that Strantrian deity. Call it what you would. It now inhabits the man we seek. I have been presented with satisfactory evidence that this is true. Now that I am aware of the identity of the individual involved, I must seek him."
"What will you do if you find him?"
"Cure him--or failing that, kill him."
"No!" said Malacar. "I need him alive."
"Don't be a fool," Sandow cried, as Malacar swung the light and it fell upon him.
Hand raised to shield his eyes, Sandow threw himself backward as Malacar fired--not at him, but through the ceiling.
With a rattling and a crash, a section of roofing gave way. It seemed that a body fell.
"Hit it!" cried Malacar, falling flat and dragging Jackara with him.
He crawled forward and lay behind a low hedge of stone, subgun at ready.
_He's alive! He's conscious! He's got a gun!_
Malacar embraced the floor as a laser beam melted a stone near his left shoulder.
"Let a man finish talking, will you?"
"We've nothing to say to each other."
"Judge it after you hear it! I'll hold fire if you will!"
"Don't shoot," he said to Jackara. "We'll hear him out."
He drew a bead, then said, "All right, Sandow. What is it?"
"You know what I want. I want von Hymack. I will not argue the morality of what you are planning, since you have already made up your mind. I read it there. I would like to offer you a deal, however. --Damn it! Stop sighting in on me! No tricks involved here! You live on a dead, stinking, radioactive cinder--the Earth, the home planet of our species. How would you like to see it clean and green again? All those volcanoes dampened, the radioactives neutralized, dark soil, trees, fish in the oceans, the original continental configurations? I can do it, you know."
"That would cost a fortune."
"So? Is it a deal, then? The Earth the way that it was before the war, in return for you forgetting about von Hymack?"
"You're lying!"
_He is not lying_, said Shind.
"It would be another habitable world for the DYNAB," he was saying, "which you claim means so much to you."
All the while Sandow was speaking, Malacar attempted to control his thoughts--to operate automatically, as under battle conditions--and not to let any intention or desire pass through his consciousness. Carefully, soundlessly, he inched his way to the right, fixing on the voice. Now almost touching the wall, he could see the dim outline of the man's head and left shoulder. Gently, he squeezed the trigger.
His arm was numbed to the elbow with the force of the blow that struck him; and he saw his shot go wild, scoring the masonry high on the far wall.
With his left hand, he protected his eyes against the flying shards. Almost instantly he lowered it, however, to seize the gun and continue its upward arc.
The fires fell upon the ceiling and the ceiling upon the man.
Sandow was finally silent.
They lay there for a long while, listening to their breathing, their heartbeats.
_Shind?_
_Nothing. You have killed him_.
Malacar rose to his feet.
"Come on, Jackara. We had better be going," he said.
Later, before they broke camp, when she looked at him in the light, she said, "You are bleeding, Malacar," and she touched his cheek with her fingertips.
He jerked his head away.
"I know. I got cut when that damned picture of the green man fell on me."
He tightened his saddle cinch.
"Could he really have restored the Earth, Malacar?"
"Probably, but that would not have solved anything."
"You said you need more worlds for League status. Earth could have counted for one."
"To gain it, I would have had to surrender my weapon."
"How did he know about that picture of the goddess-- Mar'i-ram?"
"All Strantrian shrines are laid out alike. He knew approximately where we were standing. Anyone who knows how their stations are set up could have said what was on the wall."
"Then he was making all that part up?"
"Of course. It was a ridiculous story. His interest in the matter was purely economic."
"Then why did he come in person?"
"I don't know. --There, I'm ready. Let's go."
"Aren't you going to put anything on it?"
"What?"
"The cut."
"Later."
Mounting, they hurried through the night toward Capeyule and its rain.
CHAPTER 4
Dr. Pels studied the reports.
Too late, he decided; and, Something has gone very wrong. The _mwalakharan khurr_ is there, all right, and a dozen other things. We cannot let him export them. Where is he? There is no record of his departure from Cleech. Yet there was a jump-buggy stolen from the space port, and the port was a point of infection. Was he trying to get away--to isolate himself--when he saw what was happening? Or was he simply going somewhere else?
Debussy's _La Mer_ stirred about him and he regarded Cleech.
What to do? he thought. I have waited a long while and now the time for waiting has finished and the time for action is at hand. If I could have located him a month ago, this might not have occurred. I must find him as soon as possible now and speak with him, convince him to enter my care and remain until I solve this. I wonder whether he would be willing to undergo the process that keeps me going? Would he give up life as he knows it and become--a ghost--like me? Trade his present existence for the passionless, sleepless life of the void? If he is aware of what he is doing, I am certain that he would agree. This, or suicide-- They would be about the only choices open to a sane, decent man ... But what if he is no longer sane? Supposing he broke beneath the strain, or as a side effect of his condition? What then? This, too, could be an explanation for his disappearance.
And what if his condition proves as unassailable as my own? he wondered. Perhaps freezing would be the answer. It could be such a long wait, otherwise. But with no assurance of ever awakening, he may not consent. How shall I treat with him when I find him? The time for action is definitely at hand, and I do not know what to do. Wait, I suppose. There is nothing else.
After a time, he sent a message to the Public Health Coordinator for the planet, offering his services in dealing with the multiplicity of epidemics which so far had devastated two continents. Then he tuned his subspace receiving set to News Central. Since he could listen on a round-the-clock basis, he hoped that he would learn the next site of infection in time. He readied himself for departure on notice.
Then he listened to the news, and the impressions of a sea he had never seen accompanied it into his mind.