By the truth of my body," quoth bold Robin Hood,

It was Jackstraw who heard it firstit was always Jackstraw, whose hearing was an even match for his phenomenal eyesight, who heard things first. Tired of having my exposed hands alternately frozen, I had dropped my book, zipped my sleeping-bag up to the chin and was drowsily watching him carving figurines from a length of inferior narwhal tusk when his hands suddenly fell still and he sat quite motionless. Then, unhurriedly as always, he dropped the piece of bone into the coffee-pan that simmered gently by the side of our oil-burner stovecurio collectors paid fancy prices for what they "You could not tell it in better time." imagined to be the dark ivory of fossilised elephant tusksrose and put his ear to the ventilation shaft, his eyes remote in the unseeing gaze of a man lost in listening. A couple of seconds were enough. "Aeroplane," he announced casually. "Aeroplane!" I propped myself up on an elbow and stared at him. "Jackstraw, you've been hitting the methylated spirits again." "Indeed, no, Dr Mason." The blue eyes, so incongruously at

But waft thy name beyond the sky.

Ross. But of course you wouldn't know what I'm talking about." She stared at me unblinkingly, made no answer. "You were sitting here when the plane crashed," I went on. "Possibly on this little stool here? Right?" She nodded, again without speaking. "And, of course, were flung against this front bulkhead here. Tell me, Miss Ross, where's the metal projection that tore this hole in your back?" She stared at the lockers, then looked slowly back to me. "Isis that why you've brought me here" "Where is it?" I demanded. "I don't know." She shook her head from side to side and took a backward step. "What does it matter? Andand dopewhat is the matter? Please." I took her arm without a word and led her through to the radio cabin. I trained the torch beam on to the top of the radio cabinet. "Blood, Miss Ross. And some navy blue fibres. The blood from the cut on your back, the fibres from your tunic. Here's where you were sittingor standingwhen the plane crashed. Pity it caught you off balance. But at least you managed to retain your hold on your gun." She was gazing at me now with sick eyes, and her face was a mask carved from white papiermache. "Missed your cue, Miss Rossyour next line of dialogue was 'What gun?'. I'll tell youthe one you had lined up on the second officer. Pity you hadn't killed him then, isn't it? But you made a good job of it later. Smothering makes such a much less messy job, doesn't it?" "Smothering?" She had to try three times before she got the word out. "On cue, on time," I approved. "Smothering. When you murdered the second officer in the cabin last night." "You're mad," she whispered. Her lips, startlingly red against the ashen face, were parted and the brown eyes, enormous with fear and sick despair. "You're mad," she repeated unsteadily. "Crazy as a loon," I agreed. Again I caught her arm, pulled her out on to the flight deck and trained my flashlight on the captain's back. "You wouldn't, of course, know anything about this either." I leaned forward, jerked up the jacket to expose the bullet hole in the back, then stumbled and all but fell as she gave a long sigh and crumpled against me. Instinctively I caught her, lowered her to the floor, cursed myself for having fallen for the fainting routine even digital camera comparisons in nz for a second, and ruthlessly stabbed a stiff couple of fingers into the solar plexus, just below the breastbone. There was no reaction, just no reaction at all. The faint had been as genuine as ever a faint can be and she was completely unconscious. The next few minutes, while I sat beside her on the front seat of the plane waiting for her to recover consciousness, were some of the worst I have ever gone through. Self-reproach is a hopeless word to describe the way I swore at myself for my folly, my utter stupidity and unforgivable blindness, above all for the brutality, the calculated cruelty with which I'd treated this poor, crumpled young girl by my side. Especially the cruelty in the past few minutes. Perhaps there had been excuse enough for my earlier suspicions, but there was none for my latest actions: if I hadn't been so consumed by anger, so utterly sure of myself so that the possibility of doubt never had a chance to enter my mind, if my mind hadn't been concentrated, to the exclusion of all else, on the exposure of her guilt, I should have known at least that it couldn't have been she who had jumped down from the control cabin half an hour ago when I had rushed up the aisle, for the simple but sufficient reason that she had been incapable of getting up there in the first place. Quite apart from her injury, I should have been doctor enough to know that the arms and shoulders I had seen while attending to her back that evening weren't built for the acrobatic performance necessary to swing oneself up and through the smashed windscreen. That had been no act she had put on when she had fallen back into the snow, I could see that clearly now; but I should have seen it then. I still hadn't got beyond the stage of calling myself by every name I could think of when she stirred, sighed and straightened in the crook of the arm with which I was supporting her. Her eyes opened slowly, focused themselves on me, and I could feel the pressure on my forearm as she shrank away. "It's all right, Miss Ross," I urged her. "Please don't be afraid. I'm not madreally I'm notjust the biggest blundering half-witted idiot you're ever likely to meet in all the rest of your days. I'm sorry, I'm most terribly sorry for all I've said, for all I've done. Do you think you can ever forgive me?" I don't think she heard a word I said. Maybe the tone of my voice gave her some reassurance, but it was impossible to tell. She shuddered, violently, and

? then into fury the stranger he grew,

involved. Not to the population? Killashandra asked, surprised at Trags emphasis. Trag shook his heavy head. Populations are easy to produce, but habitable planets are relatively scarce. He indicated that Lars should continue. So, your report will be considered, deliberated upon, and then? It may indeed take time, Lars Dahl, but the Federated Council has outlawed the use of subliminal conditioning. There is absolutely no question in my mind that action will be taken against the Optherian Elders. A government which must resort to such means to maintain domestic satisfaction has lost the right to govern. Its Charter will be revoked. Theres no danger that you and Killashandra will be restrained from leaving? Lars asked abruptly. Why should we be? Can they have any suspicion that someone knows that they maintain control by illicit means? Comgail did, Killashandra said, even if he was killed before he could pass on the information. Whoever killed the man must wonder if Comgail had accomplices. Lars shook his head positively. Comgails only contact was Hauness and Hauness didnt reveal that until after Comgails death. I knew that some drastic measure was planned. Not what it was. Tell me, Lars, Trag asked, does any one suspect that you are aware of the subliminals? Lars shook his head vigorously. How? I always pretended the correct responses after concerts. Father didnt warn me until I was sent to the Mainland for my education. His warning was accompanied by a description of the retribution I would suffer, from him as well as the Council, if I ever revealed my knowledge unnecessarily. Lars grinned. You may be sure I told no one Besides your father, who knows? Trag asked. Or dont you know that? Lars nodded. Hauness and his intimates. As a trained hypnotherapist, he caught on to the subliminals but had the sense to keep silent. It is quite possible that others in his profession know it, but if they do, they dont broadcast it either. What could they do? Especially when I doubt that many Optherians know that subliminals are against Federated Law! The last was spoken in a bitter tone. Who would suspect that music, the Ultimate Career on Optheria, can be perverted to ensure the perpetuation of a stagnant government? Then there was the almost insoluble problem of trying to get word off Optheria, to someone with sufficient status to get Council attention. Complaint from people who could be best digital camera lenses considered a few maladjusted citizens and every society has some carries little weight. It was Hauness who devised a way to get messages off Optheria for us. Post hypnotic requests yes, yes, I know, and dont think it was an easy matter for him to violate his ethics as a physician-healer, but we were getting desperate. A suggestion to receive and later mail a letter from the nearest transfer point seemed a minor infraction. I am certain that Hauness only capitulated because Nahia was suffering so much distress. She had to cope with such a devastating increase of suicide potentials. Shes an empath, Trag You must encounter Nahia, Trag, before you leave Optheria, Killashandra said, twining her fingers reassuringly about Larss. He gave her a quick and grateful glance. Thats why, if you would go to Ironwood to check out the organ there, you would surely encounter Nahia and Hauness, Lars said eagerly. I would? Trag asked. Quite likely, if you were suddenly taken ill. Trag regarded him steadily. Crystal singers do not succumb to planet-based diseases. Not even food poisoning? Lars was not to be deterred. And thats a likelihood if you eat often with the Elders. Or do I mean starvation? Killashandra remarked. That way, you can warn Nahia and Hauness, and they can alert others. Lars leaned forward, eagerly waiting for Trags decision. I couldnt save myself at the expense of my friends. How large a group do you have, Lars Dahl? Trag asked. I dont know at the moment. We had about two thousand, and more were being investigated. The Elders search and seize to find Killashandra reduced our ranks considerably. Regret for having provoked the Elders to such action colored Larss expression. He squared his shoulders, accepting that responsibility. I fervently hope more sacrifices will not be required. Do your islanders perpetrate many outrages on the Main land? Outrages on the Mainland? Lars burst out laughing. We leave the Mainland to stew in its own juice! If you wish to punish an island child, you threaten to send him to a Mainland school. What crimes were being laid on our beaches? Crimes hinted at darkly but never specified, apart from the attack

The King he said to the Earl Marischal,

Tanny. The inhabitants had taken refuge on the one highland of the island, but they were already hauling salvageables from the high tide mark and the water. They cheered the arrival of the Pearl, some wading out to float the water-tight supplies in to shore. The exchange was completed in the time it took the Pearl to turn about and head back to the open sea. And that was the routine at a half-dozen smaller islands. Killashandra had had a long look at the charts and the compass; they were taking a long arcing route, her island being the farthest point of their journey to the southwest. The waters were studded with islands, large, small, and medium. All showed the devastation of the storm, and on most the polly trees were still bent over from their struggle with the hurricane: on some of the smaller islands, the trees had been uprooted. As no one made a comment on this waste, Killashandra could not ask how soon polly would reestablish itself. In answer to a faint emergency call, they eventually sailed into the harbor of a medium-size island that had lost its communications masts and had been unable to make contact with Angel. Lars and Tanny went ashore there, leaving Killashandra in conspicuous sight while Erutown and Theach remained below. Some of the urgently needed items could be supplied from the extras on board and Lars contacted Angel for the rest. As they finally lifted anchor and sailed onward, Tannys rising excitement was communicated to Killashandra. She could recognize nothing, but if they were indeed near the island of her incarceration, she had swum away from nearby help. As they approached the next landfall, she didnt need Tannys shout of relief to know they had reached her island; the huge polly tree in the center was a distinctive landmark. Not only had the tree survived but also its siblings or offspring, and the little hut she had made in their shelter. Lars had to restrain Tanny from diving into the breakers and swimming ashore in his eagerness to reassure himself. I dont see anyone! Tanny cried as the Pearl motored toward the beach. Surely she could hear the engine! Is this where you want to dump us? Erutown growled, surveying the uprooted polly, the wind-depressed trunks of more, and the storm debris on the once white sands. Oh, youll be luxuriously situated, I assure you. Lars said. Killashandra had decided that Lars and Erutown were in basic disagreement on too many counts. Lars was delighted to deposit the man out of the way for a while. Weve solar-power units for Theachs dell digital camera software equipment, all sorts of emergency camp gear, and plenty of food should you tire of the stuff the island and the sea provide. And a hatchet, a knife, and a book of instructions? Killashandra asked she was not above priming her surprise. There speaks the polly planter. Grinning, Lars flipped the toggle to release the anchor, cut off the engine, and gestured Tanny overboard. He was halfway up the heights to the shelter before the others had made the beach. Theres no one here, Lars. Ye gods, what shall we do? Theres no one here! Tanny screamed. Consternation smoothed Larss features and he set off up the slope at speed. Killashandra followed at a more leisurely pace, wondering whether she would ease their fears. One look at the terror and hopelessness of Tannys face, and a second one at the shock on Larss eroded her need for revenge. Erutown and Theach were on the beach, out of hearing. You dont know very much about crystal singers, do you, Lars He swung around, stared at her, trying to assimilate her words. Tanny reached his conclusion first and sat heavily down among the storm-strewn polly fronds, his expression incredulous. If you thought Id just sit here until it suited you to retrieve me. Chapter 14 Any discussion of that would have to be postponed. Theach and Erutown reached the height, looking about them for their fellow exile. Unable to look in Killashandras direction, Tanny shot one horrified glance at Lars as the latter smoothly invented a note that she had been removed from the island by a passing vessel. He even flourished a piece of paper from his pocket as he commented that he was glad she was safe. That tears it, Erutown said gloomily. Well all be in trouble. I doubt it. A very good friend of ours skippered that ship, Lars replied without a blink She cant go anywhere without my knowledge. Tanny made a strangled sound and Killashandra grinned, choking on her laughter. Theres nothing you could safely do without jeopardizing yourself at this point, Erutown. It isnt as if youll be out of touch, and Lars handed the man a small but powerful handset. The frequency to use for any contact is 103.4 megahertz. All right? You can listen in on any of the other channels but communicate only on the 103.4. Erutown

The crystal glass which glimseth brave and bright

designed for land use which had proved to have such astonishing accuracy that navigation on the ice-cap, as a problem, had ceased to exist for him. But, even should he be heading towards the coast, our chances of meeting him in that blizzard did not exist, and if we once passed them by we would have been lost for ever. Better by far to head for the coast, where some patrolling ship or plane might just possibly pick us upif we ever got there. Besides, I knew that both Jackstraw and Zagero felt exactly as I didunder a pointless but overpowering compulsion to follow Smallwood and Corazzini until'we dropped in our tracks. And the truth was that we couldn't have gone any other way even had we wished to. When Smallwood had dropped us off we had been fairly into the steadily deepening depression in the ice-cap that wound down to the Kangalak glacier and it was a perfect drainage channel for the katabatic wind that was pouring down off the plateau. Although powerful enough already when we had been abandoned, that wind was now blowing with the force of a full gale, and for the first time on the Greenland ice-plateaualthough we were now, admittedly, down to a level of 1500 feet -1 heard a wind where the deep ululating moaning was completely absent. It howled, instead, howled and shrieked like a hurricane in the upper works and rigging of a ship, and it carried with it a numbing bruising flying wall of snow and ice against which progress would have been utterly impossible. So we went the only way we could, with the lash of the storm ever on our bent and aching backs. And ache our backs did. Only three peopleZagero, Jackstraw and myselfwere able to carry anything more than their own weight: and we had among us three people completely unable to walk. Mahler was still unconscious, still in coma, but I didn't think we would have him with us very much longer: Zagero carried him for hour after endless hour through that white nightmare and for his self-sacrifice he paid the cruellest price of all for when, some hours later, I examined the frozen, useless appendages that had once been his hands, I knew that Johnny Zagero would never step into a boxing ring again. Marie LeGarde had lost consciousness too, and as I staggered along with her in my arms I felt it to be no more than a wasted token gesture: without shelter, and shelter soon, she would never see this night out. Helene, too, had collapsed within an hour of the tractor's disappearance, her slender strength had just given out, and Jackstraw had her camera cx6200 digital easyshare kodak over his shoulder. How all three of us, exhausted, starved, numbed almost to death as we were, managed to carry them for so long, even though with so many halts, is beyond my understanding: but Zagero had his strength, Jackstraw his superb fitness and I still the sense of responsibility that carried me on long hours after my legs and arms had given out. Behind us Senator Brewster blundered along in a blind world all of his own, stumbling often, falling occasionally but always pushing himself up and staggering gamely on. And in those few hours Hoffman Brewster, for me, ceased to be a senator and became again my earliest conception of the old Dixie Colonel, not the proud, rather overbearing aristocrat but the embodiment of a bygone southern chivalry, when courtesy and a splendid gallantry in the greatest perils and hardships were so routine as to excite no comment. Time and time again during that .bitter night be insisted, forcibly insisted, on relieving one of the three of us of our burdens and would stagger along under the load until he reached the point of collapse. Despite his age, he was a powerful man: but he had no longer the heart and the lungs and the circulation to match his muscles, and his distress, as the night wore on, became pitiful to see. The bloodshot eyes were almost closed in exhaustion, his face deep-etched in grey suffering and his breath coming in painful whooping gasps that reached me clearly even above the thin high shriek of the wind. No doubt but that Small wood and Corazzini had left us to die, but they had made one mistake: they had forgotten Balto. Balto; as always, had been running loose when they had left us, and they had either failed to see him or forgotten all about him. But Balto hadn't forgotten us, he must have known something was far wrong, for all the hours we had been prisoners on the tractor sled he had never come within a quarter-mile of us. But as soon as the tractor had dumped and left us, he had come loping in out of the driving snow and settled to the task of leading us down towards the glacier. At least, we hoped he was doing that. Jackstraw declared that he was following the crimp marks of the Citroen's caterpillars, now deep buried under the flying drift and new-fallen snow. Zagero wasn't so sure. Once, twice, a dozen times that night, I heard him muttering the same words: "I hope to hell that hound knows where it's goinV But Balto knew where he was going. Sometime during

"So now let him go," said Robin Hood;

alone, of all the men he had ever known he would have picked the lean, morose American to be his companion that night. Or maybe even including Andrea. "The finest saboteur in southern Europe" Captain Jensen had called him back in Alexandria. Miller had come a long way from Alexandria, and he had come for this alone. To-night was Miller's night. "Curfew in fifteen minutes," he said quietly. "The balloon goes up in twelve minutes. For us, another four minutes to go." Miller nodded, but said nothing. He filled his glass again from the beaker in the middle of the table, lit a cigarette. Mallory could see a nerve twitching high up in his temple and wondered dryly how many twitching nerves Miller could see in his own face. He wondered, too, how the crippled Casey Brown was getting on in the house they had just left. In many ways he had the most responsible job of alland at the critical moment he would have to leave the door unguarded, move back to the balcony. One slip up there. . . . He saw Miller look strangely at him and grinned crookedly. This had to come off, it just had to: he thought of what must surely happen if he failed, then shied away from the thought. It wasn't good to think of these things, not now, not at this time. He wondered if the other two were at their posts, unmolested; they should be, the search party had long passed through the upper part of the town; but you never knew what could go wrong, there was so much that could go wrong, and so easily. Mallory looked at his watch again: he had never seen a second hand move so slowly. He lit a last cigarette, poured a final glass of wine, listened without really hearing to the weird, keening threnody of the rembetika song in the corner. And then the song of the hashish singers died plaintively away, the glasses were empty and Mallory was on his feet. "Time bringeth all things," he murmured. "Here we go again." He sauntered easily towards the door, calling good night to the tavernaris. Just at the doorway he paused, began to search impatiently through his pockets as if he had lost something: it was a windless night, and it was raining, he saw, raining heavily, the lances of rain bouncing inches off the cobbled streetand the street itself was deserted as far as he could see in either direction. Satisfied, Mallory swung round with a curse, forehead furrowed in exasperation, started to walk back towards the table he had just left, right hand now delving into the capacious inner pocket of his jacket. He saw without dc pro digital camera accessories seeming to that Dusty Miller was pushing his chair back, rising to his feet. And then Mallory bad halted, his face clearing and his hands no longer searching. He was exactly three feet from the table where the four Germans were sitting. "Keep quite still!" He spoke in German, his voice low but as steady, as menacing, as the Navy Colt .455 balanced in his right hand. "We are desperate men. If you move we will kill you." For a full, three seconds the soldiers sat immobile, expressionless except for the shocked widening of their eyes. And then there was a quick flicker of the eyelids from the man sitting nearest the counter, a twitching of the shoulder and then a grunt of agonyas the .32 bullet smashed into his upper arm. The soft thud of Miller's silenced automatic couldn't have been heard beyond the doorway. "Sorry, boss," Miller apologised. "Mebbe be's only sufferin' from St. Vitus' Dance." He looked with interest at the pain-twisted face, the blood welling darkly be.. tween the fingers clasped tightly over the wound. "But he looks kinda cured to me." "He is cured," Mallory said grimly. He turned to the inn-keeper, a tall, melancholy man with a thin face and mandarin moustache that drooped forlornly over either corner of his mouth, spoke to him in the quick, colloquial speech of the islands. "Do these men speak Greek?" The tavernaris shook his head. Completely unruffled and unimpressed, he seemed to regard armed hold-ups in his tavern as the rule rather than the exception. "Not them!" he said contemptuously. "English a little, I thinkI am sure. But not our language. That I do know." "Good. I am a British Intelligence officer. Have you a place where I can hide these men?" "You shouldn't have done this," the tavernaris protested mildly. "I will surely die for this." "Oh, no, you Won't." Mallory had slid across the counter, his pistol boring into the man's midriff. No one could doubt that the man was being threatenedand violently threatenedno one, that is, who couldn't see the broad wink that Mallory had given the inn-keeper. "I'm going to tie you up with them. All right?" "All right. There is a trap-door at the end of the counter here. Steps lead down to the cellar." "Good enough. I'll find it by accident." Mallory gave him a vicious and all too convincing shove that sent the man staggering, vaulted back across the counter, walked over to the rembetika singers at the far corner of the

That realms do rue from high prosperity,

resisted its attempt to release hers. Pain came in waves, her chest hurt viciously with every shallow breath. Her back echoed the discomfort, her head seemed to be vibrating like a drum, having swollen under the skull. Pain was something not even her symbiont could immediately suppress but she kept urging it to help her. She chanted at it, calling it up from the recesses of her body to restore the cells with its healing miracle, especially the pain. Why didnt they think about the pain? There wasnt a spot on her body that didnt ache, pound, throb, profest the abuse that she had suffered. Who had attacked her and why? She cried out in her extremity, called out for Lars, for Trag who would know what to do, wouldnt he? Hed helped Lanzecki with crystal thrall. Surely he knew what to do now? And where had Lars been when she really needed him? Fine bodyguard he was! Who had it been? Who was the woman who hated her enough to recruit an army to kill her? Why? What had she done to any Optherians? Someone touched her temples and she cried out the right one was immeasurably sore. The pain flowed away, like water from a broken vessel, flowed out and down and away, and Killashandra sank into the gorgeous oblivion which swiftly followed painlessness. If she had been anyone else, Trag, I wouldnt permit her to be moved for several weeks, and then only in a protective cocoon, said a vaguely familiar voice. In all my years as a physician, I have never seen such healing. Where am I going? Id prefer the islands, Killashandra said, rousing enough to have a say in her disposition. She opened her eyes, half-expecting to be in the wretched Conservatory Infirmary and very well satisfied to find that she was in the spacious bed of her quarters. Lars! Hauness called jubilantly. His had been the familiar voice. The door burst inward as an anxious Lars Dahl rushed to her bedside, followed by his father. Killa, if you knew Tears welling from his eyes, Lars could find no more words and buried his face against the hand she raised to greet him. She stroked his crisp hair with her other hand, soothing, his release from uncertainty. Lousy bodyguard, you are She was unable to say what crowded her throat, hoping that her loving hand conveyed something of her deep feeling for him. Corish was no use, after all. Then she frowned. Was he hurt? Security says, Hauness replied with a chuckle, he lifted half a dozen of your assailants and broke three arms, a leg, and two skulls. Who was best shirt pocket digital camera it? A woman Trag moved into her vision, registering with a stolid blink that her hands were busy comforting Lars Dahl. The search and seize stirred up a great deal of hatred and resentment, Killashandra Ree, and as you were the object of that search, your likeness was well circulated. Your appearance on the streets made you an obvious target for revenge. We never thought of that, did we? she said ruefully. The movement to her right caused her to flinch away and then offer profuse apologies, for Nahia was moving to comfort the distraught Lars. So you took the pain away, Nahia? My profound thanks, Killashandra said. Even crystal singers nerve ends dont heal as quickly as flesh. So Trag told us. And that crystal singers cannot assimilate many of the pain-relieving drugs. Are you in any pain now? Nahias hands gently rested on Lars head in a brief benison, but her beautiful eyes searched Killashandras face. Not in the flesh, Killashandra said, dropping her gaze to Larss shuddering body. It is relief, Nahia said, and best expressed. Then Killashandra began to chuckle, Well, we achieved what I set out to do in meeting Corish. Got you all here! Far more than that, Trag said as the others smiled. A third attack on you gave me the excuse to call a scout ship to get us off this planet. The Guild contract has been fulfilled and, as I informed the Elders Council, we have no wish to cause domestic unrest if the public objects so strongly to the presence of crystal singers. How very tactful of you. Belatedly remembering caution, Killashandra looked up at the nearest monitor, relieved to find it was a black hole. Did the jammer survive? No, Trag said, but white crystal, in dissonance, distorts sufficiently. Theyve stopped wasting expensive units. And Killashandra prompted, encouraging Trag since he was being uncharacteristically informative. He nodded, Olavs grin broadened, and even Hauness looked pleased. Those shards provide enough white crystal to get the most vulnerable people past the security curtain. Nahia and Hauness will organize a controlled exodus until the Federated Council can move. Lars and Olav come with us on the scout ship. Brassner, Theach, and Erutown are to be picked up by Tanny in the Pearl Fisher and leave with Corish on the liner Corish?

O I fear ye are poisond, my handsome young man!"

slits against the beam of the searchlight, his face twisted into an unrecognisable snarl, the lips drawn far back over the teeth. I'd been wrong once more about Smallwoodhe could kill without reason. "Helene!" Mrs Dansby-Gregg was the nearest to her, and her voice was high-pitched, almost a scream. "Look out, Helene!" She plunged forward to push her maid to one side, but I don't think Smallwood even saw her: he was mad with fury, I knew he was, and nothing on earth was going to stop him from pressing that trigger. The bullet caught Mrs Dansby-Gregg squarely in the back and pitched her headlong to fall face down in the frozen snow. Already Smallwood's moment of uncontrollable rage was spent as if it had never been. He said not another word, just nodded to Corazzini and jumped up on to the tail of the tractor cabin to keep us covered with searchlight and gun as Corazzini gunned the motor, engaged gear and lumbered off into the darkness to the west. We stood in a forlorn huddled little group and watched the train pass us by, the tractor, the tractor sled, the dog sledge and finally the huskies themselves, running on the loose traces astern. I heard Helene murmur something to herself, and when I bent to listen she was saying in a strange, wondering voice: "Helene. She called me 'Helene'." I stared at her as if she were mad, glanced down at the dead woman at my feet then gazed unseeingly after the receding lights of the Citroen until both the lights and the sound had faded and vanished into the snow-filled darkness of the night. CHAPTER ELEVENFriday 6 P.M.Saturday 12.15 P.M. The white hell of that night, the agony of the bitter dreadful hours that followedand God only knows how many hours these were -is a memory that will never die. How many hours did we stagger and lurch after that tractor like drunk or dying mensix hours, eight, ten? We didn't know, we shall never know. Time as an independent system of measurement ceased to exist: each second was an interminable unit of suffering, of freezing, of exhausted marching, each minute an son where the fire in our aching leg muscles fought with the ice-cold misery of hands and feet and faces for domination in our minds, each hour an eternity which we knew could never end. Not one of us, I am sure, expected to live through that night. The thoughts, the emotions of these hours I could never afterwards recall. Chagrin there was, the most bitter I have ever known, an overwhelming mortification and self-condemnation that I had all along digital camera battery cv3 been deceived with such childish ease, that I had been powerless to offer any hindrance or resistance to the endless resourcefulness of that brilliant little man. And then I would think of Mrs Dansby-Gregg, and of Margaret bound and hostage and afraid and looking at Smallwood in the dim light of that lurching tractor cabin, looking at Smallwood and the gun in Smallwood's hand, and with that thought anger would flood in to supplant the chagrin, a consuming hatred and a fury that flamed throughout my entire being, but even that anger wasn't all exclusive: it couldn't be, not so long as fear, a fear such as I had never before known, was the dominating factor in my mind. And it was. It was, too, I should think, in Zagero's mind. He hadn't spoken a word since Mrs Dansby-Gregg had died, had just flung himself uncaringly, ruthlessly, into what had to be done. Head bowed, he plodded on like an automaton. I wondered how many times he must have regretted that impetuous slip of the tongue when he had betrayed to Smallwood the fact that Solly Levin was his father. And Jackstraw was as silent as we were, non-committal, speaking only when he had to, keeping his thoughts strictly to himself. I wondered if he was blaming me for what had happened but I didn't think so, Jackstraw's mind just didn't work that way. I could guess what he was thinking, I knew the explosive temper that slumbered under that placid exterior. Had we met an unarmed Smallwood and Corazzini then, I do not think we would have stopped short of killing him with our hands. I suppose, too, that we were all three of us exhausted as we had never been before, frost-bitten, bleeding, thirsty and steadily weakening from lack of food. I say 'suppose', because logic and reason tell me that these things must have been so. But if they were I do not think they touched the minds of any of us that night. We were no longer ourselves, we were outside ourselves. Our bodies were but machines to serve the demands of our minds, and our minds so consumed with anxiety and anger that there was no place left for any further thought. We were following the tractor. We could, I suppose, have turned back in the hope of stumbling across Hillcrest and his men. I knew Hillcrest well enough to know that he would know that those who had taken over our tractorhe had no means of knowing who they were, for all he knew Zagero might have suddenly overpowered uswould never dare make for Uplavnik but would almost

I thought of a peruke the other day--)

frowned. Antona looked determined and waited for Killashandras acquiescence. Let me change. Killashandra brushed at the filthy blouse of her shipsuit. Ill even give you time to bathe. Killashandra nodded, broke the connection and, unfastening the suit as she made her way to the hygiene room, switched on the taps. Though once fresh in from the Ranges she might have done, she didnt luxuriate in the steaming water. She made a quick but thorough bath, and put on the first clean clothes she found. Her hair, close crapped for convenience, dried by the time she reached the Infirmary Level. Her nostrils flared against the smell of sickness and fever, and the muffled sounds reminded her of her initial visit to Antonas preserve. A new class must be passing through adjustment to the Ballybran symbiont. Antona came out of her office, her color high with suppressed excitement. Thank you, Killa. Ive a Milekey Transition here whom Id like you to talk to reassure him. Hes positive theres something wrong. Her words came out in a rush, as she dragged Killashandra down the hall, and thrust her through the door she opened. Impassively, Killashandra noted the number: it was the same room she had so briefly tenanted five years before. Then the occupant rose from the bed, smiling.Killa! She stared at Lars Dahl, unable to believe the evidence of her eyes for she had seen his phantom so often. But Antona had brought her here so this vision had to be real. Avidly she noted each of the tiny changes in him: the lack of tan, the gauntness of his shoulders under the light shirt, the new lines in his face, the loss of that twinkle of gaiety that had been a trademark of his open, handsome expression. He had subtly aged: no, matured. And the process had brought him distinction and an indefinable air of strength and the patience of strength and knowledge. Killa? The smile had dropped from his face, his half-raised hand fell to his side as she failed to respond. Imperceptibly she began to shake her head, and tentatively, certain that he would vanish if she admitted to herself that he was flesh, bone, and blood, her hands began to lift from her sides. Inside her body the cold knot into which all emotion and spirit had been reduced began to expand, like a warm draught through her veins. Her mind reverberated with one exultant conclusion: he was there, and he wouldnt be if he hadnt forgiven her. consumer reports reviews digital cameras Lars? Her voice was a whisper of disbelief but sufficient reassurance to propel him across the intervening space. Then, as if he found their reunion as incredible as she, he folded her carefully into his arms. Momentarily she lacked the strength to return the embrace but burrowed her head into the curve of his shoulder and neck, inhaling the smell of him, and exhaling into the tears she had kept bottled for the eternity in which they had been parted. Lars swept her up in his arms, and carried her to the chair, where he cradled her, appalled at the wildness of her sobbing and comforting her with kisses, caresses, and strong embracings. That fardling machine that served justice was never told we were emotionally attached, the one piece of information that no one but us would have thought relevant, he said, releasing in talk the tension he had endured all through the process of getting to this point when he would be ready, and able, to meet her again. Then Father found out what had happened and he moved the entire Department to revoke that judgment on the basis of misinterpretation of your psychological response. Poor sweet Sunny, so worried about me she messed us both up. To her surprise, he chuckled. You didnt know that the only reason that disciplinary action was entered against me was the Courts attempt to satisfy what they took to be a suppressed desire for revenge in you. Justice was being served, blind as it was. Father finally reached a human in authority, swore blind to half a dozen psych-units that he himself had hand-fasted us on Angel Island and got the action revoked. Dyou know, that Court Bailiff was a narding construct! No wonder I couldnt move when he grabbed me. Then, when we did understand our rights, Trag had already departed with you. I guess you were pretty upset. At such a massive understatement of fact, she managed to nod, trying not to laugh at the absurdity, but she couldnt stop weeping. It had built up quite a head and it ought to prove conclusively to Lars, if he needed any, just how much she had missed him. She had waited so long to be in his arms, to hear his rich and pleasant tenor voice, and the sort of nonsense he was likely to speak. He could have been speaking gibberish and shed have been content to listen. But he was also telling her the things she would have asked about him, what she needed to

She buried him before the prime;

Well, you wont be allowed to brief them if thats what you had in mind, Killa. Why not? Antona shrugged and daintily sampled her nicely browned casserole before replying. Youve no injury to display. Thats an important part of the briefing, you see the visible, undeniable proof of the rapid tissue regeneration enjoyed by residents of Ballybran. Irresistible! Antona gave Killashandra a sharp glance. Oh, no complaints from me, Antona. The Guild can be proud of its adroit recruiting program. Antona fastened a searching glance on her face and put down her fork. Killashandra Ree, the Heptite Guild is not permitted by the Federated Sentient Planets to recruit free citizens for such a hazardous profession. Only volunteers Only volunteers insist on presenting themselves, and so many of these have exceedingly useful skills She broke off, momentarily disconcerted by Antonas almost fierce glance. What concern is that of yours, Killashandra Ree? You have benefited immensely from the selection process. Despite my unexpected inclusion. A few odd ones slip through no matter how careful we are, Antona said all too sweetly, her eyes sparkling. Dont fret, Antona. Its not a subject that I would discuss with anyone else. Particularly Lanzecki. Im not likely to get that sort of an opportunity, she said, wondering if Antona knew or suspected their relationship. Or if her advice to remember loves and emotions had merely been a general warning to include all experience. Would Killashandra want to remember, decades from now, that she and Lanzecki had briefly been lovers? Advise me, Antona, on which of our nearer spatial neighbors I should plan a brief vacation? Antona grimaced. You might just as well pick the name at random for all the difference there is among them. Their only advantage is that they are far enough away from Ballybran to give your nerves the rest they need. Just then a cheerful voice hailed them. Killa! Antona! Am I glad to see someone else alive! Rimbol exclaimed, hobbling out of the shadows. He grinned as he saw the pitcher of beer. May I join you? By all means, Antona said graciously. What happened to you? Killashandra asked. Rimbols cheek and forehead were liberally decorated by newly healed scars. Mine was the sled that did a nose canon digital camera image stabilizer dive over the baffle. It did? You didnt know it was me? Rimbols mouth twisted in mock chagrin. The way Malaine carried on youdve thought Id placed half the incoming singers in jeopardy by that flip. Did you rearrange the sled as creatively as your face? Rimbol shook his head ruefully. It broke its nose, mine was only bloody. At that itll take longer to fix the sled than for my leg to heal. Say, Killa, have you heard about the Optherian contract? For the fractured manual? That could pay for a lot of repairs. Oh, I dont want it, and he flicked his hand in dismissal. Why ever not? Rimbol took a long pull of his beer. Well, Ive got a claim that was cutting real well right now. Optherias a long way away from here and Ive been warned that I could lose the guiding resonance being gone so long. And because you remembered that I havent cut anything worth packing No. Rimbol held up a hand, protesting Killashandras accusation. I mean, yes, I knew youve been unlucky lately Who do you think cut the white crystal to replace the fractured Optherian manual? You did! Rimbols face brightened with relief. Then you dont need to go either. He raised his beaker in a cheerful toast. Where dyou plan to go off-world? I hadnt exactly made up my mind Killashandra saw that Antona was busy serving up the last of her casserole. Why dont you try Maxim in the Barderi system. Rimbol leaned eagerly across the table to her. Ive heard its something sensational. Ill get there sometime but Id sure like to hear your opinion of it. I dont half believe the reports. Id trust you. Thats something to remember, Killashandra murmured, glancing sideways at Antona. Then, taking note of Rimbols querying look, she asked smoothly, Whatve you been cutting lately? Greens, Rimbol replied with considerable satisfaction. He held up crossed fingers. Now, if only the storm damage is minimal, and it could be because the veins in a protected spot, I might even catch up with you on Maxim. You see and he proceeded to elaborate on his prospects. As Rimbol rattled on in his amusing fashion, Killashandra wondered if crystal would dull the Scartines infectious good-nature along with

Nere doubt me, for I 'll play my part."

affected. She was relieved when Captain Festinel requested her presence on the bridge. And concerned when she was shown the drive print-out. Festinel and his engineering officer were justifiably concerned. We were due for an overhaul when this emergency came up, Guildmember. The Broad Sea had more turbulence than we had anticipated putting a strain on the compensators as well as the stabilizers, especially at speed. The Captain was flatteringly deferential so Killashandra nodded as he made his points, and frowned wisely at the print-out as if she knew what she was seeing. Fortunately the bridge was buffered against crystal noise as the rest of the ship was not, giving her a respite from the sound. Until she put her hand on the bulkhead and felt it coursing through the metal. The drive is losing efficiency, Killashandra said, recalling the phrases which Carrik had used at the shuttle port on Fuerte, and obscurely pleased with herself that her memory remained lucid for that period, now so completely divorced from her present life. Frankly, Id prefer heaving to and having a good look at the crystal drive, but our orders are to proceed with all possible speed to the Mainland. The Captain shrugged and sighed. Killashandra decided against reassuring him. The drive was souring: she didnt need the printouts to tell her that. But she had only the one experience on which to base an opinion and had no intention of ruining the image she had projected by a bad guess. Then Captain Festinel asked hesitantly, Do you really hear crystal resonance? Killashandra was aware of the expectant hush in the bridge as junior and senior officers, not to mention Lars at her side, waited for her reply. Yes, indeed. Like a dull ache from my earbones to my heels. If it were any louder, youd find me asking for a life raft! We know so little about your profession It is one like any other, Captain, with its dangers, its rewards, an apprenticeship to pass, and then years of refining ones skills. Killashandra was conscious, as she spoke, of one set of ears listening more keenly than others. She dared not look at Lars. One facet of my training was retuning soured crystals. She made a rueful grimace. Not my favorite occupation. Are there any prerequisites for the profession? the older engineer asked, as he looked up from the print-out. Perfect and absolute pitch is the one essential. Why? Lars 10d canon digital camera best price asked, surprised by that unexpected condition. Were called crystal singers because we must tune our subsonic cutters to the dominant pitch of the crystal we cut from the ranges. A dangerous and exhausting task. She held out her hands so that all could see the fine white scars that crisscrossed the skin. I was told, Lars said in an amused drawl, that crystal singers have amazing recuperative powers. That is quite true. Crystal resonance apparently slows the degenerative processes and accelerates the regenerative. Crystal singers retain their youthful appearance well into the third century. How old are you, Guildmember? a brash young voice asked. Frowning, the Captain turned about to seek the source of such insolence but Killashandra laughed. I am a relatively new member of the Heptite Guild, and in my third decade. Are you able to travel anywhere you wish? Did she detect a note of yearning? All crystal singers travel, she said with commendable restraint and then realized that her statement was hardly politic on Optheria. She had shown few examples of the tact for which Trag had chosen her. But we always return to Ballybran, and she tried to make it sound as if going home was more desirable than traveling far away. No sense in arousing hopes on Optheria, especially in the presence of the cruisers senior officers. Once a crystal singer, always a crystal singer! In the same instant the printer extruded an impatient sheet, Killashandra felt a stab of crystal shock travel painfully from her heelbone to her ears. Kill the drive, she shouted as the Captain was issuing the command. Breathless from the unexpected peaking, Killashandra sagged against Lars. Congratulations, she said, hoping the sarcasm would hide the pain in her bones, you have just lost one of your crystals. What are they? Blues? Greens, the Captain replied with some pride, but the same crystals since the cruiser was commissioned. And Optheria will spring credit for organ crystals with considerably more alacrity than for plebian greens, huh? Festinel nodded solemn affirmation. Engineer, I request permission to inspect the crystal drive with you. My apprenticeship in tuning crystals may be of some use here. Honored, Guildmember. He strode to the comunit. Damage report! Sir, came the disembodied voice from the bowels of the

The people that lived in fair Nottingham

It was Jackstraw who heard it firstit was always Jackstraw, whose hearing was an even match for his phenomenal eyesight, who heard things first. Tired of having my exposed hands alternately frozen, I had dropped my book, zipped my sleeping-bag up to the chin and was drowsily watching him carving figurines from a length of inferior narwhal tusk when his hands suddenly fell still and he sat quite motionless. Then, unhurriedly as always, he dropped the piece of bone into the coffee-pan that simmered gently by the side of our oil-burner stovecurio collectors paid fancy prices for what they Came runing out amain, imagined to be the dark ivory of fossilised elephant tusksrose and put his ear to the ventilation shaft, his eyes remote in the unseeing gaze of a man lost in listening. A couple of seconds were enough. "Aeroplane," he announced casually. "Aeroplane!" I propped myself up on an elbow and stared at him. "Jackstraw, you've been hitting the methylated spirits again." "Indeed, no, Dr Mason." The blue eyes, so incongruously at

For the sword outwears its sheath,

ribbons of red-stained bandage trailing on the ice behind him. "Finished?" I asked. "Finished." "Good," I said, and meant it. "Your father's still alive, Johnny. Scalp wound, that's all." His battered face transformed, first by disbelief then by sheer joy, Zagero dropped on his knees beside Solly Levin. I saw Smallwood line his pistol on Zagero's back. "Don't do it, Smallwood!" I shouted. "You'll only have four shells left." His eyes swivelled to my face, the cold flat eyes of a killer, then the meaning of my words struck home, his expression subtly altered and he nodded as if I had made some reasonable suggestion. He turned to Jackstraw, the nearest man to him, and said, "Bring out my radio." Jackstraw moved to obey, and while he was inside the cabin Zagero rose slowly to his feet. "Does look like I was a mite premature," he murmured. He glanced towards the rocks, and there was no regret in his face, only indifference. "Half a dozen witnesses, and 'you all saw him beatin' himself to death. . . . You're next, Smallwood." "Corazzini was a fool," Smallwood said contemptuously. The man's cold-blooded callousness was staggering. "I can easily replace him. Just leave that radio here, Nielsen, and join your friendswhile I join mine." He nodded down the glacier. "Or perhaps you hadn't noticed?" And we hadn't. But we noticed it now all right, the first of the party from the trawler climbing on to the ice at the precipitous tip of the glacier. Within seconds half a dozen of them were on the ice, running, stumbling, falling, picking themselves up again as they clawed their way up the slippery ice with all the speed they could muster. "Myahreception committee." Smallwood permitted himself the shadow of a smile. "You will remain here while Miss Ross and I make our way down to meet them. You will not move. I have the girl." Victory, complete and absolute victory was in his grasp, but his voice, his face were again devoid as ever of all shadow of expression or feeling. He stooped to pick up the portable radio, then swung round and stared up into the sky. I had heard it too, and I knew what it was before Smallwood did because it was a factor that had never entered into his calculations. But there was no need for me to explain, within seconds of hearing the first high screaming whine from the south a flight of four lean sleek deadly Scimitar jet fighters whistled by less than four hundred feet compact digital cameras rating overhead, banked almost immediately, broke formation and came back again, speed reduced, flying a tight circle over the tongue of the fjord. I don't like planes, and I hate the sound of jets: but I had never seen so welcome a sight, heard so wonderful a sound in all my life. "Jet fighters, Smallwood," I cried exultantly. "Jet fighters from a naval carrier. We called them up by radio." He was staring at the circling planes with his thin lips drawn back wolfishly over his teeth, and I went on more softly: "They've had orders to shoot and destroy any person seen going down that glacierany person, especially, with a case or radio in his hand." It was a lie, but Smallwood wasn't to know that, the very presence of the jets above must have seemed confirmation of the truth of my words. "They wouldn't dare," he said slowly. "They'd kill the girl too." "You fool!" I said contemptuously. "Not only doesn't human life matter a damn to either side compared to the recovery of the mechanismyou should know that better than anyone, Small-woodbut these planes have been told to watch out for and kill two people going down the glacier. Wrapped in these clothes, Miss Ross is indistinguishable from a manespecially from the air. They'll think it's you and Corazzini and they'll blast you both off the face of the glacier." I knew Smallwood believed me, believed me absolutely, this was so exactly the way his own killer's mind would have worked in its utterly callous indifference to human life that conviction could not be stayed. But he had courage, I'll grant him that, and that first-class brain of his never stopped working. "There's no hurry," he said comfortably. He was back on balance again. "They can circle there as long as they like, they can send out relief planes to take over, it doesn't matter. As long as I'm with you here, they won't touch me. And in just over an hour or so it will be dark again, after which I can leave. Meantime, stay close to me, gentlemen: I don't think you would so willingly sacrifice Miss Ross's life." "Don't listen to him," Margaret said desperately. Her voice was almost a sob, her face twisted in pain. "Go away, please, all of you, go away. I know he's going to kill me in the end anyway. It may as well be now." She buried her face in her hands. "I don't care any more, I don't, I don't!" "But I care," I said angrily. Soft words, sympathetic words were useless here. "We all care.

Their knitted mufflers; full as they can hold

The heart, cerebral thrombosis, it didn't matter now. But he had been a man. How long we lay there, the six of us and Balto huddled close together for warmth, unconscious or dozing while that hurricane of a blizzard reached then passed its howling crescendo, I never knew. Probably only half an hour, perhaps not even that. When I awoke, stiff and numbed, I reached for Jackstraw's torch. It was exactly four o'clock in the morning. I looked at the others. Jackstraw was wide awake -1 was pretty sure he'd never shut an eye lest one of us slip away from sleep into that easy frozen sleep from which there would have been no wakeningand Zagero was stirring. That theyand Iwould survive, I didn't doubt. Helene was a question mark. A seventeen-year-old, though short on endurance, was usually high on resilience and recuperative powers, but Helene's seemed to have deserted her. After the death of her mistress and up to the time she had collapsed she had become strangely withdrawn and unresponsive, and I guessed that the death of Mrs Dansby-Gregg had hit her far more than any of us would have guessed. The previous forty-eight hours apart, it seemed to me that she had had little enough to thank Mrs Dansby-Gregg for in the way of affection and warmth: but, then, she was young, Mrs Dansby-Gregg had been the person she had known best and, as a foreigner, she must have regarded Mrs Dansby-Gregg as her sole anchor in an alien sea.... I asked Jackstraw if he would massage her hands, then turned to have a look at Mahler and Marie LeGarde. "They don't look so hot to me." Zagero, too, was studying them. "What's their chances', Doc?" "I just don't know," I said wearily. "I don't know at all." "Don't take it to heart, Doc. It's no fault of yours." Zagero waved a hand towards the snow-filled emptiness and desolation of the glacier. "Your dispensary ain't all that well stocked." "No." I smiled faintly, then nodded at Mahler. "Bend down and listen to his breathing. The end's coming pretty close. Ordinarily I'd say a couple of hours. With Mahler I don't knowhe's got the will to live,sheer guts,his beliefs-the lot.. . . But in twelve hours he'll be dead." "And how long do you give me, Dr Mason?" I twisted round and gazed down at Marie LeGarde. Her voice was no more than a weak, husky whisper: she was trying to smile, but the smile was a pitiful grimace and there was no humour in either the eyes or the voice. "Good lord, you've come to!" I reached out, 8.0 megapixel digital camera sample pictures pulled off her gloves and started to massage the frozen wasted hands. "This is wonderful. How do you feel, Miss LeGarde?" "How do you think I feel?" she said with a flash of her old spirit. "Don't try to put me off, Peter. How long?" "About another thousand curtain calls at the old Adelphi." The light came from the torch that had been thrust, butt down, into the snow, and I bent forward so that my face was shadowed, my expression unreadable. "Seriously, the fact that you've recovered consciousness is a good sign." "I once played a queen who recovered consciousness only to speak a few dramatic words before she died. Only, I can't think of any dramatic words." I had to strain to catch the feeble whispered words. "You're a shocking liar, Peter. Is there any hope for us at all?" "Certainly," I lied. Anything to get away from that topic. "We'll be on the coast, with a good chance of being picked up by ship or plane, tomorrow afternoonthis afternoon, rather. It can't be more than twenty miles from here." "Twenty miles!" Zagero interjected. "In this little lot?" He raised a cupped hand significantly to his ear, a gesture superbly superfluous in the ululating shriek of the blizzard. "It won't last, Mr Zagero," Jackstraw put in. "These williwaws always blow themselves out in a short time. This already has gone on longer than most and it's easing a lot. Tomorrow will be clear and calm and cold." "The cold will be a change," Zagero said'feelingly. He looked past me. "The old lady's off again, Doc!" "Yes." I stopped massaging her hands and slid the gloves on. "Let's have a look at these paws of yours, Mr Zagero, will you?" " 'Johnny' to you, Doc. I've been dismissed without a stain on my character, remember?" He thrust his big hands out for inspection. "Pretty, aren't they?" They weren't pretty, they were the worst case of frostbite I had ever seen, and I had seen all too many, in Korea and later. They were white and yellow and dead. The original skin had vanished under a mass of blisters, and from the few warm spots I could detect on either hand I knew that much of the tissue had been permanently destroyed. "Fraid I was a mite careless with my gloves," Zagero said apologetically. "In fact, I lost the damn' things about five miles back. Didn't notice it at the timehands were too cold, I reckon." "Feel anything in them

By the light of the moon.

resisted its attempt to release hers. Pain came in waves, her chest hurt viciously with every shallow breath. Her back echoed the discomfort, her head seemed to be vibrating like a drum, having swollen under the skull. Pain was something not even her symbiont could immediately suppress but she kept urging it to help her. She chanted at it, calling it up from the recesses of her body to restore the cells with its healing miracle, especially the pain. Why didnt they think about the pain? There wasnt a spot on her body that didnt ache, pound, throb, profest the abuse that she had suffered. Who had attacked her and why? She cried out in her extremity, called out for Lars, for Trag who would know what to do, wouldnt he? Hed helped Lanzecki with crystal thrall. Surely he knew what to do now? And where had Lars been when she really needed him? Fine bodyguard he was! Who had it been? Who was the woman who hated her enough to recruit an army to kill her? Why? What had she done to any Optherians? Someone touched her temples and she cried out the right one was immeasurably sore. The pain flowed away, like water from a broken vessel, flowed out and down and away, and Killashandra sank into the gorgeous oblivion which swiftly followed painlessness. If she had been anyone else, Trag, I wouldnt permit her to be moved for several weeks, and then only in a protective cocoon, said a vaguely familiar voice. In all my years as a physician, I have never seen such healing. Where am I going? Id prefer the islands, Killashandra said, rousing enough to have a say in her disposition. She opened her eyes, half-expecting to be in the wretched Conservatory Infirmary and very well satisfied to find that she was in the spacious bed of her quarters. Lars! Hauness called jubilantly. His had been the familiar voice. The door burst inward as an anxious Lars Dahl rushed to her bedside, followed by his father. Killa, if you knew Tears welling from his eyes, Lars could find no more words and buried his face against the hand she raised to greet him. She stroked his crisp hair with her other hand, soothing, his release from uncertainty. Lousy bodyguard, you are She was unable to say what crowded her throat, hoping that her loving hand conveyed something of her deep feeling for him. Corish was no use, after all. Then she frowned. Was he hurt? Security says, Hauness replied with a chuckle, he lifted half a dozen of your assailants and broke three arms, a leg, and two skulls. Who was digital camera canon chat reviews it? A woman Trag moved into her vision, registering with a stolid blink that her hands were busy comforting Lars Dahl. The search and seize stirred up a great deal of hatred and resentment, Killashandra Ree, and as you were the object of that search, your likeness was well circulated. Your appearance on the streets made you an obvious target for revenge. We never thought of that, did we? she said ruefully. The movement to her right caused her to flinch away and then offer profuse apologies, for Nahia was moving to comfort the distraught Lars. So you took the pain away, Nahia? My profound thanks, Killashandra said. Even crystal singers nerve ends dont heal as quickly as flesh. So Trag told us. And that crystal singers cannot assimilate many of the pain-relieving drugs. Are you in any pain now? Nahias hands gently rested on Lars head in a brief benison, but her beautiful eyes searched Killashandras face. Not in the flesh, Killashandra said, dropping her gaze to Larss shuddering body. It is relief, Nahia said, and best expressed. Then Killashandra began to chuckle, Well, we achieved what I set out to do in meeting Corish. Got you all here! Far more than that, Trag said as the others smiled. A third attack on you gave me the excuse to call a scout ship to get us off this planet. The Guild contract has been fulfilled and, as I informed the Elders Council, we have no wish to cause domestic unrest if the public objects so strongly to the presence of crystal singers. How very tactful of you. Belatedly remembering caution, Killashandra looked up at the nearest monitor, relieved to find it was a black hole. Did the jammer survive? No, Trag said, but white crystal, in dissonance, distorts sufficiently. Theyve stopped wasting expensive units. And Killashandra prompted, encouraging Trag since he was being uncharacteristically informative. He nodded, Olavs grin broadened, and even Hauness looked pleased. Those shards provide enough white crystal to get the most vulnerable people past the security curtain. Nahia and Hauness will organize a controlled exodus until the Federated Council can move. Lars and Olav come with us on the scout ship. Brassner, Theach, and Erutown are to be picked up by Tanny in the Pearl Fisher and leave with Corish on the liner Corish?

"This infant was called John Little," quoth he,

me. "You haven't finished your radio call, Dr Mason. Finish it. Your friend Hillcrest must be wondering at the delay." The gun in his hand came forward a fraction of an inch, just enough for the movement to be perceptible. Tor your own sake, do nothing to arouse his suspicions. Don't be clever. Keep it brief." I kept it brief. I excused the interruption of transmission on the grounds that Mahler had taken a sudden turn for the worseas indeed, I thought bitterly, he hadsaid that I'd guard the missile mechanism with my life and apologised for cutting the call short, but said it was essential to get Mahler to Uplavnik with all speed. "Finish it off," Smallwood said softly in my ear. I nodded. "That's the lot then, Captain Hillcrest. Will make the noon schedule. This is Mayday signing off. Mayday, Mayday." I switched off, and turned indifferently away. I had taken only one step when Smallwood caught my shoulder and whirled me round. For such an apparently slight man, he was phenomenally strong. I gasped as his pistol barrel dug into my stomach. " 'Mayday', Dr Mason?" he asked silkily. "What is 'Mayday'?" "Our call-sign, of course," I said irritably. "Your call-sign is GFK." "Our call-up is GFK. Our signing-off is 'Mayday'." "You're lying." I wondered how I could ever have thought this face meek and nervous and colourless. The mouth was a thin hard line, the upper eyelids bar-straight and hooded above the unwinking eyes. Flat marbled eyes of a faded light-blue. A killer's eyes. "You're lying," he repeated. "I'm not lying," I said angrily. "Count five and die." His eyes never left mine, the pressure of the gun increased. "One . . . two . . . three" "I'll tell you what it is!" The cry came from Margaret Ross. 'Mayday' is the international air distress signal, the SOS... I had to tell him, Dr Mason, I had to!" Her voice was a shaking sob. "He was going to kill you." "I was indeed," Smallwood agreed. If he felt either anger or apprehension, no trace of either appeared in the calm conversational voice. "I should do it nowyou've lost us four hours' head start. But courage happens to be one of the few virtues I admire. . . . You are an extremely brave man, Dr Mason. Your courage is a fair match for yourahlack of digital camera retractable cable perspicacity, shall we say." "You'll never get off the ice-cap, Small wood," I said steadily. "Scores of ships and planes are searching for you, thousands of men. They'll get you and they'll hang you for these five dead men." "We shall see." He gave a wintry smile, and now that he had removed his rimless glasses I could see that the man's smile left his eyes untouched, left them flat and empty and lifeless, like the stained glass in a church and no sun behind it. "All right, Corazzini, the box. Dr Mason, bring one of the maps from the driver's seat." "In a moment. Perhaps you would care to explain" "Explanations are for children." The voice was level, curt, devoid of all inflection." I'm in a hurry, Dr Mason. Bring the map." I brought it and when I returned Corazzini was sitting on the front of the tractor sled with a case before him. But it wasn't the leather-covered portable radio: it was Smallwood's robe case. Corazzini snapped open the catches, pulled out Bible, robes and divinity hood, tossed them to one side then carefully brought out a metal box which looked exactly like a tape-recorder: indeed, when he shone his torch on it I could clearly see the word 'Grundig'. But it soon became apparent that it was like no tape-recorder that I had ever seen. The twin spools he ripped off the top of the machine and sent spinning away into the darkness and the snow, the tape unwinding in a long convoluted streamer. By this time I would have taken long odds that anyone suspicious enough to investigate would have found that tape perfectly genuine: probably, I thought bitterly, Bach's organ music, in keeping with Smallwood's late ecclesiastical nature. Still in silence, we watched Corazzini undo and fling away the false top of the recorder, but not before I had time to notice the padded spring clips on its undersidethe perfect hiding place for a couple of automatics: revealed now were controls and calibrated dials that bore no resemblance to those of a tape-recorder. Corazzini straightened and erected a hinged telescopic aerial, clamped a set of headphones to his ears, made two switches and started to turn a dial, at the same time watching a green magic eye similar to those found in tape-recorders and many modern radios. Faintly, but unmistakably, I could hear a steady whine coming from the earphones, a whine which altered in pitch and intensity as

Nor causest a hart to dye."

the Citroen would still be on the same side of the glacier as when we had last seen it, and, from what I could see, the chances were high that it still would be. The entire centre of the glacier was a devil's playground of crevasses ranging from hairlines to chasms twenty and more feet in width, transverse, longitudinal and diagonal, and as far as I could see they extended clear to the other wall. But here, on the left side, close in to the lining wall of moraine, was a relatively clear path, fissured only at long intervals, and not more than thirty yards broad. Thirty yards! Jackstraw could never miss at this point-blank range, even with a moving target. I stole a glance at him, but his face might have been carved from the glacier itself, it was immobile and utterly devoid of expression. Hillcrest, on the other hand, was restless, forever shifting his cramped position: he was unhappy, I knew; he didn't tike this one little bit. He didn't like murder. Neither did I. But this wasn't murder, it was a long overdue execution: it wasn't life-taking, it was life-saving, the lives of Margaret and Solly Levin. . . . There came the sudden click, abnormally loud even above the closing roar of the tractor, and Jackstraw, stretched his length on the snow, had the rifle raised to his shoulder. And then, suddenly, the Citroen had come clearly into sight and Jackstraw was gently lowering his rifle to the ground. I had gambled, and I had lost. The tractor was on the far side of the glacier, hugging the right bank as closely as possible: even at its nearest point of approach it would still be three hundred yards away. CHAPTER TWELVESaturday 12.15 P.M.12.30 P.M. The Citroen was travelling in a most erratic fashionone moment slowing down almost to a stop, the next jerking forward and covering perhaps twenty to thirty yards at a rush. Although we couldn't see the glacier surface at that distance, it was obvious that the driver was picking his way round ice-mounds and threading along between fissures at the best speed he could manage. But his average speed was very low: it would probably take him almost five minutes to reach that point opposite us where the glacier fell away sharply to the left towards the outer angle of the dog-leg half-way down towards the fjord. All these things I noted mechanically, without in any way consciously thinking of them. All I could think of was that Smallwood and Corazzmi had outwitted us right up to the last -almost certainly, I could understand video camera digital output bt 656 now, they had seen and been warned by the rockets Hillcrest had fired to give the Scimitar our position, and decided to give that side of the glacier the widest possible berth. But the reasons no longer mattered a damn. All that mattered was the accomplished fact, and the fact was that Corazzini and Smallwood could no longer be stopped, not in the way we had intended. Even yet, of course, they could be stoppedbut I had no illusions but that that would be at the cost of the lives of the two hostages in the tractor. Frantically I tried to work out what to do for the best. There was no chance in the world that we might approach them openly over the glacierwe would be spotted before we had covered ten yards, and a pistol at the heads of Margaret and Levin would halt us before we got half-way. If we did nothing, let them get away, I knew the hostages' chances of survival were still pretty slimthat trawler would almost certainly have a name or number or both and I couldn't see Smallwood letting them make an identification of the trawler and then come back to report to usand to all the waiting ships and planes in the Davis StraitBaffin Sea area. Why should he take the slightest risk when it would be so easy to shoot them, so much easier still to throw them down a crevasse or shove them over the edge of the glacier into the freezing waters of the fjord a hundred and fifty feet below.. . . Already the Citroen was no more than three minutes away from the nearest point of approach they would make to us. "Looks like they're going to get away with it," Hillcrest whispered. It seemed as if he feared he might be overheard, though Smallwood and Corazzini couldn't have heard him had he shouted at the top of his voice. "Well, that was what you wanted, wasn't it?" I asked bitterly. "What I wanted! My God, man, that missile mechanism" "I don't give a single solitary damn about the missile mechanism." I ground the words out between clenched teeth. "Six months from now other scientists will have invented something twice as good and ten times as secret. They're welcome to it, and with pleasure." Hillcrest was shocked, but said nothing. But someone was in agreement with me. "Hear, hear!" Zagero had just come up, his hands swathed to the size of boxing gloves in white bandages. The words were light enough, but his face was grim and his eyes

And wish that you had never spoke the word,

It was Jackstraw who heard it firstit was always Jackstraw, whose hearing was an even match for his phenomenal eyesight, who heard things first. Tired of having my exposed hands alternately frozen, I had dropped my book, zipped my sleeping-bag up to the chin and was drowsily watching him carving figurines from a length of inferior narwhal tusk when his hands suddenly fell still and he sat quite motionless. Then, unhurriedly as always, he dropped the piece of bone into the coffee-pan that simmered gently by the side of our oil-burner stovecurio collectors paid fancy prices for what they That I could not draw one string." imagined to be the dark ivory of fossilised elephant tusksrose and put his ear to the ventilation shaft, his eyes remote in the unseeing gaze of a man lost in listening. A couple of seconds were enough. "Aeroplane," he announced casually. "Aeroplane!" I propped myself up on an elbow and stared at him. "Jackstraw, you've been hitting the methylated spirits again." "Indeed, no, Dr Mason." The blue eyes, so incongruously at

A friend whom death alone could sever;

Though he certainly maximized his opportunities. Had the original note of dissatisfaction with Optheria originated in these islands? That appeared logical, now that she had seen the different styles and standards, and had heard Elder Ampriss disparaging remarks about the islanders early rebellion against the Optherian authoritarianism. A shout went up by the long beef pit, and people surged toward it, platters in hand. The aroma was tantalizing and slowly Killashandra rose to her feet. A full stomach was unlikely to improve her understanding of the puzzle, but it wouldnt hinder thought. Corish and Lars Dahl seemed to have succumbed to the enticement as well. In that instant, Killashandra decided to approach her problem in a direct fashion. Altering her direction, she intercepted the two men. Youve had your natter, she began, mimicking Keralaws throaty drawl and speech pattern, now enjoy. Angels a good island for feasting. She flung one garland on Corish, the other about Lars Dahls neck, making her smile as seductive as possible. Before they could respond, though neither removed her flowers, she linked her arms in theirs and propelled them toward the pit, grinning from one to the other, daring them to break away. Corish shrugged, smiled tolerantly down at her, accepting her impudence. Lars Dahl, however, covered her hand on his arm and, just then, their thighs brushed and she lurched against him, abruptly aware of receiving an intense shock. Startled, she glanced up at Lars Dahl, his face illuminated by the pit fires, his lazy smile appreciating the contact shock they had both felt. His long fingers curled tightly around hers with a hint of possessiveness. His blue eyes sparkled as his gaze challenged her. His arm fastened hers to his smooth warm waist as Killashandra candidly returned his glance. He sidestepped suddenly, pulling Killashandra with him so that she had to drop Corishs arm. Ive certainly done enough talking, he said, grinning more broadly at the success of his maneuver and maneuvering. Corish find yourself another one. Youre mine, arent you, Sunny? Corish gave a slightly contemptuous snort but continued on while Lars Dahl stopped, swinging Killashandra into a strong embrace, his hands caressing her back, settling into her waist to hold her firmly against him as he bent his head. The flowers were crushed between them, their fragrance spilling into her senses. With an inadvertent gesture of acceptance, Killashandras hands slid up his bare warm chest, her fingers caressing the nikon coolpix 8700 digital camera velvet skin, taking note of the strong pectoral muscles, the column of his throat. His lips tasted salty, but firm, parting hers as he settled his mouth against her, and once again the shock of their contact was almost like crystal. Hungrily Killashandra surrendered to his deft kiss, trying to meld her body against the strong, lean length of him. She altered her arms, stroking the silky skin of his hard-muscled back, all her senses involved in this simple act. They parted slightly, his hands still caressing her, one hand on the bare skin beneath her shirt as she gently stroked his shoulders, breathless and unable to leave his supporting arms. If his embrace had begun as perfunctory, it wasnt now. There was about his grasp a sense of astonishment, wonder, and discovery. I must know your name, he said softly, tipping her chin up to look into her eyes. Carrigana, she managed to remember to say. Why have I never seen you before? You have, she said with a rich, suggestive chuckle, amused by her own presumption, but you are always too busy with deep thoughts to see what you look at. I am all eyes now Carrigana. A slight tremor in his soft tone sent one through her body, as his hands renewed their grip, encouraging her body to conform to his. Part of her mind recognized the sincerity in his voice while another section wondered how she could make the most of this encounter. All of her didnt care what else happened to either of them if they could just enjoy this one evening. She was so hungry it had been months since shed made love. Not yet, sweet Sunny, not yet, he said determinedly but gently disengaging himself. Weve the whole night before us, and his low voice lilted with promise. Youll know I cannot absent myself so soon. And well both be the stronger after a good meal his laughter rippled with sensuality for our dalliance. She let herself be swung again to his side, his arm tucking hers against his ribs, his warm hand stroking hers as he guided her to the barbecue pits. She had no argument against his so firm decision. Although she murmured understanding, she seethed with abruptly interrupted sensations, forcing herself to an outward amity. Perhaps it was as well, she told herself, as they collected platters from one of the long tables and joined those awaiting