Von Turbat (Graumgrass) and von Swindebarn were dead, too. They lay by the big projector, which had continued to radiate until its power pack had run down. The wall it was aimed at had a twelve foot hole in its metal and a still-hot lava puddle at its base. Von Turbat had been cut almost in half; Von Swindebarn was fried from the hips up. Their caskets were still strapped to their backs.
“There’s only one Beller unaccounted for,” Kickaha said. He returned to the corner where
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Wolff and Chryseis had fought. A large gray metal disc was attached to the metal floor here. It had to be a new gate which Wolff had placed here since Kickaha’s last visit to the palace.
He said, “Anana, maybe we can find out where this gate goes to, if Wolff recorded it in his code book. He must have left a message for me, if he had time. But the Bellers may have destroyed it.
“First, we have to locate that one Beller. If he got out of here, gated back to your universe or Nimstowl’s or Judubra’s, then we have a real problem.”
Anana said, “It’s so frightening! Why don’t the Lords quit fighting among themselves and unite to get rid of the Beller?”
She edged away. Her anxiety and near-panic at the tolling in her brain, generated by her nearness to the Bellers’ caskets, was evident.
“I have to get out of here,” she said. “Or at least some distance away.”
‘Til look over the corpses again,” he said. “You go—hold it! Where’s Nimstowl?”
“He was here,”she said. ” I thought that.. .no, I don’t know when he disappeared!”
Kichaha was irked because she had not been keeping her eye on the little Lord. But he did not comment, since nothing was to be gained by expressing anger. Besides, the recent events were enough to sidetrack anyone, and the tolling in her mind had distracted her.
She left the room in a hurry. He went through the room, checking every body, looking everywhere.
“Wolff and Chryseis sure gave a good account of themselves,” he muttered. “They really
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banked their shots to get so many behind the consoles. In fact, they gave too good an account. I don’t believe it.”
And Podarge?
He went to the doorway, where Anana crouched on sentry duty.
“I can’t figure it out,” he said. “If Wolff killed all his attackers, a very unlikely thing, why did he and Chryseis have to gate on out? And how the hell did Wolff manage to beam the two Bellers when they should have fried him at the first shot with that projector? And where is Podarge? And the missing Beller?”
“Perhaps she gated out, too, during the fight,” Anana said. “Or flew out of the control room.”
“Yeah, and where is Nimstowl? Come on. Let’s start looking.”
Anana groaned. He did not blame her. Both were drained of energy, but they could not stop now. He urged her up and soon they were examining the bodies in the corridors outside the control room on the staircase. He verified that he had killed two Bellers with the spy-missiles. While they were looking at a burned man rayed during the fight with Luvah, they heard a moan.
Beamers ready, they approached an overturned bureau from two directions. They found Nimstowl behind the furniture, sitting with his back against the wall. He was holding his right side while blood dripped through his fingers. Near him lay a man with a casket strapped to his back.
This was the missing Beller. He had a knife up to the hilt in his belly.
Nimstowl said, “He had a beamer, but the charge must have been depleted. He tried to sneak
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up and kill me with a knife. Me! With a knife!”
Kickaha examined Nimstowl’s wound. Though the blood was flowing freely, the wound wasn’t deep. He helped the little Lord to his feet, then’he made sure that Nimstowl had no weapons concealed on him. He half-carried him to the room where Luvah lay sleeping, put pseudoffesh on Nimstowl’s wound and gave him some blood re-plenishers.