Anana stopped so suddenly that he almost bumped into her.
“That tolling!” she said. “It’s started again!”
She screamed and at the same time brought her beamer up. Kickaha had already fired. He directed his ray perilously close to her, at the doorway, even before anyone appeared in it. It was on full-power now, raised from burning effect to cutting effect. It sliced off a piece of Nimstowl’s left shoulder.
Then Nimstowl jumped back.
Kickaha ran to the doorway but did not go through.
“He’s von Turbat or von Swindebarn!” Kickaha yelled. He was thinking furiously. One of the two chiefs had possessed Podarge; the other had switched to a soldier. Then they had burned their former bodies and left the control room, each to go his own way with the hopes of killing their enemies.
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The one in the soldier’s body had attacked Nimstowl. Perhaps he had actually wounded Nimstowl. He had, however, managed to switch to the Lord.
No, that could not be, since it required two Hellers to make a switch. One had to handle the bell-shape for the transfer of the other.
Then Podarge—rather, the Beller in her body —must have been with the one in the soldier’s body. She must have performed the transference and then left. The Beller in Nimstowl’s body had put a knife in the belly of the soldier, who must have been knocked out before the-switch.
The change to Nimstowl might have worked, if Kickaha had not operated on his usual basis of suspicion. Somehow, the Nimstowl-Beller had gotten out of the locked room. With what? A small low-power beamer hidden in a body cavity?
The Nimstowl-Beller had come back hoping to catch Kickaha and Anana unaware. If he had been successful, he would have been able to fulfill the Seller’s plans of conquest. But he had not been able to resist taking his bell with him and so Anana had detected its presence just in time.
Podarge may have been the one to help effect the transference for the soldier-Beller into Nimstowl. But if she were not the one, then there was an extra Beller to be identified, located, and killed.
First, the business of the Nimstowi-Beller.
Kickaha had waited long enough. If the Beller were running away, then he could have gotten far enough so that Kickaha could leave the control room safely. If the Beller were lying out in the corridor bleeding to death—or bled to death— then Kickaha could go into the corridor. If the
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Belief were not too badly wounded, he might be waiting for Kickaha to come out.
Whatever the situation, Kickaha could not wait any longer.
He motioned to Anana to stand aside. He backed up a few paces, then ran forward and leaped through the doorway. He turned as he soared, his beamer already on, its ray flashing along the wall and digging a two inch deep trough in the marble, striking out blindly but ready to move down or outward to catch the Beller.
The Beller was crumpled against the base of the wall with blood pooling from around his shoulder. His beamer lay at his feet, his head was thrown back, and his jaw sagged. His skin was bluish.
Kickaha landed, shut the beamer off, and slowly approached the Beller. Convinced that he was harmless, Kickaha bent over him. Nimstowl looked at him with eyes in which the life was not yet withdrawn.
“We’re a doomed people,” the Beller croaked. “We had everything in our favor, and yet we’ve been defeated by one man.”
“Who are you?” Kickaha said. “Graumgrass or the one calling himself von Swindebarn?”
“Graumgrass. The king of the Sellers. I was in von Tfcrbat’s body and then that soldier’s.”
“Who helped you transfer to Nimstowl—to this body?” Kickaha said.
The Beller looked surprised. “You don’t know?” he said faintly. “Then there is still hope for us.”
Anana unsnapped the casket from the Belter’s harness. She opened it and, grimacing, removed the big black bell-shape. She said, “You may think you will die without telling us who that Beller is
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and what he is going to do. But you won’t.”