Strombrand was as defensive as a spider in another spider’s web. He hunched his shoulders as if accepting a weight. “I’m oathbound to ask you, brother,” he said. He didn’t look back at Hansen, who stood at his heel.
“Well, then I’m oathbound to tell you you’re crazy, brother,” Strelbrand said. “You know how much North and his lot’d like to get into that bank!”
“I was oathbound,” Strombrand said; almost a repetition of his earlier words.
Strelbrand rose to his pillarlike legs. The dais under his throne stood put his head higher than that of his brother. “Tell your oath-lord, Strombrand,” he said, “that I alone can enter the chamber.”
Strelbrand’s wife whispered something into his ear.
“And my daughter Acca, of course,” the android chieftain added. He grinned like the earth cracking open. “But she can’t enter it, because she can’t leave, can she?”
The laughter of the crowd followed Strombrand and Hansen back into the courtyard.
“I told you so,” the android muttered to the human as they got into the open aircar.
“So you did,” agreed Hansen. “So we’ll come back tonight, to the tunnel beyond the walls that leads to the chamber holding the data bank.”
Strombrand paused. “You know about that?” he said in something between threat and wonder.
“Go on, lift off,” replied Hansen. He smiled. “And yes, I know a lot of things. I know that you’ll keep your oath to me tonight, don’t I?”
Strombrand slammed his throttles against their stops to lift in the muggy air. The monstrous android couldn’t possibly have been afraid of the expression he saw on Hansen’s face.
The night was as warm and humid as midday. A haze of light seemed to cling to the thick atmosphere. Strombrand set his aircar down on the riverbank with a squelch.
Bubbles from the rotting vegetation rose in a series of muted belches.
They’d landed next to a metal plate two and a half meters in diameter. It would have been almost invisible by daylight, but the mud covering the metal had a faint phosphorescence which emphasized the unnatural circularity. Strelbrand’s mansion wasn’t far off, but the mist would have hidden it even if the sun were up.
“This is the correct location,” Walker whispered approvingly in Hansen’s earphones.
“Very good, oath-brother,” Hansen said to the huge android. “Now, if you’ll just open the tunnel and turn off the protective systems, I’ll say we’re quits.”
Strombrand looked at his passenger. “Who are you?” he growled.
A small lizard in the reed-choked stream raised its head at the sound, then dived beneath the surface with a quick thrust of its broad forelegs.
“I’m the man who whistled your cattle back,” said Hansen. “Shall we go?”
Strombrand cursed like thunder and got out. The vehicle slurped from side to side as he moved. He adjusted the sling holding the nozzle of his laser. The powerpack on his back would have required a separate vehicle before a normal man could have moved it.
“If I’d known what you were going to want,” the android said, feeling through the muck for the handle, “I’d never have made the oath.”
Hansen said nothing.
Insects bumbled into them and buzzed away again: tiny wasps which sipped plant juices for want of nectar in this flowerless world, and biting flies adapted to the cold-blooded sailbacks and their kin, uninterested in the human and android after a preliminary sniff.
Hansen saw iridescent motion against the lights of the instrument panel; he snatched left-handed. Furious wings burred against his palm and closed fingers.
At least he hadn’t lost his speed.
The door lifted with a horrible sucking noise. The light from within diffused above the entrance. Strombrand gestured downward. “There you go, then,”
Hansen got out of the vehicle. “After you,” he said with a gesture of his own. “You still have to disengage the automatic defenses.”
“I didn’t promise to die for you!” the android shouted. “If there’s a risk, it’s yours to take.”
“But there isn’t any risk for you, Strombrand,” Hansen replied mildly, pointing toward the opening with his right index finger. “Because the defenses think you’re your brother, so you can turn them off. As you and I both know.”