Jill started to report to Sam Clemens, but he interrupted her with a furious description of de Greystock’s treacherous attack. She was shocked, but she became impatient with his overlong, overdetailed narrative. His boat was not badly damaged; her account was the important thing.
Finally, he ran down.
“I’ve discharged most of my bile, for the moment, anyway. Say, why are you talking to me? Where’s Firebrass?”
“I didn’t have a chance to say more than two words,” she said. And she described in detail the events from the moment the airship had entered the hole in the mountain.
It was his turn to be shocked. Except, however, for some explosive curses, he did not comment until she had finished.
“So Firebrass is dead, and you think he was one of Them? Maybe he wasn’t, Jill. Did it occur to you that the black sphere might have been implanted in a small number of us for some scientific purpose? That perhaps only one in a thousand or ten thousand has it? I don’t know what its purpose could be. Maybe it transmits brain waves which They record for use in some sort of scientific experiment. Or it could be used by Them to keep tabs on certain preselected subjects.”
“I hadn’t thought of that,” she said. “I’d like to think that you’re right, because I hate to think that Firebrass could be one of Them.”
“Me, too. However, the important thing just now is that a ground expedition is useless. I built those two boats for nothing. Well, not actually for nothing. There’s something to be said for life on the boat. It affords luxuries you can’t get elsewhere-except on the Rex-and it’s the fastest way to travel, although I really have no definite place to go to anymore. But I haven’t forgotten King John. I’m going to catch up with him and fix him for what he did to me.”
“You’re wrong about one thing, Sam,” she said. “I think we can get into the tower. All I need is the laser.”
It sounded to her as if Clemens was strangling.
“You mean that.. . that Firebrass told you about it? Why, that unjudicious, ungrateful, unprincipled . . . garrh! I told him not to say a word! He knew how important it was to keep it a secret! Now everybody in the wheelhouse knows it. They’ve heard every word you said. I’ll have to get them to swear not to reveal it, and just how much chance is there they’ll not let it slip? If Firebrass were here, I’d choke him with one hand and stick my cigar up his ass with the other!”
Sam went on, “Besides, you should have waited until you got here before you said anything. For all I know, John’s radiomen have been listening in to us for years! They might have figured out how our scramblers work and be taking in every word now, pleased as a hog that’s just found a fresh pile of cow flop!”
“I’m sorry about that,” she said. “But it was necessary to mention it. We have to make arrangements for picking the laser up without landing.”
Jill added, “I need the laser. It’s the only means we have of getting into the tower. Without it all our long labors and the deaths of several people have been in vain.”
“And I need it to slice up John and his boat. It’s a surefire thing, double-guaranteed to get a quick victory.”
Trying to keep the anger out of her voice, she said,’ “Think on it, Sam. Which is more important, revenge on King John or solving the mystery of this world, finding out why we’re here and who did this?
“Besides, there’s no reason you can’t have both. We’ll return the laser to you after we use it.”
“Both be damned to hell and back! How do I know you will come back? The next time you may get caught by those people. They can sit inside, smug as mice behind a wall laughing at the cat, if you can’t get to them. But when you start cutting with that laser, you think they’ll just sit on their hands and allow you to waltz on in?