He directed the Lord to show him the unmarked controls which would bring Ore back. Urthona stepped back to allow Kickaha to operate. The redhead, however, said, “You do it.”
It was possible that the controls, moved in the manner shown, would send a high voltage through him.
Urthona shrugged. He flipped a toggle switch, pressed a button, and stepped away from the console. To the left, the bare wall shimmered for a few seconds. A hemisphere of swirling colors bulged out from it, and then it collapsed. Red Ore stood with his back almost touching the wall.
Kickaha said, “Put the Horn down and push it with your foot toward me.”
The Lord obeyed. Kickaha, keeping an eye on both of them, bent down and picked up the Horn.
“Ha! Mine again!”
Five minutes later, Anana stepped out of the same gate through which Kickaha and Urthona had fallen.
Her uncles looked as if this was the end of the last act. They fully expected to be slain on the spot. At one time, Kickaha would have been angered because neither had the least notion that he deserved to be executed. There was no use getting upset, however. He had learned long ago not to be disturbed by the self-righteous and the psychopath, if there was any difference between the two.
“Before we part,” he said. “I’d like to clear up a few things, if possible. Urthona, do you know anything about an Englishman, supposedly born in the eighteenth century? Red Ore found him living in this place when he entered.”
Urthona looked surprised. “Someone else got into here?”
“That tells me how much you know. Well, maybe I’ll run across him some other time. Urthona, your niece has explained something about the energy converter that powers this floating fairy castle. She told me that any converter can be set to overload, but an automatic regulator will cut it back to override that. Unless you remove the regulator. I want you to fix the overload to reach its peak in fifteen minutes. You’ll cut the regulator out of the line.”
Urthona paled. “Why? You … you mean to blow me up?”
“No. You’ll be long gone from here when it blows. I intend to destroy your palace. You’ll never be able to use it again.”
Urthona didn’t ask what would happen if he refused. Under the keen eye of Anana, he set the controls. A large red light began flashing on a console. A display flashed, in Lord letters, OVERLOAD. A whistle shrilled.
Even Anana looked uneasy. Kickaha smiled, though he was as nervous as anybody.
“Okay. Now open the gates to Earth and to Jadawin’s world.”
He had carefully noted the control which could put the overload regulator back into the line if Urthona tried any tricks.
“I know you can’t help being treacherous and sneaky, Urthona,” Kickaha said. “But repress your natural viciousness. Refrain from pulling a fast one. My beamer’s set on cutting. I’ll slice you at the first false move.”
Urthona did not reply.
On the towering blank wall two circular shimmerings appeared. They cleared away. One showed the inside to a cave, the same one through which Kickaha and Anana had entered southern California. The other revealed the slope of a wooded valley, a broad green river at the foot. And, far away, smoke rising from the chimneys of a tiny village and a stone castle on a rocky bluff above it. The sky was a bright green.
Kickaha looked pleased.
“That looks like Dracheland. The third level, Abharhploonta. Either of you ever been there?”
“I’ve made some forays into Jadawin’s world,” Urthona said. I planned someday to … to …”
“Take over from Jadawin? Forget it. Now, Urthona, activate agate that’ll take you to the surface of your planet.”
Urthona gasped and said, “But you said … ! Surely … ? You’re not going to abandon me here?”
“Why not? You made this world. You can live in it the rest of your life. Which will probably be short and undoubtedly will be miserable. As the Terrestrials say, let the punishment fit the crime.”
“That isn’t right!” Urthona said. “You are letting Ore go back to Earth. It isn’t what I’d call a first-rate world, but compared to this, it’s a paradise.”