He led them to the rear of the temple where he gave each of them a free grail and enough cloths to keep them warm in the coldest temperatures.
“Anything else you need or want will be up to you to get it,” Goring said. He dismissed them, but he called Burton aside.
“Have you heard that Samuel Clemens died of a heart attack?”
Burton nodded.
“Apparently, he thought that Frato Eriko still intended to settle an old score. After all he’d gone through during the battle, this was just too much, the straw that broke the camel’s back or, in his case, broke his heart.”
“I heard the story from Joe Miller this morning,” Burton said.
“Yes. Well, unless somebody does something for the titanthrop, he’s going to die of a broken heart, too. He really loved Clemens.”
Goring asked Burton if he intended to go on to the headwaters. Burton replied that he had not come this far just to quit. He was going to set out for the tower as soon as possible.
“You’ll have to build a sailboat. Certainly, Clemens’ men won’t allow you to go with them in the Post No Bills.”
“I don’t know about that,” Burton said.
“And I suppose that if they refuse, you’ll hijack the launch?”
Burton didn’t answer.
“Is there no end to your violence?”
“I didn’t say I would use force,” Burton said. “I intend to talk to Anderson about the trip as soon as possible.”
“Anderson was killed. I warn you, Burton, don’t shed any more blood here!”
“I’ll do all I can to avoid it. I don’t like it any more than you do, really. Only, I am a realist.”
The smaller launch, the After You, Gascon, had disappeared with all of its crew. No one knew what had happened to it, though some Virolando witnesses thought they’d seen it explode.
“If you really push it, you could get to the headwaters in about thirty days in the launch,” Goring said. “But the agents of the Ethicals will get there before you do.”
Burton was shocked.
“You know about them?”
“Yes. I talked to both Frigate and Miller last night^ trying to help them through their grief. I knew more than you’d think and suspected even more. Correctly, as it turned out. Neither saw any reason to keep silent about the renegade Ethical. I told La Viro, and he’s thinking hard about the whole business. It’s been a great shock to him, though it hasn’t affected his faith any.”
“What about you?”
“I see no reason to change my faith. I never thought that the people responsible for this world were angels or demons. There are, though, many puzzling things about the two stories I’ve heard. What intrigues me the most, and also upsets me the most, is the mystery of what happened to the nonhuman on Clemens’ boat, Monat I think was his name.”
Burton said, “What? I haven’t heard about that!”
Goring described what Miller had told him, and added, “And you say that his companion, the man called Frigate, also disappeared?”
“That Peter Jairus Frigate was an agent,” Burton said. “He wasn’t an exact double of the Frigate you talked to, but he resembled him closely. He may have been Frigate’s brother.”
“Perhaps when—or—if you get into the tower, you’ll find-out,” Goring said.
“I’ll find out sooner than that if I catch up with those agents in the launch,” Burton said grimly.
After some more discussion, Burton left Goring. He had not told the German what the news about Monat and the pseudo-Frigate meant. The Ethical X, the Mysterious Stranger, the renegade, had been on the Not For Hire. And he had gotten rid of Monat about eight hours after they’d boarded the vessel. Why? Because Monat would recognize him. He would have been in disguise, but Monat would have known him sooner or later. Probably sooner. So he’d had to work fast, and he had done so. How, Burton didn’t know.
X had been on Clemens’ boat.
“Had he lived through the battle? If he had, then he was among the few survivors of the Not For Hire now in this immediate area.
Perhaps. He might have left at once and gone up-River or he might have gotten to the other bank.
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