Burton sat with Loga’s weapon across his lap. His first question was how it was operated. Loga indicated the safety lock and the trigger, the use of which Burton had figured out for himself.
“Now,” he said, “I think it best that we start out at the beginning. But wtiat is the beginning?”
“Pardon me for interrupting,” the Moor said. “We should establish one thing right now. Ah Qaaq… Loga… you must have a private resurrection chamber in the tower?”
“Yes.”
The Ethical hesitated. “It wasn’t just for me. Tringu also used it. He was my best friend; we were raised together on the Gardenworld. He was the only one I could trust.”
“Was he the man called Stern who tried to kill Firebrass before the Parseval took off the tower?”
“Yes. He failed, as you know. So, when I saw that Firebrass was going to get into the tower ahead of me… and Siggen was too, I had to kill them both. Siggen had not told Firebrass who I was. She believed me when I told her that I’d abandon my plans and throw myself on the mercy of the Council. But only after we’d gotten to the tower and the Council was resurrected. She never would have agreed if I’d not lied, not told her that I’d put an inhibit on communication with the computer and that only I could break it. She said she wouldn’t tell Firebrass about me until we were in the tower. But she then made arrangements to be in the tower ahead of me with Firebrass. She meant to check up~«n the truth of what I’d told her. Also, I was afraid that while she and Firebrass were in the helicopter on the way to the top of the tower, she’d change her mind and tell Firebrass. So… I set off the bomb I’d planted in the copter just in case…”
“Who’s Siggen?” Alice said.
“My wife. The woman posing as Any a Obrenova, the Russian airship officer.”
“Oh, yes,” Alice said as tears ran down Loga’s cheeks.
“It’s obvious that your people found your private resurrector and deactivated it. Otherwise, you’d have killed yourself and been translated to the tower. Have you reactivated your resurrector?”
“Yes. Actually, I have two. But both were located and deactivated.”
Burton said, “Then if we’d killed you just now, you’d have escaped us. Why didn’t you let us do it? Or kill yourself?”
“Because, as I said, I may need you. Because I’m sick of this violence. Because I owe you something.”
He paused. “I’d set up an inhibition in the general lazarus machinery long ago. It’d be activated at my signal, the same signal which would kill all within the tower, the underground chambers, and in the area of the sea. But Tringu and I had our private lines. One of them was in the room at the base of the tower. Sharmun, the woman in charge in Monat’s and Thanabur’s absence, told me that the two rooms had been found. She said that it would do no good to commit suicide in the hope that I could rise in the tower and continue my evil deeds. Me! Evil!”
“This is getting confusing,” Burton said. “Start at the very beginning.”
“Very well. But I’ll have to be as brief as possible. By the way, where is Gilgamesh?”
Burton told him.
The Ethical said. “I’m sorry.”
He paused, then said, “Like his mythical counterpart, he failed to find the secret of immortality.”
Loga rose, saying, “I just want to see the screens. I won’t go near them.”
They kept their weapons trained on him while he limped to the edge of the revolving platform. It was useless to keep him in their sights, Burton thought. He could elude them at any time by making them kill him if he was telling the truth.
Loga limped back to his chair and eased himself into it.
“We may be able to do something. I don’t really know. We do have some time, though. So…”
He began in the beginning.
When the universe was young, when the first inhabitable planets had formed after the explosion of the primal ball of energy-matter, evolution brought about a people on one planet who differed from those on other planets.
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