Loga read the instructions, and they got into their chairs and flew out of the room. Ten minutes later, they were outside the laboratory down the corridor from Loga’s hideaway. They set their chairs down softly and entered on foot. Though Goring was not armed, they couldn’t be sure they wouldn’t find others with him by now.
Burton bellowed, “Achtung!”
He laughed loudly when Goring jumped up, food spewing from his mouth, arms flying, the chair falling backward. Gray and trembling, he whirled around, his eyes wide. He seemed to be trying to say something, and then his face reddened, and he clutched his throat.
“My God! He’s choking!” Alice said.
Goring was blue and on his knees by the time Burton hit him on the back and made him expel the food caught in his throat.
Alice said, “That wasn’t at all funny, Richard. Quit laughing. You might’ve killed him.”
Burton wiped the tears away and said, “I’m sorry, Goring. I guess I just wanted to pay you back for some of the things you’d done to me.”
Goring gulped at the glass of water handed him by Aphra Behn.
“Yes, I suppose I can’t blame you.”
“You look near-starved,” Nur said. “You shouldn’t be eating so fast. Too much food too soon after a long starvation can kill you.”
“I’m not that starved. But I seem to have lost my appetite.”
He looked around. “Where are the others?”
“Dead.”
“May God take pity on their souls.”
“He hasn’t and won’t unless we do something fast.”
“Goring!” Loga said sharply. “Did you come alone?”
Goring looked at him strangely. “Yes.”
“How long have you been here?”
“About an hour.”
“Were there any others close behind you when you were in the mountains?”
“No. At least, I saw no one.”
“How did you get here so fast?”
Goring and other Virolanders had dived into the hold of the Not For Hire before it slipped over the shelf into the abyss. They had brought up some sections of the batacitor and rebolted them together in a wooden sailboat. They had also brought up two small electric motors, a spare propeller of the smaller launch, the Gascon, and other parts. They’d worked fast, and four left in the reconverted boat two weeks after the Post No Bills had departed.
Unlike Burton’s group, they’d not taken days off for rest or recreation.
“Where are your companions?” Loga said, though he’d probably guessed their fate.
“Two quit early and went back. I went on with my wife, but she slipped and fell down the face of a mountain.”
He made the circular sign, the blessing, used so much by the Chancers.
“You should sit down,” Burton said kindly. “We have much to tell you.”
When he’d heard Loga and Burton tell what had happened, Goring looked horrified.
“All those wathans! And my wife’s among them?”
“Yes, and now we don’t know what to do. Kill the computer so that no more wathans may be caught. Or hope that we can think of some way to countermand its prime command.”
Hermann said, “No. There’s a third choice.”
“What?”
“Let me try to get the module in.”
“Are you crazy?”
“No. I have a debt to pay.”
Burton thought of his recurring dream of God.
“You owe for the flesh. Pay up.”
“If you die, your wathan will be doomed.”
“Perhaps not,” Hermann said quietly. “I may be ready to Go On. I don’t know that I am. God knows that I am far from a saint. But if I can save all those souls… wathans… then I will have made complete recompense.”
No one argued with him.
“Very well,” Loga said. “You are the most courageous person I’ve ever met. I think you clearly understand that you may have very little chance to succeed. But here’s what we’re going to do.”
Burton was very sorry that he had played his little joke on the German. The man was risking his soul, would face the equivalent of damnation, if he failed. Loga was right. Goring was the bravest man he’d ever known. He may not have been once, but he was now.
Loga decided that they should return to the top level to be near their apartments. On the way, they stopped at a floor where Goring could see the caged wathans.