“But Hory does not know that. All he knows is that you communicate mentally. He knows, though he will not admit it, that you are not an animal. Suppose he were led to believe that you have been controlling me all along, that I am only hands and feet to serve you. Suppose I acted that part now, got out there saying you were dead, I was free and wanted nothing more than to get back with him – bringing the ring?”
“And just how are you going to make that clear to him?” Eet inquired. He left the wall, flowed over the boxes to hunch before me, his eyes level with mine. “If you emerge on the platform he will burn you instantly.”
“Can you die spectacularly in a way he can see?” I countered.
There was amusement rather than any direct answer. “Clutching my throat and flopping about?” he asked after a moment. “But with a laser you cannot perform so. I would be scorched fur and a dead body instantly. However, always supposing we could convince Hory I had made my exit permanently – what then?”
“I would emerge, dazed, cowed, ready to be taken prisoner-“
“While I would later come to your rescue? Do you remember that we played somewhat similar roles before? No, I do not believe Hory is so gullible. Do not underestimate him. He may be more than he seems.”
“What do you mean?”
“I believe he has a mind shield – that I have read only surface thoughts – perhaps what he was programed to reveal. Did not you yourself once say ‘Do not underrate your opponents’? However, your suggestion has some points worth considering. Suppose you were the one to meet his laser beam?”
“But – he hates you. Would be treat with you?”
“Just so – a question. However, there is an implanted feeling in your race that size and superior muscularity count much. Hory hates me as a freak, a thing which belies his superiority. Therefore, he must deal with me – for his own emotional satisfaction – not by a flash of fire, but rather by delivering me to his superiors in triumph. So far we have bested him and that rankles. I wish we knew more.” Eet hesitated. “He is a puzzle. And he is also intelligent enough to know that time is his enemy. Do you think he has not already figured out a Guild detachment may be on its way here?
“But they could not shake him out of his ship. Only – he needs the ring as a booster to take off. He wants the ring, and he would like me – you are merely incidental.”
“Thank you!” But Eet’s dissection of the problem was not irritating – it was true. “So I die-“
“As conspicuously as possible. I will then endeavor to take over the noble mind of Hory, promising him the sun, any vagrant moon, and, of course, the stars, all via the help of the ring. I think he will use a stun beam on me-“
“But-“
“Oh, I do not think that weapon will be as effective as he thinks it is. I shall be transported to the ship, doubtless installed in a cage, and Hory will see his way clear to departing.”
“Leaving me here? How-“
Again amusement from Eet. “I said I could not control Hory without his assistance. But there is one time when that assistance, unconsciously, may be mine for a short period. When he thinks I am totally in his power, he will then, by our hope, relax his guard. I do not need to advise you that period will be short. I am his shocked and docile prisoner, you are dead. He has full control-“
“And if the stunner really works on you?”
“Do you want to await death here?” Eet countered. “What one can say this or that sore stroke will not fall on his shoulders, aimed by the strong arm of fortune? Do you wish to sit here waiting for the Guild, or perhaps for Hory to switch on whatever heavy armament his ship affords and burn us to the bare rocks, setting even those to bubbling around our roasted ears? What I have learned of your minds suggests I have a good chance for what I propose to do. Esper powers are not used much and to mechanical devices such as cages there are always keys.”
Perhaps my partnership with Eet had made me particularly susceptible to his self-confidence, or perhaps I merely wanted to believe that his plan could work because I could not turn up a better. But I made tacit agreement when I asked:
“And how do I die by laser beam without being crisped in the process? That is a weapon one does not dodge, or survive. And Hory will not be aiming over my head, or any place except where it will do him the most good and me the least!”
It was now twilight in the vault and I could see Eet but not too clearly. If he had a plausible answer I was willing to agree that in this partnership he was the senior.
“I can give you five, perhaps ten heartbeats-“ he answered slowly.
“To do what? Act as if I were going to jump in the lake? And how-“
“I can expend a little power over Hory, confusing his sight. He will aim at what he thinks is his target. But that will not be you.”
“Are you sure?” My skin crawled. Death by fire is something no one of my kind faces with equanimity.
“I am sure.”
“What if he comes to view the remains?”
“I can again confuse his sight – for a short period.” After a long moment’s pause he spoke more briskly: “Now – we make sure of a future bargaining point-“
“Bargaining point?” My imagination was still occupied with several unpleasant possible future happenings.
“The cache of stones here. I do not think that without the ring they will be visible.”
“The ring.” I took it out. “You will take the ring, and leave the stones here as bait to draw him back?”
Eet appeared to consider that. “If he had more time perhaps. But I think not now. Give me the ring. These – we do not want them in sight, if and when he comes to pick me up.”
It was my muscle which dragged the box from below the opening and concealed it back behind one of the rows of coffins.
“Now!” Eet sat on a box. “He will not fire until you are out in the open, making a dash for the parapet. The laser may beam close enough so that you will feel its heat. The rest is up to you.”
My good sense belabored me as I climbed up, reached out to grasp the edges of the opening. If- if- and if again-
Eet popped out, running, heading for the parapet. I had only an instant and then I fell, a searing, biting pain along my side – a pain so intense that I was aware of nothing else for a second. I could smell my clothes smoldering. Then Eet was back with me, pulling at my coverall as if to urge me up and on, though in reality putting out those lickings of fire.
His mind was closed to me, and I knew he was on the defensive, waiting for a second attack from our common enemy. Suddenly he stiffened, fell over, and lay still, though his eyes were open and I could see the fluttering of his breathing along his side. Hory had used a stunner even as Eet had foreseen, but how effectively? And I could not query Eet as to that.
Around one of his forelegs was the ring. Perhaps his pawing at my smoldering clothing might have been translated by the watcher into a hunt for that. Now we lay still, I belly down, my head turned toward Eet, he flattened out, his legs stiff. Where was Hory?
It seemed to me that we lay there for hours. Since we must be under observation from the ship, there was no chance to move. I had gone down at the touch of that searing beam, not in a planned fall, and my right leg, half doubled under my body, began to cramp. I would be in ho shape to carry on battle should Hory decide I was not safely dead. In fact he would be a fool not to crisp us now as we lay.
Except that Eet was sure the Patrolman wanted him. And he had contrived to collapse so close to me that now a sweeping beam aimed from the ship could not remove one of us without killing the other into the bargain.
I could not raise my head to watch the shore line or the span, both hidden by the parapet. Winged things came out of nowhere to buzz about us, crawl across my flesh. And I had to lie and take their attention with no show of life. In that period it was driven home to me again that a man’s hardest ordeal is waiting.