“Spruce killed himself before we could get out of him all we wanted to know. Later, some of his compatriots came to our area and temporarily put everybody to sleep – probably with a gas intending to take me away to wherever Their headquarters are. But They missed me. I was off on a trading trip up The River. When I returned, I realized They were after me, and I’ve been running ever since. Goring, do you hear me?” Burton slapped him savagely on his cheek. Goring said, “Ach!” and jumped back and held the side of his face. His eyes were open, and he was grimacing.
“I heard you!” he snarled. “It just didn’t seem worthwhile to answer back. Nothing seemed worthwhile, nothing except floating away, far from…”
“Shut up and-listen!” Burton said. “The Ethicals have men everywhere looking for me. I can’t afford to have you alive, do you realize that? I can’t trust you. Even if you were a friend, you couldn’t be trusted. You’re a gummer’
Goring giggled, stepped up to Burton and tried to put his arms around Burton’s neck. Burton pushed him back so hard that he staggered up against the table and only kept from falling by clutching its edges.
“This is very amusing,” Goring said. “The day I got here, a man asked me if I’d seen you. He described you in detail and gave your name. I told him I knew you well – too well, and that I hoped I’d never see you again, not unless I had you in my power, that is. He said I should notify him if I saw you again. He’d make it worth my while.” Burton wasted no time. He strode up to Goring and seized him with both hands. They were small and delicate, but Goring winced with pain.
He said, “What’re you going to do, kill me again?”
“Not if you tell me the name of the man who asked you about me. Otherwise…”
“Go ahead and kill me!” Goring said. “So what? I’ll wake up somewhere else, thousands of miles from here, far out of your reach.” Burton pointed at a bamboo box in a corner of the hut. Guessing that it held Goring’s supply of gum, he said, “And you’d also wake up without that! Where else could you get so much on such short notice?”
“Damn you!” Goring shouted, and tried to tear himself loose to get to the box.
“Tell me his name!” Burton said. “Or I’ll take the gum and throw it in The River!”
“Agneau. Roger Agneau. He sleeps in a but just outside the Roundhouse.”
“I’ll deal with you later,” Burton said, and chopped Goring on the side of the neck with the edge of his palm.
He turned, and he saw a man crouching outside the entrance to the hut. The man straightened up and was off. Burton ran out after him; in a minute both were in the tall pines and oaks of the hills. His quarry disappeared in the waist-high grass.
Burton slowed to a trot, caught sight of a patch of white starlight on bare skin – and was after the fellow. He hoped that the Ethical would not kill himself at once, because he had a plan for extracting information if he could knock him out at once. It involved hypnosis, but he would have to catch the Ethical first. It was possible that the man had some sort of wireless imbedded in his body and was even now in communication with his compatriots – wherever They were. If so, They would come in Their flying machines, and he would be lost.
He stopped. He had lost his quarry and the only thing to do now was to lose Alice and the others and run. Perhaps this time they should take to the mountains and hide there for a while.
But first he would go to Agneau’s hut. There was little chance that Agneau would be there, but it was certainly worth the effort to make sure.
21
Burton arrived within sight of the but just in time to glimpse the back of a man entering it. Burton circled to come up from the side where the darkness of the hills and the trees scattered along the plain gave him some concealment. Crouching, he ran until he was at the door to the hut.