The Edmond Hamilton MEGAPACK ®. Edmond Hamilton

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СКАЧАТЬ time. Now it seemed that Saul and Landers should still be here, and there should be lights and warmth and movement.

      There was nothing. He could not bring himself to stay in the living quarters. He went into one of the storerooms and sat on a concrete buttress and waited. It was a long and dreadful wait. During it all the emotional storms occasioned by the murder and its aftermath passed through his mind. Scenes with Saul and Landers. Scenes with the investigators, with MacDonald’s family, with lawyers and reporters. Scenes with Elena. The whole terrible nightmare, leading inevitably to that culminating moment when the door of the airlock opened and he joined the sleepers on the plain. When it was all over Hyrst felt shaken and exhausted, but calm. The face of Vernon burned brightly in his mind’s eye.

      Without bothering to open the steel-shuttered windows, he watched the two young men force their way out of the hoist tower. He watched them run to their ship and chatter excitedly over their radio. By the time, much later, that Bellaver’s yacht came screaming down to the landing field on a flaming burst of jets, he could watch it with almost the cool detachment of a spectator. He was careful to keep his shields up tight against Vernon, and he did not think the other Lazarite would be likely to look for him. Vernon seemed to be fully occupied with Bellaver.

      “What else would they be stealing, you fool? You should have, killed Hyrst before, when you had the chance.”

      “Somebody had to take the blame for MacDonald. Anyway, you had him aboard the Happy Dream. Why didn’t you hang onto him?”

      “Don’t get insolent with me, Vernon. I can turn you over to the police anytime, for any one of a hundred things.”

      “Not without tipping your hand, Bellaver.”

      “It would be worth it.” A string of foul names, delivered in a furious scream. “You couldn’t locate the Titanite, but they did, just as soon as they got hold of Hyrst.”

      “All right, Mr. God Almighty Bellaver, turn me in. But if it was the Titanite they took, you haven’t a chance of finding that starship without me.”

      “You haven’t done very well at it so far.”

      “In the excitement, they may get careless. But it’s up to you.”

      More foul language, but Bellaver did not repeat his threat. He and Vernon, with a couple of other men, got into vac-suits and lumbered across the snow to the hoist tower. From inside the cold dark buried building, Hyrst watched them, and thought hard and fast, and smiled. Presently he left the building and circled cautiously through the snowy gloom until he was in range of their helmet-communicators. He could hear them aurally now, but he kept watching them, esper-fashion.

      * * * *

      They inspected the empty lead box, and the young men told what had happened, and Bellaver turned his raging fury against them. There was no longer any doubt that the Titanite had been found and taken away, and Bellaver saw the stars and worlds and moons, the bright glowing plunder of a galaxy, slipping away from him. He threatened the two young men with every punishment he could think of for not having stopped the thieves, and one of the young men turned white and anxious, and the other one flushed brick red and shook his fist close to Bellaver’s helmet.

      “You go to hell,” he said. “I don’t care who you are. You go to hell.”

      He walked out of the hoist tower, with his companion stumbling at his heels, and Bellaver screamed after them, and behind him the crewmen looked shocked and contemptuous, and Vernon laughed openly, showing the edges of his teeth.

      The two young men got into their ship and went away. Bellaver turned and stood looking at the empty box. He seemed exhausted now, hopeless, like a child about to break down and cry. Vernon went over and kicked the box.

      “Hyrst had the advantage,” he said. “He knew MacDonald and he knew the refinery. Even so, it must have been pure guesswork. Nobody could probe through that fog.”

      “What are we going to do?” asked Bellaver. “Vernon, what are we going to do?”

      Hyrst spoke for the first time, his voice ringing loud and startling in their ears.

      “Don’t ask Vernon,” he said. “Ask me.”

      There was a moment of complete silence. Hyrst felt Vernon’s mind brush his, and he permitted himself one cruel flash of triumph. Then everybody spoke at once, Vernon explaining why he hadn’t spotted Hyrst—who could have figured he’d stay behind at a time like this?—the crew-members nervously fingering their guns, and Bellaver crying,

      “Hyrst! Is that you, Hyrst? Where are you?”

      “Where I can get the first shot at anybody coming out of the tower, and where nobody from the yacht will ever reach me. Tell them all to stay put. Go ahead, Bellaver, you want to hear me out, don’t you?”

      “What do you want to say?”

      “I can find you that starship. Tell them, Bellaver.”

      He told them. And Vernon said to Bellaver, “If he’s willing to betray his friends, why would he get them the Titanite?” He laughed. “It isn’t even a good trick.”

      “Oh, yes, it is,” said Hyrst softly. “It’s a very good one. The best. You see, I don’t care about the starship or the Titanite. All I care about is the man who killed MacDonald. They were sort of bound up together. Ever hear of latent impressions, Vernon? I was unconscious, but my ears heard and my eyes saw, and my brain remembered, when it was shown how.”

      “That was fifty years ago,” said Vernon. “People don’t understand about us. Nobody would believe you if you told them.”

      “They would if Bellaver told them. They would if Bellaver explained out loud about the Lazarites, about what happens to men when they go through the door. They’d listen to him. And there must be others who know, or at least suspect.” Hyrst paused, long enough to smile. “The beauty of that is, Bellaver, that you’re in the clear. You’re not responsible for a murder your grandfather had done. You could swear you didn’t even know about it until now.”

      Vernon said to Bellaver, “If you do this to me, I’ll blast you wide open.”

      “What can he do, Bellaver?” Hyrst shouted. “He can talk, but you have the money, the position, the legal powers. You can talk louder. And when they know the truth, will anybody take the word of a Lazarite against a human man?”

      His voice rose higher and louder, drowning out Vernon’s cry.

      “Are you afraid of him, Bellaver? Are you so afraid of him you’ll let the starship go?”

      “Hold him.” Bellaver said, and the crewmen held Vernon fast. “Wait a minute, Hyrst,” he said. “What’s your angle? Is it just revenge? Are you selling out your friends for something over and done half a century ago? I don’t believe it, Hyrst.”

      Hyrst said slowly, “I can answer that, so even you will understand. I have children. They’re getting old now. They’ve lived all their lives thinking their father killed a man, not for love or for justice or in self-defense, but for sheer cold-blooded greed. I want them to know it wasn’t so.”

      “Hold him!” Bellaver said. The crewmen struggled with Vernon, and Vernon said viciously to Bellaver,

      “He’ll СКАЧАТЬ