A Cleft Of Stars

'Transport!' I exclaimed. 'That's what sinks us at every turn. I can't carry Rankin to The Hill'

'Rankin doubles the odds against us.'

'He's a built-in hazard and we've simply got to face that fact. He's got to come along; we must work on it.'

A fragment of dawn seemed to be penetrating the darkness. I held her close, reluctant to let her go, but we both knew that she could not stay.

'The Hill,' she whispered as she left me to crawl back to her blankets. 'Everything always comes back to The Hill, doesn't it, Guy?

I grinned back, not explaining. 'Thanks for the camisade.'

CHAPTER TEN

'Out, Bowker!' Koen jerked the machine-pistol towards the cave entrance. 'Quick as kiss-my-arse. Out!'

Day seemed to have followed unbelievably fast after Nadine had left my side to return to her part of the cave; a few minutes before Koen had appeared to escort me I had heard him shepherding her out into the command-post's enclosure where I had first spotted Rankin.

I decided to play things in a low key and did not react to Koen's tone. Daylight revealed him as an even tougher proposition than I'd thought. He had a weather-beaten face and powerful shoulders and chest. His arms were sunburnt the colour of seasoned stinkwood. He brought with him a stench of sweat, leather and gun-oil. His breath in the confined space was metallic with stale brandy and he was red-eyed from the night's vigil.

'All right. As you say.'

'I warn you, don't try to be smart with me, Bowker. It's the Doc's idea that you and the doll should have some coffee. If it was me, I'd let you sweat it out, march or no march.'

'March?'

'You'll see. Now — out!'

We passed through Nadine's mill section and the first warmth in the open was welcome after the ground-chill of the cave. There was the faintest surprise touch of moisture in the early air which made the nostrils tingle. I greeted Nadine with studied casualness. However, a remarkable sight greeted us: Rankin sitting up on Talbot's bed, drinking coffee. There was no sign of Talbot. It amazed me to think that a man of his age could have put up such a fight but he was as hard as nails from a lifetime spent in the open amongst the tough breed of diamond diggers; and he looked at least twenty years younger than his age. Although he was balding, his sparse brown hair was only slightly flecked with grey and merged into his deep mahogany tan. His hatchet face was sullen now and his eyes below a high forehead had the kind of angry glassiness of a bird of prey — winged, wounded, watchful, dangerous. His chest was bandaged and I guessed that Praeger must have spent a good deal of the night working on him. I got nothing from him except a hard stare from his pale eyes.

The wood smoke and coffee smelt good. Two mugs had been placed on the breastwork.

'Get it yourselves,' snapped Praeger without preliminaries. 'It's all you'll get, so make the most of it. You're going for a walk with Koen'

I took one mug for myself and the other for Nadine, moving unobtrusively in von Praeger's direction. His pistol was in his belt.

I hadn't reckoned with Koen, though. 'Keep away from the Doc with that mug, Bowker I Back!'

I halted. 'What are you up to now, Praeger?' I demanded. I felt self-confident in spite of the odds. Having come from my long self-induced emotional vacuum I felt keyed up, ready for anything.

I rounded on Rankin. 'It's about time you started talking, Rankin! You've got a hell of a lot to answer for to me and still more to explain to this idiot here. He says there's a bigger half of the Cullinan and that you and I have it.'

'The Great Star of Africa,' Praeger prompted.

I noticed then that there were bubbles of dried saliva at the corners of the leathery lips and that his grim pet was sniffing at tiny flecks of blood on his clothes: I wondered if I were seeing evidences of a sadism which had put an end to Talbot during the night.

Rankin showed no sign that he had heard; an eyelid may have flickered, but it could have been from the drifting smoke. I indicated Nadine. 'They've dragged her into this as well, Rankin. It needs only half a dozen words from you to put her in the clear.'

He looked at her, not at me, across the ton of his mug and said in a hoarse, inflexionless voice. 'The Hill is mine'

'Is that all you have to say?' I burst out angrily. 'You double-crossing. .

'Keep away from him, Bowker,' warned von. Praeger. 'I'm relieved to hear he can utter, though. They're the first words I've had from him and I trust there'll be plenty more — all about the Cullinan.'

'Damn the Cullinan! All I want is for this crook to confess that he framed me!'

'It seems that at least we have one thing in common: wanting Rankin to talk,' retorted Praeger, 'You've made a great show, Bowker, of trying to buck off the responsibility on to Rankin. But it doesn't fool me. You're both in this and you are both going to tell me — separately — all about it.'

A tiny muscle pulled in his face as he looked down at his hands, like a surgeon before an operation. I didn't care for the gesture.

Rankin remained silent. I wondered how long he would hold out under Praeger's methods.

Then I turned to Koen: 'You must know from what your father told you that I have nothing to do with all this.'

'I visited him once, in the death-cell. He never uttered a single word about the Cullinan. Why should he, anyway? I meant nothing to him as a son: I was just a hand to work the trommel on the diggings. Afterwards he cleared out and got a good job and didn't want to know me. Fair enough. But he told the Doc and I believe that.'

'It's so much utter rubbish, Koen

He grinned unpleasantly. may be sucking on the hind tit, Bowker, but thirty million dollars is one hell of a tit! I'll keep it that way!'

I regarded the three men, feeling cornered. Nevertheless, I kept working away at Koen.

'Take a cool look at this Cullinan thing, Koen. Okay, say Rankin here and my father salted the Premier? Those were the old days when only a couple of mines outside Kimberley were known. We've all heard romantic old-timers' stories about men crawling round with tobacco tins strung round their necks, picking up diamonds. Everything has come a long way since then. Every inch of South Africa has been prospected. There isn't a diamond area that isn't well known and hasn't been exploited. Answer me two things if you believe von Praeger: just where did the Cullinan come from? And do you think that under any circumstances the other half would have been left stashed away all these years? Thirty millions' worth?'

Koen appeared a shade(nonplussed. 'My old man knew. He told the Doc.'

I forestalled Praeger. 'No, he didn't, Koen. What he did say was, "the hyena's blanket". He never mentioned the Cullinan. Your Gestapo helper here killed my grandfather and kidded himself he first heard that same absurd phrase from him.' I rounded on Rankin. 'What, if anything, does it mean, Rankin?'

The injured man's granite mask did not alter.

'I hope he'll be more communicative when we're alone,' said Praeger. 'It's taken everything I know to have him sitting up there drinking coffee this morning.'

I could believe it. Praeger's eyes were more bloodshot than Koen's and he looked as if he were living on his nerves. I said harshly, 'I did you a favour, Rankin. Now's your chance to make amends for eighteen months of hell I spent in jail because of you'

Nadine added softly. 'That includes me, too.'

Koen took a half-jack of brandy from his hip pocket and deftly laced his coffee, without relaxing his grip on the machine-pistol. He eyed us consideringly.

Suddenly Praeger's strained voice broke in: 'Talk, talk, talk! Round and round in circles! That's all I hear!!

He strode across to me and thrust his face close to mine.