"Not yet, but they're sure ready to," Jack said, peering into the empty vat on one of the unidentified machines.
"But why?" Draycos asked, sounding bewildered. "If the ores here are valuable, why wait to mine them?"
"Could be any of a dozen reasons," Jack said. "Maybe they're still fighting to get the mining rights away from the Golvins. Maybe they're waiting for the market value to go up."
He shined his light at the tunnel face, the beam sparkling against a glittering array of metal bits embedded in the gray rock. "Or maybe after murdering a couple of Judge-Paladins they thought it would be smart to shut down and lie low for a while."
"A wise move on their part," Draycos said grimly, looking around. "But I've still not seen any evidence of any explosion."
"Me, neither," Jack admitted. "Must be down one of the other tunnels." He peered back the way they'd come. "But we don't have time to go looking now. Thonsifi's probably tearing her ears off worrying about me."
"Or worrying about what the One will say about letting you come down here alone."
"That, too," Jack agreed. "By the way, while you were sniffing out lubricating oil, did you happen to smell any water?"
"None," Draycos said. "I suspect that part of the story was told merely to ensure the Golvins stayed out of the mine."
"Probably," Jack said. "Stupid lie to tell, though, here in the middle of the desert."
"Perhaps," Draycos said. "Still, there is a river not too far below us."
"Yeah." Jack frowned suddenly at him. "Hey, I was just thinking that a while back. You been eavesdropping on my mind?"
Draycos's tail curved in a frown. "Not consciously," he said slowly. "But perhaps we are beginning to share other thoughts on a subconscious level."
"Maybe," Jack said. The thought of someone poking around inside his skull made his skin crawl. Even if that someone was Draycos. "Or maybe we're just thinking the same direction. The river is a pretty obvious thought."
"True," Draycos said. To Jack's ears, he sounded a little relieved by that thought, as well. "But as you say, we should leave." Touching Jack's hand, he slid back up his sleeve. "I'll guide you out."
CHAPTER 17
With the marks of their footsteps easily visible in the dust, Draycos's guidance wasn't really necessary. A few minutes later, they rounded the last curve in the main tunnel to find Thonsifi and Sefiseni standing together in the entrance. Their faces, at least what Jack could see of them in the faint beam from his light, looked anxious. "It's all right," Jack called. "I'm here."
"We were worried about you," Thonsifi said as Jack emerged into the staging room, relief evident in her voice. "Eithon has been calling from outside. Another air transport has arrived in the canyon."
Jack felt the breath catch in his throat. The Essenay'? "How big was—? Never mind," he interrupted himself. No point quizzing them when he could go look for himself. "Let's get back."
A minute later they were in the air again. Jack eyed the network of stone arches and guy wires as they approached the canyon, hope fading as he realized again that a ship the size of the Essenay could never make it in there.
Sure enough, as they flew over the edge and started down he could see, far below, a small two-man aircar squatting on the landing pit. "Any idea who that could be?" Jack asked.
"I do not know for certain," Thonsifi said, her voice trembling a bit.
Jack peered at her face. Jack was safe, and they were away from the mine. Yet her face was still anxious. "I didn't ask if you knew for sure," he said. "I asked if you had any idea. That means any thoughts or guesses."
She didn't answer. "Sefiseni?" Jack invited. "Eithon?"
"I saw a picture on the side of the transport," Eithon admitted reluctantly. "It is the same as the picture of those who stole the mine from us."
Sefiseni rumbled something in their own language. "Good," Jack said, trying to hide his own sudden uneasiness. Was this the response to Foeinatw's late-night InterWorld call ten days ago? "There are some questions I want to ask them."
As it had been the first time, the flight through the Golvins' aerial obstacle course was interesting to the point of occasional terror. But again they made it safely, and Eithon set them down more or less gently beside the visitor.
And now, up close, Jack could read the name beneath the stylized pick-and-shovel logo on the aircar's side.
Triost Mining Group.
A sudden memory flooded back on him: he and Draycos in the Essenay's dayroom, right after their first meeting and the mad escape from the Iota Klestis ambush.
We dealt with a people called the Chitac Nomads, Draycos had told him and Uncle Virge. They assured us Iota Klestis was available for purchase.
I don't know, Uncle Virge had answered doubtfully. On paper, the place still belongs to the Triost Mining Group.
Carefully, Jack focused his mind as he and the others climbed out of the shuttle. Draycos? he thought toward his shoulder.
Yes, I saw, the K'da's mental voice came back grimly. Are these the same people?
It's the same group, Jack confirmed. Near one of the apartment pillars he spotted a middle-aged man talking with the One and a couple of other Golvins. Probably not the same specific people, though.
Pardon?
I said it's the same group, but probably not the same exact people, Jack repeated. This telepathy stuff took more effort and focus than he'd realized. Keep it down, now—I have to concentrate.
The One's eyes shifted to Jack as he and the others approached. The man caught the subtle movement and turned. He was medium height and build, starting to widen out around the waist, with thinning hair and piercing blue eyes. "Ah," he said, giving Jack a friendly smile. "You must be the Judge-Paladin everyone's talking about."
"I'm Judge-Paladin Jack Melville," Jack confirmed, grabbing a new last name for himself at random. "You?"
"Genie Bolo, survey specialist for the Triost Mining Group," the other said, holding out his hand. His smile took on a slight frown. "I have to say, you look awfully young for your position."
"I've always looked young for my age," Jack explained, shaking Bolo's hand firmly but briefly, in the upper-class professional's style Uncle Virgil had taught him. "Even at twenty-four, a lot of people peg me as only seventeen or eighteen."
"I'd have made it even younger," Bolo admitted. "But don't worry about it. You'll appreciate the effect when you're fifty and still look thirty-five." His smile turned a little rueful as he ran a hand through his thinning hair. "As you see, I've got the opposite problem."
"At least people take you seriously," Jack said. "What brings you here, Mr. Bolo?"
"Survey work, like the job title says," Bolo said. "We've got a petrometal station going in about a hundred miles east of here. I was told to see whether it would be cheaper for us to build a pipeline to the NorthCentral Spaceport for the stuff or to build our own tanker landing area next to the station."
Jack frowned. "I didn't know you could pump metals."
"Actually, we'd be pumping a slurry," Bolo said. "That's a lot of water or other liquid with metals or whatever suspended in it."
"Ah," Jack said. So that was what the tunnel pipes and vats were for that he and Draycos had seen. One pipe would bring water to the mine face, and the ore would be dumped into it in one of the vats. The resulting slurry would then be pumped back to the surface through the other pipe. "Interesting. I presume that in this case the liquid would be the oil part of the petrometal deposits?"