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Still trying to adjust to the startling change in the situation, Hargate glanced up at Lorrest. Their eyes locked briefly and Lorrest gave a barely perceptible shake of the head. Ambiguous though the signal could have been, Hargate fully understood the message. If he finds out we’veseen the sixth copy of his Notes, he’ll kill us on the spot.

“And you couldn’t bear to inflict pain, could you?” Lorrest’s tone was relaxed, almost amiable.

“I can bear it when I have to,” Vekrynn said comfortably. “Especially when I’m dealing with a man who has recently committed murder.”

“Did Gretana tell you that?” For the first time Lorrest began to show concern. “Didn’t she mention that the Terran was on the point of killing her?”

“Perhaps it slipped her mind. Her memory has been at fault several times recently.”

“I wasn’t able to subvert Gretana, if that’s what you’re implying,” Lorrest said. “You’ve got nothing against her.”

Vekrynn shrugged, sunlight rippling on his bright tunic. “I’m more interested in you right now, Lorrest tye Thralen. What are you doing here?”

“I came to find Denny, and since then we’ve been sleeping and eating mostly.” Lorrest nodded towards the remains of the previous day’s meal, visible a short distance down the slope. “It seemed quite a good place to hide out until…until a certain astronomical event had taken place.”

“Really?” Vekrynn’s eyes narrowed as he studied Lorrest’s face, then he began to smile. “You have a knack for getting things wrong—especially about Ceres and the Moon. There isn’t going to be any collision.”

Lorrest shifted uneasily. “That’s what you think.”

“Did you really believe I wouldn’t be able to find Ceres?” Vekrynn’s smile broadened into a jubilant grin. “I’ll admit it was a costly operation, but not all that difficult. It was simply a matter of pouring in men and equipment, saturating a smallish volume of space. I’m pleased to inform you—in fact, I’m delighted to inform you—that I have knocked out every screen placed on Ceres by 2H and have made it clearly visible. We’re already using thruster rays against it. There is a tremendous amount of kinetic energy to overcome there, but Ceres is being deflected enough to miss the Moon. The Terrans are going to wonder what’s been going on, of course, but that’s a…”

“You’re a liar,” Lorrest shouted, his lean face hardening with anger.

“Why should I lie?” A tremor of excitement was now evident in Vekrynn’s voice. “Face up to the fact that you have failed, Lorrest tye Thralen. All I have to do now to tidy up this little matter is dispose of you and that.” On the final word Vekrynn’s pistol pointed at Hargate and swung back to cover Lorrest.

From the lowly vantage point of his wheelchair, Hargate had been viewing the exchange as a confrontation between two Olympian giants, but Vekrynn’s gesture with the weapon was a reminder that he too was vitally concerned. He had no way of knowing if the Warden had psychologically prepared himself for a straightforward act of murder, but even if the plan was to paralyse them and dump them in a remote desert or snowfield, his immediate personal prospects were bleak. The weapon Vekrynn was holding may have been classed as harmless, but Hargate suspected that only held good for targets in normal health. In recent months he had been experiencing growing difficulty in breathing and coughing, and he was almost certain that any serious interference with his nerve functions would be lethal.

He gazed up at the two Mollanians, seeing them with preternatural clarity, while the fear that his life had ended pulsed behind his eyes. Lorrest, in spite of the terrible setback in his schemes, was playing his part with great skill. He looked sullen, disconsolate and beaten—perfectly concealing his knowledge that in a short time the machine his organisation had planted in the Ocean of Storms would activate itself, and that Ceres would be drawn back on to its collision course. Hargate suddenly became aware that something in Lorrest’s physical appearance had changed. He had not seen the Mollanian make any kind of movement with his hands, but now a rectangle of white card was projecting from his breast pocket.

Wondering if Vekrynn might sense any significance in the card, Hargate examined the Warden’s resplendent figure and saw with some surprise that he was perspiring and that the close-waved blond hair was slightly in disarray.

Why, he’s just a man, after all, he thought. A man who invented a new kind of crime. Abnormally keyed-up though he was, Hargate was unprepared for the firestorm of sheer hatred that blazed through his mind, robbing him of both his humanity and the power of sequential thought. A dozen voices seemed to yammer inside him at once, shrieking, advising, threatening, cajoling…Enemy of my people, I need you to die…and all the days of Methuselah were nine hundred and sixty nine years…Lorrest is too much the idealist to do what should be done…and Lantech lived after he begat Noah five hundred and ninety-five years…not only do I need you to die, enemy of my people, I personally need to smear your brain into the shit of your gut…

“I don’t think there is any point in prolonging this,” Vekrynn announced, a new note of finality entering his voice. He raised his pistol with obvious intent.

Hargate, all his attention concentrated on Vekrynn, received only a blurred impression of Lorrest diving towards the Warden, hands outstretched. Vekrynn fired the pistol in the same instant and the card projecting from Lorrest’s pocket pulsed once with a fierce blue aura. An intangible something hit Hargate, like the beating of rubber hammers over his entire body, stopping his breath. He heard Vekrynn give a startled grunt. Lorrest snatched the pistol from his hand and with a powerful twist of his wrists snapped it into two pieces. Vekrynn swayed like a teetering statue, but otherwise appeared unable to move.

Lorrest stared at him, his eyes baleful as he flung the ruined weapon to the ground. “What’s the classic line at this point, Vekrynn? It looks like the tables are turned?”

Hargate scarcely heard the words over the tumultuous pounding of his heart. The reflected backlash from Vekrynn’s paralysis gun had been devastating in its effect. He was breathing rapidly, yet was in real danger of asphyxiating due to the fact that his lungs were unable to expand. His attempt to attract Lorrest’s attention produced only harsh clicking sounds as the air he so desperately craved refused to penetrate any further than his throat.

“I’m warning you,” Vekrynn whispered, his voice hoarse and distorted with the strain of speaking. “What you have done to me is…”

“What I’ve done to you is nothing to what I ought to do,” Lorrest interrupted savagely, advancing on the immobile figure of the Warden. “I should kill you, Vekrynn. The only thing stopping me is that I don’t want to be like you.”

“An animal can never be like a man.” Vekrynn, his face pale with strain, took a halting step towards Lorrest.

“Lie down before you fall.” As he spoke Lorrest put out his right hand, seemingly with the intention of pushing Vekrynn off his feet, but the thrust was never completed. As his fingers touched the material of Vekrynn’s tunic there was a splat of unleashed energy and Lorrest dropped exactly where he had been standing, like a puppet whose strings had been released. Vekrynn reeled grotesquely in a circle while he fought to remain upright.

Hargate, still waging his own inner battle, saw that Lorrest was fully conscious, but apparently unable to move. He was emitting regular groaning sounds with each breath.

“Another fool,” Vekrynn commented, beginning a slow flexing of his fingers. “What do they think I am?”