Richtersveld! — I saw every stapelia, every minute stoneplant, every withdrawn succulent, covered in pellucid dew: sea-dew, water. And the grey granite clothed in young green shoots, all glistening and white — food for the young, water, life.
I knew then what I was seeing at Mercury: the ancient migration of animals to traditional water. Such migrations have gone on since time immemorial. The Namib was timeless, but the ancient place to which they came had changed. It must have been a river, and it must have been here! The line of strange T-shaped whitenesses among the dunes was the line of an age-old barrier, at the foot of which had flowed a prehistoric river to which the animals were driven by a compulsion buried deep in their race-life.
A prehistoric river! Stratton had told the court, and it was held by Oranjemund experts, that diamonds had been carried to the coast by rivers whose courses had vanished 500,000 years ago, but which had spread them out to sea, where they were redistributed by ocean currents into the Sperrgebiet's marine terraces.
The mouth of that ancient river — where was it? The fountainhead of all diamonds, the parent rock! Shelborne knew where the mouth was. Nothing would move him from Mercury, because he knew. That is why he had killed Caldwell at Strandloper's Water. Had the whole coastline changed because of what we surveyors call continental uplift? Certainly the beacons had moved inland — the soggy quagmire of quicksands might well be the remnants of an old river mouth. Or had the river's course been halted by the coast lifting and broken off — at Strandloper's Water? I must trek inland to Strandloper's Water; and I must find Shelborne.
I dropped the binoculars on their lanyard.
There was something in my face which made Mary draw back. 'John! Dear God, John! What is it?'
'I'm going ashore to Mercury to open a few coffins.'
'No! No! That is not what you were thinking of!' 'No,' I replied harshly. 'I think I know now why Shelborne killed your father.' 'I'll never believe that,' she said. 'I'm going to Strandloper's Water to find out.' 'No! — please not, John! What is past is past — no more deaths…'
'Not unless Shelborne chooses.' She came close to me. 'John, listen: there seems to be a fate which hangs like an aura about those who deal in diamonds. Caldwell. Shelborne. Now you. You felt it yourself that first day in court — that strange, forceful, wonderful man in his faded clothes. He is not evil. Power, yes. You sense it, but it is power he has learned to be humble about. I believe it came to him in the Namib, some lonely coming to grips with himself. He understands it, he lives with it, but he doesn't deploy it for evil ends.'
I gestured towards the shore. 'He deploys it.' She said desperately, 'Don't believe it! Shelborne may live in the presence of power, of force, of death.'
'"Primal mysteries," he called them to me.'
'Yes! But they're passive for him. They lie quiet under his hand because he knows what terrible forces the Namib unleashes. It is old, it is savage, its capacity for cruelty on the grand scale is unbounded, just in the same way that prehistoric things are blatantly, unashamedly, uncomplicatedly cruel. It was born so long ago.'
The third day of the Creation, he told the court.' 'Shelborne has his hand upon whatever this grim, elemental thing is. It's tame under his hand, like Mercury. But it becomes more dangerous than a hydrogen bomb when the catalyst comes along.' 'You're saying the catalyst is me.'
'No, John, not you, not Rhennin. Diamonds — diamonds as symbolized by the Mazy Zed.'
'You're not Caldwell's daughter for nothing.'
She went on urgently. 'Forget this crazy business of breaking into Shelborne's graveyard to find Korvettenkapitan Rhennin. What if he is there? What does it tell you? Nothing! The war has been over a long time — Felix says so himself — and who has heard of Gruppe Eisbar anyway? Dieter Rhennin didn't sink the Queen Mary convoy; he may have found the cache. He's dead, whatever way you look at it.'
'Yes, but Goering's cache…'
'Diamonds' Diamonds again!' she burst out bitterly.
I looked deep into her eyes. 'It is not simple for Shelborne. It is almost — you said it yourself — as if he had assumed Caldwell's own character: "Something hid behind the ranges, go and look behind the ranges." To give the world Caldwell's diamond fountainhead, the parent rock, would, as he sees it, pay back fate for what he did to your father. He doesn't want Goering's hoard, He doesn't even want the riches of the fountainhead. It's a sidestake with fate. He doesn't give a damn for the size of it, except in so far as the more fabulous it is, the greater the redemption of Caldwell. The game's the thing.'
'And you mean to beat him at the game.'
'Yes.'
'He has the lead on you.'
'Yes. He knows what guards the fountainhead — I don't. He knows where it is — I don't. Whatever it is, it is too big for him, or else he would have come forward with it long ago. I guess the Mazy Zed has the edge on him there. As I stood watching those buck dying just now, a lot of things explained themselves in my own mind. I have to tell Felix.'
'May I come with you?'
'Yes, of course. This is going to be a rough party Mary.'
She said obliquely. 'The Bells haven't sounded all the time we've been talking. I wonder if it was Shelborne who christened them the Bells of St Mary's — and why?'
Rhennin was loading shells into the magazine of a Luger. A beautiful long barrelled Colt.45 lay on the desk among boxes of cartridges, a finely-chased.7.65 mm. Browning, also with a long barrel, and a stubby Bernadelli.
He smiled grimly. The pick of weapons is yours.'
Mary shivered.
'Normally I'd go for the Colt,' I said, 'but I don't reckon any of them will be much use against what we have to face.'
He clicked the magazine of the Luger into place with a slap of his palm and poised it expertly on its centre of gravity. I, too, have always liked the Luger for its balance. 'Are you thinking of what happened to Bob Sheriff?'
'Maybe,' I replied. 'But the Schweipunkt isn't here, it's at Strandloper's Water.' I explained the springbok migration, as I saw it, to the ancient river, its mouth and the diamond fountainhead. We must, I insisted, trek to Strandloper's Water.
'By all that's holy!' exclaimed Rhennin.
Mary said, 'It blows Shelborne into a sort of gigantic ogre, finger on the trigger of some hidden power of destruction…'
Rhennin spun the Luger. 'If Shelborne gets hurt along the way, that's just too bad.'
'I've a hunch Shelborne is on the island, watching everything we do,' I said. 'On second thoughts, maybe we had better try Mercury first, and investigate that graveyard of his. I'm sure the landing-place is covered, so I'll take the Colt after all, Felix. If Bob Sheriff were here to give us cover, I'd risk it, but I think as things stand, we should slip ashore in the dinghy tonight.'
Rhennin nodded agreement. 'We'll land at the seal platform — it slopes down to the water.'
'We'll want knives and an iron bar to prise open the coffins.'
The diving suits will be ideal with warm clothing underneath,' said Rhennin.
'We may as well blacken our faces too,' I said.
'Put me ashore and let me talk to Shelborne!' Mary pleaded. 'I won't come to any harm…'
Rhennin was gentle with her. 'We've got to find these things out, Mary. Shelborne will not come to any harm either, unless…'
'Unless! Unless!' she exclaimed. 'Unless you don't draw first, I won't shoot you down! John, don't go!'
I broke open the heavy Colt, slipping in six shells. I put the rest of the packet in my pocket. I was acutely aware of Mary's magnetism, and of a curious contrary conviction that I should go my own way. I didn't want to stay for her sake. The realization made my voice harsh. 'Forget it! This is a man's job. I'm going to rest up for an hour or two, Felix. I want to be fresh for a night out among the coffins.'