Part 65 (1/2)

We've got to send it tumbling down, and then with any luck the whole lash-up will collapse.

Ready? ... ”

Fire.

Three green beams and four blue-white ones lanced out.

There was a bloom of steam and pulverized ice. The two psychokinetics exerted their mental power. The serac shuddered but stood fast.

”Rock it!” yelled Ookpik. ”Fire again!”

The photon weapons sang. Bleyn and Aronn stood shoulder to shoulder, their handsome faces distorted by the effort. The cloud halfway up the icefall expanded. A grating sound reached their ears. Aronn cried, ”It's going over the edge!” And then the trough of giant ice-blocks seemed to s.h.i.+mmer in the strengthening light. The fa.r.s.enses of the Tanu locked onto the sight and broadcast it to the grey torcs of the humans. They saw the face of the looming frozen cascade heave and ripple. Blue-and-white ma.s.ses flew up and outward as if in slow motion, then tumbled end over end with facets gleaming and projections fracturing like cloudy gla.s.s. A stupendous roar filled the air. Loose snow, shaken from the tumbling blocks, exploded in great clots, and crystal whirlwinds sparkled at the fringes of the monstrous avalanche.

In the aether, there were inhuman cries.

When it was over, the Gresson Icefall looked very little changed, for one chunk of ice is not very different from another.

But the ap.r.o.n of the fall, which had been dirty grey, was now pristine-and extended nearly halfway to the rocks where the climbing party had taken refuge. The Firvulag redoubt was buried beneath at least sixteen metres of icy rubble. The supply dump tents were only buried ten metres deep.

Ookpik looked at the others with a resigned expression. ”You win a few, you lose a few. But I guess we'd better start climbing.

It's a long way up to Camp One.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN.

Shackled with gla.s.s gyves, sullen but resigned, Tony Wayland stood beside Kuhal Earthshaker on the balcony of the Roniah City-Lord's palace and addressed the King's simulacrum, which appeared to be seated cross-legged in the limpid afternoon air just the other side of the bal.u.s.trade.

”Well, Your Majesty, you have to work the niobium in an argon atmosphere, for starters. That's the biggest part of your problem. As for alloying it with dysprosium, I'm afraid I haven't the foggiest.”

”But you could experiment?” Aiken leaned forward anxiously, his hands braced on the knees of his golden pocket-suit.

”Oh, I suppose so.” Tony's manner was barely civil. ”Given sufficient quant.i.ties of the stuff to work with. But you say you don't have any of the pure element. Do you realize how difficult it's going to be, extracting the Dy from ores? I mean, even when you manage to coax the yttrium complex out of the crud, you'll have a devil of a time sifting the Dy out in any kind of pure state. I suppose you couldn't subst.i.tute some other paramagnetic substance?”

”No,” said Aiken. ”We have a gadget called an ion concentrator that might help with your refining problem, however.”

”It might,” Tony snapped. ”But the problem's yours, not mine.”

Kuhal Earthshaker cuffed the metallurgist lightly, sending him to his knees. ”Remember to whom you speak, Lowlife! Your survival hangs by a thread!”

Tony only laughed. His golden torc and relatively fragile psyche would protect him against the more subtle manifestations of mental violence-as he knew very well from his years in Finiah. ”Go ahead and beat me!” he sneered. ”Fat lot of good I'll be to you if you crock up my cortex!”

Aiken nodded agreement. ”It was always friendly persuasion that kept you turning out the barium, wasn't it, Tony?”

”d.a.m.n right.”

”I want to be your friend, too,” said the King winningly. ”I won't have Lord Kuhal replace your golden torc with a grey or silver one if you give me your word of honour to work with us in a spirit of goodwill. I'm afraid you'll have to be kept under house arrest for the duration of the project, but that's more for your safety than anything else. You'll have free run of the Castle of Gla.s.s outside of working hours and whatever goodies your heart desires. When we get the Guderian device into operation, you can ask for whatever reward you like.”

”All I want,” said Tony forlornly, ”is to go home to my wife in Nionel.”