Part 89 (1/2)

Yotunag, they're called, and they're outside Sugoll's sway.

We've already lost Stosh Nowak and John-Henry King in raids on the mining camp. I wanted your personal authorization before we risk Tony. After all, you paid a high price for him.”

”Coo!” cried the metallurgist in vast alarm. ”Now wait just a d.a.m.n minute!”

The King fixed him with an icy gaze.

”Could you see that the refining is done properly if we send you to Fennoscandia?”

”I'm needed here!” Perspiration started out on Tony's forehead. ”I'm at a critical stage in the setup of the cladding device-the gizmo that'll actually make the wire!”

”Answer my question,” Aiken demanded. ”Could you get the pure metal, or couldn't you?”

”Probably,” Tony admitted sullenly.

”Right,” said Aiken. ”Start packing.” He turned on his heel and left the cubicle, with Hagen trailing after.

Hagen said, ”One of my people, Chee-Wu Chan, will be able to finish up the cladding device easily.”

”Good,” said the King. ”As long as I'm here, I'll do a quick inspection. See how you've settled in here at Gateway.” The door closed.

”Oh, b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l,” Tony moaned. He clutched his golden torc in both sweaty hands, seeking solace. ”Here I go again.”

In the cool of evening, the fisherman trolled for giant catfish from a dinghy being towed far astern of Kyllikki. The catfish were hardly the fighting fools that the Florida tarpon had been; but they routinely weighed in at 200 kilos and measured better than four metres in length. They were sc.r.a.ppy enough when their stomachs were empty at the start of a night's feeding cruise, and as a bonus, they were excellent eating.

Catfis.h.i.+ng was a quiet occupation, which suited the fisherman very well. With his small boat trailing out from under the thoughtproof screen, he could let his unaugmented farsight range about the Many-Coloured Land. There was also ample time for contemplation of his personal quandary, away from the increasing tensions aboard the schooner.

The matter had to be faced. Morale among his old a.s.sociates was deteriorating rapidly, as was inevitable once he let his own resolution waver. Too many of the Rebels found it difficult to recast the vision of Mental Man around Cloud and Hagen, from the lonely outpost in Fennoscandia. It was a cry from the heart that combined yearning for someone named Rowane with sundry curses upon the rare-earth element dysprosium.

Abruptly, the thought was cut off.

And a great catfish swallowed Marc's hook and set the reel screaming.

CHAPTER SEVEN.

Brother Anatoly picked the last of the Mangetout peas in the Black Crag garden and Elizabeth sat on a bench beneath a twisted stone pine, reweaving a hole in his brown-wool scapular.

They waited for Marc, who for reasons unspecified had asked to be met outdoors, and quarrelled over the friar's scandalous absolution of the arch-Rebel.

”Only a sentimental innocent would think that Marc Remillard repented of the Metapsychic Rebellion,” Elizabeth said.

”He'd do the same thing all over again without half a second's thought.”

”I keep forgetting what a great mind reader you are,” Anatoly said.

”And to absolve him when he didn't even confess-”

”Why do you think he made me stay there and listen to what he told his children? You expect a man like that to go down on his knees and say, 'Bless me, Brother'? So he did what his pride allowed him to do, the poor khuy, and if you were any kind of psychologist you'd know he's been sorry for twenty-seven years without knowing it.”