Part 5 (1/2)

His voice came out of a cabinet behind me

”Very well done, my dear Lord Grandrith I underestimated you I made certain that you were halfway up the mountain before I took off after you I didn't think you'd sneak all the way back down and attack !

”Hoell you've perforh! Don't you know I have only to press a button on this transceiver, and all four vehicles will explode, along with the re missiles in your truck?”

I froze Caliban had been listening in, perhaps even watching, and I did not think that he was lying

I said, ”If you blow me up, you also blow up Wilfred”

”Too bad!”

Behind roaned He rose unsteadily, one arm limp, his eyes as red as if his brain had burst He said, ”Not you, Doc! You were the only good man I ever knew I trusted you, Doc, even if you were a honky I loved you, Doc, like I never loved alips toopeacefully, without pressing that button, or do I have to end it all now and cheat both of us?”

”He means it! He'd kill us both!” Wilfred ht Doc has turned evil! He's a regular Jekyll and Hyde!”

”Shut up, Wilfred,” Caliban said emotionlessly

”My lord, I have to blow up the trucks and jeeps in any event One of ues, Ali Hamidu, has shi+nnied up a tree and scanned the scene with binoculars the power of which would astound even the scientists of this progressive century He reports that the Albanian and his Arabup on you They pulled the same trick you did, apparently I think they spotted you when you ca your touch? In any case, they see the light shi+ning froot out of the caot the ca chopped down! I' to explode the two jeeps first, and then the supply truck! You stay in the camper until then, and take off under cover of the smoke! When you do, run like hell! The caest explosion by far!”

An auto about fifty yards away The bullets stitched the dirt and then ran across a jeep Soht it was a co, because he wanted to take ot back into the ca up Wilfred secured the door and the s, and when the caht, he said, ”We're protected by double walls with fiber glass and steel wool insulation It'd take a direct hit fro the screen, which showed about thirty arh the bush I said, ”Didn't you seeup on you?”

Wilfred curled back his lips and clenched his teeth Then he said, ”You were born under a lucky star, bwana honky I atching a leopard over the next hill and I didn't see you at all When you got inside the caht you then You were too close Otherwise”

He paused, and then said, ”I got orders not to kill you, anyway, unless it's absolutely necessary”

The first explosion rocked the camper, but the noise was muffled The second came almost immediately after And the third two seconds later The last must have been the supply truck The camper seemed to lift up and tilt at the same time, and the blast half-deafened us If it had not been for the thick insulation, our eardrums would have been blown out

Wilfred leaped up and opened the door and plunged out into the heavy smoke and the flames He turned just before he disappeared and shouted at me I could not hear him, but I could read his lips

”Split, mother!”

16

I ran after Wilfred, but our courses diverged My goal was to get down the slope of the hill as far as possible and to put as many trees behind me as possible Wilfred had said there were ten missiles in the truck yet with a total explosive force equivalent to 400 pounds of TNT There would not be much left of the hilltop after Caliban pressed the button

I was about forty yards down the hill, out of the direct path of the blast, the greater energy of which would go upward Then I felt the pressure; I did not hear it I fleard; a tree sprang up; I becaained es of pain in my eardruinning to clear away The hilltop was gone Most of the trees, branchless, splintered, uprooted, were halfway down the hill One lay a foot from me A little more force behind it would have dropped the trunk, heavy as a great boulder, on ainst the current of my pain The moon was out behind the clouds now, and the sky seemed to be a peculiar shade of dark-blue No doubt, I was furnishi+ng the color, not the sky The leaves of the trees were a sinister green, and the earth was a repulsive yellow-green Everything was stretched, elongated, as if the world were a taut rubber band The energy gathered in this band aiting to be released whenreturned

I was unarmed and naked except for the belt with its sheath and the knife

Forty feet to my left, Wilfred lay face down I turned him over He had no visible wounds, but when I tore off his shi+rt, I saw on his lower back a bruise the size of a dinner plate The bruise ht feet up the hill fro I could not hear him, and it was too dark to read his lips I found a match-folder in his pocket and struck ato do, but I did not think there would be any living men around for so to say

The light was just enough for me to read his lips

”not with a whi, manain't life the shi+tstell that bronze catno fucking goodGod's a honky, you better believe it” and then, ”Mother!”

The last was not, I'm sure, a truncated pejorative It was the final appeal to one who had answered his first appeal

At that moment, I felt sad If I had been able to know him under other circumstances, and if he could have abandoned all the roup identity, then he and Itoo much of most humans, and,completely at ease when they're with me

This, I suppose, is my fault

I left him within and out of the mouth and the vultures would have plucked the eyes fro in the way of a weapon I set off at a trot with the intention of going back up the onally I suspected that Caliban was even now racing down the mountain to check on h those super-binoculars If I did lose him, I would do so only for a while Eventually, he would be onwhere I was going The two old h they probably did not know the about the Nine to them, since it was forbidden Also, he could take theo on alone It was also forbidden to bring outsiders any closer than fiftyabout this, and wishi+ng that my deafness would clear up soon, when a piece of bark flew off a tree about a foot toin that direction, I would have been unaware of it, and the shooter ht have been ht at that round and rolled beneath a bush in a slight hollow When I peeked out, I saw aa man with a burnoose, with a rifle The et up I jumped up to run away but by then Noli was only thirty feet away I put my arms up in the air; the automatic could not have missed I don't think he would have killed s

I did not kno he and the Arab had survived They must have been further down the hill when the first jeep went up and they had ot to the to me I shook my head and pointed at my ears He pointed at his own, and I kneas deaf, too The Arab must have been deaf, and Noli had probably shouted at him that I was to be taken alive Undoubtedly, the Arab had received orders to this effect er to revenge his fellows, he had fired at h to knock him out with the rifle, so he had been forced to kill him

He had to tie my hands and to do this required ive He solved his proble me over the head with the barrel of the rifle I ducked and so reduced soh

When I awoke, my head ached as if it had sucked in every pain in the area for fifty led and infected hand My eyes hurt as if the optic nerves had been extruded into the eye-balls My hands were connected behind me hat I later determan's noose was around my neck, and the other end of the rope was tied to the handcuff's chain My arms had been hauled up almost as far as they could behind me with the result that I pulled on the rope and choked h In this state, I could not test the strength of the handcuff's chain without stranglingthe daytins which told old And I would also tell him, when I was able, the secret ofseriously what most people considered to be a tale of fantasy He seemed to have done his research well, however, and was convinced that I had a hoard of gold somewhere in this area and that I really was 80 years old

The facts about me-some, anyway-are available to certain people The secret archives of overnes of facts and of speculations, about , Moscow, Paris, Rome, and other places I know about them because the Nine told overnent Or he was the for for the elixir for hiovernment really believed in the elixir

I transold He was elated at this, and, at the saone at least ato his demands