diff --git "a/data_all_eng_slimpj/shuffled/split2/finalzzsbvf" "b/data_all_eng_slimpj/shuffled/split2/finalzzsbvf" new file mode 100644--- /dev/null +++ "b/data_all_eng_slimpj/shuffled/split2/finalzzsbvf" @@ -0,0 +1,5 @@ +{"text":"\n\n\n\nProduced by Shaun Pinder, Haragos P\u00e1l and the Online\nDistributed Proofreading Team at http:\/\/www.pgdp.net (This\nfile was produced from images generously made available\nby The Internet Archive)\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration: \"The token of Hilda!\"]\n\n\n\n\n ULRIC THE JARL:\n\n A Story of the Penitent Thief.\n\n\n BY WILLIAM O. STODDARD.\n\n [Illustration]\n\n\n LONDON:\n\n CHARLES H. KELLY, 2, CASTLE STREET, CITY ROAD, E.C.;\n\n AND 26, PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C.\n\n 1899.\n\n\n\n\n [ENTERED AT STATIONERS' HALL.]\n\n\n HAYMAN, CHRISTY AND LILLY, LTD.,\n HATTON WORKS, 113-115, FARRINGDON ROAD, LONDON, E.C.\n\n\n\n\n CONTENTS\n\n\n CHAPTER PAGE\n\n I. Around the Viking House-fire 7\n\n II. The Going Out of the Ice 17\n\n III. The Launching of \"The Sword\" 22\n\n IV. The Ship \"The Sword\" and the Ice King 37\n\n V. The Unknown Thing 45\n\n VI. The Fall of the Ice King 53\n\n VII. The Living Sand 60\n\n VIII. The Saxon Shore 75\n\n IX. The Taking of the Trireme 86\n\n X. The Great Sacrifice of the Druids 96\n\n XI. The Passing of Lars the Old 108\n\n XII. Svein the Cunning Jarl 119\n\n XIII. Hilda of the Hundred Years 127\n\n XIV. The Jew and the Greek 136\n\n XV. The Storm in the Middle Sea 149\n\n XVI. The Dead God in Africa 165\n\n XVII. The Murmuring of the Men 181\n\n XVIII. The Evil Spirit on \"The Sword\" 193\n\n XIX. In the Night and in the Fire 202\n\n XX. Carmel and Esdraelon 214\n\n XXI. The Rabbi from Nazareth 225\n\n XXII. The Tomb Song of Sigurd 240\n\n XXIII. In a Place Apart at Night 255\n\n XXIV. The Passing of Oswald 266\n\n XXV. The Messenger of the Procurator 276\n\n XXVI. The Cunning of Julius 284\n\n XXVII. The Lion and the Tiger 296\n\n XXVIII. The Jarl and the Rabbi 307\n\n XXIX. Beautiful as Aphrodite 318\n\n XXX. The Javelin of Herod 330\n\n XXXI. The Places of Sacrifice 340\n\n XXXII. The Mob of Samaria 348\n\n XXXIII. The House of Pontius the Spearman 359\n\n XXXIV. The School of Gamaliel 371\n\n XXXV. In the Court of the Women 382\n\n XXXVI. The Secret Messenger 399\n\n XXXVII. The House of Ben Ezra 411\n\n XXXVIII. The Son of Abbas 422\n\n XXXIX. The Passover Feast 438\n\n XL. \"A Little While\" 448\n\n\n\n\n ILLUSTRATIONS\n\n\n FACING\n PAGE\n\n \"The token of Hilda!\" Frontispiece\n\n \"Go forth into the sea, O sword!\" 31\n\n \"Let him win it or perish!\" 176\n\n \"O companion of Hilda!\" 263\n\n \"O thou Jesus, of the sons of the gods!\" 313\n\n\n\n\n ULRIC THE JARL.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER I.\n\n AROUND THE VIKING HOUSE-FIRE.\n\n\nIn the Northland were the roots from which grew the great nations\nwhich now rule the earth. The tribes were many, but the principal\nrepresentative and the absorbent of their thoughts and their traditions\nmay receive from us the general name of Saxons. These were the\nswordsmen of the sea whom the Roman legionaries declared to be the\nhardest fighters they had met, whether on land or water.\n\nIn the Northland were also the germs of political and religious\nliberty, and here were to be found the first forms of our highest faith.\n\nBut the men of the old race sailed southward and then eastward, at the\nfirst, taking their gods with them. Not until centuries later did they\nmarch and conquer this far western world, but we, their children, still\ndevoutly believe that the great God came with them.\n\n * * * * *\n\nThe landward of a vast gray granite headland was thickly\ncovered with towering pine trees. Beyond them, inland, lay a snowy\nvalley without woods, and beyond that arose a blue and misty range of\nmountains. There were no trees upon the summit of the headland; only\nbare rocks, storm worn and deeply furrowed, were uplifted to meet the\nbitter wind that swept down over the flinty ice covering of the North\nSea from the yet colder winter which was manufacturing icebergs within\nthe arctic circle. Sheer down, hundreds of feet, the perpendicular\nface of the cliff smote sharply the glittering level that stretched\naway westerly over the sea to the horizon, while an arm of it pushed\nin eastward over the fettered waters of a deep and gloomy fiord,\nrock-bordered.\n\nHere would evidently be a good harbor in summer, when the waters should\nbe free, but now it had a forbidding, dangerous look, and out of the\nfiord poured continually a volume of roaring sound, the solemn organry\nof the wind playing upon the icy and rocky reflectors.\n\nThere was another gigantic sea cliff at a distance of about a mile down\nthe shore, southerly. Between that and the headland the ice line curved\nraggedly inward along the lines of a sheltered cove, which might at\nanother season provide a landing place. Midway, and at the head of the\ncove, there lay, propped up on either side by timbers, the bare hull of\na well-made vessel. It was of goodly size, being over thirty paces in\nlength and of full six paces in width at its middle. At the prow and\nat the stern it was high built, with short decks, under which was room\nfor stowage and for the sheltered sleeping of men. It was lower made\namidships, where were both seats and standing room for rowers, and on\neither side were twenty thole pins. In appearance the hull was somewhat\nflat-bottomed, but it had a keel. At the center arose a stout, high\nmast, but upon it there was yet neither yard nor boom nor sail. Both\nprow and stern were sharply made. Evident was it that she was new and\nhad never yet floated. Her outline was of much beauty, and all her\ntimbers and planks were heavy and strong, that she might battle with\nrough seas and with the ice cakes of the spring breaking. From her prow\nprojected a beak of firmly clamped and tenoned oak, faced and pointed\nwith iron, that she might break not only the waves, but the ribs of\nother ships. All around her and in some parts over her lay the white\nsnow, deeply drifted, but wherever the woodwork was uncovered there\ncould be seen much of skillful carving and smooth polishing.\n\nAt other places along the curve of the cove there were boats and ships,\nlarger and smaller. All were hauled up above high-water mark, and snow\nwas on them. The larger craft seemed to be stanch and seaworthy, but\nnot any of them were equal in size or in strength or in beauty to the\nnew warship.\n\nUpon a straight line inland a hundred fathoms, as if the iron beak were\npointing at it, stood a long, low, irregular building of wood with high\nridged roofs, in which were wide holes at the ridges. From these holes,\nas if they were instead of chimneys, columns of blue smoke were rising\nto be whirled away by the wind. Stonework or brickwork was not to be\nseen. Through the strong timber walls, under the projecting eaves, were\nmany openings, equally cut, window-like, for the entrance of light and\nair on sunny days, but these all were now closed by wooden shutters,\nsome of which were braced from without. The timbers of the house walls\nwere cleanly hewn and skillfully fitted, and they were tightly calked\nwith moss and tempered clay. The roofs were of shingles riven from the\npine trees.\n\nBeyond, landward, there were smaller, ruder structures for the shelter\nof horses, cattle, sheep, and swine, and there were many ricks of hay\nand straw and of yet unthreshed grain. In either direction around the\ncove and scattered irregularly up the valley were a number of less\nextensive buildings for the abode of men. Some of these were mere\nhuts, built ruggedly of timber and unhewn stone. From every roof was\nthere blue smoke rising to testify that there were no empty houses in\nthis seashore village of the vikings. Around the central cluster of\nbuildings there were palisades, but except for these there were no\nsigns of fortifications. It was as if there need be little fear of the\ncoming of any foeman.\n\nBitter and cold and strong was the windstorm that blew across the icy\nsea and smote upon the swaying crowns of the pine forest and howled\namong the bare boughs of the oaks. It came and knocked at the great\ndoor in the front of the house pointed at by the beak which was the\nforefinger of the ship.\n\nThe door swung open for a moment and then it closed, but in that moment\nthere rang out loud voices of rude song and the twanging of sonorous\nharp strings. Also a great blast of fresh, pure air rushed eagerly\ninto the house, where it was much needed. Not but that the vast room,\nlow-walled, high-roofed, was fairly well ventilated in many other ways,\nbut the fire in the middle of its earthen floor was blazing vigorously,\nand not all the smoke might readily escape at the round gap in the roof\nridge over it. Now and then, indeed, the wind blew rudely down through\nthat aperture and sent the smoke clouds eddying murkily among the\nrafters.\n\nBut for the fire blaze and for sundry swinging cressets filled with\nburning pine knots the great hall would have been gloomily dark, but\nthese lights were enough, in spite of the smoke clouds, to show many\nthings which told of what sort this place might be. So also might be\nplainly noted the faces and the forms of the men who sat or stood\naround the fire, or who lay upon the bearskins and the wolfskins that\nwere scattered here and there upon the earth floor and upon the wooden\nsettles along the walls.\n\nA broad table ran across a raised dais at one end of the room, and on\nthis were not only pitchers and mugs of earthenware variously molded,\nwith many drinking horns, but there were also tankards and goblets and\nsalvers of silver, richly designed and graven by the artisans of other\nlands than this. Of the articles of furniture for different uses some\nfew had an appearance of having been brought from far, but the great,\nhigh-backed oaken throne chair behind the long table, at its center,\nwas rich with the grotesquely elaborate carvings of the old North\npeople. On the walls hung shields and arms and armor of many patterns.\nThe steel caps of the vikings hung side by side with visored helmets\nthat told of Greece and Rome and of lands yet further east. There were\nmany men in the room. Some of them were scarred old warriors, but there\nwere youths of all ages above mere boyhood. Likewise were there numbers\nof women.\n\nAs central as was the fire itself were three figures which seemed to\nattract and divide the attention of all the others. On the side of the\nfire toward the door towered one who looked a very embodiment of the\nwarlike young manhood of the race of Odin. His blond beard and mustache\nwere full but not yet heavy. His complexion was fair, notwithstanding\nits weather bronzing, and his steel-blue eyes seemed both to flash and\nto laugh as he stood with folded arms and listened. His dress was\nsimple. His shoes, that arose above his ankles, were well made. Above\nthem were leggings of tanned leather, and he wore a tunic of thick,\nblue woolen cloth. He was unarmed except for the slightly curved,\nbroad-bladed seax in its sheath that hung from his belt. Its blade\nwas not more than a cubit in length. It was sharp on one edge only,\nand it was heavy. The steel hilt and the crosspiece were thick, for\na good grip. It was a weapon terrible to meet if it were in the hand\nof an athlete like this--more than six feet in height, deep-chested,\nlithe and quick of motion--and already the short seax had won for its\nbearers, the Saxons, a dreaded name among all the peoples of the south\ncountries to which their swift keels had carried them.\n\nAt the left of the fire was a large, high-backed chair made of some\nwood which had become almost black with age and smoke. It was not now\noccupied, but in front of it stood the form of a woman, straight as a\npine and taller than any of the men around her. Her face was swarthy,\ndeeply marked, haughty, and her abundant hair fell disheveled down to\nher waist, as white as the drifts upon the mountains. She was clad in\na robe of undyed, grayish wool, falling loosely to her feet. On these\nwere socks and buskins, but her lean, sinewy arms were bare as she\nstretched them out, waving her gnarled old hands in time to the cadence\nof a semimetrical recitation. She spoke in the old Norse tongue, with\na voice upon whose power and mellowness time seemed to have had little\neffect. Every head in the hall bent toward her, as if her words were a\nfascination to her hearers, and none willed to interrupt her.\n\nWeird and wild was the chant of the old saga woman, and the fire in\nher piercing black eyes brightened and dulled or almost went out as she\nsang on, from myth to myth, of the mystical symbolisms of the intensely\npoetic and imaginative North. Gods and demigods and goddesses, heroes\nand heroines, earth forces and spiritual powers, dwarf and giant, gnome\nand goblin, fate maidens, werewolves, serpent lore, the nether frost\nfires, the long night of the utter darkness, the twilight of the gods,\nthe eternal hall of the slain, the city of Asgard--long and wonderful\nwas the saga song of the white-haired woman who had, it was said, seen\nthe ice of more than fivescore winters float out of the North Sea.\n\nShe ceased speaking and sank back into the chair as if all life had\ngone out of her. Rigid and motionless she sat, and there was no light\nin her eyes, but none went near her, nor did any speak. There was\nindeed a momentary outburst of approval, but it hushed itself. Even a\nfierce laugh that came to the lips of the tall young warrior died away\nhalf uttered.\n\nAlmost at the same moment another sound began to fill the hall. It\ncame, at the first, from a large harp that stood a few paces back from\nthe fire. Over the strings of this harp were wandering the long, bony\nfingers of a pair of gigantic hands, while behind it, on a low stool,\nswayed and twisted a form whose breadth of shoulder and length of arm\nwere out of all proportion to its height. The head was bald except for\na fringe of reddish-gray hair above the ears. The face was scarred and\nseamed to distortion, the right eye having been extinguished by a sword\nstroke which, by its furrow, must have half cloven the frontal bone.\nAge was indicated by the tangled gray beard which floated down below\nthe belt, but not in the powerful, rich-toned voice of the harper, for\nthe smoke seemed to eddy and the fire to dance as the harp twanged more\nloudly, and then there came to join it a burst of stormy song--a song\nof battles on the land and on the sea; a song of the mighty deeds done\nby the warriors of old time; a song of fierce and stirring incitement\nto the performance of similar feats by those who listened.\n\nThe harp grew then more softly musical, for he sang of the blue waves\nand the sunny shores of the southern seas; of their islands of beauty;\nof their harbors of peace and their cities of splendor; of temples and\ncastles; of gold and silver and gems; but he seemed to drift beyond all\nthese into a song of something beautiful, which yet was vague and far\naway and indescribable. His thought and word concerning it became like\na refrain, until the minds of all who heard were filled with ideas of\nthe dim and unattainable glory of the land of heroes, the city of the\ngods, the return of the White One, and the rising of the sun that will\nnever set. Like deep answering unto deep were the last utterances of\nharp and harper, and as they suddenly ceased the tall young warrior\nstepped forward two paces and cried loudly:\n\n\"O Hilda! wise woman of the hundred winters, if this is indeed to be\nthy last----\"\n\n\"I shall go out with the spring flood,\" she said, interrupting him,\n\"but thou wilt be upon the sea when they lay me in the cleft between\nthe rocks.\"\n\n\"I will go forth as thou sayest,\" he responded. \"Am I not of the sons\nof the gods? I will sail as my father sailed and as Oswald has sung. I\nwill crush, like him, the galleys of the Romans. I will look upon the\ncities of the east and of the south. I am of Odin's line. I will go\nout in the good ship _The Sword_, and will sail until I see the hero\ngod and the city of the gods and the land of the living sun.\"\n\nLoud now rang the shouts of approval from the bearded vikings as they\nsprang to their feet and began to crowd around their young leader.\n\n\"Go, O Ulric, son of Odin! Sail on into the sunset and the farther\nsea!\" came trumpetlike from the white lips of Hilda.\n\nLow sounds arose, too, from the strings of the harp, but the door swung\nsuddenly open and upon the threshold stood a man garbed in wolfskins.\n\n\"Hael, Ulric the Jarl!\" he shouted, and there were many exclamations\nhere and there around the room.\n\n\"Hael, Wulf the Skater!\" heartily responded Ulric. \"What bringest thou?\"\n\n\"Good tidings!\" replied Wulf, joyously, stepping forward. \"I came down\nthe mountain slide and across the fiord. No other foot will cross\nit this season. During days the ice hath weakened and now the wind\nis changing southerly. There is already a rift in the sky. O son of\nBrander the Brave, be thou ready for the spring outing!\"\n\n\"Odin!\" shouted Ulric. \"Keels for the open sea! Hael to the cruise of\n_The Sword_! Hael to the bright south! And I, Ulric the Jarl, I of the\nsons of the gods, I will go out and I will not return until I have\nlooked into the face of one of the gods. And he will know me, and he\nwill take me by the hand, and he will bid me walk with him into the\ncity of the living sun!\"\n\nGlad were the hearts of all the vikings as they heard, and with one\naccord they shouted loudly:\n\n\"Hael to Ulric the Jarl! Hael to the cruise of _The Sword_! We are his\nmen and with him we will go!\"\n\nLong had been the winter and slow had been the coming of the change for\nwhich men waited. Welcome was Wulf the Skater, but Oswald's fingers\nwere slowly busy among the strings of his harp, and they found strange\nsounds which came out one by one.\n\n\"The message of the harp!\" muttered Hilda. \"It is like the moaning of\nthe sea in the fiord in the long night.\"\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER II.\n\n THE GOING OUT OF THE ICE.\n\n\nWulf the Skater brought true tidings to the house of Ulric, the son of\nBrander the Brave, on the day of Saturn. Winter was ending. The word\npassed on from house to house until all in the village came out and\nlooked upward, seeking for the blue rift in the sky. The wind blew not\nnow as in the morning. The north wind had gone elsewhere, and instead\nthere came up from the south a breathing which was fitful and faint at\nfirst. It was cool, also, from having touched the frost faces on its\nway. Only one more hour went by and the sky was almost clear, so that\nthe sun shone down unhindered and his heat was surprisingly strong.\n\nThe south wind grew warmer and more vigorous toward sunset, but with\nhim now came a fog so dense that no man cared to go out into it; for if\nhe did, it was as though darkness touched him. All through the evening\nthe south wind sighed softly among the homes of the vikings, and went\nwandering up the fiords, and felt its way, shivering, across the flinty\nlevels of the frozen sea, but toward the morning of the day of the sun\nthe breeze brought with it, also, to help it, a copious warm rain.\nBefore the noon torrents were leaping down the sides of the mountains\nand the sea was beginning to groan and heave and struggle in its effort\nto take off and put away its winter mail.\n\n\"Harken!\" said Oswald, the harper, as he sat by the now smoldering fire\nin the hall of Ulric's house.\n\n\"I hear,\" said Hilda from her place on the other side of the ash heap.\n\"It is the last time that I shall listen to the song of the outing ice,\nbut I shall feel the wind from the sun land and I shall see the grass\ngreen in the valley before I go. There will be buds on the trees when\nI pass down into the earth to meet my kindred. O what a realm is that!\nThe land of shadows. The under world which has the sod for a roof. But\nthe old runes on the rocks tell of wide places. One may travel far in\nthat land, and where I may go I know not.\"\n\nThe gnarled fingers of Oswald were searching among the strings of his\nharp, but only discords answered his touches.\n\n\"I have heard,\" he said, \"that they hang their shields on the roots of\nthe trees, and they see as we see in a twilight. I think I have heard\nthem harping in the summer nights, when the moon was full and the wind\nwas in the pines. I would that my own harp might be buried with me.\"\n\n\"No need,\" said Hilda. \"They have better harps than thine. They will\ngive thee one. It is well that the weapons of a warrior should be\nplaced beside him in his tomb, but they must be marred in token that he\nuseth them no more. He hath left others for his kinsmen. There are many\ngood swords in the old tombs. One day they will all be opened and the\nblades will be found.\"\n\n\"And also much treasure,\" grumbled Oswald; but his harp twanged angrily\nas he said it, for he had ever been a man to hold fast anything in\nthe shape of coined money or of precious metal. Many were said to be\nthe outland coins in his leather bag in his room at the southerly\nend of the house. He had sometimes shown them to inquiring folk, but\ngrudgingly, and he had always tied them up again tightly, as if he\nfeared that there might be a thief even among the vikings.\n\nHilda arose and walked slowly across the room to the open door. She\nlooked toward the sea, but the mist and the rain were a curtain.\n\n\"Hammers!\" she said. \"I can hear them. Ulric and his men are at work\nupon the ship. She will be ready to launch when the ice goeth out. She\nwill sail to the Middle Sea, but when I look for her I cannot see her\ncome again.\"\n\nOnce more she turned, and this time her slow and stately march carried\nher to the farther end of the hall, on the dais, where many suits of\narmor were hanging. She went straight to one of these and she touched\nit, piece by piece, while Oswald leaned upon his harp and watched her.\n\n\"When the hour was upon me,\" she said, \"I saw the son of Brander in\nbattle, and the men upon whom his ax was falling bore shields like\nthis. There were dark men with them, wearing turbans. It is well. I\nthink that at the end of this cruise he will come to me where I am. It\nwere no shame to his father's son that the valkyrias, when they come to\ncall the hero to Valhalla, should find him circled with slain Romans.\nBrander the Sea King took these arms for his trophies in the great\nfight off the coast of Britain. He drove the Roman galley ashore. He\nburned it with fire. Not one Roman escaped.\"\n\n\"I have seen Britain,\" muttered Oswald.\n\n\"Brander the Brave liked Britain well,\" continued Hilda. \"It is a fair\nland, he said. If he could take more men with him, he would drive out\nof it the Romans and the Britons and keep it. But he said they have no\ngood winters there, and the summers are all too long. It would be no\nland for me. What would I do in an island where the fiords do not shut\nup at the right season? I should perish!\"\n\nVery thoughtful was the face of the tall daughter of the Northland as\nshe passed along, inspecting the armor and talking to herself about its\nvaried history. Some of it had been won in fights with far-away peoples\nbefore she was born, but more of it had been brought into that hall\nbefore her eyes, and she had heard the bringers tell the tales which\nbelonged to its pieces and to the swords and spears. Now, therefore,\nhanging there on the wall, the war treasures of the house of Brander\nwere page-marks for her memory, and she also was a book of the old\nhistory of the Northmen from the days of the gods to this hour of her\nown closing.\n\nSwiftly went by the day of rain and thaw, but their work was tenfold in\nthe night which followed it. The rain fell on the roof in increasing\nabundance, and the wind threw it with force against the sides of the\nhouse. The torrents on the mountains grew into small swift rivers, and\nthey made a continual loud sound of rushing water; but that was not the\ntumult which so filled the air and smote upon the ear. All other sounds\nwere overborne by the booming and groaning of the ice and by the roar\nwith which its loosened edges ground against the granite cliffs in the\nfiords.\n\nThe day of Saturn had been a day of frost and snow and storm until near\nits close. The day of the sun had brought the sun's breath from his\nown land and his smile into the sky, and he had slain the winter at a\nblow. The morrow would be the day of the moon, and before its arrival\ncame now this night of such uproar that Oswald did not care to touch\nhis harp, and the vikings mended their armor and sharpened their swords\nin silence. Hilda also was long silent, nor had Ulric the Jarl spoken\naught that could be heard by all. When at last his voice arose, and men\nput by their work to hear, he gave answer to a question of Tostig the\nRed.\n\n\"Aye!\" he said loudly, \"the ship is ready from stem to stern. We will\nlaunch her behind the ice as it leaveth the shore. We will follow the\nfloes as the tides bear them southward; ever do they melt as they go.\nSo shall no other ship sail before us, and we shall be the first of all\nkeels from the Northland, this year, among the islands of the Middle\nSea.\"\n\nFiercely twanged the harp of Oswald and loud rang the shouts of the men\nwho heard the young jarl speak his purpose, but before the harp could\nsound again Hilda arose in her place.\n\n\"Son of Brander,\" she said, \"thou wilt go. Thou wilt see many things.\nAll day have I been watching thy path, and the clouds are over it. In\nthis thing that I now tell thee, do thou as did thy father: crush the\nkeels of Rome in the seas of Britain and smite the men of Rome on the\nBritish island. And in the end of all thou wilt die, as did thy father,\nat the hand of a spearman of C\u00e6sar.\"\n\n\"So be it,\" shouted Ulric, with a laugh on his lips and a flash of fire\nin his bold, bright eyes; \"I ask no better!\"\n\nHe said no more, but seated himself and began to sharpen his seax on a\nsmooth, hard stone.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER III.\n\n THE LAUNCHING OF \"THE SWORD.\"\n\n\nThe day of the moon, the second day of the week, dawned brightly over\nthe village of the vikings. The faces of the cliffs along the shores of\nthe Northland boomed back continuous echoes of the thunderous reports\nof the splitting ice. The frost had been strong, and the winter mail\nof the sea was thick and hard, but the sun and the lifting tides and\nall the torrents from the mountains made a league, and they were more\npowerful than was the ice. The south wind also helped them.\n\nAll the hours since Wulf the Skater brought the news of the coming\nthaw had been spent by Ulric and his men in getting the good ship\n_The Sword_ ready for the water. No room in her was to be wasted, and\nher hollow, to her very keel, was now closely packed with provisions,\ntaking the place of other ballasting. There were tightly stowed barrels\nof pork and beef, and there were bags and boxes of hard bread, and\ncasks of ale and casks of water. Over the greater part of these were\nplanks fastened down like a deck, for the voyage to be undertaken\npromised to be long, and all except provisions for immediate use must\nbe sealed until a day of need.\n\nThe seats of the rowers were all in, and the short oars, and also the\nlong oars, which a man would stand erect to pull with. The small boats\nwere fastened upon the half decks, fore and aft. The mast was now\nstayed and rigged and the spars and the sail had been swung in their\nplaces. Not of woven stuff was the sail, but of many well-dressed skins\nof leather, that it might toughly withstand any gale.\n\nThere were twenty oars on a side, and the crew who were to do the\nrowing, taking their turns, had been carefully selected during the\nwinter. Their war shields were hung along the bulwarks, and they placed\nthem there with great pride. The chosen men who lived further inland\nwere now arriving, and they were as eager as were the men who dwelt\non the shore. Stalwart and high-hearted were all the vikings who were\nto sail in _The Sword_. Among them were veterans who had fought under\nBrander the Brave, the father of Ulric, and others were youths who were\nnow going out for their first venture in distant seas. Great store\nof weapons went on board, for there had been much making of bows and\narrows and swords and spears and shields all winter. So the gray-headed\nand caretaking warriors declared that the ship was exceedingly well\nprovided.\n\nAt the dawn of the day of the moon Ulric the Jarl stood at high-water\nmark looking seaward.\n\n\"As the tide turneth I shall know,\" he said to those who were with him.\n\"The flood hath lifted the ice, but the ebb must lower it. _The Sword_\nwill be launched at the next high tide if the outing is good.\"\n\nThat might be toward the evening, and word went out so that all might\nbe ready.\n\nThe ship as yet bore no flag, but on the forward half deck stood a\ngreat anvil, carved finely of oak and blackened, and upon the anvil was\nfastened a massive hammer, made in like manner, that Thor the Great,\nthe god of war, the smith god, might go with _The Sword_ into any\nbattle. Now could more fully be seen the carvings and the gildings and\nthe many rich ornamentations which had been lavished upon the ship, and\nmen who now saw her for the first time marveled at her beauty and at\nthe strength of her timbers.\n\n\"Larger ships have been,\" they said, \"but not many, nor was there ever\none that gave better promise of bearing well the shock of another ship\nor the stroke of an ice floe.\"\n\nAll day the sound of harping could be heard in the house, for other\nharpers besides Oswald were now there, and they played and sang in a\nrivalry with each other. Hilda was not to be seen. It was said that\nshe had shut herself up in her own room and would have none speak with\nher. Although the house was thronged, there were none who thought well\nto disturb her. Not many, indeed, were curious enough to pass near\nthe closed door behind which she was believed to be looking into the\ntwilight where the gods live, and out of which come those whose shadows\ndarken the woods at times and whose voices are heard in the night as\nthey talk to one another across the fiords.\n\nThe noon came and at low tide the ice edge was out twenty fathoms\nfrom the shore, leaving clear water behind it. If it should shove in\nagain, there would be no launching, but as the ebb ceased there came an\nunexpected help. A mighty drift of snow and ice had formed, in early\nwinter, hundreds of feet above the level, and yet in a hollow of the\nhigh mountain at the head of the fiord. Hard and strong was the grasp\nof this glacier upon the rocks and trees at its sides, but under it was\na stream which had been covered, though not entirely closed. Above and\nbeyond was now a lake of melted snow, and the water from it was forcing\nits way under the glacier by that rivulet channel, mining, mining,\nmining, until its work was done.\n\nThere was a great sound of breaking, a sound that was sharp, rasping,\nshrieking, as if the mountain uttered a great cry to see the glacier\ntear itself free and spring forward. The screams of a gier-eagle,\nstartled from the withered pine tree on the summit, answered the scream\nof the mountain. Down, down, faster and faster, to the sheer precipice\nat the face of the fiord, and then the glacier itself uttered an awful\nroar as it leaped headlong from the cliff. A thunderous boom responded\nfrom the smitten face of the ice, and through the clefts that were\nmade in all directions the freed salt water bounded high into the\nsunshine, which it had not seen since it was imprisoned in the dark by\nthe winter. The entire mass went over, and with it went the bowlders,\nearth, and trees which it had rent off and brought away. The blow which\nit struck was as a blow from the hammer of Thor, and a vast wave rolled\nout of the fiord, breaking the nearer ice as it went and splitting\nsquare miles of the sea face beyond into floes of a right size for\ndrifting. Out slipped the ice edge at the cove, a hundred fathoms\nfurther. In it came again angrily, but only to retreat once more and\nleave a wider, surer harbor for _The Sword_ to dip her keel into when\nher launching hour should come.\n\nAll things were ready, both at the house and on the shore, when Oswald\nleft his harp to go and speak to one of the maidens, of whom were many\ncome to see the warriors depart.\n\n\"Go thou to Hilda,\" he said. \"Say to her that shortly she will be\nneeded at the ship.\"\n\n\"Come,\" said the maiden to other women who were near her, for she cared\nnot to go alone.\n\nTruly it was not far to go and come, stepped they never so slowly, and\nthey soon brought back word that her door was open, but Hilda they did\nnot find, nor did any know whither she had gone.\n\n\"So?\" said Oswald, thoughtfully. \"Pass thou on, then, and tell this to\nUlric, the son of Brander, for he will understand. Bid Wulf the Skater\nand Tostig the Red that they come now to me.\"\n\nHastily went the maiden, for of this errand she had no fear.\n\nOn the summit of a low hill not more than half a mile from the house\nwas a great heap of stones. Around it, in an oval, standing like\nwatchful sentries, were many great stones, tall and upright. Upon the\nfaces of these uprights were chiseled words in the old runes. A path\nthat led to this hill had been kept open during the winter, and when\nHilda left the house, with none to mark her going, she had walked\nalong this path. The snow in it was soft, taking footprints, and Hilda\nstooped, looking closely at some which were already there. She followed\nthem until they ceased at the heap of stones. She smiled and bowed her\nhead approvingly.\n\n\"Ulric hath been here,\" she said. \"He hath spoken to his father at the\ntomb. The son of the hero will himself be a hero. There is no other\nlike him among the young branches of the tree of Odin.\"\n\nStrong affection sounded in her words concerning the youthful head of\nthe ancient house of Brander the Brave. A flush came for a moment\ninto her withered face, and she stood in silence gazing at the tomb.\nSlowly her arms arose, waving, and her lips opened in a recitative that\nsounded like a song, wherein she was speaking to the father of Ulric\nand to other names than his, calling them her kindred. Louder, more\nweird, mournful, thrilling, grew the tomb song of the old saga woman.\nBut it suddenly ceased, for to her came a response from one that stood\nupon the crest of the central heap of stones.\n\nNot in any human voice of the dead or of the living was her answer,\nbut from the gaunt and grisly shape of a large gray she-wolf,\nfamished-looking, that stood there, snapping fiercely her bloody jaws\nand gazing at Hilda. Then lifted the wolf her head to send forth a\nlong-drawn, wailing howl.\n\nThe long, late winter had been a hard one for all wolves and for other\nwild beasts, for against them the sheepfolds had been well guarded.\nAnd now this hunger-driven monster from the mountains had taken her\nopportunity to venture in almost to the village, finding this day a\nflock without a shepherd. She had ravaged unfought, and now she was\nhere upon the tomb of Brander. Her presence there was as if she had\nbeen a written message to Hilda.\n\n\"Art thou here?\" she exclaimed. \"Aye! Thou art as I saw thee at the\nhouse. Thou art the name of Rome, O bloody mouth! Scourge of the world!\nCurse of all nations! Hungry one! The swords of the Northmen shall yet\nsmite the cubs of the she-wolf in their own den.\"\n\nA sharp, harsh bark, another howl, and a snapping of jaws replied to\nher and then the she-wolf sprang away, disappearing beyond the tomb,\nbut Hilda turned and walked houseward along the path, muttering low as\nshe went.\n\nWhen Tostig the Red and Wulf the Skater came to Oswald, the harper, he\ngave them an errand, for they at once went away together to one of the\nbest made of the stables in the rear of the house. They had not yet\nreturned when Hilda walked past the house and on down to the beach. All\nmen knew that the right hour for the launching of _The Sword_ had come\nwhen Hilda came and stood at the prow of the vessel, laying her hand\nupon it.\n\nShe spoke then but few words, pointing at the heaps of driftwood and\nloose pieces of timber which were there and giving her commands. Those\nwho heard her began to gather all this wood into a great heap. It was\nmore like two heaps, for there was left a bare spot in the middle large\nenough for a yawlboat to have been lodged therein.\n\nUlric, the son of Brander, came and stood by Hilda, and as she looked\nat him the color arose again into her face and a kindly light kindled\nin her eyes. He also smiled at her very lovingly. She spoke a word\nthat none else heard, and he blew three long, powerful blasts upon his\nwar horn. From all directions came in haste the vikings and the other\nshore people and the upland people, both the old and the young, men and\nwomen. From the house came all who were in it. Oswald and the other\nharpers marched to the beach together, bringing their harps.\n\nNow from the stables beyond the house came Tostig the Red and Wulf the\nSkater leading between them, whether he would or not, the snow-white\ncolt which at two years seemed large for a four-year-old, but which\nas yet had neither been bridled nor mounted. That was partly because\nof the spirit that was in him; for none but Ulric or Hilda would he\nwillingly let lay a hand upon him, and his eyes now grew red as if he\nwere fretted overmuch. As he was led along he reared and plunged and\nsnorted furiously, but Tostig and Wulf were strong men and they brought\nhim to the heap of wood and in front of the hollow in its middle.\n\nHilda had brought with her a long polished staff of ash wood, which\nhad something of woven cloth stuff wrapped closely around it. Now she\nmade a sign to Oswald and he struck his harp. So did the other harpers,\nfollowing him, and the sound of their music stirred the blood of all\nwho heard, so that the men shouted and clashed their spears upon their\nshields. Then ceased all the harps but that of Oswald, and he sang a\nsong of war which called upon Odin and all the gods to sail with their\nship, _The Sword_, and give her a successful cruise, with many battles\nand much blood and great plundering and many burnings of the ships and\nof the strongholds of foemen.\n\nThe tide was rising fast, but the ice came no nearer the shore, and it\nwas seen that there would be free searoom for the launching. All things\nelse were ready for this, and the launchers with their hammers and\ntheir handspikes were prepared to go to their places. Oswald ended his\nsong and all looked at Hilda. She did not at once speak, and her face\ngrew ghastly as the face of one from whom life had departed. Taller she\nseemed as she raised her right hand and pointed to the colt.\n\n\"Ulric the Jarl,\" she said, in a hollow voice, but clear, \"son of\nBrander the Brave, heir of the old house of the sea kings, son in the\ntrue line of the hero gods and of Odin, slay now the white horse of\nthe Saxons and launch thy keel into the sea!\"\n\nTostig and Wulf forced back the plunging colt into the hollow between\nthe heaps, and Ulric walked forward, drawing his seax as he went. He\nput his left hand upon the face of the colt and it stood still, looking\nat him and neighing gently, while at every corner of the heaps torches\nof blazing pine were thrust quickly in by old women named for that duty\nby Hilda.\n\nShe had walked away to a little distance from the ship, and she stood\nnow between the sea and the land, upon a spot where the sand was dry\nand smooth. Upon this she drew runes with the point of the staff that\nwas in her hand, all the while chanting a saga which none of those who\nheard her could understand, except that they knew in it the names of\nthe gods.\n\n\"Son of Odin,\" she shouted, \"strike!\"\n\n\"Odin!\" responded Ulric, as he drove his seax to the hilt into the\nbreast and through the heart of the colt.\n\nIt gave one cry that sounded like a human voice in sudden despair. It\nmade one plunging struggle, restrained by Ulric, and then the beautiful\nanimal lay quivering in the hollow. At once a heap of fuel was piled in\nfront of it, concealing the sacrifice to Odin, and the long fingers of\nthe fire seized rapidly upon the dry pine and the cedar and the firwood.\n\nLoudly sounded the harps. Loud was the song in which all voices were\njoining. Out of the fiord came booming a great roar of the sea, for he\nwas smiting his crags and dashing the floes of ice against the granite\nfaces.\n\n[Illustration: \"Go forth into the sea, O sword!\"]\n\nHilda came again to the ship, unfolding as she walked that which\nwas wrapped around her staff, and the south wind that was blowing blew\nit out so that all might see. It was a great banner, for a battlefield\nor for the mast of a warship. It was black, and upon it, fully half\nthe size of the colt which had been slain, was painted the sign of\nthe race of Brander, only to be carried before chiefs of Odin's line,\nthe White Horse of the Saxons. Hilda placed the staff in the hands of\nUlric, and he at once sprang on board the ship. He blew a blast of his\nwar horn, and in a moment all the launchers were at their stations.\nAnother blast, and all the rowers came on board and took their seats,\ntaking hold of the short oars, ready to dip them, while tenscore more\nof vikings, fully mailed and armed, followed and posted themselves\nfore and aft, spear and shield and ax in hand. Ulric the Jarl stood by\nthe hammer of Thor on the fore deck and raised his horn again. At this\nthird blast, as he blew it, the launchers hammered hard and plied their\nhandspikes and their levers.\n\n\"Go forth into the sea, O _Sword_!\" shouted Hilda. \"Thy beak shall\nbreak the ribs of the triremes and thy keel shall plow the seas of the\nsouth!\"\n\nOut sprang the vessel, so deftly shaped, so strongly made, so well\nmanned, and into the sea she glided, while Ulric, the son of Brander,\nlifted high the standard and sounded again his war horn. Every harp\ntwanged its loudest, and every horn on board the ship and on the shore,\nand every voice, joined in the shout of joy that hailed so successful a\nlaunching.\n\n_The Sword_ was now upon the sea, floating at the end of her shore\nhawser, while the crew lowered her anchors from the prow and stern. On\nthe shore the fire flared upward like the streamers in the northern\nsky in winter.\n\nThe pallor on Hilda's face grew ghastlier still, and she walked to the\nhouse, forbidding any to come with her. As she went she muttered:\n\n\"Beautiful is the son of Brander, my boy! my hero! I love him as if I\nwere his mother. Alas, she is not here to love him! O, I am old and it\nmay be that I see not that which I seem to see when my eyes are opened.\nNot so! Him I shall look upon no more, nor upon the ship. I go, for I\nam very old. But I would that the young hero might not go down so soon.\nI would that he might win love and that he might bring home a bride,\nlest the race of Brander the Sea King should die with him. The gods be\nhis guard where he goeth and the valkyrias find him not for a season!\"\n\nSo the lonely old woman went into the house and went to her own room.\nShe had seen the launching of _The Sword_, and the ship was to go out\nwith the outing ice.\n\nRocking at her anchor lay she now, and all along the shore were men and\nwomen who rejoiced to look upon her and to think her the most perfect\nship that had ever been built on the coast of the Northland. The fire\nwas blazing high above the sacrifice to the gods, for many hands were\nready to put on fuel, from time to time, and all knew that it must burn\nuntil _The Sword_ should be out of sight.\n\nIt was when the sun was sinking, and the waves were washing gently and\nmurmuring low along the beach because of the softness of the warm wind\nfrom the south, that Hilda came again, walking hastily. Her head was\ncovered with her hood, and they saw not her face, but she spoke to a\nyouth who stood by a small boat.\n\n\"Take thy boat,\" she said. \"Go thou to the ship. Give Hilda's word\nto Ulric the Jarl. Bid him come to the shore, coming alone, rowing\nhimself. Stay thou there until he returneth. Bid him that not one man\nof those who are now on board shall come again to the shore.\"\n\nThe youth sprang into his boat and went with his message. The men on\nthe ship were greatly busied with stowing of goods and with other care\nfor the fittings of all kinds, but they saw his coming, and Tostig the\nRed hailed him:\n\n\"What doest thou, coming to the ship? Is it not forbidden?\"\n\nThen the youth replied with Hilda's message, and Ulric himself came,\nbut he descended into the boat without speaking while the youth\nclambered on board. It was for him a matter of pride, and a thing to be\nremembered in after days, that his was the last foot of any among the\nshore people to tread the deck of the beautiful ship before she should\nsail for the Middle Sea, and for the fights in which she was to crush\nthe galleys of those far-away nations.\n\nUlric took the oars and rowed to the place where he saw Hilda awaiting\nhim, and she was alone. She had her staff in her hand and she was again\ntracing runes upon the sand. It was the spot where she had stood before\nthe sacrifice was slain, and neither man nor woman would have dared to\ntread upon it until after the next tide. This, when it should come,\nwould wash out the marks which had been made by Hilda. Ulric stepped\nout and drew up his boat and walked near her.\n\n\"I have sent for thee,\" she said, \"to show thee a thing. Thou art\nready, and thy ship. See to it that naught else be sent to her from the\nshore. None of the men must again set foot upon the land. Sail thou\naway this night, and linger not.\"\n\n\"I had so ordered,\" responded Ulric. \"The ice goeth out steadily, and\nwe are to follow it. But I am glad to say this last word with thee, for\nthou art very dear to me.\"\n\n\"More than my son art thou,\" said Hilda, \"because thou art also of the\nsons of the gods.\"\n\n\"There are gods in the south,\" said Ulric, thoughtfully. \"I have it in\nmy mind that I shall see one of them before I return. I would that I\ncould see him in battle, like Thor, or Tiw, or Odin.\"\n\n\"Be thou thyself like one of them,\" said Hilda, and she gazed at him\nlovingly, throwing back her hood.\n\nVery bright were her eyes for a moment and then they grew sad and dim,\nas if a mist from the fiord had floated into them. Ulric looked upon\nher withered face as if also it were beautiful to him, and he said:\n\n\"Thou art a loving woman and true, and I will keep thy bidding on the\nsea and on the land.\"\n\n\"I shall see thee not again,\" she said, \"and I willed to look upon thy\nface this once.\"\n\n\"It may be that thou wilt be here when I return,\" he responded, but she\nshook her head.\n\n\"Son of Odin, not so,\" she said, in a low, soft voice, like that of the\nyoung who love and are parting. \"Me thou wilt not see, and I know not\nif in any manner I am again to see thee. They of that land into which\nI quickly go do sometimes see the people of this land, when the gods\npermit. If so, I will come to thee some evening when there is a silence\naround thee, and I will touch thee on the forehead, thus,\" and she\nleaned forward and kissed him, placing her hands upon his shoulders.\n\n\"I will welcome thee!\" he said, with a great thrill, and she stood\nerect, continuing her last words.\n\n\"I have this much more to tell,\" she said. \"Thou wilt sail far and\ncontend with many. As thou knowest well, thou wilt meet no foemen like\nthe men of Rome, on land or sea. Thou wilt not tarry long in any place,\nfor thou art a viking, and thou hast no home in the south. Thou wilt\ngo on from place to place until thou shalt come to this harbor, or\ncity.\" She pointed at the runes drawn upon the sand at her feet, and he\nreplied:\n\n\"I cannot read them, O Hilda! They are in another tongue. They are\nunlike any that I ever saw.\"\n\n\"Neither can I read them,\" said Hilda. \"But note them with care, for\nwhen thou seest them upon the ground of any land thy voyage is ended.\"\n\nSo Ulric stooped low and studied well the deeply graven furrows which\nthe saga woman, the seeress, had drawn upon the sand. They were in\nshape like this:\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\"Thou seest?\" she said.\n\nBut the runes were close to the water's edge and the tide was coming\nin. At that moment came a great swell out of the fiord, rising and\nsurging along the beach, and it put out a hand of foam, glittering in\nthe light from the setting sun. Hilda stepped back beyond its reach,\nand so did Ulric, for a sound came with it. Back fled the billow,\nbreaking as it went, but it left behind it no trace of those strange\nrunes on the sand.\n\nHilda clasped Ulric in her arms, for a moment, but she did not weep.\n\n\"Go thou to thy ship,\" she said. \"I go to my own place.\"\n\n\"Farewell, my best friend,\" he replied, but she turned and walked away,\nand all who met her made room for her, for a low voice like a wail\ncrept out from under her hood, and she did not walk firmly, as was her\ncustom.\n\n\"Very great was her love for the son of Brander,\" said all of them; and\nthey knew that this was her last season, for she had told them so, even\nat Yule.\n\nUlric rowed to the ship and went on board. The youth returned to the\nshore with his boat. The sailors pulled up the anchors. Then the\nwatchers on the shore saw the long oars go out, the rowers standing\nin their places on either side of the ship, while the young jarl, the\nleader of men, stood alone at the stern, steering with one hand while\nthe other held his war horn. Long and powerful was the blast he blew,\nfor it was a farewell to the Northland and to the people he was to see\nno more. So sailed away the good ship _The Sword_. It had been a grand\nlaunching, but there were those upon the beach who turned and went away\nto their houses mournfully, even weeping.\n\nIn the house of Brander there was silence. Hilda had gone to her own\nroom. All guests had departed. The household folk were for the greater\npart at the beach, by the fire of sacrifice, and Oswald, the harper,\nsat in his place with his harp before him, leaning upon it.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER IV.\n\n THE SHIP \"THE SWORD\" AND THE ICE KING.\n\n\nThe morning of the day of Tiw dawned mistily across the cold North Sea.\nEverywhere, as the sun looked in through the floating curtains of fog,\nhe could see steel-blue waves wrestling foamily with the masses of ice.\nWho in this place would imagine that in some other, far away, the same\nsun had found the bright flowers and green leaves of the fully opened\nspring?\n\nThe wind increased with the coming of the sunshine, as if the\nadditional warmth brought to it better strength wherewith to blow away\nthe mists. One mound of white vapor had been thicker and higher than\nits neighbors. It had gathered over something that it was hiding, but\nthe breeze blew now a short, sharp gust and the mound was gone. So was\nuncovered the good ship _The Sword_, and her crew could discern what\nthings might be around them.\n\nUlric the Jarl was standing in full armor on the fore deck. He had been\nwaiting for this clearing, and now he put his horn to his lips. He blew\nit lustily, and all who heard him raised a shout, for they knew that no\nland was in sight and that their voyage had begun.\n\n\"We have gone far in the night,\" said a large man standing near the\njarl. \"But there is much ice. We can do little more than drift, but we\ncan use the oars somewhat.\"\n\n\"We shall go but little faster than doth the ice,\" replied Ulric. \"But,\nO Knud the Bear, thou wilt off with that black shirt of thine when this\nsun is higher.\"\n\nThere was loud laughing at that, for Knud was clad in the warm skins of\nthe bears he had slain. Even upon his head was that which had covered\nthe skull of the largest of them. Good clothing it was for winter time,\nbut it was likely to prove heavy gear for southern wearing.\n\nThe jarl gazed southward, hoping to see open water, but only ice fields\nlay between him and the horizon. The mist was fast disappearing,\nnevertheless, and those who were watching were seeing further; but now\na great cry arose from the stern, where Wulf the Skater was taking his\nturn at the helm.\n\n\"O jarl!\" he shouted. \"Mark! Seest thou how we are pursued? Come\nhither!\"\n\nDown from the fore deck and quickly along the ship to the after deck\nwent Ulric and those who were with him, and there was no need for any\nman to point with his hand as Wulf was pointing.\n\n\"The ice king!\" he said, shivering. \"I told thee how I saw him anchor\noff the North Cape when the leaves fell, and the first freezing put ice\naround him over the calm waters. He came down from his own place that\nfar last summer. He seemeth to me to be as tall as ever, and he hath\nmany strong floes with him.\"\n\nUlric looked, and so did they all, saying nothing at first, for the\nsight was rare. Not often did any mountain of ice float into that\nwater; and here was a mighty one. His peak arose, they could not tell\nhow high, and the sun was glittering gorgeously among his crags.\n\n\"He is moving faster than we are!\" exclaimed Tostig the Red. \"He will\nstrive to overtake us. He could crush us like a nutshell with one of\nhis crags.\"\n\n\"We will keep out of his path if we may,\" responded Ulric. \"But how is\nit that he saileth along so well against the wind without oars? There\nis no tide. If there were any current, it would be with us as much as\nwith him.\"\n\n\"Aye,\" said Tostig the Red. \"But did not Hilda ever tell thee? I have\nheard her speak of these ice kings. The gods that walk on the bottom\nof the sea push him along that he may go south and die, for his time\nhath nearly come. Never, I think, was anything like him seen below the\nfiords until this day.\"\n\nVast, truly, was this ice mountain which was nearing them, propelled by\nsome unseen hand. If there had been a strong undercurrent it would have\nmoved the wonder from the north in precisely this manner. Nevertheless\nall Northmen of the sea knew that any peak of ice above the surface\nmust rest upon a mass of ice seven times greater.\n\nAll the vikings upon _The Sword_ watched earnestly for the next sign of\nwhatever was to come, but Ulric took the helm and sent the rowers to\nthe long oars, two men to each oar. Well and vigorously did they row,\nand the ship was deftly steered into and through one after another of\nthe open channels between the small floes around her. Much distance was\ngained, but at last the ice fields beyond began to close tightly and\nthe rowing ceased.\n\n\"Son of Brander!\" shouted Knud the Bear from the fore deck. \"Mark! The\nfloes are lifting!\"\n\nAll saw that it was true. Under all the nearer ice-pack a hidden\nfield, the forefoot of the iceberg, was slipping steadily on unseen\nuntil those floes rested upon it. And now there came a grating sound\nalong the keel of _The Sword_, and she too was lifted. The ice arose\nwith her, so that she sat firmly in a great cleft of it, remaining\nupright, indeed, but as completely out of water as she had been upon\nthe strand before her launching.\n\nSilent and stern stood Ulric, facing the ice king and asking of\nhimself, \"My voyage hath but begun, and is it ended? Was my ship built\nfor this?\"\n\nNot so was it with the mind of Knud the Bear, for he gazed long and\njoyously upon the untellable beauty and majesty of the ice king, and\nthen with a great laugh he shouted:\n\n\"Sons of the Northland, the gods are with us. They have sent him.\nNothing can stay him. He will carry us fast and far. There will be no\ntoilsome rowing, and we need not care for the direction of the wind.\nThe gods of the frozen sea come with him. They would send us south that\nthey may go and fight the gods of the islands where there is no ice,\nfor they hate them.\"\n\n\"So be it!\" replied Ulric, gloomily, but he looked again and he said to\nKnud, \"I know not the ice gods, but I think there are friends of thine\nyonder. Seest thou?\"\n\nEvery man was gazing, for there was naught else left to do. Around the\npinnacles and the cliffs of the ice king there were sea birds flying\nand screaming. On the snow-packed levels there were brant and geese and\nducks and other fowl that should have been at the south by this time,\nand that would soon, no doubt, be going.\n\n\"Odin the Strong!\" exclaimed Knud, \"I see what thou meanest. I had seen\na white fox, I thought, but yonder are the bears of the night country.\nThey are white, that they may see one another in the dark, and there is\nnothing else that is so fierce as they are.\"\n\n\"Hilda sayeth,\" replied Ulric, \"that all the world north and east of us\nmust forever belong to the sign of the bear. Hast thou ever slain one\nof these white ones?\"\n\n\"Never,\" said Knud. \"I have not hunted to the northward so far as to\nknow much of them. Wulf the Skater hath met them oft enough on the\nnorth coast, but they go back into the night, for they hate the sun. If\nit would not anger the ice king, I would go out and slay one even now.\nBut he brought them with him.\"\n\nSo thought others of the vikings, as if the crew of white monsters now\nclambering nearer over the rugged ridges of the ice were as his own\ncattle to the mighty gnome who had builded this frozen tower for his\ncastle.\n\n\"As many they are,\" said Tostig, \"as the fingers of a hand. I have\nheard that they have no fear of men.\"\n\nIf the bears had no fear, they at least had much curiosity, and they\nwere coming to inquire what this might be that lay upon the ice with so\nmany men walking around within it.\n\nUlric went into the after cabin for a heavier spear than was the light\nweapon he had with him, saying to Knud, \"White bear have I never slain.\nThis chance is mine, but the second fight belongeth to thee. I do not\nrob thee of thy hunt.\"\n\n\"Thine by right, O jarl, is yonder great one,\" replied Knud. \"No man\nmay go before thee unless thou wert hurt or dead. But I warn thee that\nthe long claw, over there, were he to grapple thee, is worse to meet\nthan might be three Romans.\"\n\n\"I would face more than three Romans,\" laughed Ulric. \"But thy pale\nfriend on the floe is a king of bears.\"\n\nHe returned speedily, armed and armored for battle. The spear he\nbrought was long and strong, with a steel crossguard at the heel of\nits broad blade. It was very sharp, but its weight would have been\nunwieldly for a slight man.\n\nTwenty fathoms from the stern of the ship stood the great bear\ngrowling, and the others walked around at a greater distance. He was a\nfathom and a half in length and his paws were tremendous, with claws\nlike reaping hooks. No man ever faced any beast more terrible in aspect\nthan was that angry monster from the darkness which broodeth over the\nforever frozen sea.\n\nDown stepped Ulric, and when he was a few yards from the ship some of\nthe men followed with Knud, but not too near, lest any should seem to\nhelp and so should spoil the honor of the fight.\n\nThe surface of the ice was broken and there were chasms in it, but it\nwas as firm to stand upon as the dry land. Moreover, _The Sword_ was\nnow lying not far away from the mighty perpendicular front of the ice\nking. None knew yet what might be his aspect looking northward, and\nthere were those among the vikings on the ship who shook their heads\ndoubtfully, considering this matter of the bears.\n\nStone still stood this bear, growling at intervals, until the jarl drew\nwithin six paces, holding his spear leveled. Then, with a loud roar\nand a clashing of his teeth, the huge beast made his rush, rising upon\nhis hind feet and spreading his enormous arms to close with Ulric. Had\nhe done so his hug would have been speedy death, but the point of\nthe spear met him firmly, with a thrust which buried the blade to the\ncrossguard midway between his shoulders.\n\n\"That would slay anything else that liveth,\" said Knud to Tostig, \"but\nthe white ones die hard. Mark! the jarl! The son of Brander! It is\ngrand!\"\n\nHis comrades answered with a shout and then they were still, and so\nwere all the vikings, who crowded the decks and bulwarks of the ship,\nlooking on.\n\nHorrible was now the roaring of the bear as he struggled against the\nspear of Ulric, striving to plunge nearer. What tenacity of life must\nhave been his, to fight on with the spear blade in him so deeply!\nAround swung Ulric on the slippery ice and his whole frame was strained\nto its uttermost endurance by the swift changes of that wrestling, but\nthe plunges of the bear forced him backward a fathom at a time. His\nface was now but an arm's length from that of his vast antagonist, and\nthey were looking each other eye to eye. Red and yet full of green fire\nwere the eyes of the bear, and his teeth glistened awfully in their\nranges as his wide jaws opened to gnash them. But that the descendant\nof Odin was many times stronger than other men the combat might here\nhave ended.\n\n\"Slip not now!\" shouted Knud. \"Son of Brander, there is a chasm behind\nthee. Stand fast, if thou canst! Thou art beyond our help!\"\n\nOnly his own length from him was the cleft in the ice floe, and it went\ndown to deep water. If he should fall into it in his heavy armor, none\nmight hope to see him again.\n\nRoar--roar--roar--in dreadful wrath and pain struggled the bear, for\nthis was his death throe; but Ulric's foot found a brace--a break in\nthe ice--and he gathered his last strength, the strength of the sons of\nOdin, the hero might of the old gods.\n\nSnap! The tough ashen shaft of the spear broke at the guard, and both\nbear and hero fell heavily, but Ulric arose with his seax in his hand.\nThe claws of the bear wrenched away his shield as if it had been a\npiece of oaken bark, but the seax was driven in to the hilt, and as it\ncame flashing out the life of the bear came with it. Over he rolled\nwith a loud shriek, that was echoed back from the face of the ice king.\nThen he stretched himself at full length upon the ice and lay still,\nwhile Ulric stepped forward to cut off his forepaws for a token.\n\n\"Hael!\" shouted every voice among the vikings, as the white one rolled\nover. \"Hael to Ulric the Jarl, the son of Brander! The son of Odin!\nHael to the first good death and to the long cruise of _The Sword_!\"\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER V.\n\n THE UNKNOWN THING.\n\n\nThe ice king had lost only one of his fierce white flock. It had been\nthe largest of them all, however; and in the latter part of Tiw's day\nthere had been a feast of his flesh. Greatly had the crew of _The\nSword_ enjoyed that feast, and they believed the saying of Knud that\nthere was courage and strength to be gained by such eating after so\nbrave a battle. \"The gods themselves eat mightily,\" he said, \"and they\nhave nothing better than this.\"\n\nDuring that day a number of the vikings went out to explore the ice\nfields somewhat, and they captured many wild fowl easily with bow and\narrow. They reported having seen in the distance other animals, like\ngreat seals or walruses. They also planned to hunt the remaining bears,\nbut the jarl forbade it, being unwilling that they should go far from\nthe ship lest harm should befall them from sudden breaking of the ice.\n\nNevertheless, to all testing, it seemed to be packing even more firmly.\nThe entire visible mass of it drifted steadily southward, as if the ice\nking, or the under gods who were pushing him, knew of the channels by\nwhich they were to steer him into other seas than this.\n\nNight came, and then the day of Odin. But now the worst foe of the ice\nking, deadlier than even the sun, was wearing him away with floods of\nwarm rain. There were rivulets pouring down his sides, and some of\nhis pinnacles and crags came crashing, thundering down from time to\ntime. This was, therefore, not a good day for hunting, and the vikings\npassed it on board the ship, or near it, but not dismally, for there\nwere among them many whose minds and tongues were busy with old voyages\nand old fights, and the land to which they had sailed. Also there were\nsongs to sing, and there was much ale, and no man was hindered from\nfeasting. It was a time, too, for the remembering of sagas, and many\nspoke of Hilda, but Ulric did not utter her name, saying rather that it\nwould be well if Oswald and his harp were on board.\n\nThese two, indeed, the saga woman and the old harper, sat at home in\nthe house of Brander that rainy day, speaking to one another across\nthe ash heap, on which a slow fire smoldered. Their talk was of many\nthings, but from all it would ever come back to some word concerning\nthe ship and her crew and Ulric. To others Hilda had spoken little,\nand they noted that she had not eaten since the launching. Oswald was\nfretful and fitful, and he said that he cared not for harping. In an\nearly hour of the day he had gone out and he had even climbed to the\ncrag on the top of the headland that he might look far to seaward, but\nhe had returned, shaking his head, to say to Hilda:\n\n\"All is ice! She is out of sight, but the floes have closed behind her.\"\n\n\"So they close not before her I care little,\" replied Hilda. \"They\nwill conquer the ice, for the sun will help them, and they are sailing\nnearer the sun.\"\n\nOswald was long silent then, and at last he arose and walked out of\nthe hall while Hilda went to the door and gazed seaward. It was to\nhis own room that the harper made his way, leaving his harp near the\ndais. In a far corner of the house he had been given his place, for he\nwas held in high honor. Nevertheless, it was but small, and bare save\nfor a table and a lamp thereon and a stool. There was, also, a heap of\nskins for warm sleeping, and from under this Oswald drew out something,\nstooping and then looking behind him to be sure the door was closed.\n\"What will the jarl bring me, when he returneth from the southlands?\"\nhe muttered. \"Bright gold, I hope, for there is more to love in the\nyellow, the heavy, than there is in light silver. The touch is not the\nsame, and gold hath a better ring.\"\n\nIt was a bag that he held, untying its mouth, and his hand was now in\nit. He drew out pieces of varied shapes, looking at them and rubbing\nthem with his fingers. \"The faces of kings are on them,\" he said.\n\"Runes of the southlands. I can read some, but all I cannot read. May\nthe gods guide the jarl to places where he will find many like these\nand bring them to me. He careth not for them himself.\"\n\nHilda, standing in the doorway, grew sad and wistful in the face.\n\"Gone,\" she said. \"Gone beyond seeing or hearing. And I love him so! He\nis my hero! My beautiful one! I am old, and I am soon to pass away, and\nI know not clearly whither I go. Sometimes I would that one of the gods\nmight come and tell what things there are in those countries for such\nas I am.\"\n\nThen turned she and went back to her great chair by the fire; but\nUlric also was thinking of her and of Oswald, for he said to Tostig\nand Wulf and those who were with them, under the after deck: \"The\ntongues of the south folk? We do well to talk about them. My father\nknew many. Oswald, the harper, and Hilda could speak with him in all\nof them and they had more that he knew not. She hath learned much in\nher hundred years, and she is not like other women. When I was a child,\nand afterward, in the long winter evenings, when we had naught else to\ndo, I loved to have them teach me, and they said it would be my need\nsome day. I can talk with a Briton or a Roman or a Greek. But Hilda and\nOswald taught me many words of a tongue that belongeth to a people who\nlive on the easterly shore of the Middle Sea. They are a trading folk,\nand our sea kings found them everywhere. They are not like other folk,\nand they have a god of their own, but none of them can tell what he is\nlike. I have thought I would wish to see him, but Hilda sayeth that he\nwill not come out of his own country. And that, too, is much the same\nwith our own gods; but I wish they may go with us now, for some of\nthese southland gods are cunning and strong.\"\n\n\"Not as are the gods of the North,\" said Tostig, sturdily. \"I too have\nheard of these Jews and their god, but I do not care to see either\nhim or any other god. It is more than enough for me when I hear them\nwhispering across the fiords.\"\n\n\"So!\" exclaimed Wulf the Skater. \"I have been out far on the ice, when\nthere was no wind and there was a bright moon, and I have gone landward\nwith speed lest their voices should overtake me. I heard them loudly\nonce, and that night I was chased by many wolves. I slew some, but I\nstopped not for their skins, for the rest were an army.\"\n\n\"Glad am I,\" said Ulric, \"that if I meet one of these gods I can speak\nto him fairly well in his own tongue. How else, for instance, could\nI question this Jew god? We shall sail all around the coasts of the\nMiddle Sea before we come home.\"\n\n\"What couldst thou ask him?\" replied Knud. \"And what thinkest thou he\nmight tell thee?\"\n\n\"One thing that Hilda knew not,\" said Ulric. \"I am curious if the gods\nof those lands know the gods of the North. I would know if this Jew god\nhath ever met with Odin and Thor, and whether or not they are friends.\nIf they have fights, as do our own gods, which of them is the stronger?\nI have thought that if I were a god, I would bring all the others under\nme. It is not managed well.\"\n\n\"I would not have land gods meddling too much with the sea, save in\nbattles,\" said Tostig. \"It is well as it is. But the Middle Sea is\nwide; we may not look upon all of its coasts. There are deep bays and\nmany islands.\"\n\n\"They say,\" responded Ulric, \"that there is an open water leading\nsouthward, and that if one can find it and will sail into it boldly,\nfearing nothing, he may follow its leading until he shall find the city\nof Asgard and the home of the gods. Moreover, there are lands which no\nfoot hath trodden. I would see some of them if they are to be found by\nsailing not too far.\"\n\nSo said they all, and there were other tales to tell concerning seas\nand lands.\n\nThey still were talking of these things when a loud shout from one of\nthe watchers summoned them, and they rushed out to the gunwales and the\ndecks. The rain was no longer falling and the sky was clear, so that\nthey saw well what was doing. The ice king had not at all lost his grip\nupon his own floes, but southward was a vast rift in the ice pack.\nWide and blue was the open water, but it was not very near them, and as\nthey were looking at it from their icy anchorage the watcher shouted\nagain:\n\n\"O Ulric the Jarl, whales! They will come up again from under the\nfloes. I saw them. A great herd!\"\n\nLoud voices replied, inquiring, but they ceased, for the herd quickly\nshowed itself. Many and huge were the whales that emerged, and some of\nthem sprang half their length out of the water.\n\n\"They are pursued!\" exclaimed Knud the Bear. \"I have seen them spring\nin that manner when the swordfish troubled them. But see them flounder\nnow!\"\n\nStrange indeed was the confusion and the tumbling about of this herd of\nthe sea. They were beating the waves into foam, and they were plunging\nhither and thither as if wildly affrighted.\n\n\"I think that it is neither the swordfish nor the thrasher,\" said\nTostig the Red, for he had halfway climbed the mast and he was leaning\nout to see. \"O jarl, it is one of the monsters that Hilda hath told us\nof. She sayeth that only a few are left, for the gods destroyed them\nlest they should eat up all the whales. Look yonder!\"\n\nThey were near enough to see, but could not note clearly until a great\nfragment broke away from the field of ice which carried _The Sword_.\nThrough that chasm at its outer border there came up a shape which was\nnot the head of a whale. It was long, with vast jaws, and in them were\npointed saws of long white teeth, with which it tore terribly the side\nof a tremendous bull whale that was nearest. But the bull whale turned\nand fought him, and there was a vast whirling of foamy water, as the\ntwo sea creatures struggled against each other, beating with heads and\nfins and tails, but the vikings could none the better discern the form\nof the whale's enemy.\n\n\"He is a comrade of the ice king,\" said Wulf the Skater. \"Never before\nwas he seen in these waters. He is somewhat like a snake, but with a\nvast belly. I saw his head once before, long ago. Ten more were with\nme in the ship, and we had been long storm-driven. The old men told me\nmuch about him.\"\n\n\"He could upset a ship,\" said Tostig. \"I am glad we are here on the\nice. But thou mayest have seen another like him.\"\n\n\"Not so said the old men,\" replied Wulf. \"He is alone. There! He\nshoweth again!\"\n\n\"I am glad we have seen him,\" said Ulric. \"But I am more troubled\nconcerning the ice king. See ye not that he is fast melting? I have\nthought that he is beginning to lean this way. We are drifting, truly,\nbut we do not get away from him. We are his prisoners.\"\n\nThey well understood that there might be deadly peril for them in aught\nthat should change the position of the iceberg, but there was naught\nthat they could do, even if sure death were coming. So they preferred\nto gaze after the herd of whales, and every now and then they thought\nthat they caught fresh glimpses of the monster from the under sea, the\nterror of all other monsters. Few of them but had heard and could tell\nold sagas of such creatures, the remnants of the forgotten days, and\nthey agreed that this one was the world-snake that Hilda had sung of as\nthe destroyer.\n\n\"He eateth men joyfully,\" said one, \"when he can get them.\"\n\n\"Hilda said,\" replied Ulric, \"that he cometh among men no more. He\ncannot live in any sea that is plowed by the keels of ships. The gods\nare against him. But now the whales have fled and he hath followed.\"\n\nThen turned they to stare at the ice king, and he seemed as strong as\never. Far away at his right they saw the bears, walking to and fro, and\nthe wind brought from them a sound as if they were moaning.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER VI.\n\n THE FALL OF THE ICE KING.\n\n\nWhen the sun arose upon the fifth day of the week, the day of Thor,\nthe glittering pinnacles of the ice king still towered high above the\nfloes, and these covered the sea as far as the eye could reach. All the\nwhite mass was evidently in motion and the drifting was rapid, but it\nseemed to the vikings as if their danger were striving to push nearer\nto the ship. She was now lying almost within his reach, if he should\nchoose to strike her--and she was but a very small thing. Her crew,\ngoing and coming around her, were but so many specks upon the ice. From\nher masthead still fluttered bravely out her White Horse banner, and\nshe was yet altogether unharmed, but the rowers were at their places\ncontinually.\n\nA prudent captain was the jarl, for, although the men were impatient,\nhe forbade their going far from the ship. He held them back even when\nthe remaining white bears appeared near the feet of the ice king.\n\nKnud was almost angry that he was not permitted to go forth and slay\nthem.\n\n\"One man for each bear, Ulric the Jarl,\" he said. \"It is our right. We\nmay not ever meet them again, and the chance for honor were lost. Thou\nhast won thy pair of claws.\"\n\n\"Thou hast slain bears enough,\" said Ulric. \"Were I to let thee go,\nthou mightest perchance be left behind on the ice, or under it. Small\nhonor in that. I promise thee the next chance to get thyself killed\nfairly.\"\n\n\"I obey,\" growled the grim old hunter, \"for thou art my jarl. But when\nwe return from this cruise I will go with Wulf the Skater into the\nwinter of long night and we will find them there. I will not go to\nValhalla until I have slain one as large as thine.\"\n\n\"Mind not thy bears now,\" responded Ulric. \"Seest thou not? Art thou\nblind?\"\n\nHe blew his horn sharply, and all who were on the ice around the ship\nsprang on board in haste.\n\n\"Mark!\" he shouted. \"Between us and the foot of the ice king there is a\nchasm that widens. We know not when the field may break away. Then he\nwill be upon us. Every man at his place this day!\"\n\nThey who saw could understand, and there was no more talk of hunting.\nEven when a white fox came and looked at them, within bowshot, no arrow\nwent after him.\n\n\"Let him go free,\" said Tostig. \"He hath wild fowl enough for the\ncatching, but he will swim far before he runneth on land again.\"\n\nIt was a time of doubt and of waiting, but the drifting ceased not.\nThere was much discussion at intervals, among even the elder seamen,\nas to precisely in what part of the sea they now might be, for there\nwere no guidings. Toward the sunset, after long hours of idleness that\nbrought weariness, Ulric went and stood by the hammer of Thor on the\nfore deck. Tostig the Red came and stood by him and laid his hand upon\nthe hammer, for Tostig was a smith, as had been his fathers before him.\nNot only could he smelt iron out of the right rock, but he could harden\nit for cutting and for bending and springing. The secret of that art\nwas his inheritance, and Hilda had said that it was a thing that the\nold gods who were dead had brought with them from the east before Asa\nThor's time. It was from a rising-sun land, but a cold one, that Odin\nled his children, said some, and there were runes on the rocks to prove\nit, if they might be read by any now living.\n\n\"We go faster,\" said Tostig. \"We have already gone far this day. If the\ngods were against us, I think they would not so swiftly bear us forward\nwithout wind or work.\"\n\n\"Who knoweth the will of the gods?\" replied Ulric. \"Not thou or I.\nThey puzzle me greatly. I would they might come at times and show\nthemselves. How can one know what to think of a god he hath never seen!\nI mean to look upon one of them, if I may, before I sail back to the\nNorthland. That were a thing worth telling of a winter evening by the\nfire in the hall.\"\n\n\"And have all men answer thee that thou wert lying?\" laughed Knud\ncheerily, from behind Tostig. \"I believe that Hilda seeth them at\nan hour that cometh to her, but I would rather let them alone. I\nwill think well of them if they will but shove us along in the right\ndirection. They work finely now, it seemeth, but the sun goeth down.\nThor hath been friendly to us during all his day, but I doubt if we\nare as safe after he is gone. The morrow will be Freya's day, and she\nmeddleth not overmuch with seafaring matters. \u00c6gir is the god of the\nsea, and of him we know but little, nor of Ran, his wife, nor of his\nnine daughters. They must at this hour be all under the ice doing\nnothing.\"\n\nThe saying of Knud was a thing that it was hard to dispute, but it\nwas in Ulric's mind to wonder whether or not he and his vikings were\ndrifting altogether beyond the help of the old gods of the North.\n\nThe wind began to blow strongly, and the men listened with eager ears,\nfor they thought that they could now and then hear shrill and angry\nvoices from the neighborhood of the ice king. Some of them were like\nshrieks, but these may have been made by the gale itself, blowing among\nthe crags and chasms.\n\n\"We will both eat and drink,\" commanded Ulric. \"Let every man be\nhearty, that he may have his full strength for that which may be before\nhim.\"\n\nAfter he himself had eaten he went to the after deck, putting his hand\nupon the tiller. From that place he might best watch the ice king, and\nthere came others to stand with him, waiting.\n\n\"He is very tall,\" said Ulric, at last. \"I doubt if we shall ever look\nupon his like again. But saw ye ever such moonlight? I have known days\nwhen I could not see so well as I can this night.\"\n\n\"Aye,\" said Wulf. \"I know this moon. It is not such light as ours,\nfor he hath brought it with him. It is the light which the gods make\ninstead of sunlight in his own place, and it will not go south any\nfurther than he goeth. But mark the bears!\"\n\n\"Something troubleth them,\" said Ulric.\n\nAll could see them plainly, and they were like ghosts wandering to and\nfro among the rugged heaps of the ice floes. They were much scattered\nand they moved as if they were hunting for something which they could\nnot find, and they were calling often to each other, moaning as if they\nwere in pain or in great discontent. Sometimes as they did so they\nlifted up their heads toward the moon, but oftener toward the ice king.\n\n\"Look at him now!\" exclaimed Ulric. \"The moon is shining upon him\nwonderfully.\n\n\"It is so,\" said Tostig, \"but I think not of that. Wilt thou note this,\nthat whenever there cometh a boom of the rending ice the bears call out\nto their mates? More than we do they know of such matters. All such\ncreatures have gods of their own, and we may have offended them. I like\nit not.\"\n\n\"The gods of the bears will care for the bears!\" said Knud. \"They have\nnaught to do with men.\"\n\nNevertheless, it was a time for men to speak softly concerning such\nthings when powers whom they saw not and knew not were dragging them\nand their ship along so helplessly. There are times when one feeleth\nthat he can get along well enough without the gods, but this was a\ndifferent matter. All the vikings talked soberly and they were glad\nthat their jarl was a son of Odin.\n\nIt was a strange, solemn, weird night in spite of the moonlight, what\nwith the peril and the moaning bears and the booming ice. After all,\nthey said, Odin himself might not be with them. There had been places,\nas all men knew, where all the gods had abandoned even the bravest of\nthe Northmen. Men like themselves had died without a sword cut or a\nspear thrust. All hope of falling in battle might be lost to them among\nthese treacherous ice floes. It was a short night, if there had been\naught to measure it by, but to the men on _The Sword_ it seemed long\nenough. None cared to go under a deck, but there were some who lay down\nand slept. The moon sank lower and lower and the shadows lengthened\nacross the ice fields, but there was yet a great flood of broken light\nwhen Ulric, the son of Brander, uttered a loud cry and put his war horn\nto his lips. Every man sprang to his feet, for each thought that he\nhad never before heard such a blast as that. A louder sound instantly\nanswered it, but none could tell whether it came from among the ice\npeaks or from down toward the bottom of the sea.\n\n\"The bears are moaning again!\" said Knud. He was ever thinking of his\nbears, but all the rest were hearkening for what might be coming next,\nand they knew not yet the meaning of Ulric's blast.\n\n\"Oars!\" shouted the jarl. \"Every man to his place! There is free water\nsoutherly. The ice king is bowing!\"\n\nLoudly moaned the bears, for a moment, and they seemed to be running\ntoward the ship, as if they would come on board; and Ulric blew his\nhorn again with the notes of battle defiance, but then there burst out\nupon all sides a roaring, splitting, rending sound, such as none of the\nvikings had ever heard before.\n\n\"He hath struck! He is aground!\" shouted Ulric. \"Hark to his breaking!\nHis hour is come!\"\n\nIf that were true, so also it seemed as if the hour of _The Sword_\nhad come, and of all who were on board of her. But the gods were with\nher. If the forefoot of the ice king had indeed caught upon a shoal,\nchecking and breaking him, the shock of that striking had separated the\ngreat floe in front of him so that it might move freely. Still it no\nlonger upheld him, and he suddenly began to pitch forward toward the\nship. Vast was the roll of the sea that swelled away from his pitching,\nand powerfully it uplifted _The Sword_ in her bed of ice.\n\n\"Hold hard, all!\" shouted Ulric. \"Ready with your oars! Odin!\"\n\nUp gazed they then, and the bravest of them shuddered, for the gigantic\nwhite head of the ice king was bowing nearer, as if he would cast\nhimself upon them. On rolled the great wave, steadily, and all along\nthe crest of it the ice it carried was rending into fragments that\nground angrily against each other. The floe that carried _The Sword_\nbecame twain that parted, letting her down and shooting her swiftly\nforward. It was just then that the ice king fell upon his face, his\nuppermost pinnacle almost crashing upon her stern.\n\nThe foaming water dashed across the deck and drenched Ulric at the\ntiller. He was wearing no headpiece now, and the salt spray drops\nglittered brightly among his yellow curls. But they glistened not with\nmoonlight, for while they all had waited and watched the sun had risen\nand his first rays lit the hero face of the son of Odin as he shouted\nto his men to row their best, and as he steered the good ship _The\nSword_ into the open water the White Horse banner of the Saxons floated\ngallantly from the masthead and men sprang to set free the sail.\n\n\"Hael, O Ulric the Jarl!\" shouted Knud the Bear. \"We have a good sea\ncaptain.\"\n\nSo said several of the elder vikings.\n\n\"Hael, all!\" cheerily responded Ulric. \"The ice king hath fallen and we\nshall fear him no more. The gods are with us!\"\n\nLoudly shouted they all, and those who were not rowing clashed their\nswords upon their shields as if they had won a victory.\n\n\"Aye!\" growled Tostig the Red. \"'Tis a stout ship.\"\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER VII.\n\n THE LIVING SAND.\n\n\nIt was the time of thaw in the Northland, but the snow and ice go fast\nwhen the winter letteth go its hold. Already great reaches of land\nwere bare, but no man might travel far from his own home because of\nthe floods from the melting. All must wait until days should pass,\nand these were growing longer, but they were full of unrest. Even\nthe cattle in their enclosures lowed impatiently to one another;\nfor the brute creatures know well the signs of the return of green\ngrass to their pastures. In the house of Brander there was no shadow\nbecause of the absence of any who had gone, but these were spoken of\ncheerfully. Moreover, there came boats and larger keels into the cove\nfrom other villages up and down the coast and from out the fiords\nthat were opening. Far and wide had been known the building of _The\nSword_, and many would have been glad to look upon her. All these were\ndisappointed, but there were wise old vikings and jarls of note who\nsaid to Hilda:\n\n\"Thy foster son hath done well. It is like his father. Other keels will\nfollow him speedily, but he will be first to strike.\"\n\nAs if she had been mistress of the house was Hilda, and she entertained\nwell all who came. Reverence was paid her because of her high descent\nand her kinship to Odin the Strong, and because of her hundred winters,\nbut even more because of her learning and her knowledge of the gods.\nMen asked her questions concerning them, and there were those who\nbelieved that she had seen and known more than she would tell.\n\n\"I would not like to anger her,\" said one, \"lest she might afterward\ncome to me in a bad hour, for she hath knowledge of charms and of\nwitchcraft and she can write runes.\"\n\nThere was reason in that, said all, but that she was a kindly woman and\nthat she kept the house of Brander liberally.\n\nMuch time she now spent among the old armor, the trophies on the wall,\nand in the study of such things as had been brought from the lands\naround the Middle Sea. She made Oswald open his bag and she read the\nmany inscriptions upon his coins, and she talked to him of Greece and\nof Rome, where most of them were made. He also knew about his gold and\nsilver pieces, and there were some even of copper for which he had\nnames and values. What good was there in such things in a land like\nthis, where money was not needed?\n\n\"I would that Ulric had them,\" she said. \"He might buy with them\nanother ship, or provisions, or arms.\"\n\n\"Not save of a friend,\" replied Oswald. \"He will need nothing that his\nsword can win for him. It is not the custom of the vikings to be long\nin need.\"\n\nThe household knew by her face that her thoughts were not troubling her\nconcerning Ulric and his men.\n\n\"She hath had no ill token,\" they said. \"It must be that he doeth well.\"\n\nThey knew not of the ice king, nor how narrowly he had missed his last\nangry blow at _The Sword_. But that peril was over and the good ship\nwas flying along in safety, driven by strong rowers, who had also some\nhelp from the sail. They would have had more but that the winds were\nvariable. Therefore the days and the nights went by before they again\nsaw land, and the older seamen knew by that that they had kept in the\nopen sea and were well advanced in their voyage.\n\n\"How fast or how far the ice king bore us I know not,\" said Knud the\nBear, \"but if that headland were not of one of the northern isles, we\nhave seen a cape of North Britain.\"\n\n\"Not so far south as that,\" argued Tostig the Red, \"but all these\ncoasts are bad to land upon. There is naught worth the taking away.\"\n\n\"Our errand is not to them,\" said Ulric. \"We will not waste an arrow\nupon them. I will not let the prow of _The Sword_ touch the sand until\nwe see the mid-coast of the British island----\"\n\n\"We shall see a storm this night,\" interrupted an old viking. \"The wind\nchangeth to the northwest, and Knud may wear his bearskins. It will be\ncold.\"\n\nWhen the night fell all were willing to cover well; but the rowers\nmight rest, for the ship carried her sail all the more safely because\nit was not too large and because she was well laden. There was a spirit\nupon Ulric which kept him at the helm, so that his men needed almost to\ntake him away by force that he might sleep.\n\n\"I would I might see Hilda and have speech with her,\" he said to\nhimself. \"I have strange dreams when I close my eyes. She might tell me\nwhat they mean. Do the gods come to one when he is asleep? I have heard\nso. But they have told me nothing--save that I have dreamed of men who\nwore the armor that hangeth behind the table on the dais. Strong men\nthey were, and dark, and I think they were good swordsmen. Before long\nit may chance that we shall meet a trireme of the Romans if my dreams\nhave that reading. I must burn one of their ships before we pass these\nseas.\"\n\nHeavier blew the gale and higher rose the waves, and _The Sword_ sped\non as if she were a waterfowl, but all on board were willing to be as\nwell covered as was Knud the Bear. The night was dark and the next\nmorning they saw no land. The storm drove them onward steadily all day,\nand now and then they saw ice floating, but no sail of any ship. Again\nthe night came, and the moon was out and the wind lulled, but the waves\nwere still rough.\n\n\"We will not row,\" said Ulric, when they inquired of him. \"There are\ncoasts now not far away. When the dawn cometh we will seek some bay or\nharbor. I have heard that there are villages of North folk hereaway,\nand they would be friendly.\"\n\nSo said they all save Tostig the Red, who laughed somewhat grimly and\nreplied:\n\n\"I think there are villages upon many coasts whereof the folk are\nwilling to be friendly to a crew like this. The seax hath many\nacquaintances who are willing to see him stay quietly in the belt.\"\n\n\"So hath the ax,\" growled old Biorn the Berserker. It was rare for him\nto speak, but he was leaning upon the long handle of his weapon, and\nwhen he lay down on the deck the ax slept beside him.\n\nIt was after the middle watch that night, and Ulric was at the helm.\nHe was steering a straight course southward and the ship was slipping\nquietly over the waves. He was awake, truly, but somehow he seemed to\nhimself to be dreaming almost, and his eyes were downcast. \"The runes\nupon the sand,\" he muttered. \"I can see them now, before the wave\nwashed them away. When and where am I to see them again, and to know\nthat my voyage is ended? Who shall read runes, and how shall I be sure\nthat I am not mistaken? For Hilda will not be there----\"\n\nEven as he spoke there came to his ears a sound, and he looked suddenly\nup, gripping hard the tiller.\n\n\"Faint and far away,\" he exclaimed, \"but it was a trumpet! There are\nthree in the hall at the house and Oswald taught me their soundings.\nUp, all! Rowers to the oars! I will send an answer!\"\n\nLong and powerful was the horn blast that went out across the moonlit\nsea. Clearer and louder than before was the trumpet voice which\ninstantly responded from the right--and that was toward the British\nshore. The men shouted not, for they were listening, and those who\nknew were telling the younger vikings that the jarl had heard from the\nRomans. It was good news to hear, after long waiting, and the rowers\nput out the long oars eagerly.\n\n\"The dawn draweth near,\" shouted Ulric, after blowing his horn again.\n\"We will steer toward yonder trumpet. There will be much music with the\nsun's rising. We will see if the gods of Rome are better than the gods\nof the North in the seas of Britain.\"\n\nLoud voices answered him bidding him lead on; for the blood of the\nvikings was rising hotly, and Biorn the Berserker sharpened the edge of\nhis great ax while he beat the deck with his feet and out through his\nthickly bearded lips there poured, low, but swelling, a song of the\nskalds at the gate of battle.\n\nRed grew the edges of the eastern sky as _The Sword_ pressed her iron\nbeak to the crests of the waves and sprang forward. Joyously rang\nout the war horn of warrior after warrior, for on board were vikings\nof high descent who would not have chosen for their jarl any of less\ndegree than a son of Odin. They were men entitled to go forward into\nthe feast of swords shoulder to shoulder with kings and with chiefs of\nrenown. Said one of them to Ulric:\n\n\"Jarl Ulric, many spears from the stowage. The Romans cast well and\ntheir spears are heavy. I mind not their light javelins nor their\narrows. Close not with any trireme at the first.\"\n\n\"I will be prudent,\" replied Ulric; \"but bring out the spears. There\nare arrow sheaves enough and stones for slinging.\"\n\n\"Let them not ram _The Sword_,\" continued the old fighter. \"Her ribs\nare strong, but so is the beak of a war galley of Rome. Strike her not\nsave amidships.\"\n\nWell was it for older men to counsel so young a leader, but Ulric had\nbeen taught from his infancy not only by Brander the Brave and Oswald,\nbut by all the sea kings and berserkers to whom he had listened while\nthey talked of war around the mid-fire in the old hall. Naught had they\nsaid or sung but he had made its teachings his own against an hour like\nthis.\n\n\"A trireme!\" shouted Knud the Bear as the daylight brightened. \"She is\nof the largest. Helmets and standards and the shields of a cohort of a\nlegion. They are more in number than we are.\"\n\n\"Twice more,\" said the old counselor, \"and her bulk is nearly thrice\nthat of _The Sword_. Beware, O jarl!\"\n\n\"I see her well,\" responded Ulric. \"She is heavy in the water. I think\nshe is overburdened.\"\n\n\"They are swift also,\" said Tostig the Red, \"but that keel cannot turn\nas nimbly as can our own. Let us go nearer!\"\n\n\"Within a spear's cast!\" shouted Ulric, fiercely. \"We will not pass her\nwithout a blow. Wulf, take thou the helm. I will go to the fore deck.\"\n\nThere he stood in the morning light, as the two keels neared each\nother. The Roman trumpets sounded at intervals, and they were answered\nby the war horns of the vikings.\n\n\"She is a splendid war vessel,\" said Ulric to those who were with him.\n\"Never yet have we builded her like. Her bulwarks are higher than ours\nand her sail is many times broader. It is made of woven stuff. Her prow\nis a ram. We must not let her strike us.\"\n\n\"Neither will we strike her,\" said Biorn the Berserker, \"unless we can\nhit her amidships. She is a danger. O jarl, beware! I do not think we\nmay take that trireme, but we can get away from her.\"\n\nSo did not think the trierarch and the centurion on board the trireme.\nHe who was captain of the vessel was of one accord with the officer in\ncharge of the legionaries whom she was conveying. If Ulric could have\nheard them converse as _The Sword_ came toward them, he would have\nlearned somewhat of the estimation in which such as he were held by the\nwolves of Rome.\n\n\"A Saxon pirate, O Lentulus,\" said the trierarch to the man in armor\nat his side. \"It is early in the season for them to be seen in these\nwaters. They are the scourges of the sea.\"\n\n\"And of the shore, friend Comus,\" replied the centurion. \"We will make\nshort work of this one. It is of good size, and it swarmeth with men as\nwith bees.\"\n\n\"Hast thou ever met them in fight?\" asked Comus, \"or is this thy first\nsight of them?\"\n\n\"This is my first service in these waters,\" replied Lentulus, \"but I\nhave heard much of them. I would we had some legions of them to send\nagainst the Parthians, or into Africa. Laurentius had a cohort of them\nwith him in Spain. They make the best of gladiators; C\u00e6sar hath used\nthem in the arena. But it is hard to take them. Let us see if we cannot\nsend him a present of these pirates for the summer games. He is ever in\nneed of good swordsmen.\"\n\n\"Little thou knowest of them,\" laughed Comus. \"We may capture a few\nwounded men. The rest will die fighting.\"\n\nEven while he spoke Tostig the Red was remarking to his friends at the\nstern of _The Sword_, just forward of the deck: \"A fine stone for my\nsling is this. I will strike that high-crested one. There is often much\ntreasure on a trireme, if Thor will let us take her. But the men we\nwant not, nor the keel.\"\n\n\"Burn her,\" they said, \"and throw the soldiers overboard; but the\nRomans die where they stand. We shall take no prisoners but the rowers.\nThe jarl will slay them.\" So without thought of mercy on either side\ndid the two keels draw nearer.\n\nThey were not yet within a spear's cast when they who were with\nTostig stood away from him to give him slinging room. \"He is the best\nslinger,\" they said, \"on all the North coast. Let us see what he can\ndo. He is not a boaster.\"\n\nAs the vessel climbed a wave Tostig poised himself, swinging slowly\nthe leathern thong which upheld the square apron in which his pebble\nrested. Two pounds only in weight it may have been, but it was smooth\nand round from much chafing on the shore of the fiord with other\npebbles as the sea waves had tossed them to and fro in many storms.\nOver the crest of the wave went _The Sword_, and as she did so the\nsling began to whirl swiftly in the hand of Tostig. Hand went to hand\nto give it double force, and then, as the downward plunge of the keel\nwent with him, he gave his might to it and threw.\n\nNone saw the stone, so swiftly did it pass, but the trierarch said to\nthe centurion:\n\n\"O Lentulus, thou art said to be as good a spearman as Pontius of Asia.\nHave thy pilum ready and try thy fortune.\"\n\n\"It is too far,\" said Lentulus, poising his pilum. \"I was in battle\nonce with that same Pontius. Hercules! I am slain!\"\n\nLoud clanged his brazen helmet and prone he fell upon the deck. He did\nnot move again. The stone hurled by Tostig had left him but life enough\nfor that one outcry as it smote him.\n\n\"May all the gods forbid!\" exclaimed Comus. \"What ill fortune is this?\nHe is dead! Toward the pirate! Strike her through and through!\"\n\nEven as he spoke a legionary at his side went down before a second\nstone from the sling of Tostig, and the shouts of the vikings mingled\nwith the clangor of their war horns.\n\nDeft was the steering of Wulf and the swift rush of the trireme was\navoided, _The Sword_ passing her stern so near that every spearman\nmight make a cast. But the legionaries, pilum in hand, had faced the\nfurther bulwark, thinking their foe came that way, and not so many of\nthem were at good stations. Their bowmen also had been deceived, and\ntheir greater number was of no account. Nevertheless, many Roman spears\nflew well, being mostly of the lighter javelins used by them in the\nbeginning of a fight. Easily were these caught upon the broad shields\nof the vikings, as if it were in a mere game at home, and no harm was\ndone by them or by the arrows. Closer were they when they did their\nown throwing, and a hundred heavy spears went hurtling in among the\nlegionaries.\n\n\"Follow!\" shouted Comus. \"Have ready the grapplings! Strike and then\nboard her!\"\n\nA good officer was he, and the rowers as well as the legionaries obeyed\nhim angrily, for they deemed the Northmen insolent in assailing such\nsuperior force.\n\n\"Away!\" shouted Ulric. \"Hael to thee, O Tostig. Get thee to the stern\nand pitch thy pebbles among her rowers.\"\n\nTostig was toiling hard, and so were other good slingers, of whom the\ntrireme seemed to not have any, but _The Sword_ swept on out of range\nwhile her enemy was turning.\n\n\"O jarl,\" said Biorn, \"she is not clumsy, but her steersman went down.\nLet us gain what distance we may. That was a good blow, but we may not\nstrike the next so easily.\"\n\nThe older vikings looked watchfully, as did Biorn, and again they\nsaid: \"Our jarl is young, but this was well done.\"\n\n\"Westward!\" shouted Ulric to Wulf. \"We must lead them toward the land.\nI would I knew this coast.\"\n\n\"That do I,\" said Biorn, \"if we are where I think. There are high\ncliffs, but there is also much marsh land; and off the coast there are\ngreat shallows, worse for a ship than any rocks might be. Watch for\nthem.\"\n\n\"They are our friends,\" said Ulric, \"but they are not friendly to a\ndeep vessel like yonder trireme.\"\n\n\"Aye,\" said Biorn, \"it is our old way of battling such as she is, but\nthere is an evil among these shallows. Hast thou not heard of the sand\nthat is alive? There is much of it hereaway.\"\n\n\"My father warned me of it,\" replied Ulric. \"If horse or man setteth\nfoot upon it, it will seize him and suck him down. But it could not\nswallow a ship.\"\n\n\"Were she a mountain!\" exclaimed Biorn. \"The living sand would be worse\nthan a Roman trireme for _The Sword_ to escape from. Yonder is a land\nline at the sky's edge, and I think I see breakers.\"\n\nThe rowers were rowing well and _The Sword_ had gained a long advantage\nbefore the Roman oarsmen had recovered from their confusion. Now,\nhowever, Ulric upon the foredeck was measuring distances, wave after\nwave, and he spoke out plainly to his men.\n\n\"Swift is _The Sword_,\" he said. \"I had thought that no keel on earth\ncould be swifter, but we are laden heavily; so is the trireme, that she\nturneth not nimbly, but in a straight course she is swifter than are\nwe. She hath many rowers and she is sharp in the prow. She gaineth upon\nus little by little.\"\n\n\"Woe to her,\" responded the vikings. \"She moveth too fast for her good.\"\n\n\"The land riseth fast,\" said Biorn. \"The breakers are not far away.\nUnder them are sand shoals.\"\n\n\"The Roman is but a hundred fathoms behind us,\" replied Ulric. \"Wulf\nthe Skater, steer thou through the breakers. Let us see if she will\ndare to follow.\"\n\nComus, the trierarch, was overeager, or he would have remembered that\nwhich he seemed to have forgotten. They who were with him were stung\nby the death of Lentulus and by the ravages of the Saxon spears and\nstones. None counseled him to prudence, and he dashed on in the foaming\nwake of _The Sword_.\n\n\"Breakers, but no rocks,\" muttered Wulf, as he grasped his tiller\nstrongly. \"Now, if we fill not, we shall dash through. Pull! For the\nNorthland pull!\"\n\nHard strained the rowers. High sprang the curling breakers on either\nhand. Loud rang the shouts and the war horns. But _The Sword_ rose\nbuoyantly over the crown of a great billow and passed on into smoother\nwater.\n\n\"Odin!\" roared Biorn the Berserker. \"The trireme is but fifty paces--\"\n\n\"Struck!\" shouted Ulric. \"On, lest we ourselves may be stranded!\"\n\n\"Deep water here, Jarl Ulric,\" calmly responded an old seaman near him.\n\"We have passed the sand bar. It may be the tide is falling. The gods\nof the sea are against that Roman keel.\"\n\n\"Or they are not with her to-day,\" said Ulric. \"She is held fast. Cease\nrowing and put the sail up again. We will see if there is aught else\nthat we may do. I like not to let her escape me.\"\n\nUp went the sail, and for an hour _The Sword_ did but cruise back and\nforth, only now and then venturing near enough for the hurling of a\nstone or the sending of an arrow. It was then too far for any harm to\nthe Romans, but they could hear the taunting music of the horns.\n\n\"Low tide,\" said Biorn at last, \"and she lieth upon bare sand. We are\nwell away. We can do no more.\"\n\n\"Watch!\" said Ulric. \"They are troubled.\"\n\n\"She lieth too deeply. What is this?\" So asked the Roman seamen of\ntheir captain as they leaned over their bulwarks and studied that bed\nof sand. He answered not, but one, a legionary in full armor, stepped\ndown from the ship to examine more closely--and an unwise man was\nhe. In places the sandy level seemed firm enough, and a horse may\ngallop along a sandy beach after the tide is out and leave but a fair\nhoofprint. That way armies have marched and chariots have driven. There\nwere other patches, however, whereon the sand seemed to glisten and to\nchange in the sunlight, and here there was potent witchcraft working.\nAt these had the sailors been gazing, but the soldier did not reach one\nof them.\n\n\"Back!\" shouted Comus. \"It is the living sand! We are all dead men!\nBack!\"\n\nThe legionary strove to wheel at the word of command, but his feet\nobeyed him not. Even the vikings were near enough to see that the sand\nwas over his ankles.\n\n\"The under gods have seized him,\" muttered Ulric. \"It is from them that\nthe sand liveth. They are angry with him.\n\n\"_Vale! Vale! Vale!_\" shouted the legionary. \"O Comus, I go down! They\nwho dwell below have decreed this. See thou to the ship and follow not\nthe Saxons.\"\n\n\"Follow them?\" exclaimed Comus. \"_Vale_, O comrade! But the trireme\nlieth a handbreadth deeper. She is sinking! O all the gods! Have we\ncome to this ending? Who shall deliver us?\"\n\n\"None, O Comus,\" said a man of dark countenance who leaned over the\nbulwark at his side. \"We have offended the gods and they have left us\nto our fate.\"\n\nLower sank the wooden walls of the great vessel, while her helpless\ncrew and the soldiery stared despairingly at the pitiless sand and at\nthe White Horse flag of the vikings dancing lightly over the sea so\nnear them.\n\n\"Form!\" commanded Comus, and the legionaries fell into ranks all over\nthe vessel. \"Put ye the body of Lentulus upon the deck,\" he said, \"and\nbring me the eagle of the legion. O Lentulus, true comrade, brave\nfriend, we salute thee, for all we who were of thy company go down to\nmeet thee. Behold, we perish!\"\n\nSilent sat the rowers at their oars. The standards fluttered in the\nwind. The trierarch took the eagle and went and stood by the body of\nLentulus.\n\n\"They are brave men, yonder,\" said Biorn the Berserker. \"They will to\ndie in line. So do the Romans conquer all others except the men of the\nNorth.\"\n\n\"They have one trireme the less,\" replied Tostig the Red. \"But they\nhave many more. This is not like burning one. I see no honor to us in\nthis.\"\n\n\"Honor to the gods,\" said Ulric. \"She was too strong for us and Odin\ndestroyed her.\"\n\n\"It is well to have him on our side,\" said Tostig; but Knud the Bear\nlaughed loudly, as was his wont, and said: \"Odin is not a sea god. What\nhath he to do with sand and water? Some other god is hidden under the\nliving sand. We shall leave him behind us when we go away----\"\n\n\"Her bulwarks go under!\" shouted one of the vikings. \"Hark to the\ntrumpets! They go down!\"\n\nThe trumpet blast ceased and there was a great silence, for the like of\nthis had never before been seen.\n\n\"Oars!\" commanded Ulric. \"We will search the coast. Such a warship\nas was this came not hitherward without an errand. She may have had\ncompanions.\"\n\nThe old vikings all agreed with him, and an eager lookout was set, but\nbehind them as they sailed away they saw nothing but a bare bed of\nsand, over which the tide was returning.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER VIII.\n\n THE SAXON SHORE.\n\n\n\"O jarl!\" exclaimed Knud the Bear, in a morning watch, \"we have wasted\ndays in this coasting. The weather hath been rough and the men are\nweary, for we are tightly packed in this ship.\"\n\n\"No longer shouldst thou prevent us from seeking the shore,\" said\nanother. \"I would hunt, and get me some fresh meat.\" There were also\nvoices of impatience and of discontent among the crew.\n\nThe jarl listened, and thoughtfully he responded: \"I have not forgotten\nthat the Romans sail in fleets. We are one keel. If now we have avoided\nany trireme that was company for the one which was swallowed by the\nsand, we have done well. We will steer toward the shore. My father told\nme of such a coast as this.\"\n\n\"As the sun riseth higher,\" said Biorn the Berserker, \"I think I can\nsee a low headland. This is not my first cruising in these seas.\"\n\n\"It is well,\" said the jarl. \"We will go within the headland. If we\nfind a good shore, we will land, for I am of one mind with you.\"\n\nAll the older vikings approved of his prudence, for they knew the\nRomans better than did the younger warriors, full of eagerness. Even\nnow the sailing of _The Sword_ was with caution. The noon drew near and\nthey were close to the headland. It was neither high nor rocky, and on\nit was a forest; but here was a surprise, for the trees growing down to\nthe beach were in full leaf.\n\n\"The winter tarried late in the Northland,\" said the vikings. \"We have\nalso been many days upon our way. The summer is near.\"\n\nThey might also discern patches of green grass, and now Knud shouted\nfrom the fore deck: \"A deep cove, O jarl! It is very deep.\"\n\nUlric was at the helm, and he responded: \"Thou hast good eyes, O Bear.\nWatch thou for rocks and shoals and give me word. Let all eyes watch\nalso for boats or men.\"\n\nThe rowers rowed easily and _The Sword_ slipped on into the cove. Here\nwas dense forest on either side, and there were rocks, but the trees\nwere large and old and there seemed to be little undergrowth, nor was\nthere any sign of the dwellings of men.\n\n\"The Britons,\" said an old viking, \"build not often on the shore. They\nare not seamen. They have no forts but wooden palisades, and they dwell\ninland, where they are more safe. They fight well, but they have little\narmor, and their steel is soft. They are no match for the legions of\nRome.\"\n\nIt was exceedingly still as _The Sword_ went forward. Away at the\nleft a herd of red deer came out under a vast oak and stared at the\nnewcomers. At their head was a stag with branching antlers.\n\n\"Now know we,\" said Biorn the Berserker, \"that no men are near this\nplace, for these creatures are exceedingly timid. But their venison is\nof the best. In Britain are also wild cattle in abundance, and wild\nswine. We will have great hunting before we sail to other places.\"\n\nSwiftly away sped the red deer, for the prow of _The Sword_ touched\nthe strand and Wulf the Skater sprang ashore, followed by a score of\nvikings.\n\n\"On, up the bank!\" shouted the jarl. \"Return and tell what thou seest.\nAll to the shore and stand ready if he findeth an enemy.\"\n\n\"A prudent jarl,\" murmured Biorn the Berserker. \"He will not be\nsurprised.\"\n\nNevertheless, the younger men laughed scornfully, for they liked not\nwell the hard discipline of the jarl, and he brooked no manner of\ndisobedience, as was his right.\n\nBack came one from Wulf the Skater. \"O jarl!\" he shouted. \"A fine\nspring of water. An open glade. Wulf asketh if he shall now cut the\nsaplings.\"\n\n\"I come soon,\" replied the jarl, \"but cut stakes for a palisade leading\ndown to this beach on either hand. Though there be no Romans here,\nthere are Britons not far off.\"\n\nAxes were plying speedily, and while the first fires were kindling many\nsharp stakes were driven, to be woven between with flexible twigs and\nbranches. Such was ever the custom of the Saxons upon a new land, for\nbehind such a wattle-work defense a few warriors may withstand many,\nand light palisades guard well against horsemen. Not all could work in\nthese matters, and twoscore were selected by lot for the first hunting,\ngoing out in four parties, with a command not to venture too far. They\nwere bowmen, but they went in their armor. Before the sun set there was\na good stockade from tree to tree around the spring, with arms that\nreached out on either hand almost to the shore.\n\n\"We will make it stronger,\" said the jarl, \"but behind it we are safe;\nfor we might also retreat to the ship if there were need.\"\n\nNo red deer save one stag and a doe did the hunters bring in, and there\nwould have been a lack of meat but for the slaying by another party of\nfour black cattle, fat and good.\n\n\"O jarl,\" said the men. \"Did we not tell thee? This is better than\nbeing packed so tightly in _The Sword_. This is good venison.\"\n\nWell contented was he also, and he saw that he must humor the men if he\nwere to command them well thereafter. For this reason, therefore, other\nand larger hunting parties went out the next day, and they came home\nheavily laden.\n\n\"O jarl,\" said Tostig the Red, for his party, \"we have also found\npaths, but no men. We saw hills beyond, but a river is between us and\nthem, and a great marsh. I think no Britons come hither across the\nmarsh.\"\n\n\"On the morrow I will go,\" said Ulric. \"I will leave Biorn in command\nof the camp. I have no need for hunting, but I must know the land.\"\n\nBarrels of ale had been brought to the shore, and that night was a\nfeast, with songs and sagas. After the feast the jarl went and lay down\nto sleep under an oak, but his eyes would not close for thinking of the\nNorthland, and of the Middle Sea, and of Asgard.\n\n\"This landing is well,\" he thought, \"and I am glad to be in Britain.\nBut here I may not linger too long. O Hilda of the hundred years, not\nyet hast thou visited me. I wonder if thou or the gods could find me\nthis night under this oak tree. Who should tell thee where to come if\nthou wert seeking me? The gods see everywhere. Biorn sayeth that the\ngods of Britain are gods of the woods, and we are from the sea. I care\nnot much for wood gods.\"\n\nThen he rested, but he arose early and chose the men who were to go\nwith him.\n\n\"Guide me to the river and the marsh,\" he said to Wulf the Skater.\n\n\"I will, O jarl,\" said Wulf; \"but Tostig saw a wild boar yesterday and\nhe hath gone out after him. A vast one, he sayeth, with tusks like a\nwalrus. He will fight well if they can bring him to a fighting.\"\n\n\"Let Tostig win his boar,\" said Ulric. \"We go to the left and we hunt\nnot. I am full of thoughts about this place.\"\n\nA score of vikings were with them, and they marched on in order, two\nand two, as if they had an errand. Grand were the trees, and high, with\nbranches whose foliage made a gloom to walk in.\n\n\"Are we nearly at the marsh?\" asked Ulric at last. \"Here are rocks.\"\n\n\"I know not, O jarl,\" said Wulf. \"We came not so far southerly\nyesterday.\"\n\n\"Hael, Northmen! Hael! But sound no horn! Who are ye?\"\n\nAs if he had suddenly arisen through the ledge of rocks before them,\nupon it stood a tall shape in full armor, spear in hand. From under his\nhelmet tangled white hair fell down to his shoulders, but his right\nhand, holding the spear, was lifted as by one who giveth a command.\n\nAgain he spoke: \"I am Olaf, the son of Hakon, of Droningsfiord. Who are\nye?\"\n\n\"Northmen of thine own land,\" said the jarl. \"I am Ulric, the son of\nBrander. Our ship, _The Sword_, lieth at the shore. How camest thou\nwhere thou art, and who is with thee?\"\n\n\"None are with me,\" said Olaf, sternly. \"We were many, but the Romans\nhave smitten the Saxon shore of Britain and our villages are gone. They\nhave smitten many of the Britons also, and they march to smite them\nagain this day. Tell me, O Jarl Ulric, hast thou seen aught of certain\ntriremes which were to come? I would know if there are more Romans near\nthan I have already counted.\"\n\n\"One hath perished, as I will shortly tell thee,\" said Ulric. \"I have\nseen no other.\"\n\n\"Good!\" said Olaf. \"There floateth one in a harbor not far away, but\nthey who came in her are fewer than when they landed. Twain came, with\na cohort. One hath sailed. Their force was sent to slaughter the Druids\nat their great sacrificing, but first they struck our village at our\nharbor. We fought, but they were too many. I cut my way through the\nranks of their lighter spearmen, and they followed me not far because\nof the nearness of the Britons.\"\n\nOlaf was now descended from the rock and was become as one of them.\nGreat was his wonder at the story of the living sand and the trireme.\n\n\"The gods of the Britons are strong at times,\" he said, \"but they\nare not to be depended on. They have done this because of the great\nsacrifice, that the Romans may not hinder it. Therefore come thou with\nme a little distance and I will show thee a matter. The Romans are\ntangled in a wood. Meddle not thou and thine, however, for thou hast\nanother work to do.\"\n\n\"I meddle not,\" said the jarl, \"but I thank these Druid gods. We were\nclosely pushed and in peril when they ensnared the trireme with their\nsand. I will offend them not, but I would see these great sacrifices\nand I also would offer my token.\"\n\n\"That the Druids will forbid thee,\" said Olaf. \"Follow me quickly to\nthe crown of this ridge, for it is on the bank of the river.\"\n\nEven as he spoke there came to their ears a clangor of trumpets, as if\nmany sounded at once.\n\n\"Romans!\" exclaimed Ulric.\n\n\"Sounding first were they,\" said Olaf, \"but these hoarse ones, very\nloud, are blown by the Druids. Hear, also, the harping. Now look thou,\nfor thou art a captain.\"\n\nThe river before them was but narrow, although it might be deep, and on\nthe other side was a broad open space surrounded by a forest with dense\nundergrowths of bushes, as if it were marshy. In the open was arrayed a\ncohort of Roman soldiers, well ordered, but beyond and in their front\nmight be seen and heard much larger numbers of such as they were, all\ndisarrayed and scattered by the copses. None assailed the cohort in the\nopen, but all the forest swarmed with half-armed Britons, hurling darts\nand plying their light blades. Arrows, also, were flying, and there was\na great tumult of mingled sound.\n\n\"The men in white robes, keeping afar,\" said Olaf, \"are the Druid\npriests. This is as an ambush, and the Romans are falling.\"\n\n\"Their commander hath some wisdom, I think,\" said Ulric. \"His trumpets\ncall back his men for a retreat. He will escape.\"\n\n\"He loseth half his force,\" said Olaf; \"he will lose more as he\nretreateth.\"\n\nFiercer and fiercer arose the sounds of the combat, the shouting, the\nhowling, the twanging of loud harp strings, and the braying of the\ntrumpets. Hard was it for the vikings that they might not have a part\nin such a battle.\n\n\"The Romans are outnumbered,\" said Olaf, \"but they fight well. Their\nretreat will be to the river mouth, where was my village. There have\nthey a camp in our own stockade, and they have also increased it with a\nrampart of earth and palisades. There we must strike them. It is but a\nlittle distance. Come and see.\"\n\n\"But first,\" said Ulric, \"I would see the end of this battle, and I\nwould have speech with a Druid concerning the sacrifices.\"\n\n\"That thou mayest not this day,\" said Olaf, \"and the Romans are cutting\ntheir way through the tumult of half-naked spearmen. Lo, how they\nslay the Britons! But the ranks of their cohort will be thin when the\nremnant reacheth the fort. So hath it often been in their warfare in\nBritain, but each new commander of legionaries cometh here a proud one,\nthinking only of easy victory.\"\n\n\"The darts fly in showers,\" said Ulric, but Wulf the Skater urged him.\n\n\"O jarl!\" he exclaimed. \"The village! The fort! The trireme! Why wait\nwe here? Let us go with Olaf!\"\n\nThe jarl answered not, but walked rapidly, and the rocky ledge grew\nhigher as they went; but there came an end of it.\n\n\"We have walked far,\" said Ulric. \"The way of the Romans was shorter.\nThere come they and their array is not broken. I can see their\ncommander ordering them.\"\n\n\"Thor the Thunderer!\" exclaimed Olaf, \"what havoc the Britons have made\namong them! The gods of the Druids have protected their sacrifices.\"\n\n\"Every Roman left behind hath perished,\" said Ulric. \"Only these are\nalive.\"\n\n\"Not so,\" said Olaf. \"Not a wounded man or one entrapped hath been\nslain. He belongeth to the gods at the place of sacrifice.\"\n\n\"With them as with us,\" said the jarl. \"That is the old North custom. I\nhave seen men slain at the stone of Odin. He who is captured must lose\nhis head. It is well----\"\n\n\"Seest thou?\" loudly demanded Olaf. \"The ruins of our village are yet\nsmoking, although three days have passed. I saw thy ship on the sea\nyesterday, but knew not of thy landing. I meant to watch for thee or\nfor the coming triremes after seeing the battle.\"\n\n\"Yonder trireme at anchor,\" replied the jarl, \"floateth well out from\nthe river mouth. She is large. How shall I take her? For there are yet\nRomans enough to hold her well. I must come to her by night in _The\nSword_.\"\n\nLong and thoughtfully gazed Ulric, studying the position of the trireme\nand the arrival of the beaten Romans at the fort.\n\n\"O jarl,\" said Biorn the Berserker, \"knowest thou not that I am a fish?\nThe trireme is held but by an anchor and a cord of hemp. Go thou and\nbring _The Sword_. When thou art at hand to strike thou mayest have\nthe trireme drifting with the outgoing tide. Strike not when the tide\nrunneth in?\n\n\"Thou canst swim,\" said Ulric, \"and thy seax will sever hemp; but if\nthou waitest here until I come, how wilt thou know in the dark of my\ncoming, or how wilt thou know where to ply the sharp edge?\"\n\n\"When I hear thee whistle thrice,\" said Biorn, \"as if thou wert calling\nthy hawk, I will know of thy coming. If the whistle is from this shore,\nI meet thee here. If it is from seaward, I swim to the trireme. Thou\nwilt know the hemp is severed when thou hearest my own falcon call.\"\n\n\"I go with thee, O jarl!\" shouted Olaf, eagerly, \"that I may be thy\npilot.\"\n\n\"Well for thee, O Biorn the Berserker,\" said Ulric; \"thou art of the\nheroes!\"\n\n\"Here sit I down,\" replied Biorn. \"It is a pleasant place. I think this\ntaking of the trireme will depend upon thee and thy sword more than\nupon a man a fish cutting hemp!\"\n\n\"Haste, now,\" said Ulric to his men. \"_The Sword_ is far from us and\nthis is to be a night of great deeds, and not of ale and feasting.\"\n\nOlaf led, as the guide of their rapid marching, and Biorn sat down upon\na rock to gaze at the doings around the river mouth and at the fort.\n\n\"There come the Britons out of the woods,\" he said to himself. \"If they\nhad been well led they would have pursued more closely--only that few\ncare to press too hard upon even the wreck of a Roman army. Now are all\nthe Romans within the stockade.\"\n\nThe Britons were many, but their prey had escaped them. The camp fort\nwas too strong for them to storm, and their showers of darts flew over\nthe palisades without much harm to any within. The taunting clangor of\ntheir harps and trumpets sounded furiously for a while, and then the\nmultitude swiftly vanished as if it had melted away.\n\n\"If these Britons had a captain,\" said Biorn, \"instead of a herd of\npriests, and if he would arm them well, the Romans would disappear from\nBritain. But I think Ulric the Jarl will find many swords on yonder\ntrireme. Even now they go out in small boats. Biorn the Berserker will\nbe with him when the Saxons are on the Roman deck!\"\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER IX.\n\n THE TAKING OF THE TRIREME.\n\n\nThe night was at hand when the jarl and his party arrived at the camp,\nand already all others were around the camp-fires.\n\n\"O jarl!\" shouted Tostig. \"Come thou and see this mighty one! We hauled\nhim hither upon a bundle of branches, and he wearied us with his\nweight.\"\n\n\"Never saw I such a one!\" exclaimed Ulric, gazing at the great boar\nwhich lay at the fire by the spring. \"Was he for thy spear alone?\"\n\n\"For mine!\" said Tostig. \"Now am I even with thee concerning the white\nbear, for this one fought as did the son of the ice king. He nearly\novercame me after he had slain Nef, the son of Ponda, and had rent him\nin pieces. He had no wound from Nef.\"\n\n\"We did watch them,\" said a viking, \"and to Tostig is the honor. If his\nspear had broken, as did thine in the bear, I think Tostig would have\nlost the battle.\"\n\n\"Then had I felt those great tusks,\" laughed Tostig, \"But it will take\nall the night to roast him well.\"\n\n\"He will roast while we fight,\" replied the jarl; \"and some of us will\neat not of him, but in Valhalla. To the ship, all! We go to attack a\nRoman trireme. Let those eat now who have not eaten, taking their meat\nwith them. I leave not a sword here!\"\n\n\"He who would stay behind is nidering!\" shouted Tostig the Red. \"We\nwill follow our jarl to the feast of swords, and they who return\nmay find the boar roasted. Hael to thee, O jarl! Thou bringest good\ntidings.\"\n\nNot until all were in the ship, however, did Ulric explain to his men\nfully and carefully the errand upon which they were going. Wild was\ntheir enthusiasm, and once more the young and the discontented were\nsatisfied with their jarl.\n\n\"He is a son of the gods,\" they said, \"and he will lead us to victory.\"\n\n\"Or to Valhalla,\" growled Knud the Bear. \"Not all of you will eat the\nroasted boar's flesh.\"\n\nThe rowers rowed with power and _The Sword_ went swiftly. Ulric was at\nthe helm, and Olaf was at the prow sending back words of direction. The\ndistance to be traveled was less on the water than on the land, through\nthe forests.\n\n\"I would I knew of the doings of Biorn,\" said one, as the ship rounded\na point and entered the harbor at the river mouth.\n\nThe jarl answered not, but shortly he put his fingers to his lips and\nwhistled thrice.\n\n\"Row slowly, now,\" he said, \"till an answer shall come. I am glad the\nmoon is not yet arisen. We go on behind a curtain.\"\n\nThe jarl's signal had been heard by a man upon whom was only a belt, to\nwhich hung a sheathed seax and a war horn. He stood at the water's edge\nat the harbor side.\n\n\"The jarl cometh!\" he whispered, and he went into the water, making\nno sound. Before that he had crept along the shore, landward, bearing\nhis arms and his armor, and now he had but sixty paces to swim. The\nRoman sentinel on the deck of the trireme heard only the ripple of the\noutgoing tide against her wooden walls.\n\nKnife upon hemp cutteth silently, but soon the sentinel turned with a\nsharp exclamation, for out of the seaward silence there came a long,\nvibrating whistle, another, another, and then from the hollow of a dark\nwave near the trireme there sounded a fourth like unto these three.\nThis last he answered with a shout, and he hurled his pilum at that\ndarkness in the water, but the trireme herself responded with a lurch\nand a yawing as she began to be swept away by the tide. There were\nrowers on board, and they quickly sprang to the oars, but they were\nfew and there was yet no steersman. There were many soldiers also, but\ntheir officer ordered a number of them to the oars, that he might get\nthe ship under control. When, therefore, there came gliding swiftly out\nof the shadows the unlooked-for warship of the Saxons she was alongside\nand her grapplings were made fast with none to hinder.\n\nFrom the opposite side of the Roman vessel, as it were from the water\nitself, now sounded furiously the war horn of Biorn the Berserker.\nFull half of the legionaries rushed in that direction and their hurled\nspears were too hastily lost in the sea. Terribly rang out the war\nhorns and the battle shouts of the Saxons, but the first man of them\non board of the trireme was Ulric the Jarl, and down before his ax\nfell whoever met him. Close behind him were his followers, so that the\nnearer Romans were not only surprised, but outnumbered.\n\nUp the side, near the stern, climbed Biorn the Berserker, and for\na moment he was alone, so quickly had fallen twain who were there.\nTaking in hand the helm, \"Biorn! Biorn the Berserker!\" he shouted. \"O\njarl, I am here! The ship is ours!\" Hard fought the remaining Romans,\nnevertheless, against such odds, but all the rowers were slain at their\noars.\n\n\"It is done!\" said Ulric. \"Silence, all! I have called twice for Biorn.\nWhere is he?\"\n\n\"O jarl, son of Brander the Brave!\" came faintly back from the after\ndeck, \"hast thou fully taken this trireme?\"\n\n\"We have her!\" answered Ulric. \"Thanks to thee, O Biorn! She is thine!\"\n\n\"Odin!\" shouted back the old berserker. \"Then bear thou witness for me,\nat feast and in song, that Biorn, the son of Nar, the sea king, died\nnot by drowning, but by the driven spear of a Roman, in all honor. I go\nto Valhalla as becometh me. Rejoice, therefore, and smite thou these\nRomans once more for me. I die!\"\n\nThere was a silence of a moment on the ship, but then the oldest viking\nof all blew triumphantly his horn and shouted: \"We have heard! Biorn,\nthe hero, hath gone to the hall of the heroes. He died by the spear,\nand not a cow's death. Good is his fortune. Hael to thee, O Biorn! And\nhael to Jarl Ulric, the leader of men.\"\n\nClashed loudly then the shields and spears, but already Saxon hands\nwere upon the oars and Tostig the Red was at the helm, with Olaf by\nhim. Only it might be a dozen warriors had been named by the valkyrias\nto go to Valhalla with Biorn the Berserker, but the Romans whose bodies\nwere cast into the sea were ten times as many.\n\n_The Sword_ and the trireme were now going out with the tide into\nthe open sea and into the darkness, but there had been much sounding\nof trumpets in the camp of the Romans. Few as were the remaining\nlegionaries, they had marched to the shore ready for action. There\nwere small boats at the beach, but it was all too late for any use of\nthese. Those who patrolled and inquired, however, found at the side of\na rock a helmet like a bear's head, a shirt the hide of a bear, two\nheavy spears, an ax--the trophies to them of Biorn the Berserker. These\nwere brought to the centurion in command and he examined them with care.\n\n\"The pirates of the North are here,\" he said. \"Woe is me that ever\nI came to this death coast! Here shall we leave our bones, for the\nBritons will come like locusts, and we have lost our trireme!\"\n\n\"Another ship cometh soon,\" said his friends. \"We may hold the fort\nwell until her arrival. All is not lost.\"\n\n\"Know ye that?\" replied the centurion. \"If the trireme of Lentulus\nwere above the water, she would have arrived long since. He hath never\nfailed an appointment. I think it was his evil demon and not the favor\nof the proconsul that made him the count of the Saxon shore. The fates\nare against us.\"\n\nSo darkly brooded the Romans over their many disasters, while Ulric the\nJarl ordered the steering of his two ships up the coast and into the\ncove where he had first landed.\n\n\"I would have speech with a Druid, if I may,\" he said to Olaf. \"It is\nstrongly upon my mind that I must see this great sacrifice to their\ngods. Manage thou this for me. Thou hast been in league with them.\"\n\n\"What I can do in such a matter I will do,\" said Olaf. \"But, O jarl,\nI have somewhat to say to thee concerning this trireme. Consider her\nwell, for she is a strong warship and there is much room in her.\"\n\n\"Also much plunder,\" said Ulric; \"but that must wait for the day. Each\nman hath his share, and the shares of the slain go to their kindred\nwhen we return.\"\n\n\"So is the North law,\" said Olaf; \"but where shall any man stow that\nwhich may be his prize? _The Sword_ is but a nutshell. Thou wilt think\nof this matter, for thou art jarl.\"\n\nThe night waned toward the dawn and all had need of rest. The ships\nwere anchored, therefore, and the cove was still.\n\nThe trumpets at the Roman camp greeted loudly the sun's rising. The\nsentinels were changed and the patrols came in from the edges of the\nforest to report that no enemy seemed to be coming. The soldiers\nsullenly attended to the customary morning duties of the camp, now and\nthen glancing seaward as if they hoped to see a sail. The centurion in\ncommand walked along the lines of his intrenchments, studying them,\nbut his eyes more often sought the earth. A stalwart man was he, in\nsplendid armor, and his face bore scars of battle. Well had he fought\nthe Britons the day before, but now he loudly exclaimed:\n\n\"O my imprudence! I should have waited for Lentulus and a greater\nforce. Will he never come? But, if he come, the fault of this defeat is\nnot his, but mine. He will be acquitted, and I am left alone to account\nto C\u00e6sar for a lost eagle of a legion!\"\n\nHe smote upon his breast and again he walked onward, downcast and\ngloomy. Once more he spoke, with exceeding bitterness:\n\n\"How shall I answer for the loss of the trireme here in the bay? Will\nnot all men say that I kept no watch?\"\n\nHe stepped upon the rampart and stood still. Near at hand were the\nruins of the Saxon village, but they had ceased smoking and lay black\nand bare as witnesses of the ruthless blow which he had smitten upon\nthe Northmen of the Saxon shore. Beyond were fields which would not\nbe cultivated this season as formerly. There were many corpses yet\nunburied, for the slayers had spared none save boys and girls for the\nslave market. The very young, the very old, even the middle-aged women,\nhad been slain, and the fighting men had fallen with their weapons in\ntheir hands. The prisoners were guarded in a kind of pen at the left,\nand they were many.\n\n\"Petronius,\" shouted the centurion to an officer of rank, \"take with\nthee ten and slay all. We have no conveyance for them. Let not one\nescape.\"\n\nOne order was as another to a Roman soldier, and Petronius answered\nnot, but marched away into the camp, seeking his ten who with him were\nto butcher the prisoners.\n\n\"I am dishonored!\" said the centurion. \"Fate and fortune are against\nme. I can give no reason for the loss of the trireme. I will go down to\nthe shades.\"\n\nSlowly he drew his short-bladed, heavy gladius from its sheath. He\nlooked at it, trying its edge, and he said:\n\n\"Thou hast been with me through many battles, O sword! Thou hast drunk\nthe blood of more lives than I can count. Be thou true to me now, for\nall else is lost.\"\n\nThen he knelt upon the rampart and placed the hilt firmly in the earth,\nthe blade point leaning toward him. He braced himself and cast his\nweight with force. A gasp, a shudder, a struggle of strong limbs, and\nPetronius was in command of the Roman camp, for his superior officer\nwas dead.\n\nThere were many screams at the prison pen, but afterward all was quiet,\nand Petronius returned, to be told of this new misfortune which had\nbefallen.\n\n\"Keep ye good watch,\" he said, \"lest the Britons take us unawares.\nThere is more than one trireme yet to come. But now we will raise the\nfuneral pile of him who lieth here, for he died in all honor.\"\n\nOrders were given and the soldiers brought much wood, but they came and\nwent in silence, for their fates were dark before them.\n\nSo was it with the camp of the Romans; but at the camp of the Saxons,\nat the cove and spring, there was high feasting, for they found the\nwild boar well roasted and the venison was abundant. They needed but\nharps and harpers, for the spirit of song came upon all singers, and it\nwas a day of triumph. Not even the older vikings could say that they\nhad ever heard of the taking of a Roman warship in this wise.\n\n\"Some have the sea kings rammed to sinking,\" they said. \"Some have they\ndriven ashore and some have they burned; but the Romans themselves ever\nburn any keel that they are leaving. Hael to _The Sword_, the victor!\"\n\n\"The smiters of my kindred have themselves been smitten,\" said Olaf,\nthe son of Hakon, but he sat with a fierce fire burning in his eyes and\nhis seax lay bare at his side.\n\n\"We have smitten them upon the sea,\" said Ulric the Jarl, \"but not yet\nupon the land. I may not yet leave Britain. Not until I have kept the\ncounsel of Hilda and my promise to my father at his tomb.\"\n\n\"Do as thou hast said,\" replied Olaf, \"lest evil fortune come to thee.\nBut go thou now and look at the trireme. Is she not thine, to do with\nas thou wilt?\"\n\n\"I will go,\" said Ulric, and with him went only Knud the Bear, by his\nordering.\n\nFirst went they upon _The Sword_, for she was nearer, and she was now\nlashed side by side with the trireme. High above the low bulwarks of\nthe ship from the Northland arose the strong sides of the war vessel\nof C\u00e6sar, and her greater force in fight or in rough seas was evident.\nUlric looked and he thought of the sayings of Olaf, the son of Hakon,\nfor a shrewd suggestion sprouteth in the mind of a wise man like a seed\nsown in a garden.\n\n\"Truly we were overcrowded,\" said Ulric, standing upon the fore deck of\n_The Sword_. \"We are thrice too many souls for so small a ship as this.\nThere was too little room for provisions or for sleeping. There is none\nat all for the storage of spoils. The men will not brook the burning of\nthe shares which may fall to them. They like not my hard ruling even\nthus far.\"\n\n\"O jarl,\" said Knud, \"what sayest thou? Let us not burn good plunder.\nWhat good to win it if we carry it not home with us? I would now go on\nboard the trireme.\"\n\n\"Come,\" said Ulric, and they climbed up over her high bulwark, noting\nhow thick it was and well joined together. Thus they passed from stem\nto stern and in and out of cabins, examining all things--the oars, the\nropes, and the sails.\n\n\"She is provided for a long voyage,\" said the jarl. \"Sawest thou ever\nsuch armor and such store of weapons? We may need them in the southern\nseas.\"\n\n\"That will we,\" replied Knud; \"but I am an old seaman and I was\nthinking of yonder sails. There are twain. They are of strongly woven\nstuff--not skins, like our sail. They will save much rowing. There are\ngood anchors also. Thou sayest well, we are too many in _The Sword_.\"\n\nYet she seemed very beautiful as she lay at the side of the trireme,\nand the jarl remembered how his heart had gone out to her while she was\nbuilding. She had borne him well, also, and she had proved herself.\nWhat might he do with the vessel that he loved? He went on board of her\nagain and he stood by the hammer of Thor on the fore deck.\n\n\"What thinkest thou?\" asked Knud. \"What if I--for I am a smith--put now\nthe anvil and the hammer on the fore deck of the trireme? Will she not\nthen be _The Sword_? Will not Thor and Odin go with her?\"\n\n\"Do even as thou hast said!\" loudly exclaimed Ulric. \"So the gods go\nwith us what matter for a wooden keel?\"\n\nBut his heart smote him sorely.\n\n\"I would,\" he thought, \"that I might have speech with Hilda. I will go\non shore and question Olaf. He is old.\"\n\nOld was he and crafty, for already he had been saying many things to\nthe vikings. He had told them of keels overwhelmed in the storms of\nthe southern seas, or crushed by the rams of Roman warships. He had\nspoken of hungers and thirsts because of lack of room for provisions,\nand of fights lost because there were no more arrows to shoot or spears\nto throw. The young men heard him eagerly, and even the old warriors\nlistened with care. They also called to mind such things and told\nof them, and all who chose to look could see the difference in size\nbetween the two vessels that floated in the cove.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER X.\n\n THE GREAT SACRIFICE OF THE DRUIDS.\n\n\nIn the deep forest stood Olaf, the son of Hakon, and before him stood\na tall, venerable man clad in a robe of white which came down to his\nfeet, whereon were sandals. On his head was naught save abundant gray\nhair and a circlet of beaten gold. On his arms were heavy rings of\ngold, deeply graven, and in his hand was a long white wand, gold tipped.\n\n\"Thou and thy Saxon friends have done well,\" he said in the Latin\ntongue. \"But I like not this message from their jarl.\"\n\n\"He doth but ask of thee, O high priest,\" replied Olaf, \"that he, who\nis not as another man, but is of the sons of the gods of the North, may\nreverence thy gods for the aid they have given him by sea and land, and\nthat he may be present at the great sacrifice, as becometh him. If he\nmay so do, he will give thee a thing the like of which thou hast never\nseen hitherto, and he will smite for thee the Romans.\"\n\n\"Cometh he then from Odin?\" asked the Druid.\n\n\"From Odin,\" said Olaf; \"and of higher rank than he is none among the\nSaxons.\"\n\n\"He is not a king,\" said the Druid, \"but I know of jarls and of their\npedigrees. The Romans at thy village are this day smitten by the\nBritons and we need not his sword. Well is it, however, for him to\ngive a gift. Let him see to it that his offering be right precious. It\nis a day's journey to the sacred place. He may not come down to the\nvalley of the gods, but he may stand upon the hill, among the oaks, and\nafterward I will receive his token.\"\n\n\"So be it, O high priest,\" said Olaf, and he turned away, as did also\nthe Druid.\n\n\"Cunning is he,\" muttered Olaf, as he walked. \"But in us also is there\nprudence and the jarl will be guided in the matter. I think he will not\nfall into this trap of the Britons. They plotted against us before the\nRomans came, and gladly would they see Saxon blood upon the stones of\nsacrifice.\"\n\nSo said he to the jarl at the camp late in the day, and Ulric listened,\npondering.\n\n\"Olaf,\" he said, after a silence, \"Wulf the Skater hath returned from\nlooking at thy place. No other trireme hath arrived, but even while he\nwas watching did the Britons swarm over the palisades. The Romans were\ntoo few to guard their lines, and it was in vain for them to resist a\nmultitude. Thy vengeance is complete.\"\n\n\"The gods have done this,\" said Olaf. \"But what wilt thou do in this\nother matter?\"\n\n\"I will leave a strong guard with the ship,\" said the jarl, \"but with\nthe greater number I will go to look upon the sacrifices. Thou wilt\nguide by a road they know not, and we will defeat their cunning.\"\n\n\"They would not strike thee, I think,\" said Olaf, \"until after the\nsacrifices. This is their reverence to their gods.\"\n\n\"I would I knew,\" said Ulric, \"the name of one of their gods. I will\nnot sacrifice to one to whom I may not speak. He is a breath.\"\n\n\"Thou mayest not enter the sacred valley,\" said Olaf; \"but I have\nsomewhat more to tell thee. Now do I know what is the name of thy\ncaptured trireme.\"\n\n\"The hammer of Thor is on her deck at this hour,\" said the jarl. \"She\nis no longer Roman. But whose is that gilded shape under her beak? It\nseemeth a woman wearing a helmet.\"\n\n\"The Druid told me,\" said Olaf. \"She is Minerva. She is to the Romans\nas are the Nornir. She is both wise and crafty, being a saga woman, and\nthere are runes concerning her.\"\n\n\"She is, then, not of the sea,\" said the jarl. \"I think she will not\ncontend with Thor. It were ill fortune to disturb her, seeing she hath\ndelivered to us the ship; but we must give to it the name of _The\nSword_ or Odin were justly angry, for we gave our keel to him.\n\n\"Thou hast decided well,\" said Olaf; \"but if so, then there must remain\none keel only, not twain. It was commanded thee to burn one ship in\nBritain, and thou mayest not break thy word to the dead and to the\ngods.\"\n\n\"That will I not,\" said Ulric; \"but now we must speedily prepare this\nexpedition.\"\n\nWise had been the work of the tongue of Olaf, for now came the vikings\nto Ulric to speak concerning _The Sword_ and the trireme, so that\nthis which was to be done appeared not as by his ordering, but as the\ncounsel of all.\n\n\"Thou doest well,\" they told him, \"to yield to us in this matter. We\nwill have a larger ship. We will have room for our plunder. We care not\novermuch for thy small keel, and we will burn her at the seaside. Thou\nart our jarl in battle, but thou mayest not rule in all things.\"\n\nNevertheless, they agreed with him all the more readily concerning the\nsacrifices, and those who were to go and those who were to stay by the\nships were chosen by lot lest any should accuse the jarl of unfairness;\nfor it was hoped that here was to be fighting. Not yet had there been\nany division of the spoils because all agreed to wait until a more\nconvenient season, or even until the end of the voyage.\n\n\"They whom the valkyrias do not name,\" said one, \"may apportion\nwhatever may then be found in the ship. There will be fewer weapons,\nperchance, and fewer men.\"\n\nIn the dawn of the next day did the jarl lead out his men, and in the\ndusk did the march end. High and round-topped was the hill in the\nforest to which Olaf guided them, and below was a narrow valley, bare\nof trees. There was yet light to see that in the middle of the valley\nwere many great stones. Some of these stood upright in a wide circle,\nlike the burial stones of the North peoples, but much larger. Other\nstones, long and weighty, lay flat, upheld a little from the ground by\nbowlders under them at either end.\n\n\"They are stones of sacrifice,\" said Olaf. \"On them do they slay both\ncattle and men. But seest thou the cages?\"\n\n\"Penthouses of wood I see,\" said Ulric. \"Very large, but of one story\nand roofed flatly. On the roofs and against the sides are heaps of\nwood. What are these?\"\n\n\"Wait till thou seest,\" said Olaf. \"Their shape on the ground is as the\nbody and the arms and the legs of a man, and there is a meaning in it\nknown to the Druids. They make this wooden man of sacrifice, and they\nfill him full of men and women and children that he may feast. They\nhave made many war captives and they have condemned many for evil-doing\nor for speaking against the Druids.\"\n\n\"Great fires are lighting around the valley and near the stones,\"\nremarked Tostig the Red. \"I have seen many men slain upon stones. It\nis the right place to slay them, where the gods can see all. We shall\nhave a rare treat. But there are hundreds of Britons. They wear little\nclothing.\"\n\n\"They paint themselves blue, instead,\" said Olaf. \"But it keepeth not\nout either the cold or a spear point.\"\n\nMore and more numerous grew the throngs in the valley, coming out from\nunder the trees beyond. Not among them, but walking through them in a\nprocession, came scores at a time of the white-robed Druids, bearing no\narms, but leading with them human beings of both sexes, arm-fettered,\ndefenseless, making no resistance. There was a loud sound of harping\nand chanting as the processions drew near the flat stones.\n\nBehind each of these stood a Druid with a large knife, and before\nhim, stone by stone, was laid a victim. Then fell the knives in quick\nsuccession, with a twanging of harps and a shout, but the Northmen\nsaw no great difference between this offering and such as they had\nwitnessed elsewhere. As the firelight brightened, however, they could\ndiscern that the walls of the wooden man in the middle were open, with\nwide crevices, through which might be seen the naked forms of those who\nwere shut in. They were even crowded, and they uttered loud cries as\nthey saw torches placed against the heaps of wood surrounding the pen.\n\n\"Dry wood,\" said Knud the Bear. \"See how it kindleth! A hot fire! These\nare to be burned for their god? He is a bad one. I like it not. The\nRomans do well to kill these Druids. I would slay them myself.\"\n\nSo said all the vikings, and had there been more of them, they might\nhave vented their anger at this thing. It was not good, even for a god,\nbut the throngs of Britons were well armed, after their fashion, and\nUlric's men were but few in comparison.\n\n\"We would not mind four or five to one,\" he said, \"but we could not\nslay such a multitude. The fires burn terribly! It is not at all like\nkindly slaying with a sword.\"\n\n\"A cut on a man's neck is nothing,\" said Tostig. \"He falleth and that\nis an end. I hope to fall by a sword some day.\"\n\nThe shrieks and cries of agony were dreadful, rising above the twanging\nof the harps and the chanting of the Druids. There was no help for any\nof these who were doomed. Among them, said some of the vikings, must be\nall the Roman prisoners if any had been taken. The burning roofs fell\nin and so did the red blazings of the side walls. Nor did the swarms of\nthe Britons cease to yell with the pleasure of cruelty while they gazed\nupon the frantic struggles of these victims.\n\n\"We have seen enough,\" said Olaf, at last. \"O jarl, we have far to go.\nI hope we may again strike the Romans shortly, but I care not much if\ngood Saxon spears find many marks among the Druids. It would require a\nhost of Saxons to hold this island, killing them all, but I am one who\nwill go back to the North and come again, bringing stout slayers with\nme.\"\n\n\"Some of the white-robed ones come in this direction even now,\"\nresponded the jarl. \"Behind them are spearmen. They must not find us\nupon this hill, but the woods are overdark to march in.\"\n\n\"After we are well covered,\" said Olaf, \"we may kindle torches, but\nthe way by which I lead you is plain and wide, for the war chariots of\nthe British kings have made it in the old days. The Romans now prevent\nthem from having any chariots within their dominions, but there are\nfree tribes beyond their borders. Come!\"\n\n\"On!\" said the jarl. \"This hill was to have been their trap. They seek\nto march around that they may cut off our going. On!\"\n\nSwiftly marched the Saxons for a while, but the darkness of the forest\nwas dense, and now they halted to kindle torches.\n\n\"The Druids and their men carried many and bright ones,\" said Ulric,\n\"so that we saw them enter the woods, but we are too far now for them\nto discern our own.\"\n\nAfter this there were pauses for resting, but the vikings marched on\nuntil the dawn. Then went they forward again, fasting, but at the noon\nthey were greeted by the shouts of the men who held the palisades at\nthe spring.\n\n\"O Tostig the Red,\" responded the jarl, \"hath all been well with thee\nand with the camp?\"\n\n\"Hael, O jarl!\" said Tostig. \"All is well. We have seen Britons at a\ndistance among the trees, but none came near for speech. I think they\nare not overfriendly.\"\n\n\"That are they not, but treacherous,\" said Ulric. \"But now let there be\nroasting and eating and sleeping, and then we shall have new matters\nupon our hands. We have seen things that are worth telling around a\nfire in the winter evenings. I like not these gods of the Britons. They\nare evil-minded.\"\n\nMany were busy at the fires with venison and with fishes which had been\ncaught, but they who had remained at the camp were cooks for the weary\nmen who could tell of this sacrifice of the Druids. As for the jarl,\nhe ate and drank and then he went on board _The Sword_ and lay down to\nsleep upon the after deck, saying little to any man, and Tostig the Red\ncame and sat down by him.\n\nOrders had been given, moreover, and before the setting of the sun both\nkeels were anchored some fathoms out from low-water mark, and only the\nsmall boats were at the beach. It was best, the jarl had said, to trust\ndeep water rather than a stockade after the darkness should come. All\nthe fires in the camp were heaped to burn long, and so were other large\nfires upon the strand. Then came all the vikings on board the ship,\nand there could be no present peril. It was a night of peace, but the\nwatchers saw both dark forms and white ones by the light of the fires,\nand knew that the Britons had come.\n\n\"The white ones are the Druids,\" said Wulf the Skater to his\ncompanions. \"I am not afraid of their gods which have men roasted. I\nhope the jarl will find us a chance to spear priests before we sail\naway from this island.\"\n\nThe rest agreed with him, asking him many questions concerning the\nsacrifices.\n\n\"But for the prudence of the jarl,\" he also told them, \"all we who went\nwould have been taken at a disadvantage in the darkness of the forest.\nThere would have been no fair fighting.\"\n\n\"He is a good battle jarl,\" they said, but it might be seen that among\nthem were some who were not well pleased with his ways.\n\nThere, safe from all assailing, floated the two keels until the dawn.\nThen went some of the men ashore in the small boats, and the fires were\nreplenished for cooking, but none were permitted to wander into the\nwoods. On board the trireme there was much search going on and great\nwas the delight of all over the plunder discovered. Rich indeed was the\nstore of arms, as if it had been intended to refit a cohort or to arm\nnew recruits.\n\n\"It is good, too,\" they said, \"to be able to walk around. There was\nhardly elbow-room on our own keel. But we knew that we must lose some\nand that there would be less crowding when we came home.\"\n\n\"We can give a man to every oar of the trireme,\" said Ulric, \"and yet\nleave threescore to the spears.\"\n\nBut he looked over the bulwark and down into the good ship _The Sword_,\nand his heart smote him sadly, for the very wood she was made of came\nfrom his own trees, and she seemed to look him in the face kindly.\n\nHours went by before there were any newcomers upon the shore, but Olaf\nsaid that there must be patience.\n\n\"Watch also,\" he warned Ulric, \"and let not any Briton come on board.\nWe will meet them in the small boats at the strand.\"\n\nSo it came to be, for at the noon the woods became alive with men.\nForemost came the chief Druid, followed by some of lesser rank and\nby harpers. With them were chiefs of clans of the Britons, each one\ncalling himself a king, but being really less than a Norse jarl in\npower, for he was as a slave to all Druids.\n\n\"These,\" told Olaf, \"make the laws and enforce them. They alone know\nthe sagas of the Britons and what is to be given to the gods. They\nsometimes burn a king if he worketh not their will, and they have magic\narts which make the people fear them. I would slay all such if I were a\nking.\"\n\nHe and Ulric were in the same boat pulling to the strand; and the\nchief Druid was wise, for he came to meet them attended only by two\nother Druids and by seven of his harpers. Behind them under the trees\nclustered the British warriors. They formed no ranks, but they wore\na fierce, warlike appearance. Among them were some in armor that was\nhalf Roman, as if taken in battle. More had Roman swords, but their own\nBritish blades were both short and light. All were armed with javelins,\nbut their shields were of all sorts, only that most of them were made\nof wicker and hide.\n\n\"They are brave enough,\" said Olaf, \"but the Romans seek to prevent\nthem from getting weapons. A Briton might become as good a soldier as\na legionary, with arms and with training. C\u00e6sar is always cunning in\ngovernment.\"\n\n\"Hael, O Druid!\" shouted Ulric. \"I am well pleased to see thee.\"\n\n\"O thou, the jarl of the vikings,\" sternly responded the chief Druid.\n\"Too many came with thee. My permission was but to thee and to Olaf.\nNeither didst thou do reverence to my gods.\"\n\n\"O priest,\" said the jarl, \"I came and I returned as I would. I like\nnot thy gods. What is thy errand with me this day?\"\n\nThe face of Ulric had flushed hotly upon hearing the haughty speech of\nthe Druid, for he was not one to be lightly chidden by any man.\n\n\"O jarl,\" said the Druid yet more sternly, \"I have this also against\nthee, that thou didst promise me a treasure the like of which I never\nsaw before, and thou didst not deliver it. Where is thy great gift?\"\n\n\"O Knud the Bear,\" shouted Ulric, \"row now to the shore and bring to\nthis priest the token of the son of Odin.\"\n\nThe second of the small boats came to the shore and Knud and eight\nother of the tallest vikings, ax in hand, bore out and spread upon the\nearth the tremendous hide of the white bear, the king of bears. From\nthe skull, also, they had reft its whole cover, putting in eyes of\nbright leather. The hide seemed to be longer and broader than in life,\nas if it lay two fathoms from tail to nose.\n\n\"O jarl of the Saxons,\" exclaimed the Druid, \"what is this? I have\nheard of these creatures, but never have I seen one.\"\n\n\"Then have I kept my promise,\" said Ulric. \"Thou mayest hang it in thy\nhouse or in the house of thy gods, as thou wilt, but never was the like\nof it in Britain. He was a son of the ice king. He came from the long\ndarkness, and I slew him with my own hand.\"\n\nAround the jarl stood now a score of vikings; terrible men for a foe\nto look upon, for they were throwers of sudden spears. Still stood the\nchief Druid and his fellows and the harpers, gazing at the great skin,\nand the Britons in the edge of the wood shouted loudly.\n\n\"I agree with thee as to this,\" said the high priest, reluctantly. \"I\naccept thy token, for in it is a meaning that thou knowest not. There\nis an old prophecy concerning the Northern Bear and Britain. Thou hast\ndone well. My quarrel is now with Olaf, who standeth by thee.\"\n\n\"But for him thou wouldst have slain me and mine in thy forest trap on\nthe hill, at the sacrifices,\" answered the jarl, angrily. \"Thy quarrel\nis also with me!\"\n\nThen came the rush of the Britons from the woods, hurling javelins as\nthey came, but the vikings were instantly in their boats, and the high\npriest and all who were with him lay upon the sand, so suddenly were\nthey smitten. From the ships came showers of spears, arrows, stones,\nand the men in the small boats seemed to be unharmed, for their shields\nwere up.\n\n\"Thou sittest very still,\" said Ulric to Olaf. \"What sayest thou? Mine\neyes were upon these blue ones.\"\n\n\"O jarl,\" said Knud the Bear, \"we lifted him in, thinking there might\nstill be life in him, but there is none. The spear of the high priest\nwas strongly driven.\"\n\n\"Hael to thee, O hero!\" shouted the jarl. \"Olaf, the son of Hakon, hath\ngone to Valhalla! He hath died in his armor! Row to the ships. We will\ngo hence and the body of Olaf we will bury in the sea. There shall be\nno lamenting for the son of Hakon.\"\n\nOnly this harm had befallen the Saxons from the treachery of the\nDruids, while the slain lying upon the beach were many. Loudly now\narose the wailing of the Britons, for they had a strange death cry of\ntheir own, long and vibrating, that went far out across the sea.\n\n\"Their gods will be against us,\" said Wulf the Skater. \"We may not now\nlinger long in Britain.\"\n\n\"Very soon,\" said the jarl, \"we will sail for the Middle Sea, but not\nwith two keels. We are too few.\"\n\n_The Sword_ and the trireme, nevertheless, were now going out to sea\nwith all oars, as if to show how many men were needed for this. The\njarl was at the helm of the trireme and his face was clouded.\n\n\"Not yet,\" he said, \"have I smitten the Romans upon the land of\nBritain. That must I do, and I know not how or where. The days go by\nand it will be winter before we reach the Middle Sea. The voyage is\nlong.\"\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER XI.\n\n THE PASSING OF LARS THE OLD.\n\n\nSudden is the change from winter to summer in the Northland. The buds\nof the trees get ready under the frost and open to the sunshine as\nsoon as a few days of warmth have told them that they may safely burst\nforth. No full leaves were as yet, but the grass was greening and the\nfisher boats were busy in the fiords.\n\nIn the hall of the house of Brander there were fewer to gather now, in\nthe lengthening evenings, around the central fire, but Oswald's harp\nwas always there. Hilda, from her chair, would often ask him to strike\nup, but there was a lack of spirit in his minstrelsy, and even when she\nspoke to him her voice was weaker and softer than of old. The wrinkles\nupon her face were deepening, and they who looked long at her said to\none another that a light which did not come from the fire played now\nand then across her forehead and around her mouth. At other times she\nwas shut up much in her own room, and it was said that she pored long\nand thoughtfully over polished sheepskins and fragments of gray stone\nwhereon were graven runes that none else might read. Some of these,\nthey said, had been brought by Odin's men when they journeyed from the\nEast into the Northland. Who knew, therefore, but what the runes had\nbeen written in the city of Asgard by the hands of the Asas? It was\nnot well to question over-closely about such things. They said naught\nto her of the matters which were her own, and only once did a little\nmaiden yield to her own curiosity and follow the old saga woman when\nat night she walked out along the path which led to the stones of the\nmighty dead. Afterward she told her mother, and then all the village\nknew, that Hilda did but sit down by the tomb of Brander, weeping\nloudly and talking with him concerning his absent son.\n\n\"It is no wonder,\" said the villagers, \"for she loved Ulric the\nJarl. It is good for all our men that Hilda should speak to the gods\nconcerning their welfare. She knoweth them better than we do, and she\nis to go to them soon. She getteth ready daily.\"\n\nSo fared it in the Northland, but many ships were putting to sea, and\nthere was even jealousy here and there that Ulric and _The Sword_\nshould have gotten away so much in advance of all others. But the ships\nof the vikings would now be so many as to bode ill for the fleets of\nRome and for the merchantmen of the Middle Sea unless C\u00e6sar should send\nforce enough to prevent their coming.\n\n\"Olaf told me,\" said Ulric, talking to Tostig of such matters, \"that\nthe Romans fear the coming of the Saxons. Therefore against our\nvillages as well as against the rebellious Druids came these triremes\nat this time. C\u00e6sar's power in Britain groweth. Around his fortified\ncamps are cities springing up, and he fortifieth also ancient towns.\nWe must come with many keels and a great host when we take this island\naway from C\u00e6sar.\"\n\n\"But I think we will destroy the Britons,\" said Tostig the Red, \"for we\nhave seen that we may not trust them. I like a place where there is so\nmuch good hunting.\"\n\nUlric had been scanning the shore line, for he was steering, and now he\nsaid:\n\n\"We will anchor for the night within yonder rocky point. There is a\nledge there for which I have been seeking.\"\n\nAll day had the two ships been coasting slowly, and the men had\nwondered much what it might be that was in the mind of their jarl, for\nhe was moody. He had also asked many questions of the older vikings.\nThe two ships came to anchor not many fathoms out from the rocky point,\nbut all men were forbidden venturing to the shore.\n\n\"It is not well,\" said Ulric to some who would have landed in the small\nboats. \"If ye but look closely, ye will discern the glimmer of fires\nin the deep forest. Our movement this day hath been followed, and now\na small party might meet too many of their spearmen. They are good\nfighters.\"\n\nThere was much grumbling among the younger men, for they despised this\nprudence of his which ever held them in and thwarted their hot wills,\nbut they had no choice but to obey him concerning the boats.\n\nMore and more plainly through the night darkness might the watchers on\nthe decks discern the fires that were kindled in the woods. The jarl\ngazed at them long, thinking many things concerning the Druids and the\nother Saxon villages of the shore of Britain. He slept after a while to\nthe slow rocking of the ship, and when morn came Wulf the Skater stood\nby him.\n\n\"O jarl,\" he said, \"the Britons build fires along the beach. They swim\nout to us. I have speared four of their swimmers. What do we next?\"\n\nUlric arose and gave orders. Immediately a transfer began from _The\nSword_ to the trireme of all arms and provisions, and the men worked\nrapidly. Only that Wulf worked not, and that an old viking came and\nstood by him at the bulwark.\n\n\"I like it not,\" said Wulf, \"but Ulric is jarl. What sayest thou, Lars\nthe Old, the shipmaker?\"\n\n\"Thou art a seaman,\" said Lars. \"I am of thy mind. I toiled much in the\nshaping and the making of _The Sword_. My heart is heavy.\"\n\n\"So is mine!\" exclaimed Wulf. \"First of all men, after the jarl, did I\ntake her helm. She is Odin's keel. There is bad fortune in leaving her.\"\n\n\"That do I fear,\" said Lars, \"but I leave her not. I was sore smitten\nin the ribs in the fight with the Druids on the beach. I bleed well\nnow. I shall not sail in this trireme.\"\n\n\"Good is thy fate,\" said Wulf. \"Didst thou tell the jarl thou wert\nwounded?\"\n\n\"Not so,\" replied Lars. \"None know but a few of our old vikings. I\nthought not much of it at first, for I have oft been wounded. But now\nthey will soon burn _The Sword_. I command thee that thou lay me upon\nthe fore deck, where was once the hammer of Thor. That is my death\nplace.\"\n\n\"That will I do,\" said Wulf. \"So will say the jarl.\"\n\n\"So do I now say!\" came to them in his own voice, for he also was\nleaning over the rail and he had heard. \"O Lars, I knew not of thy\nhurt, thinking only of Olaf, the son of Hakon. Him have we buried in\nthe sea this day, and thou shalt have thy will. _The Sword_ is nearly\nemptied. We burn her on yonder rocks at the point as the tide falleth.\nWe will lay thee upon her fore deck with thy arms and armor.\"\n\n\"Do thou thy duty by me,\" said Lars, \"that it may be well with thee.\nBut leave not _The Sword_ until every timber shall be burned, lest some\npart of her shall fall into an enemy's hand.\"\n\n\"She is ready!\" exclaimed Ulric. \"We will lift the anchors and move\nboth ships. There will be many to see the burning.\"\n\nTrumpetings and harpings and angry shouts were answering from a throng\nof Britons gathering along the shore. Not any of them could guess as\nyet what would be the next move of the Saxons, but great was their\nwrath that they were able to do no harm.\n\n\"They would we might find reason for landing,\" said Ulric to Wulf, \"but\nI care not to strike them at this place. We would gain nothing.\"\n\n\"O jarl,\" said Wulf, \"Lars, the shipmaker, lieth down. The valkyrias\nare with him.\"\n\n\"He dieth not a cow's death,\" said Ulric, \"but as a true warrior of the\nNorth. It is as he would will, but he still is breathing.\"\n\n\"Yea, but heavily,\" said Wulf. \"I would I were as he is, that I might\nnot leave _The Sword_.\"\n\n\"O Wulf,\" said the jarl, \"thou hast many a feast of swords before thee.\nCheer thee up.\"\n\n\"Jarl Ulric,\" said Wulf, \"do I not know thee? Thou too lovest thy first\nkeel. But I think thou doest wisely. The men have demanded this, and\nthey may not be gainsaid. But I would there had been men enough for\nboth ships, and then I would not have left mine own.\"\n\nOn moved the two keels toward the ledge of rocks, and the tide was\nfalling. They would be bare before long.\n\n\"Row, now!\" shouted the jarl. \"Send _The Sword_ far up upon the ledge.\nShe must be lifted by the rocks till she is out of the water. There\ncome the Britons toward the point. Be ready to strike them! The Druids\nhave gathered an army!\"\n\nNo sail was raised upon either of the ships, but the rowers of the\ntrireme paused while those of _The Sword_ pulled strongly. She was\nlight now, having no stowage or ballast, and quickly her prow was\nthrust high up the ledge between two masses of dark gray stone. Then\nthe trireme was grappled at her stern and many Saxons sprang out upon\nthe ledge. There were several fathoms of water between this and the\nshore.\n\n\"Fast falleth the tide,\" said Ulric. \"Lift ye now Lars the Old, the\nshipmaker, and bear him to the fore deck of _The Sword_. Lay by him his\narms and his armor, breaking the sword and the spear and cleaving the\nshield and mail that no other may ever bear them.\"\n\nThe vikings carried the old warrior quickly, and he uttered no sound.\nThey laid him upon the fore deck and did as Ulric commanded, but the\nhilt of the broken sword, having yet half the length of its bright\nblade, they put into his right hand. In the middle of the ship much\nwood was placed, heaping it, and in this heap a blazing torch was\nthrust. Then all the vikings left _The Sword_, and the greater part of\nher was already out of water.\n\n\"They come in swarms!\" exclaimed Tostig the Red, gazing at the Britons\nwho rushed along the shore toward the point. \"Hael! the fire burneth\nwell! They must not prevent it!\"\n\nUp leaped the long-armed flames, catching the fagots of pine splinters.\n\n\"Burn thou, O _Sword_!\" shouted the jarl. \"I give thee to Odin in the\nfire! Thou art mine own, O good ship from the Northland. I would I\nmight have sailed in thee to the Middle Sea and to the city of the\ngods!\"\n\n\"O jarl,\" said Wulf the Skater, \"even so would I have sailed. I think\nwe shall never see that city. The gods are far away, and I know not if\nthey have any city. I am dark this day, and over me is a cloud.\"\n\nThe jarl spoke not again, but he looked earnestly at _The Sword_ and at\nthat which was threatening along the shore. Still as a stone lay Lars\nthe Old, and some men thought him dead. There were Druids now at the\npoint, and with them were harpers and trumpeters, and the white-robed\nones were chanting to their gods.\n\nThe chanting ceased and a Druid raised his sacred wand, shouting\nfiercely. At that word hundreds of armed Britons began to rush into the\nsea.\n\n\"They are too many,\" said Knud the Bear. \"They do but drown each other.\nThese Druids are not good captains. Therefore are they beaten by the\nRomans in spite of their gods and their sacrifices.\"\n\nThe fire ran everywhere along the bulwarks of _The Sword_ and began to\nclimb over the decks. It climbed the high mast and the wind blew it out\nlike a banner.\n\n\"Odin!\" shouted Ulric. \"The Britons are on the rocks! Smite now!\"\n\nFast flew the arrows and the spears, and almost useless were the\nwicker shields of the Britons. Many of them had none, and their blue\nbodies were plain marks for shaft and stone. They fell in heaps upon\nthe ledge, but a score of them broke through the flames to the very\nfore deck of _The Sword_, and here too the fire was blazing hotly.\nHere before them lay Lars the Old, stretched out as on his funeral\npyre. These were of the best armored of the Britons, and one could\nunderstand that they had thought to take _The Sword_ and push her off,\nthat by her means they might reach the trireme.\n\nNo good captain would so have planned, for such a thing might not be\ndone; but these men were brave, for they stood well and some of them\nhurled their darts vigorously at the vikings, while others strove\nvainly to shove _The Sword_ from the rocks into the sea.\n\nThis thing that came not any man had expected. Just as the strong fire\nin the cabin began to burst up redly through the fore deck, and a\nfiercer flame mounted the after deck, and all the bulwarks were ablaze,\nup to his feet sprang Lars the Old, his gray hair streaming in the\nwind. One blow he struck with his broken sword, burying it in the body\nof a British chief, and then he began to ply his long-handled ax with\nthe strength of one who is dying. Upon him turned the spears and the\nswords of the Britons and he was stricken quickly. He did not shout,\nbut he cleft one more while falling.\n\n\"The hero dieth!\" said the jarl, hurling his spear, and it flew well,\nbut there were not many now upon the fore deck.\n\nMore were swimming from the shore to the ledge, but the fire was\ncompleting its work, and the plan of the Druids was broken altogether.\nWhen once more the wind put aside the black curtain of the smoke it was\nseen that the entire prow had fallen in and that to the very helm the\nflames were fighting joyously.\n\n\"We will stay by until she is burned to her keel,\" said Ulric; \"but now\npull out a little further.\"\n\nSo did they, and the Britons came no more to the ledge, for the prize\nthey had hoped for was a heap of ashes upon the rocks.\n\n\"A good ship was she,\" muttered Knud the Bear. \"She fought well against\nthe ice floes and the storms. May all the gods go with us in this\ntrireme. I would I knew her by some name.\"\n\n\"O Knud,\" loudly responded Ulric, \"I will answer thee. This keel that\nwas Roman hath become Saxon, and her name is now _The Sword_. Else\nwe had not burned the other. The trireme shall be to us as if we had\nbuilded her on the shore of the Northland. She will sail with the\nhammer of Thor and the flag of Odin and not with a Roman god.\"\n\n\"I am better satisfied,\" exclaimed Wulf the Skater. \"But many good\nrowers must take the oars of this trireme in battle. She is heavy.\"\n\n\"I think,\" said Tostig the Red, \"that we are stronger than are the\nhired rowers or the slave rowers of the Romans. Her beak will break the\nribs of another keel and she will do well in storms.\"\n\nThe jarl's eyes were still upon the burning timbers which remained upon\nthe ledge.\n\n\"I will take a boat,\" he said, \"and men with me. We must gather all\nfragments for utter destruction.\"\n\nUpon that duty he went, and it was made complete before the small boat\nreturned to the trireme. All the while many Britons watched them from\nthe shore, but came not against them.\n\n\"Too many of them have been slain,\" said the vikings. \"They like not\nour heavy spears.\"\n\nBefore climbing into the trireme the jarl made them row to her beak,\nthat he might examine well its form and its power for striking a blow,\nand that he might also look more closely at the figurehead.\n\n\"It is much waterworn,\" he said. \"She is the wise woman among the gods\nof the Romans. She will care not much that the hammer of Thor is on the\nfore deck.\"\n\nThe small boat was hoisted to its place and the vikings began to speak\nmore freely of the trireme by her new name of _The Sword_.\n\n\"Up with the sails,\" commanded Ulric. \"The wind is fair. We will go\nsouthward this night, and we will seek the Saxon village that was\ndescribed to me by Olaf, the son of Hakon. But we will not go too fast\nor too far, lest we may pass it in the dark.\"\n\n\"There may be our kinsmen there that need our aid,\" said Knud the Bear.\n\"Seax in hand it would be a pleasure to meet Romans.\"\n\nNow did they begin to discover how much more room there was to walk in\nfrom place to place around the ship, but the younger men praised their\nown prudence for this more than that of Ulric the Jarl. Moreover, to\nplease all, he caused to be brought forth many weapons and much armor.\nThese the men handled curiously, trying on the helmets and the mail and\ntesting the weight of the shields. Garments, also, were given as the\nmen would, and they laughed merrily at each other for the strangeness\nof their changed appearance.\n\nWell out from the land steered the jarl, not knowing the coast, and\nthere was careful watching for breakers which might tell of shoals or\nrocks. He was learning, also, the sailing of this keel and her manner\nof answering the rudder.\n\n\"She is swift,\" he thought, \"and she rideth well the waves. We build\nnot yet such vessels in the Northland, though we have plenty of good\ntimber. She will carry us safely into the Middle Sea, but there is\nroom in her for more men. She requireth too many for her oars. I will\nsail rather than row, lest I breed too much discontent.\"\n\nFar behind him now went out the last burning of the timbers of the good\nkeel he had builded in the Northland, but upon the mast of this which\ncarried him floated still the White Horse flag of the Saxons which had\nbeen given to _The Sword_ by Hilda of the hundred years.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER XII.\n\n SVEIN THE CUNNING JARL.\n\n\nSailing on in the darkness, over an unknown sea, the trireme, which was\nnow the viking ship _The Sword_, moved toward the dawn. None on board\nof her knew the low-lying coast which was in sight when the sun looked\nover the horizon.\n\n\"We are nearer than I deemed,\" said Ulric; but he was at the prow now,\nand an old Danish seaman was at the helm.\n\n\"There are rocks hereaway at the right,\" replied Tostig the Red, \"but\nI can see houses and lines of palisades. The Britons build not such\nhouses. They are like our own.\"\n\n\"There are fields, also, and cattle,\" said Knud the Bear. \"There are\nmen on the beach. Let us sail in. Hark! War horns! We are waited for.\"\n\n\"It is a good harbor,\" said Ulric. \"There are four keels on the strand,\nbut they are small. And there are boats. These are not Romans.\"\n\n\"They will deem that we are,\" said Tostig. \"Thy horn, O jarl.\"\n\n\"Not yet,\" said Ulric. \"We will go nearer. All rowers to the oars! Let\ndown the sail!\"\n\nThen came a surprise to those who were on _The Sword_, so very numerous\nwere the warriors who came down to the shore outside of the lines of\nthe palisades on the harbor side of the village. This, too, was seen\nto be larger as they drew nearer, and some of the houses were as great\nas was the home house of Brander the Brave.\n\n\"It is as Olaf told me,\" thought Ulric. \"The Romans do well to fear the\nSaxons of this coast. We will be friends with these men.\"\n\nThe rowers had brought the ship well in and Ulric stood by the hammer\nof Thor. Three times be blew his horn, standing bareheaded, nor was\nthere any Roman helmet worn by those who were with him. Moreover, the\nbanner on the mast was the White Horse of the Saxons.\n\nHorns answered him, and then there were shouts of greeting, while some\nof the shore men pushed out in a small boat.\n\n\"Come near!\" said Ulric to these. \"I am Ulric the Jarl, the son of\nBrander the Brave. We come in peace. Who are ye?\"\n\nUpon his feet arose a short, squarely made man in the boat. He wore\nfine armor and there was a golden crest upon his steel headpiece.\n\n\"I am Svein Jarl,\" he responded. \"We are Saxons all, and this town on\nthe shore is Rika. Where didst thou win thy keel? I tell thee we are at\npeace with the Romans, as we are with thee.\"\n\n\"So be it,\" said Ulric; but then he told of Olaf and of the Druids and\nof the triremes and of the Roman camp.\n\n\"Strong tryst between me and thee,\" said Svein. \"Thou hast done well.\nOlaf would never make peace because they slew his father, as did they\nthine. They would crucify thee because of thy trireme. But word came\nto me that the Roman consul Licinius is in Britain, and I have sent\nhim bodes, making agreement. We are at war only with the rebellious\nBritons, not with his own. We are too few to contend with Rome. Land\nthou and thine if thou wilt, but see that thou sailest away quickly.\"\n\n\"I understand thee,\" said Ulric. \"I am but one trireme against more\nthan one if the consul sendeth them. But we will not land here. I will\ngo to thy house in greeting, but no more.\"\n\n\"Come,\" said Svein. \"I like thy flag, and I was thy father's sure\ncomrade. The son of Brander is welcome to the house of Svein Jarl.\"\n\nSmall boats from the ship were ready, and in one went Ulric to the\nshore, taking with him many men in the other boats, for he thought: \"I\nknow not Svein well, and Olaf spoke ill of him. He is a friend of the\nRomans.\"\n\nSo said the vikings who remained on the ship, and they kept good watch,\nsaying to one another:\n\n\"We like it not that our jarl should thus venture himself. How know we\nwhat is behind yonder palisades?\"\n\nHearty and kindly were the words spoken to Ulric and his Saxons by the\nwarriors who met them at the beach. Neither did Svein seem to lack in\nany wise, but walked on toward the palisades, bidding the newcomers to\nfollow. At the side of Ulric the Jarl now walked a tall man and large,\nin full armor, but wearing over his shoulder a bearskin.\n\n\"I am Sigurd, the son of Thorolf,\" he said. \"I am a Northman, like\nthyself. The greater part of Svein's men are Danes, as he is. I am not\nwith him, save that my keel was wrecked and I owe him for hospitality.\nBut I am free, having fought for him against the Britons.\"\n\n\"Sail thou with me,\" said Ulric. \"There is room in _The Sword_. Share\nthou fight and prizes by land and sea. Thou art welcome.\"\n\n\"I will put my hands in thine and be thy man,\" said Sigurd. \"Mark thou\nthis, then. When we pass the gate of the palisades many will come and\nrange themselves with thee and me, for they are as I am and would\ndepart from this place. Thou hast thine ax. Be thou ready to smite with\nit, as will I and mine.\"\n\nThen those who looked upon the face of Ulric saw that it became white\nand that his eyes were fiery, flashing blue light, and they thought,\nbut spoke not. \"The jarl is angry! Trouble cometh. We will watch if\nthis is a place of swords.\"\n\nThen again they looked and he seemed taller and his face was red and\nhis eyes were full of glittering, and some trembled, for they said each\nto his mate: \"Seest thou? It is the Odin wrath! Lift thy shield! War\ncometh!\"\n\nOpen swung a wide gate in the palisades and Svein marched in, turning\nto beckon, while many warriors closed in line with the company of Ulric\nand his Saxons; but there were others who remained behind and prevented\nsome from closing the gate. Even as Sigurd had said, when he lifted\nhis hand and made a sign forty and four more who were among Svein's\ngarrison walked along, spear in hand, until they seemed of one band\nwith Ulric's.\n\nBut a sound came loudly, and then another--and another.\n\nSvein stood still and blew upon his war horn, and it was a command to\nhis Danes that they should form as spearmen. From behind a wide house\nrang joyously the note of a Roman trumpet, and a line of legionaries,\nheaded by an officer, began to show itself. The third sound was the\nangry word of Ulric, the son of Brander.\n\n\"Svein Jarl,\" he shouted, \"I know thee. Thou art Svein, son of Hedrig,\nmy father's enemy. Me thou wouldst betray to these wolves of Rome, but\nthou art not able. I will give thee and them to the valkyrias.\"\n\n\"Hold thou, Ulric the Jarl,\" said Svein. \"Thou art caught in a trap.\nThou shalt but give them up their trireme. Thou mayest remain with me.\nLay down thy weapons. Thou and thine are prisoners. We may deal with\nthee as we will.\"\n\nSo said the officer of the legionaries, mockingly, coming forward,\nfollowed by his force. It was but fourscore of men, and they were the\ngarrison of this village, with Svein and his Danes and his Jutlanders.\n\nBut Ulric was a good captain, and he and his Saxons were stepping\nbackward and the gate was still open. Then fell quickly three men who\nstrove to shut it, but they went down by the spears of Sigurd's Saxons.\n\nAt that the Romans charged, and their charge was that of warriors\nexpecting to conquer; but Ulric, the son of Brander, was taller by the\nhead than any among them. He waited not, but stepped out and met them\nin front of the triangle formed by his men, and the flashing of his ax\nwas like the swiftness of the lightning, and his wrath was terrible.\nFast flew the spears on either side, but the Saxons threw first, not\nwaiting, and there were quickly gaps in the Roman line.\n\nNow charged Svein and his followers with shouts of victory, save that a\nnumber of them were Northmen and had no heart to this work. These fell\nback muttering, and one of them said, loudly:\n\n\"Ulric, son of Odin, win thou this fight. The gods of the North be with\nthee. I shed no blood in any such quarrel. I am not a Roman.\"\n\nNevertheless the Saxons from _The Sword_ had been too much outnumbered\nif it had not been for Sigurd and his sailors, for these fought like\nmen who were to die if they did not conquer.\n\nWonderful was the havoc wrought by the ax of Ulric, and the Romans\nfell away from before him. Then picked he up a pilum from the hand\nof a slain legionary and he cast it with his might. Well had it been\nfor Svein the Jarl if his shield had been ready, for the pilum passed\nthrough him at the waist and he would betray no more Saxons. So fell\nthe Roman officer at the hand of Tostig, but the charge had been well\nmade, and only half of Ulric's own men were with him when his triangle\nwas beyond the gate, marching to the shore.\n\n\"Odin!\" he shouted. \"We have slain three for one! Let us burn their\nkeels.\"\n\nBut some of the men who had refused to fight for Svein came around\nby another way and joined the Saxons. Well was it, they said, that\nthe Roman officer had forced Svein to strike at once, for there were\nhundreds of Danish warriors in the upland, and if these had gathered,\nnone of the crew of _The Sword_ could have escaped.\n\nEven now there was preparation for swift following, but Ulric's men\ntook every boat, and the nearest keels on the beach had already fire in\nthem, put there by Sigurd's men and the other Northmen who had deserted\nSvein. These ships were also pushed out into the water that they might\nburn more surely.\n\nWithin the palisades every Saxon who had fallen wounded had already\nbeen slain by the Danes, but these had been sorely smitten and they had\nlost their cunning jarl.\n\nBack now were Ulric and his men on board the trireme, and count was\nmade. \"Thirteen heroes who went to the land with us,\" he said, \"have\ngone to Valhalla. With them went six of Sigurd's company. Therefore,\nwe have ninety more strong men to handle so large a ship and to hold\nspears in battle. The gods are with us, for they have given us a brave\ncombat and a victory.\"\n\nThe keels from the shore were burning hotly, and there might be no\npursuit, but Ulric commanded to lift the sail of _The Sword_, the\ntrireme, and to steer for the open sea.\n\n\"Now do I know,\" said Knud the Bear, \"that Thor came on board with\nhis hammer. We needed more men for the oars, to change hands when one\ncompany is weary. It is good to have the gods with us in such a case.\"\n\nThe wind blew off the land and the ship sailed away gallantly, steering\nsouthward, and Ulric said to those who asked him:\n\n\"We will not again set foot upon the shore of Britain. Our work here is\ndone. We will avoid all keels, friend or foe, that may come near us. We\ngo to the Middle Sea, and our voyage, thus far, is prosperous.\"\n\n * * * * *\n\nThe sun shone brightly in the Northland all that day, but Hilda sat by\nthe fire in the hall of the house of Brander, and she was shivering.\nNear her sat Oswald, the harper.\n\n\"It is cold,\" she said. \"This fire is but red coals and ashes. Let them\nbring wood.\"\n\nSo sat she while they went for wood, and she gazed mournfully into the\ngreat heap of gray and red, dotted with dying embers.\n\n\"I saw not the ship,\" she muttered. \"But I saw Roman helmets. There\nis Ulric, and the Romans go down before him. Where is the ship? I see\nher now, and she is burning. How, then, can Ulric sail away? I read it\nnot, save that he is not slain. O that I could look upon his face again\nbefore I go! How is it that I cannot see the ship? But I knew that she\nwould never come again. It is well that he hath smitten the Romans so\nsoon. I will go to my room, for I am old and the ice is out of the\nfiords and the buds are open and I have seen the grass again. I need\nbut the one token more and then they may lay me away as I have bidden\nthem. Ulric, my beloved! Thou art as my son!\"\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER XIII.\n\n HILDA OF THE HUNDRED YEARS.\n\n\n\"Hast thou ever taken a keel into the Middle Sea, O Sigurd, son of\nThorold?\" asked Ulric of his gigantic friend.\n\nThey twain stood together upon the after deck and _The Sword_ was\nsailing but slowly, for the wind was contrary.\n\n\"More than once, O jarl,\" responded Sigurd. \"I have seen the Greek\nislands; I went up the Adriatic Sea with Alfkel the Sea King. We had\nfive keels, and we took great spoil, but only three of our ships ever\nagain touched the shore of the Northland.\"\n\n\"What befell the two that returned not?\" asked the jarl. \"Was it a\nfortune of the sea?\"\n\n\"Not so,\" said Sigurd. \"In that sea the triremes of C\u00e6sar are too many.\nBut thou hast need to consider thy present course. Thou wilt do well to\ncoast along the land easterly after thy last sight of Britain. Between\nthese islands and Spain is a great sea full of storms. Try it not with\na straight passage, but go from point to point, going on shore when\nthou wilt.\"\n\n\"I think it is good counsel,\" said the jarl. \"I have heard of that sea.\nAs to the Adriatic, I would enter it in due season, but first I would\nsee Rome itself, if I might.\"\n\n\"Not if thou go to its port in a keel thou hast won from C\u00e6sar,\" said\nSigurd. \"That were but to offer them thy head. Thou wilt do better\namong the islands and toward the great land that is called Africa.\nThere dwell the black men, and in the inland there are giants wonderful\nto see; and also there are powerful magicians.\"\n\n\"I care not much for them,\" said Ulric, \"although I am curious about\ngiants. Tell me all thou wilt of thy voyages.\"\n\nWillingly did Sigurd tell, and he had seen many wonderful things in the\nsouthlands.\n\n\"I shall gladly see them again,\" he said; and even the next day did\nthis talk go on, for a gale blew and _The Sword_ went before it with\nbut one small sail lifted.\n\nSigurd's men were now as if they had been with Ulric from the first,\nand by them a matter had been told which was now more fully given by\nthe tall viking.\n\n\"Svein concealed it from me,\" he said, \"but an old Dane warned me in\nprivate. The Roman officer of that garrison was but waiting for the\narrival of more legionaries, for Svein's men might not be depended on\nin such an undertaking. It would have included thee and thine. All who\ndid not belong to Svein or who were minded to leave him were to have\nbeen given up as war prisoners to the Romans.\"\n\n\"That they might lose their heads!\" exclaimed Ulric. \"I am glad he is\nslain! It was a dark purpose.\"\n\n\"Thou hast not read it rightly, nevertheless,\" said Sigurd. \"Hast\nthou not heard of the great games and shows of C\u00e6sar and of his chief\nofficers?\"\n\n\"Many a thing have I heard,\" replied Ulric, \"but not from any man who\nhad ever witnessed the things he told of. Hast thou seen?\"\n\n\"No, Jarl Ulric,\" said Sigurd, \"but I have listened to brave men who\nhave looked in upon such things. As to one affair, we learned little\nby little that the proconsul of Britain desired good swordsmen to\ncontend with his trained slaves and with his wild beasts. It was also\nfor his profit to send Saxons as presents to C\u00e6sar to be slain in the\ngreat shows of Rome. For this purpose all we were to be entrapped and\ncaged as soon as their hunting party should become strong enough to\ntake us alive. We were to be set upon unawares. Therefore did we sleep\nby watches, fully armed, for the thing was to be done in the night. So\nwas the idea of Svein, the treacherous, concerning all thy crew.\"\n\n\"He will entrap no more Saxons henceforth,\" said the jarl. \"As for me,\nI would gladly fight a lion or a tiger. It would be great sport. I\nwill try if I may meet these wonderful beasts before I return to the\nNorthland.\n\n\"Thou wilt meet thy lion with full armor,\" responded Sigurd, \"but it\nis not so in these games of the Romans. There is no fair fighting.\nThey arm thee as they see fit. Often thou art not matched with one man\nor with one beast, but with odds, that they may see thee overcome or\ntorn. This is their delight concerning prisoners and malefactors which\ncost them little. They spare their dens of animals and their purchased\ngladiators that they may more cheaply see much blood. But there is\nworse than this among them, for they use the scourge upon us, and a man\nwould rather die ten times than be made to feel the stroke of a whip,\nas if he were a slave.\"\n\n\"If I were indeed lashed,\" growled Ulric, \"it were well for that man,\neven were he C\u00e6sar, not to come near me in after time if there were a\nblade within my reach. There might come a sure cast of a spear, and I\nthrow far.\"\n\n\"This scourging,\" said Sigurd, \"is to break the proud spirit of such\nas thou art. I think thine or mine would not be so destroyed, but\nrather a red fire kindled in ashes that would smolder for a time. But\nthey know us well, these Romans. A captive Saxon is chained as an\nuntameable wild beast until they push him out of his cage into the\narena.\"\n\n\"So slay we all Romans!\" exclaimed the jarl. \"We will count them but\nwolves. But I will see many other cities if I may not go to Rome. The\nwind changeth and I think a storm is upon us.\"\n\nSoon fiercely howled around them an angry north wind, tossing the\nsea in great surges, but the trireme proved herself stanch and well\nbehaved. She held on her way swiftly. Often saw they the land, but\nafter one night more Sigurd called Ulric to a bulwark, at the dawn, and\nhe pointed first westerly.\n\n\"Seest thou,\" he said, \"yonder high white cliffs? We are in the narrow\nsea between Britain and Gaul. We have been driven about too much and\nwe have expended days. Now we may drive southward and we may not meet\nother keels often. The Britons of Gaul are like those of the islands.\nThey are not sea-goers, and they are all under the rule of C\u00e6sar.\"\n\n\"We have no need to strike them,\" said the jarl. \"They are not our\nerrand. We will but sail on as we have planned. Thou hast taught me\nmany things. I thank thee.\"\n\nThe day went by and _The Sword_ drew near the land at times, but it\nwas better to keep well away from an unknown coast. All the crew were\npleased to discover how swiftly they might travel and how readily they\nmight turn so large a vessel.\n\n\"She will do well in battle,\" they said.\n\nAs to the three banks of oars, the jarl angered some by his urgency\nin compelling all to practice their use, that they might become well\nskilled.\n\n\"He is a hard master of a ship,\" said some. \"Do we not know what to do\nwith oars?\" The older men were better satisfied, and they also studied\nthe handling of a trireme.\n\nThe next day _The Sword_ was not far out from the westerly shore of\nGaul and a thing came to Ulric the Jarl as he stood upon the after\ndeck steering and watching the land. He was thinking deeply, also,\nconcerning the gods, and he was remembering those persons whom he had\nleft behind him in the Northland which was now so far away.\n\n\"What is this?\" arose a sudden inquiry in his mind. \"I am not alone! I\nthink that one sitteth by me. I have felt the touch of her hand upon my\nhair, stroking it. There hath been no voice, but the hand is the hand\nof a woman and I know it well of old. I will wait and see if she will\nspeak to me. I have hungered for speech with some whom I may not see. I\nthink that of the unseen ones there must be a great multitude and that\ntheir land must be wide, but no man knoweth what it may be like. In it\nis the city of Asgard. There is Valhalla, and there dwell the heroes\nfrom innumerable battles. I shall not ever be fully contented until I\nhear the valkyrias call my name. But first I would have speech with one\nof these strange gods of the southlands. The Grecians have many, and so\nhave the Romans. I have willed, also, to look upon the face of the god\nof the Jews, for he is said to be a strong one and very beautiful. O\nthou that touchest, I pray thee touch me again.\"\n\nThe wind went softly by him and there came a low whisper in his ear so\nthat he heard it thus, as if it had been a voice:\n\n\"Son of Odin, I have passed. Have passed.\"\n\nMore heard he not, nor did he see any, but at that hour there was a\ngreat silence in the house of Brander in the Northland.\n\nIn her chair sat Hilda, as she was wont, but she was very white, and\nher eyes were shut. Around her stood the household, save that Oswald,\nthe harper, sat with his head bowed upon his harp. Not many men were\nthere, and the women and the maidens did but look at one another and\nat Hilda, for they knew not whether she were living or dead, and they\nfeared to put hands upon her.\n\nThen opened she her eyes and her lips parted.\n\n\"I have seen him,\" she said, \"but the ship is not _The Sword_. I have\nbeen as if I were asleep, but it was no dream. Where my heart is there\nwas I, and I will go to him again. Now, when I sleep again, put ye my\nveil over my face. Let me not fall from my chair, but place me upon my\nbier and make ready to carry me to the cleft of the rocks. If it may\nbe, I will speak once more before I go.\"\n\nSo went she to sleep and they covered her face, but now the women\nwailed loudly and all the men of the household were sent for to come to\nthe hall.\n\n\"Hilda of the hundred winters hath seen the last outing of the ice,\"\nthe women said, \"and now the grass and the leaves have come. She goeth\ndown to her own and she will see the gods.\"\n\nA litter was made and they bore her to her room, for she had given the\nolder women instructions and they knew what to do in such a case. The\nhousehold men came, but they did not stay in the house, for Oswald\nspoke to them and they went out with him to the place of tombs.\n\nThe low hill on which were the standing stones had a face of broken\nrock seaward. In the middle of this face leaned a tall, flat stone, a\nslab of limestone, which had been worked to smoothness on its outer\nside. Upon this surface were many runes graven, in lines and columns,\nand some of them were like small pictures, and more were like letters\nof words that were to be read. The stone was exceedingly heavy, and\nstrong men worked with wooden levers to lay it aside without injuring\nit. When that was done there could be seen a chasm, as if the rock had\nbeen cloven to make an entrance for any who would go in. At this the\nmen looked, but as yet they kept their feet away from it.\n\nAll over the Northland there are such tombs as was this of the house\nof Brander the Brave, the sea king, and in them are the bones of the\nmighty. But in some, as in this, are not buried the heroes after whose\nnames the tombs are called, for they fell upon far-away battlefields or\nin fights at sea, but at their tombs were made sacrifices to the gods,\nnevertheless, and the songs to the dead are to be sung there by their\nkindred. If any man have a hero son, to this place must he come to\nspeak to his father and to the Asas, or he will be accounted nidering\nand unfit to be a jarl and a leader of men.\n\nLow had sunk the sun when a procession walked slowly away from the\nhouse of Brander. The men of best rank and name were proud to be\npermitted to bear the bier of Hilda, as if she had been a princess;\nfor she was of the race of Odin and she had talked with the gods for\na hundred years. Therefore, also, every man wore his full armor; but\nof the women there were some who carried goblets and pitchers which\nhad been Hilda's, of pottery and of bronze and of silver and of beaten\ngold. Others there were who carried her best garments, rending them as\nthey came.\n\n\"She is not to be burned,\" said Oswald. \"She is to be laid in the inner\ncrypt, with her feet toward the east. Her coffin is of wood, and it was\nin her room, but I have brought it. Let her be placed therein.\"\n\nIt was a long box made of planks of the fir tree, and it was large\nenough. In it did they lay the body of Hilda, taking it from the bier.\nThen the strong men bore it into the cleft of the rocks, but not many\nwere permitted to follow and see. Three fathoms deep was the cleft, and\nthen it widened, making a small room, and this could be seen well, for\nsome of the men bore torches. There were other coffins, and there were\nbones and skulls uncovered at the sides and in the corners. There were\nstones also, set up in the form of coffins, and in them were bones and\nmany good weapons, as if to each man had been given shield, ax, sword,\nspear, helmet, and mail, and vessels of pottery and of metal, with good\ngarments. But the arms and armor were for the greater part marred,\nbent, broken, and the garments were rent.\n\n\"Speak not,\" said Oswald, \"but put down the coffin of Hilda here. The\nrunes on the rock beside it were graven by herself for the memory of\nBrander the Brave, for she loved him well.\"\n\nIn the coffin were some things placed. Upon it was laid a plank of fir.\nOn this, then, and on the earth at the head were arranged all other\nmatters brought by the women. Every man walked out then except Oswald,\nand he stood still and spoke to Hilda, but she answered him not. Again\nhe spoke, calling her by name, and those without, in the cleft and\nbeyond it, heard him, and they listened well, but they heard no other\nvoice than his.\n\n\"Hilda!\" he said again. \"Hilda of the hundred winters, daughter of\nOdin, what sayest thou to Oswald, thy friend?\"\n\nThey heard no answer, but Oswald came forth and bade them place the\nstone.\n\n\"Set it well,\" he said, \"for it will not be moved again. The house of\nBrander is ended. There will be no other who will have the right to be\nburied behind the stone.\"\n\nNone answered him, but the women whispered sadly to one another: \"What\nof Ulric the Jarl?\"\n\nThe men followed Oswald to the house, for a feast had been prepared in\nhonor of the daughter of Odin, and the tables were set. Other harpers\nhad come, with chiefs and men of rank, but no other harp might sound\nuntil after that of Oswald.\n\nThe central fire had gone out, but he had bidden them leave the ash\nheap. It was high and gray, and he sat down by it, bringing his harp\nnearer. All who were there had heard him often, but never before, they\nsaid, had they heard him touch his harp as he did now. The music was\nwonderful, and with it arose his voice in marvelous power, for he sang\nof heroes, and of gods, and of the unseen lands where the gods live.\nAlso, before he ceased, he sang of Ulric the Jarl and of the ship _The\nSword_, as if even now he could see her going into battle and hear the\nwarhorn of the son of Brander.\n\nSo was the passing of Hilda of the hundred years.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER XIV.\n\n THE JEW AND THE GREEK.\n\n\n\"O jarl,\" said Sigurd, the son of Thorolf, \"many days have passed since\nwe entered this sea. Thou hast pleased thy crew by landings at harbors.\nThey have also smitten quiet people against thy will, and uselessly.\nThey are hard to govern.\"\n\n\"The thirst of blood cometh upon them,\" said the jarl. \"I would not\nslay any without good need. What knowest thou of this place where we\nare?\"\n\n\"It is the gate of the world, O jarl,\" said Sigurd. \"We have passed\nall Spain and much too long time have we been in our voyaging. This\ngreat cliff upon the Spanish shore is the rock I named to thee at the\nbeginning. Southward, across this narrow strait, is Africa. The Romans\nname this rock the Pillars of Hercules. He is of their old heroes, a\nstrong one, a half god. Not as Thor or Odin. He is of the giants.\"\n\nMany more things said Sigurd, and the vikings thronged around to hear.\nOf the older men, also, were many who knew this place and who had\nwords to speak. The younger men were exultant and their speech was\nboisterous; but the face of the jarl grew harder as he heard them, for\nthey had offended him often by their deeds in Gaul and on the coast\nof Spain, and by their cruelties to peaceable merchant sailors whose\nkeels _The Sword_ had overtaken. \"I am made a pirate against my will,\"\nhe had said of these things. \"The greatest of the sea kings are not\nso, for they have many friends and tributaries among the peoples and\nislands of the Middle Sea.\" Nevertheless, he now spoke loudly to all.\n\n\"Beyond this cape,\" he said, \"is the Middle Sea, which was from the\nfirst the destination of our voyage. Glad am I to have come so far out\ninto the world. From this place onward we are as men who sail into a\nbattle. So will every man bind himself to his obedience, lest his neck\nshall feel a seax.\"\n\nThis was the law of the Northmen upon the sea, and none might complain;\nbut the jarl's hand was upon his sword hilt, and some of the men turned\nto look at each other for a moment.\n\nVery smooth was the water, for there was no wind. The air was soft and\nwarm. Only one bank of the oars propelled _The Sword_. She was now in\nno haste, and all who were on board of her felt their hearts beat with\nrejoicing. To most of them this was their first long war cruise, and\nall things were new, so that they watched eagerly for that which might\nbe next to come.\n\n\"O jarl,\" said Tostig the Red, \"beyond all doubt we shall soon see\ntriremes of the Romans. Will they not at once inquire concerning us?\nWilt thou avoid such a keel or wilt thou hasten into a battle?\"\n\n\"I have considered well,\" said the jarl. \"Of a merchantman we may exact\ntribute, but we need not always destroy. It is not the way of sea\nkings. Prisoners we take not any. A warship of C\u00e6sar we must strike in\nher middle, without warning, that she may go down speedily and that too\nwide a report of our coming may not be given to those who would pursue\nus with a fleet. I know not, after such delays, that we are the first\nof the vikings this year in the Middle Sea.\"\n\n\"O jarl,\" said Knud the Bear, \"care not for that overmuch. We will but\ngo the farther into the sea. I am with thee in thy saying that we must\nsail to the eastern shore of all these waters.\"\n\nThe jarl lifted his war horn and blew long and loudly and his face grew\nbrighter.\n\n\"To Asgard!\" he shouted. \"To the city of the gods! And we will smite\nthe Romans.\"\n\nShield clashed on shield. Horn after horn was blown. The vikings\nshouted joyously and Sigurd the son of Thorolf lifted his great voice\nin a song of war.\n\n\"Easterly!\" commanded Ulric to him who was steering _The Sword_.\n\"The gods of the Northland are with us and our voyage hath been well\nprospered.\"\n\nOn floated the good ship, but she seemed to be sailing over a sea of\npeace, so quiet and so beautiful were both sky and water. An hour went\nby, and now Ulric, sitting on the fore deck, sprang suddenly to his\nfeet, for there came a shout down from Wulf the Skater above the sail\nupon the foremast:\n\n\"O jarl! A sail! Eastward. And no other sail is with her.\"\n\n\"She is our prize!\" shouted the jarl. \"We may not fail of taking the\nfirst keel that we meet, whatever she may be. A man to every oar! But\nlet those who hold the spears put on Roman helmets speedily. Open the\nsheaves of arrows. Bring out spears in abundance.\"\n\nOther commands he gave, and there was no discontented man on board;\nnone who was not willing to do the bidding of his jarl in battle. Then\nwere they glad to be led by a son of Odin; and a hard ruler in a quiet\ntime may be the captain men seek after if an enemy is nearing.\n\nThe jarl bade the rowers to row, but steadily, not wasting their\nstrength, while the Roman helmets were brought out from the stores of\n_The Sword_, and the vikings laughed merrily at each other in this\nstrange disguising.\n\nVery soon they were near enough to learn the kind and the action of\nthis keel which they were to contend with. She was not now attempting\nto either come or go, but she was drifting along over the calm water\nwith her sails flapping lazily against her mast. The vikings might\nsee, however, that her decks were full of armed men, and that she was\na larger vessel than had ever been seen in the seas of the North. Vast\nwas her length and breadth, and she carried five banks of oars instead\nof three, for this was one of the new quinqueremes which C\u00e6sar had\nbuilded for the conveyance of his legions. She was planned, therefore,\nmore for carrying than for speed, although her weight and force might\nbe terrible to crash against another vessel. She was high above the\nwater, like a tower that would be difficult to scale. She had two\nmasts, and on these were bulwarked platforms for archers and slingers.\nShe was as much more than a match for Ulric's keel as had this been for\n_The Sword_, the first, the low-built ship with which he had sailed\nfrom the Northland behind the outing ice, only that the quinquereme was\nless readily to be turned about.\n\nThe officer in command of the Roman warship knew no fear of any foe\nafloat, so sure was he of the superior strength of his vessel, and now\nhe could have no suspicion that an enemy of Rome had come in at this\ntime of the year through the gates of Hercules. He came to the after\ndeck of the quinquereme when his outlooks called him, and his answer to\nthem was haughty.\n\n\"Why did ye disturb me?\" he asked. \"It is but one of the triremes of\nLicinius coming back with tidings for C\u00e6sar. We may hail her, in her\npassing, but we may not hinder her. C\u00e6sar is careful of the bearers of\nhis messages. Men die early who meddle with that which doth not concern\nthem.\"\n\nNo change was made, therefore, in the handling of the quinquereme. The\nrowers sat idly at their places, ready for any orders which might come,\nbut allowing their oars, longer and shorter, to hang in the water, or\nto rest hauled inboard.\n\nNow there came wind enough to fill the sail, and she slipped along\nbetter, while the sailing master came and stood by the haughty\ncenturion.\n\n\"They are in haste,\" he said. \"They row swiftly.\"\n\n\"Well they may,\" replied the officer, \"whether Licinius hath had good\nfortune or whether the fates have been against him. I would not be sent\nto Britain. Too many have gone to ruin on that island.\"\n\n\"It is a bad place,\" said the seaman, \"and all those seas are full of\nSaxons. They are fierce barbarians, but they make good gladiators. I\nwould crucify them all.\"\n\n\"Never spare thou a Saxon,\" said the centurion. \"They are food for the\nsword. Slay every one thou findest on land or sea. Mars be my witness,\nI will spare not one.\"\n\nFor life or for death, therefore, was the swift coming of _The Sword_.\nThe Saxons must overcome the quinquereme, or escape her in some manner,\nor they must die without mercy, and this they knew well.\n\n\"A strong force on board of her,\" said the centurion, as _The Sword_\ndrew nearer. \"But I see no standard save an eagle on the fore deck. She\nhath no officers of rank, and that is strange. I will hail her. Sound\nthou thy trumpet, trumpeter!\"\n\nLoudly rang out the trumpet call, and it was answered by a trumpet\nfrom _The Sword_. But here too was a mystery. The viking who blew was\nbetter used to his war horn, and he knew not that instead of a peaceful\ngreeting he had sounded the notes that bid a Roman legion close with an\nenemy, to win or die.\n\nThe centurion sprang to his feet, for he had been seated.\n\n\"Rowers!\" he shouted, \"to your places! Here is a strange matter! There\nis evil tidings!\"\n\nOther swift orders followed, and every legionary on board the\nquinquereme was at his post, for the Romans are not easily to be taken\nby surprise because of their strict discipline and their rule for\nperpetual readiness by day or night.\n\n\"She is a smaller craft than ours,\" said the sailing master, \"but\nshe is a good one. I know her well, and her sign is Minerva. Who now\ncommandeth her I know not.\"\n\nIn that she was so well known as one of the triremes of the Roman fleet\nin British waters was now a gift of the gods to _The Sword_ and to the\nSaxons. Not the centurion nor his officers nor any seaman or legionary\non board the quinquereme had any thought or suspicion of that which was\nto come.\n\nOnward flashed the swift, strong vessel, the oars of the Northmen\nbiting well the sparkling sea. Fiercely rang the Roman trumpet, warning\nthem to change their course lest there should be a collision. Hoarse\nwere the angry shouts of the astonished centurion, but vain were his\ntoo-long delayed orders to his rowers and his steersman.\n\nOn the fore deck of _The Sword_ stood now a tall shape, wearing indeed\nthe helmet of a Roman, but putting to his lips a war horn of the North.\nBeside him stood what seemed a giant brandishing a spear. The blast was\nsounded and then sped the spear. A hundred more were hurled from _The\nSword_ at the Romans on the decks of the quinquereme. The viking rowers\npulled with their might.\n\nCrash! With a breaking of timbers, a braying of horns, a chorus of\nmocking war cries, the quinquereme was smitten amidships with a force\nwhich threw her legionaries prostrate and sent her rowers from their\noars.\n\nThe centurion was pierced by the spear of Sigurd. The steersman fell\nby a heavy pebble cast by Knud the Bear. The sailing master went down\ntwice smitten.\n\nUp to the masthead of _The Sword_ shot the White Horse flag of the\nSaxons, and the good ship sprang backward with a great rebound, helped\nquickly by the rowers.\n\n\"We have stricken her!\" shouted Ulric. \"The sea poureth into her. Back!\nStrike not again! It is enough!\"\n\nAs the lightning from a clear sky, so was the deathblow given to the\npride and strength of the quinquereme. As a warrior stabbed to the\nheart was she as she leaned over, and as the fatal blue tide poured in\nthrough the deep wound in her side. There was no stanching it. There\nwas no hope. They who had purposed to slay all Saxons were themselves\nto die. On the decks and at the bulwarks, amazed, confounded, the Roman\nsoldiers and sailors stood and gazed in silence at their utterly\nmysterious destroyer. Here was a riddle of the fates and furies which\nnone might read. They knew not even the flag of this strange pirate\nkeel. They only knew that they were going down.\n\nOn the stern of the quinquereme stood three men who were not in armor.\nThey were bearded men and they wore turbans, and they spoke to each\nother in another tongue than the Latin.\n\n\"We may escape,\" one of them said. \"The god of Israel hath heard. We\nare not to be crucified. Let us plunge in and go to yonder ship from\nTarshish. Ben Ezra, what sayest thou?\"\n\n\"Follow me,\" said Ben Ezra, \"ere this accursed quinquereme goeth down\nbearing us with it. On this side, while the Romans are gazing. Take\neach two short oars. We have somewhat to bear with us. Get beyond a\nspear cast as soon as we may.\"\n\nHe was a short man, and old, but his eyes were bright and he seemed a\nbrave one. His two companions were youths. Into the water they slipped\nsilently, as he had said, and they swam well, partly upheld by the\npieces of wood.\n\n_The Sword_ was not receding, but her rowers were pulling easily as\nWulf the Skater steered her around and past the quinquereme. No more\nspears were thrown nor did any arrows fly, but there was a sounding of\nwar horns.\n\nBrave must have been the trumpeter of the legionaries, for he lifted\nhis trumpet and answered defiantly, even while the water rushed in\nthrough the fatal gap in the wooden wall of his sinking vessel.\n\n\"We shall have no prisoners,\" said Knud the Bear. \"I would I knew if\nthey had taken any. What if captured Saxons were on board of her?\"\n\n\"Not at this season of the year,\" said Sigurd. \"But what are those?\nLook yonder! The Romans wear no turbans. O jarl.\"\n\n\"Bid them on board!\" shouted Ulric. \"I would question them. Throw them\na rope!\"\n\nIt was a long thong of twisted hide that was cast out toward Ben Ezra\nand his companions, but it came too late. In a moment their escape\nhad been seen by the legionaries. They were true to their soldier\ndiscipline. They themselves must die, but it was their duty to prevent\nthe departure from the quinquereme of any prisoners. Such as attempted\nit must be slain. So the pila flew fast and even arrows were sent.\n\n\"Ben Ezra, I am smitten!\" gasped one of the younger swimmers.\n\n\"Thou?\" groaned Ben Ezra; but in an instant more, he added: \"O God of\nHosts! My son also! My only son! My Benjamin!\"\n\n\"Father!\" cried out the second youth, in agony, \"the spear of the\nheathen! I die! I die!\"\n\n\"My son!\" again mourned Ben Ezra. \"I care not to live! Let me perish\nwith thee!\"\n\nNevertheless, he had grasped the thong of twisted hide and the instinct\nof self-preservation was strong enough to make him cling to it.\nMoreover, he had taken three of the short oars, instead of only two,\nand on these he was buoying up what seemed a small casket of wood. He\nwas doing so with difficulty, and now he exclaimed:\n\n\"The jewels! The gold! I must not lose them. They are priceless. The\ncenturion knoweth not that I have them. Not only mine are here, but\nthe pr\u00e6tor's also. O Jehovah of Hosts! Thou hast smitten the heathen!\nThat spear fell short. Ha!\"\n\nA pilum struck the oars and Ben Ezra struggled hard for his treasure,\nbut he succeeded in retaining it.\n\nDown sank the two who had been stricken, and in a moment more a strong\nhand of a viking grasped the old man by the shoulder.\n\n\"Courage! Thou art safe!\" he shouted.\n\n\"This first!\" said Ben Ezra, trying to hand him the casket. \"It is\nworth their quinquereme! Ye are Northmen. I am a Jew of Salonica.\nThe Roman robbers plundered my ship unlawfully, and me they meant to\ncrucify, the better to claim my goods. Help me in. I am faint. O my\nson!\"\n\nThey pulled him up over the bulwark with some difficulty, but he spoke\nnot nor did he seem to see anything until he was sure that his casket\nwas in the hands of Ulric the Jarl.\n\n\"Open it not now, O captain of the Saxons,\" said Ben Ezra. \"I have\nmuch to say to thee. When yonder Roman keel goeth down I am no longer\nin peril, for I have kept the law. But the Pr\u00e6tor Sergius of Spain and\nthe commanders of the fleet rob whomsoever they will. Praise God, she\nsinketh fast!\"\n\nIt was even so. The quinquereme was settling in the water and her crew\ncould cast spears no more. They did but stand still and gaze at the sea\nand at their strange enemy, but some of them even now called loudly\nupon their gods, as if there could be any help from them.\n\nShe was a splendid vessel, and her figurehead was a gilded Neptune with\na trident which looked as if it might be of gold. Rich indeed were her\ncarvings and the very handles of her oars were graven and gilded. She\nwas high at prow and stern, a castle of the sea, and the wonder was\nthat she had been cloven at a blow. A lighter vessel with a ram less\nsharp would perhaps have rebounded without doing serious harm, but the\nbeak of _The Sword_ was like a vast spearhead and it had been driven\nhard by the strong arms of the Saxons and by the weight of the trireme.\n\nThe middle parts of the foundering ship could no longer be occupied,\nand the ill-fortuned men who were to perish were now crowded densely\nfore and aft. Even now, however, the legionaries preserved their\ndiscipline, and they slew some of the hired rowers who pressed them\nin too disorderly a manner. These were deaths which were but somewhat\nhastened, yet military order was restored thereby, for the rowers\nfeared the strokes of the pila and the broadswords.\n\n\"They go!\" muttered Ben Ezra. \"So perish all who afflict the chosen\npeople. Rome will yet fall before the sword of Judah and the spear of\nIsrael. Jehovah standeth for his elect. He will have vengeance upon the\nheathen. He will smite through kings in the day of his wrath.\"\n\n\"O Ulric the Jarl,\" said Sigurd, \"thou mayest trust the Jew. He hateth\nRome as we do.\"\n\nThen came Ulric nearer, still watching the quinquereme, but he spoke\nwords to Ben Ezra in a tongue that those who stood by understood not.\n\n\"Father Abraham!\" exclaimed the old man, \"where didst thou learn\nHebrew? I like thee well for this. After yonder quinquereme goeth down\nthou hast cause to consult with me. There are matters thou knowest\nnot.\"\n\n\"Odin!\" exclaimed Ulric. \"Watch! She is pitching forward! They are\nfalling!\"\n\nIn a mass together, as the decks slanted, plunged the overcrowded\nRomans. It was of no avail to struggle or to thrust with sharp weapons.\nAngrily, loudly, in his last desperate valor, blew the trumpeter his\nfinal defiance, but as the blast ended the prow of the quinquereme went\nmadly under, lifting the stern out of water for a moment. Then went\nup a great cry and quickly naught could be seen save a few heads of\nswimmers dotting the blue water.\n\nThe helmets disappeared first because of the weight of armor, but the\nSaxons cast no spears at any who remained, and some who were bareheaded\nseemed to be swimming well.\n\n\"He hath golden hair,\" said Sigurd, pointing at one of these. \"He is no\nRoman. I will call to him in Greek--\"\n\n\"Bid him come,\" said Ulric, \"if so be he is not a Roman. He may live.\"\n\nSigurd sent to the swimmer a few words in a smoothly sounding tongue,\nand the golden-haired youth struck out for the trireme, but he was\nfollowed by twain who were dark and who cursed him in Latin. Well for\nhim that he was the better swimmer, for they strove to grapple him that\nhe might die with them. He might not even then have fully escaped but\nthat Ulric knew their meaning and said to Tostig the Red:\n\n\"I have no spear! Smite those two Romans and save the Greek.\"\n\nNot one spear but twenty sped in answer to that command, and the youth\ncame nearer alone, for there were none to follow him.\n\n\"He was a rower,\" said Ben Ezra. \"He is a slave of the centurion. He is\nfrom Corinth. It is perilous to spare him, lest he might tell of this\nthy doing.\"\n\n\"What harm?\" asked Ulric. \"Can the Romans do more than destroy? I will\nmyself tell them that this is the third of their warships that I have\ntaken from them.\"\n\n\"Thou sailest in one,\" replied Ben Ezra, glancing around him. \"Thou and\nthine are men of valor. But the like of this hath never before been\nseen. A Saxon crew in a Roman trireme fighting the ships of C\u00e6sar!\nMayest thou have a fleet and smite them in the Tiber itself! Now sail\nthou on, for there is another quinquereme and she may not be far away.\nAvoid her, lest thou fall into a snare of presumption.\"\n\n\"Not I,\" laughed Ulric. \"We have done enough this day. Come thou and\ntalk with me, and then I will have speech with the Greek.\"\n\nThe young Corinthian was now aft among the men, and Sigurd was talking\nfreely with him. There were others of the older vikings who had learned\nwords of the Grecian tongue, and they, too, were both speaking and\nhearing.\n\nInto a cabin under the fore deck went Ulric and Ben Ezra, and there\nthey were alone, for none was permitted to follow them.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER XV.\n\n THE STORM IN THE MIDDLE SEA.\n\n\nWide but not high was the space which was inclosed under the fore\ndeck of the trireme _The Sword_. Beneath its floor was much room for\nstowage. The other decks, also, had under them good cabins, suited to\nmany purposes. The decking amidships, whereon tier above tier were\nmade the seats and standing places of the rowers, had openings covered\nby hatches. Down through these, by ladders, might be entered a great\nhollow, and this was for cargo and for sleeping room. Very different\nwas all this from the planning of any vessels which hitherto had been\nbuilded in the Northland. In the cabins under the fore deck were bunks\nfor sailors and soldiers, but all the garnishing was plain. Here, also,\nthere were stores of weapons, with boxes and bales of merchandise. The\ncabins under the after deck were divided and garnished for the uses of\nofficers and men of rank who might at any time be on board.\n\nIt was not long after the sinking of the quinquereme that the jarl and\nthe Jew, Ben Ezra, stood face to face in a small room under the fore\ndeck. Steadily looked Ulric into the face of the Jew.\n\n\"He is old, but he is not aged,\" was his thought concerning this man.\n\"He is tall and broad and strong and heavily bearded. His face proveth\nfor him high intelligence, but it hath deep marks which one may read.\nI think him a subtle man and a keeper of secrets. He is a man of rank\namong his own people, for common men are not as he is. I am glad of\nhim.\"\n\n\"O jarl of the Saxons,\" said Ben Ezra, \"I have blessed thee in my\nsoul, by Jehovah my God, that thou hast utterly smitten to death these\nRomans. Thou didst wisely not to spare any, as they would not have\nspared thee or thine. Thou mayest be sure that if so much as one of\nthem were on board thy ship, he were a danger. I will tell thee of\nmyself.\"\n\n\"Say on,\" said Ulric, \"but speak truly, that it may be well with thee.\"\n\n\"Leader of men,\" said Ben Ezra, \"my life hangeth upon thy life. I am\none with thee. I do but take care for myself in that I am truthful.\nI was informed against in Spain to the pr\u00e6tor because I was rich. I\nwas seized, but I and my son and a Jewish youth, the son of a rabbi,\nescaped from our destroyers. My ship was ready laden and we sailed in\nthe night. The quinquereme was faster and she overtook us. All were\nslain but we three, for they were overfull with rowers and soldiers\nand cared not for more slaves. Even to have escaped the pr\u00e6tor was to\nbe doomed to crucifixion; but they had not yet scourged us, waiting an\nopportunity. O my son! My son! That he might have been spared! For they\nhave slain his mother and his brethren. He was my Benjamin! My youngest\nson! The joy of my heart!\"\n\n\"He was slain by a spear,\" said Ulric, to comfort him. \"He died not on\na bed, that thou shouldst mourn so much for him. Thy god hath done well\nby thee. I saw him swimming bravely till the pilum struck him.\"\n\n\"And the youth, the son of the rabbi Joseph, of Jerusalem!\" groaned Ben\nEzra. \"What shall I say to his father? A fair boy and well favored!\nThey are merciless, for he had done them no wrong.\"\n\n\"Little careth a Roman for that,\" growled Ulric. \"Who is this Greek?\"\n\n\"He was a bondslave of the centurion of the band of legionaries on the\nquinquereme,\" said Ben Ezra. \"His father was a rich man in Corinth,\nbut the proconsul lusted after his goods and he was accused. He was\nbut slain, not crucified, but his older sons went to the arena to feed\nlions, and this Lysias, for his youth and beauty, was kept alive, if\na man be indeed living who is slave to a Roman. Thou mayest trust him\nthat he hated his master.\"\n\n\"For what part didst thou intend to sail,\" asked Ulric; \"seeing the\nRomans could have found thee anywhere on the earth?\"\n\n\"Not so,\" replied Ben Ezra. \"I were safe if once I were in Judea or\nGalilee.\"\n\n\"And where are they?\" asked Ulric.\n\n\"At the eastern shore of this sea, as thou shouldst know,\" said Ben\nEzra, \"is the land of my people. In it are many cities and mountains,\nand its provinces are under different governors. He who is threatened\nby one needs but to flee to another if he can take a gift with him. I\nhave a gift for thee wherewith thou couldst buy a consul, if so be he\nhad no opportunity to rob thee. My goods, all but one casket, went down\nwith the quinquereme. In that casket are gems of my own--\"\n\n\"I want them not,\" said Ulric. \"They are not my prizes. I struck no\nblow for them. Keep thou that which is thine own. I am a Saxon, not a\npirate.\"\n\n\"Thou art a sea king,\" replied Ben Ezra. \"I have had many dealings with\nsuch as thou art. They are not like other men, for they keep faith\nwith strangers. But this, also, I tell thee: as the Roman ship began to\nfill the centurion went mad, it seemed, for he took from his crypt in\nhis cabin his own jewels and some that the pr\u00e6tor would have sent to\nC\u00e6sar to buy a pardon for some of his offenses. These, also, went into\nmy casket, and he placed it on the deck and by it a small bag of gold.\nWith aid of three oars for floats and with strong swimming I rescued\nall, and here they are. Even the centurion knew not their value.\"\n\n\"I know what gold coins are,\" said Ulric, as the bag was opened before\nhim. \"Oswald the Harper taught me concerning money. Are these thine?\"\n\n\"Nay,\" said Ben Ezra, \"they are thine, for they belonged to the\ncenturion. Of the stones I will show thee. That sardonyx is mine. It\nwas graven in Egypt, and on it are words of the wisdom of the priests\nof Isis.\"\n\n\"Runes like Hilda's!\" exclaimed Ulric, gazing earnestly upon the\ncharacters which blended with the varying tints of the beautifully\npolished stone. \"Canst thou read them?\"\n\n\"Not so,\" said Ben Ezra, \"but this sardius, also, is mine. It is a\nstone of the temple of Jehovah at Jerusalem, and on it is his most holy\nname. Touch it not, for thou art of the heathen.\"\n\n\"What have I to do,\" asked Ulric, \"with a matter belonging to your god?\nI have thought that I would like to see him some day. I am sailing to\nfind the city of the gods. He will be there, perhaps, among them.\"\n\n\"He is a great King above all gods,\" said Ben Ezra, reverently, but his\neyes were dwelling upon the glowing, blood-red tint of the inestimable\ngem which bore the holy name.\n\n\"Odin!\" exclaimed Ulric. \"I think your god would be on good terms with\nthe gods of the North, for I have heard well of him. Thou mayest tell\nme more about him some day. But now thou mayest tie up thy gems and\ngive me mine. I have the ship to command, and I care not overmuch for\nstones.\"\n\n\"My sardius alone is worth thy trireme,\" said Ben Ezra, frankly. \"Keep\nthou thy treasure carefully and a day may come when it will be of use\nto thee. Divide not with thy men. Give them other matters.\"\n\nUlric laughed loudly as he responded: \"Good faith is kept among us, O\nJew, but my vikings are welcome to all I possess. The ship itself is\ntheirs, if I am slain, and they will carry to my own house anything\nthat belongs to me. We are not thieves, like the men of the southlands.\"\n\nBen Ezra looked into his face and said: \"Verily thou art my friend! I\nhave not met any like unto thee. I would thou mayest go with me to the\ncity of my God, to Jerusalem. There is his temple and it is the wonder\nof the earth.\"\n\n\"So have I heard,\" said Ulric, joyously. \"I think I will go and see.\nBut whither shall I steer at this hour?\"\n\n\"Toward the coast of Africa,\" said Ben Ezra. \"Thither was I sailing.\nThere are old harbors there for which the Romans take no care. In them\nare pirate peoples, foes of Rome, ancient Carthaginians, Egyptians,\nLibyans; but thou wilt be friends with them.\"\n\n\"_The Sword_ will sail for Africa,\" said Ulric; \"but as for pirates, we\nwill see to that matter.\"\n\n\"Verily there is none like thee!\" exclaimed the Jew. \"Thou art like\nSaul, the son of Kish!\"\n\nInto a small sack of deerskin did Ulric put his jewels, looking at\nthem one by one and admiring their great beauty.\n\n\"Never saw I such before,\" he said. \"They are such as kings wear in the\nsouthlands. I think the gods must have many of them. These white ones\nare pearls, and they are lustrous. The green stones are emeralds.\"\n\n\"They are of great value,\" said Ben Ezra. \"Especially that large,\nflat-faced one. It is engraven with the sign of the sun, and it came\ntherefore from Persia. Thy pearls are from the East, and they are\nwonderful, but some of mine are as large.\"\n\n\"I will keep the gold in my belt pouch,\" said Ulric, \"and thou shalt\nteach me to pay with it.\"\n\n\"Thou shalt not be cheated,\" said Ben Ezra.\n\nThen he took his closed casket with him and walked to the after cabin,\nfor in that was to be his abiding place, and he said that he would\nmourn there for his son.\n\n\"Southward!\" shouted Ulric to the viking at the rudder of the trireme.\n\"We have done well this day, and the night cometh.\"\n\nA wind had arisen and the sails were full, but the men did not seem to\nbe idle. They busied themselves with the tackle and with the stowing\nof the ship, but every now and then each one would step out on deck or\nlean over a bulwark to look long and earnestly across the sparkling sea.\n\n\"This water is very blue,\" said Tostig the Red, \"and so is the sky. O\nKnud, thou hast put away thy bearskins.\"\n\n\"Aye,\" said Knud, \"but how canst thou bear thy mail in such a heat as\nthis? I found this jacket of silk in the after cabin. It is cool and it\nis fine.\"\n\n\"Red as blood it is,\" said Tostig, \"but it would not keep out an arrow.\nThou dost never care much for armor.\"\n\n\"A shield is enough,\" replied Knud, \"and I can catch arrows on my seax.\nI would not be overweighted. I trust the gods will soon send us another\nfight. I would get hand to hand with some good fighter. There is more\npleasure in killing with steel than with the prow of a ship.\"\n\nThe jarl gave orders concerning many things, and then he spoke to\nLysias the Greek. The youth had seated himself in a hollow place\nbetween two oar benches and his face was in his hands, for he was\nweeping.\n\n\"Not often do men weep in the Northland,\" said Ulric, sternly. \"I have\nheard that the Greeks are brave. Why mournest thou? Hast thou not had\ngood vengeance upon the Romans this day? Not one of them escaped. Thou\nshouldst rather be rejoicing.\"\n\n\"Alas! Alas!\" murmured the beautiful youth. \"Corinth! My Sapphira! I\nshall never see her again!\"\n\n\"She was thy love?\" said Ulric, softening somewhat. \"I never had a love\nsave Hilda, the saga woman, and she was a hundred years old. I loved\nher well. Where is thy Sapphira?\"\n\n\"She was more lovely than a dream!\" said Lysias, looking up through his\ntears. \"Her father was Licander, the astrologer, and she was like a\nstar. He knew the heavens and the stars in their courses, and he read\ntheir signs. But he foretold to the Romans their Parthian defeat and\nthey slew him for his bad augury. Of his kindred they left not one, and\nSapphira they sold for a slave to Pontius Pilatus, the procurator of\nJudea. I care not to live, for I have been scourged and I have lost my\nlove.\"\n\nEven as he spoke he threw off a light robe of linen which had covered\nhim, and Ulric saw the half-healed, festering lines of the Roman\nscourge all over the flesh of Lysias.\n\n\"Thou mayest well weep for that!\" exclaimed Ulric, \"if thou art the son\nof a free warrior.\"\n\n\"I did stab three in Spain,\" said Lysias, \"and I had plotted to sink\nthe quinquereme, for she had a bad leak which might be opened.\"\n\n\"Get thou up!\" said Ulric. \"I will gird thee with a sword and give thee\na shield and spear. When thy scourgings are healed thou shalt have\nmail. Thou art strong.\"\n\n\"I have won foot races,\" said Lysias, rising, \"and I can ride any wild\nhorse. I am a bowman and I can cast the javelin far and truly.\"\n\n\"Be more contented, then,\" said Ulric. \"I will give thee chances to\nstrike Romans. There is no need for thee to mourn.\"\n\n\"Thou knowest not love,\" said Lysias; \"but I thank thee, and I would\nhave weapons.\"\n\n\"Come with me,\" said Ulric, and they went together to the after cabin.\n\nThere were doors by which this might be closed, but one of these was\nopen and they went in. Then it could be seen that this cabin space,\nwhich was large, was divided into four apartments by strong wooden\nwalls, each having a door and a window, and in the windows were small\nsheets of glass to let in light and keep out the sea. This first room\nwhere they now were had been the place prepared for some person of high\nrank to occupy, an officer in command of the ship or a high passenger.\nIt was finished in carved wood, with hangings of silk and linen of\nmany colors and of fine needlework. Here, also, were lamps that hung in\ncressets, and there were fixed tables and soft couches and many fair\nweapons and pieces of splendid armor. None of these had the jarl worn\nas yet save a helmet and a rare coat of linked mail richly gilded. Now\nhe selected a good belt, with a sheath and sword, and a long sheathed\ndagger.\n\n\"Throw off thy robe,\" he said to Lysias. \"Put on this tunic and the\nsandals. Belt thee with these.\"\n\nSo the youth did, and it could be seen that his shape was not only\ncomely, but molded for great vigor. The muscles stood out upon his arms\nand shoulders and Ulric himself was but a head the taller.\n\n\"These will soon heal,\" said Ulric, examining the lash cuts. \"Oil them\nwell. I will aid thee. They are now not deep. Thou art a good swimmer.\nI noted thee in the water. Here are thy shield and spear.\"\n\n\"They are Greek, not Roman,\" said Lysias. \"I am glad of that. I want a\nbow and arrows.\"\n\n\"A quiver and a bow are here,\" said Ulric. \"But the arrows are long and\nso is the bow. See if thou canst bend and string it.\"\n\n\"That can I?\" exclaimed Lysias, seizing the bow. \"It is from Sparta,\nfor only the Lacedemonians make them of this length. The Parthian bows\nare shorter, for horsemen, but only a Parthian can bend them--or such\nas I. We are of the ancient Corinthian archers, and there were none\nbetter on earth.\"\n\nHe was bending the strong wood as he talked, and Ulric saw that he did\nso and put on the string of twisted silk with ease. Then took he an\narrow from the quiver and drew it to the head.\n\n\"Thou art the captain,\" he said. \"Thy men call thee the jarl and say\nthou art of the sons of their gods. Canst thou send this arrow farther\nthan I can?\"\n\n\"I will handle thy bow,\" said Ulric.\n\nHe, too, unstrung and strung it and drew the arrow to the head, but he\nsaid, thoughtfully:\n\n\"Thou of the Greeks, I understand thy saying concerning skill. I am\nmany times stronger than thou art, and yet I think thee the better\nbowman. I will call on thee if I would have a sure arrow sent.\"\n\nLysias lifted the spear, which was a fathom long, and light, but he\nlooked around the room and found more of the same pattern and made a\nbundle of them.\n\n\"They are well made,\" he said, \"and their points are of good steel. I\nonce threw one like these through the heart of a man from Athens. He\nwas an enemy of my father. I met him on the seashore and I was quicker\nthan he in casting. He should have worn a thicker breastplate.\n\n\"Hah!\" laughed Ulric. \"I am a spearman, but I prefer the North spear\nand the pilum.\"\n\n\"I like them,\" said Lysias, \"but I know one man that can outthrow thee.\nHe is a Roman knight named Pontius, and they call him the spearman. He\nis the procurator I told thee of. I would I might live until I can kill\nhim. He liveth now in Jerusalem.\"\n\n\"Thither go I!\" exclaimed Ulric. \"I have promised Ben Ezra that I will\ntake him to his own, and I must go to that city and see the temple. I\nhave it in mind that I may see his god. They say he is a good god and a\ngreat fighter like Thor.\"\n\n\"I have heard much of him,\" said Lysias, \"but he is more like Jupiter.\nIf thou wilt land at the island Paphos, I will show thee his statue\nand thou canst see what he is like. We shall hear his voice thunder if\nI read this weather rightly.\"\n\n\"Then he is Thor!\" said Ulric, turning to the door. \"Come! I know not\nthe weather signs of this sea.\"\n\nOut they went and Lysias glanced around the sky. His face was brighter\nnow and he stepped firmly like a warrior.\n\n\"O jarl,\" he shouted, \"I am a seaman also. Take down thy sails quickly!\nPut out a bank of oars. Bid thy steersman keep the head of thy keel\nsouthward, for from thence cometh a tempest. The sky will darken\nrapidly.\"\n\n\"The Greek is right!\" shouted Sigurd. \"I had forgotten the sign of such\na storm, but I call it to mind. It is a strong one.\"\n\nDown came the sails, out went the oars, and the thick haze on the water\nsoutherly, which had been sunlit and fair to look upon, shot up toward\nthe middle heaven, blackening as it went.\n\n\"O jarl,\" said Wulf the Skater, \"thank the gods! We are to see a kind\nof storm that we do not have in our own seas.\"\n\n\"Fine storms come to us in midsummer,\" said Ulric, \"and they roar well\nin the fiords. Will the anger of Thor be louder here? The Greek saith\nthat his Jupiter can thunder, and the Jew told me that his Jehovah is\nalso a thunderer. Are they of kin? They who speak the same tongue are\nof one house.\"\n\nThe Greek was now standing by the anvil and hammer on the fore deck.\n\n\"The sign of this ship was Minerva,\" he muttered, \"but the Saxons\nhave given it to Vulcan. If yonder cloud is indeed of the wind from\nthe African desert we may yet wish that Neptune were our steersman.\nBut what care I for the gods? They were never yet of any use to me. My\nfather made many sacrifices, but the Romans slew him.\"\n\nThere now were sails in sight, but these were fast furling. Most of\nthem were small, but one, at the greater distance, had seemed much\nwider than the rest.\n\n\"I have been watching her,\" said Sigurd to Ulric, speaking of this\ncraft. \"I am not young, but my eyes are the eyes of a falcon. Now that\nher sail is down her oars are out and she steereth toward us. The storm\nwill give her oarsmen enough to do.\"\n\n\"But we must watch her,\" said Ulric. \"Even a merchantman might seek our\ncompany, but she may be a warship.\"\n\n\"So may some of these lesser keels be of the pirates of these coasts,\"\nsaid Sigurd. \"They are many, and we do well if we smite them, for often\nthey are good captures.\"\n\n\"Here cometh the wind!\" shouted Knud the Bear, exultingly. \"The foam\nflyeth!\"\n\nFirst came a sheeted flash of the blinding lightning, and after that\nclosely followed a deep-throated reverberant peal of thunder.\n\n\"The voice of Jah!\" muttered Ben Ezra. \"He hath spoken from his high\nplace.\"\n\n\"Jupiter the Thunderer!\" exclaimed Lysias, still standing by the hammer\nof Thor as if for protection. \"I fear him only at such hours as this;\nbut he is a god of the Romans and I am a Greek. Evil are all gods or I\nshould not have lost my Sapphira. Evil are they and wicked, and they\nhate men, for they destroy us. There is no man but must die, and if the\ngods were good, we might live. But these Saxons are brave seamen!\"\n\nLittle cared they for storms, these sons of the sea kings. They shouted\nand they sang as if they were in a battle, while the waves grew mad\nand boiled frothing around the high wooden walls of _The Sword_. Her\nhead was kept toward the wind and she rode the billows like a vast\nwaterfowl, for the Roman shipbuilders were well skilled.\n\nLess easy must have been the course of a keel that strove to cross the\nsurges with her side to the wind, and it now could be seen that the\nlarge stranger was laboring and that now and then waves broke over her.\n\n\"She bringeth small peril to us,\" said the jarl. \"We will row with but\none bank of oars. Let their rowers weary themselves with three. The\ntrumpeter on her fore deck soundeth a signal.\"\n\n\"Of what good,\" laughed Wulf the Skater, \"is the blowing of a horn in\nsuch a gale as this?\"\n\n\"He sendeth us a signal to heave to and wait for them,\" said Sigurd.\n\"What sayest thou concerning this fellow, O Jew?\"\n\n\"I think her one of the cruisers sent out by the proconsul of Spain,\"\nreplied Ben Ezra. \"They are all weaker vessels than this, but they are\nswift. They protect merchantmen from the African pirates to rob all for\nthe proconsul.\"\n\nThe air grew darker, denser, and the salt spray flew into all faces,\nbut the jarl stood upon the after deck and blew upon his war horn a\nblast louder than that of the Roman trumpet.\n\n\"Thy horn be exalted!\" shouted Ben Ezra. \"It is as the horn of a king!\nMay Jehovah of Hosts be with thee, thou mighty man of valor! Sound\nagain! Let these heathen know that we fear them not.\"\n\n\"But for the storm we might strike them,\" growled Sigurd. \"It is ill to\nlet such a prey go by us.\"\n\nNow was there also a change in the appearance of Ben Ezra. He stood by\nthe jarl as erect as a pine tree. From the stores of _The Sword_ he\nhad provided himself with arms and armor of the best, by permission of\nUlric. The visor of his brazen helmet was open and it might be seen\nthat his dark face glowed like youth as he gazed angrily at the enemy.\n\n\"He is a warrior!\" exclaimed Tostig the Red. \"I like him well. I think\nhe might strike a good blow with that long crooked sword which he hath\nfound. I saw it, but I preferred a straight blade. The shield lifteth\nlightly in his hand and his mail coat fitteth him. He hath put brazen\nguarders upon his arms and legs. A small man should avoid such as he in\nthe press of battle.\"\n\nSo said others of the vikings, but they were watching more closely the\nRoman keel.\n\nThe trumpeter sounded several times and as often did they send back\ndefiances from their war horns.\n\n\"O jarl,\" said Lysias, \"this is the storm which cometh from the African\ndesert. It is not like any other. Not only is there much thunder and\nterrible lightning and strong wind, but I have felt sharp sand upon my\nface. It will blow long and hard, and the waves will not go down, but\nthere will be no more rain. The sky is clearing.\"\n\n\"Thou knowest the storms of thine own sea,\" said Knud the Bear; \"but\nare we far from land?\"\n\n\"No man knoweth that,\" said Lysias; \"but here cometh the Roman, like a\nfool. I would thy jarl might strike him. O jarl, may I use the bow?\"\n\n\"When thou canst,\" said Ulric, \"but the distance is yet too great.\"\n\nLike fierce and angry music rang out the laugh of the Greek, but his\narrow was on the string and he raised the bow.\n\n_The Sword_ sank heavily into the trough of a sea wave and the Roman\nkeel was lifted high upon a surge, just as a long, vivid sheet of\nlightning seemed to bring her nearer by its brightness. Her steersman\nwas a giant, unarmored, straining hard at her tiller and bracing\nhimself. At him was Ulric looking when suddenly he threw up his hands,\nletting the tiller go, and the feathered shaft of the young Greek's\nlong arrow quivered against his naked bosom.\n\n\"Odin! Well shot!\" shouted Ulric, but the bowstring twanged again and\nanother Roman fell upon the deck beside the dead steersman.\n\nLeft to itself and to the will of the wind and the waves, around swung\nthe keel of the Romans, while a great surge poured over her bulwarks\nand her rowers were hurled from their seats. Wild was their shouting\nand another surge poured in.\n\n\"Strike her not!\" said Sigurd. \"Be thou prudent with thine own keel,\nlest thou shouldst be in some manner disabled. Let the Greek send his\narrows, but steer upon thy course.\"\n\nUlric so ordered, but shaft after shaft did Lysias send, not all of\nthem hitting, but not all failing of a mark. Other war horns than that\nof Ulric were sounding and other bows were also quickly plying.\n\n\"I think,\" said Tostig the Red, \"that we have no better bowman than\nthis Greek. He will be a good help in a sea fight. I like well to see\nhis long arrows go so straight to their places. Then the mark goeth\ndown and it is time to laugh.\"\n\nThe Roman rowers were toiling hard to recover control of their vessel,\nbut the Saxons knew little of the astonishment and dismay that reigned\non board of her. Her crew had not thought of an open enemy at the\nfirst. They had deemed _The Sword_ a friend until the sounding of the\njarl's war horn. Even then they had expected no resistance, at least\nno attack, until their steersman fell and a man of rank near him was\npierced by an arrow.\n\nBetter than a sailing vessel can a rowed keel turn her head to the\nwaves, however, and before long the Romans were once more striving to\novertake the Saxons.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER XVI.\n\n THE DEAD GOD IN AFRICA.\n\n\nClouds without rain swept fast across the sky and the waves followed\n_The Sword_ as if they willed to overwhelm her. Well was it that her\nstern was so high and that she was strongly builded. It had seemed,\nalso, that no sea harm had befallen her pursuer, but now the darkness\ndeepened and the watchers on _The Sword_ could no longer discern the\nRoman.\n\n\"O jarl,\" said Sigurd, \"it is a time for prudence. This flying sand\ntelleth of some shore, I think, at no great distance.\"\n\n\"It might be carried far by such a wind,\" said Ulric. \"But Ben Ezra\ntold me of great cities in Africa which have been buried by the sand\nblown from the inner deserts.\"\n\n\"What further counsel hath he?\" asked Sigurd.\n\n\"Answer him, thou,\" said the jarl to Ben Ezra.\n\n\"O warrior of the Saxons,\" said the Jew, \"thou sayest that thou hast\nsailed these seas aforetime. Thou mayest know that the presence of\none Roman trireme portendeth the speedy gathering of a fleet. It were\nwell to destroy this one if she cometh near us again. But we have now\nescaped her pursuing. Let her watchers not see this ship again. I would\nadvise that we now go eastward by the stars, for we may note them at\ntimes through the rifts in the clouds.\"\n\n\"I will so order,\" said the jarl. \"I were not wise to risk harming my\nown keel by a battle among these high waves. It is a peril to a ship to\nbe dashed against even one heavy timber where the aim cannot be made\ncertain. Moreover, we have been long at sea and it were well to seek a\nharbor.\"\n\nBen Ezra said no more, now that his counsel was approved. The head\nof _The Sword_ was turned eastward and all the oars were plying.\nNeither was the wind now so much against her, but the waves were still\ntumultuous. Fast waned the night, growing darker as it passed, and the\njarl himself remained at the helm.\n\n\"I go onward into an unknown sea,\" he thought. \"Who may tell what may\nbe before me? Dawn cometh. There is gray light. O watcher!\"\n\nAnswered him then not a Saxon, but the deep voice of Ben Ezra from the\nforemast.\n\n\"O jarl! A fire! Hold! We near a land!\"\n\n\"Cease rowing, all!\" shouted Ulric. \"O Jew, look again. What seest\nthou?\"\n\n\"Only a dim fire, far in the southward. It is a guide for us, but we\nmay seek it cautiously. The wind goeth down.\"\n\n\"It is so,\" said Knud the Bear. \"It was a hot wind, and this air is\ncooler. I thought we were sailing into a furnace.\"\n\n\"The desert is like a furnace, I have heard,\" said Sigurd. \"Men burn up\nin it and all horses die; but lions live there. How can any beast live\nin a land of fire?\"\n\n\"I know not,\" said Ulric, \"but yonder is a brighter streak of dawn.\nWe shall soon know if the Romans are near us. We may slay them if the\nwater becometh smooth enough for a good fight.\"\n\n\"It would be a grief to all men,\" said Tostig the Red, \"if we lost an\nopportunity. But if this be land, I want some beef.\"\n\n\"Good!\" exclaimed an old viking. \"We had many cattle on the Gaulish\ncoast, but in Spain we got little but sheep. Hereaway may be found\ncattle. We may throw a net, and we may find fishes.\"\n\nThe jarl said nothing, for he watched the sea and the sky and he\nsteered the ship.\n\n\"Nearer!\" shouted Ben Ezra from the mast. \"And the daylight cometh. I\nwatch for the Romans. May the curse of Jehovah be upon them and theirs\nforever!\"\n\nLysias was on the fore deck, and as he heard Ben Ezra he muttered angry\nwords in his own tongue. Then he whispered softly to himself, or to a\nshadow, and his fair face grew white and his teeth ground together as\nif he were in agony. So do they suffer who have lost a love and know\nthat it is forever gone, for Lysias had said:\n\n\"Worse far than if they had slain her! I would that she were dead and I\nwith her. But I may live to slay Romans. Why did this Saxon jarl spare\nany of them? But he is captain, and they say he is a wise one.\"\n\nIn the small wooden fort for slingers and archers, high up the stout\nmast, sat Ben Ezra, and a viking sat with him.\n\n\"O Saxon,\" said the Jew, \"would thy jarl spare them if they came with\nthe day?\"\n\n\"The son of Brander is jarl, not I,\" replied the viking, surlily.\n\"Speak thou not carelessly of the leader of men. Thou art no seaman. He\nwill strike when he is ready. Let that content thee.\"\n\nFor deep and strong was the hold of Ulric upon his older men, by\nreason of his skill as a seaman and as a captain and because of his\ngood fortune; for they saw plainly that Odin and Thor were with him and\nthat the gods of the Middle Sea could do nothing against him. Even the\nice gods had been his friends and the god of the Druids had also helped\nhim, sending him away from Britain unharmed. It was a great thing to\nhave such a jarl, of Odin's line. They all knew, moreover, that Hilda,\nthe saga woman, must by this time have gone down to the gods and that\nshe willed exceedingly well to the crew of _The Sword_ and to her young\nhero.\n\n\"He is truly a leader of men,\" growled the Jew through his thick beard,\n\"but I would once more smite these Philistines of Rome.\"\n\n\"In that I am with thee,\" said the viking, heartily. \"Thou art a good\nsword. I would see thee in battle. It is pleasant to look upon a\nwarrior that slayeth zealously. But our feast of blood will come to us.\nWait.\"\n\nUp sprang the sun above the blue waves of the Middle Sea, and all the\nSaxons shouted joyfully. It was true that there were no enemies in\nsight, nor present hope of any good fighting, but here was a land that\nthey had never seen before. All seamen know the joy there is in finding\na country that is unknown.\n\n\"Hael! O land of the South!\" shouted Tostig the Red. \"Thou hast\nmountains as tall as are those of the North. But this is a bay, a\nharbor, not a fiord.\"\n\n\"What sayest thou, Ben Ezra?\" asked Ulric of the watcher on the mast.\n\n\"Row in!\" replied the Jew. \"There is no other keel in this haven and it\nis a good one. I see no sail nor any boat seaward. This is Africa, and\na city is on the shore, but the fire was at the head of the bay. There\nare rocks ahead. Row around them.\"\n\n\"I see them; a great ledge,\" said Ulric. \"Broken and sharp-toothed are\nthose rocks, and they would wreck any keel that should strike upon\nthem. It is a place of wrecks.\"\n\nThe rowers rowed and _The Sword_ went on through a wide passage at the\nright of the ledge. Then she was in a great basin where many keels\nmight ride at anchor, and before her and on either side of her lay the\nland.\n\nThere seemed but a gentle at the seashore. Beyond might be a\nplain for a few miles, and then, lifting their heads so high that they\nentered the dominions of the upper gods to be capped with ice and snow,\nwere the many mountains. Into that upper land no man may enter, for the\nice gods will freeze him and bury him in snow for his insolence.\n\nIt was all exceedingly beautiful, but the rowers now rowed slowly and\nall the other Saxons watched warily as _The Sword_ drew nearer what\nseemed a landing place, a structure of stonework builded far out into\nthe harbor.\n\n\"Bring thy ship to yonder wharf,\" counseled Sigurd. \"No men are to be\nseen, but there are walls and temples and houses. This may be a town of\nthe magicians of Africa. Beware of them, Ulric the Jarl.\"\n\n\"I would I knew who kindled the light,\" said Ulric, thoughtfully. \"If\nwe had sailed toward it in the dark we had perished on that ledge.\"\n\n\"Thereon are fragments of wrecks,\" said Sigurd. \"The breakers there are\nhigh.\"\n\nSo said other of the seamen, but _The Sword_ was now making fast to the\nstone jetty, and Ben Ezra was already out upon it walking shoreward,\nwith his scimiter drawn. He seemed like a younger man. But he was not\nto go alone, for closely behind him hurried Lysias with his bow, and\nKnud the Bear.\n\n\"Here burned the fire,\" said Ulric, a few moments later, pointing at a\nheap of ashes near the head of the jetty. \"There hath been much burning\nof wood at this place.\"\n\nNevertheless he left it behind him and marched rapidly forward. He left\na strong guard with the ship, but he thought it best to enter this\nstrange town with tenscore of armed Saxons arrayed as if they were to\nbe assailed by some enemy.\n\nOn went Ben Ezra, but he met no man, and he came to a wall, in the\nface of which was a ruinous gap where once had been a gate. From\nthis opening it was seen that a broad street led away, bordered by\nruined palaces. At its far end arose one of the temples which had been\ndiscerned from the ship, as it stood upon high ground.\n\n\"Here,\" said Ben Ezra, \"is a city which Jehovah hath smitten for the\nsins of them which dwelt therein.\"\n\nBut he spoke loudly, in the old Hebrew tongue, and at once a voice\nresponded:\n\n\"Who art thou, O Jew, coming hither with a sword? The sword hath\ndeparted from Israel, as it hath from Tyre and Carthage. I am Annibaal,\nthe foe of Rome and of Greece, and I am dying of hunger. Come hither to\nme.\"\n\nAs if without fear Ben Ezra walked toward the sound of that voice not\nmany paces. Then crawled out from behind a fallen column a naked,\nsun-darkened, very hairy shape of a vast man, larger than Sigurd, the\nson of Thorolf, but he lay prone upon the sand gasping. Only one eye\nhad he, for the other was but a hollow socket, and he had but one hand\nand one foot and both of his ears were gone. He was but a mutilated\nremnant of a strong man, and his only weapon was a long straight sword,\nvery bright and seemingly keen, with a golden hilt, whereon were\nglittering gems.\n\n\"O Annibaal,\" said Ben Ezra, in the tongue of Tyre, \"what is this city?\"\n\n\"It is the city of the dead,\" said Annibaal. \"I was a chief of\nCarthage, whereof this was a colony, but some came hither from Tyre,\nand here were already many from Nubia and from Egypt. First the Greeks\nof Alexander harmed us in the old time, but after them, in my day, came\nthe Romans. They smote us hip and thigh, slaying whom they would slay,\nmaking slaves of many, and of me, a prince and captain, they made what\nthou seest, leaving me here alone.\"\n\nAlready Lysias and Knud stood by Ben Ezra, and behind them a few paces\nhalted Ulric the Jarl and his men.\n\n\"I wonder thou didst not die,\" said Ben Ezra, \"or that the lions took\nthee not. I see some of them even now.\"\n\n\"I have slain lions,\" said Annibaal, \"but it is now as if I were\nfriends with them and they harm me not. It is their city and we agree\ntogether. Yet I had at this time no more food and I perish, but I\nlighted my death fire to trap Roman ships to my ledge. I have slain\nmany there, and sometimes I have had joy to hear them when the wind\nbrought their cries to the shore. Their bodies float to the strand and\nthe beasts and the ravens feast upon the wolves of Rome.\"\n\n\"He must die,\" muttered Knud. \"He slayeth sailors. It is not good to\ntrap men, so that they die a cow's death. It is wicked to rob a warrior\nof his right to die in fight or by the righteous breaking up of his\nkeel.\"\n\nSo said other of the vikings, thinking of Valhalla and the gods, for\nthey all were religious men, scorning an evil action. But Ulric had\nsent in haste for food and for water and for ale, commanding that this\nman should be fed.\n\n\"Ye are too late,\" said Annibaal. \"I pray thee, rather, for thou art a\nprince, strike me with thy spear.\"\n\n\"That is a just thing, O jarl,\" said Sigurd. \"He hath been a warrior.\nThou wouldst ask thy kinsman to make the hero spearmark on thee if thou\nwert unluckily perishing in thy bed. Send him marked to his gods, that\nthey take him not for a coward.\"\n\n\"Not yet,\" said Ulric. \"Ben Ezra, talk thou with him as thou wouldst.\"\n\nIn Hebrew and in the tongue of Tyre did the twain converse. When the\nwater came, and the food and ale, Annibaal drank a cup of water, but\nmore he could not do, for he was passing.\n\n\"I have learned much,\" said Ben Ezra; \"but he dieth. Refuse him not\nthy mercy, O jarl. He is a prince, and he is worthy of thy hand. Take\nthou his own sword and smite off his head lest thou fail of a friend in\nthine own hour. Quick ere he fainteth!\"\n\nUlric took the long, beautiful sword, which had slain both men and\nlions, and he struck as became him, for he heard murmurs among the\nSaxons.\n\nAnnibaal had feebly lifted his head to receive the gift he had asked\nfor, and it was severed well, falling upon the sand.\n\n\"Well done, O jarl!\" shouted Knud the Bear. \"I liked him not, but it\nwere shame to let a brave warrior die of thirst. Now do I not fear at\nall to go on into this place, for we have put blood at the gate.\"\n\nThe other Saxons shouted their approval of their jarl's kindness to\nAnnibaal, and they marched forward willingly, blowing their horns and\nclashing their spears upon their shields, for all this great ruin was\nvery wonderful.\n\nThe street was long, and as they went on Sigurd remarked to the jarl:\n\n\"Where there are lions there are no cattle. Where the Romans have been\nthere is left no plunder worth taking. We will but use our eyes till we\ntire and then we will lift our sails and depart.\"\n\nUlric answered not, for a strange look was on his face and his eyes\nwere studying the sword of Annibaal.\n\n\"This hilt hath many runes,\" he said to Ben Ezra. \"Canst thou read\nthem?\"\n\n\"Not so,\" said the Jew, \"but one thing the Carthaginian told thee not.\nI had heard much of this city. It was first builded by the kings of the\nforgotten ages, whereof there are no writings. Our own writings tell\nus somewhat of them. The Egyptian priests know more, but tell it not.\nSo did those of Babylon the elder. Here was a great people, but they\nperished. Even their gods died, being slain by the sword of Jehovah.\"\n\n\"As many gods have been slain by Thor and Odin,\" responded Ulric. \"I\nlike your god, that destroyeth his enemies.\"\n\nMore slowly they walked as they drew near the front of the great temple.\n\n\"The stones of it are large,\" said Ulric to Ben Ezra. \"They are\ngreater than the Druid stones that I saw in Britain.\"\n\n\"I will show thee greater stones than these in the temple of Jehovah at\nJerusalem,\" replied the Jew.\n\n\"I will go there with thee,\" replied Ulric. \"But these are wonderfully\ngraven. Only a good chisel may cut granite rock.\"\n\n\"Their tools were of bronze,\" said the Jew, \"and none but their priests\nknew how to make them. Taller pillars are in Egypt than in Greece\nor Rome, but they are of the old time. No more are set up since the\nEgyptian gods departed. They, too, were overcome by Jehovah.\"\n\n\"He is a great god,\" said Ulric, reverently. \"I would be glad to see\nhim. Let us go up these steps and look in.\"\n\nSome of the vikings paused on the steps and would go no further, for a\nchill was on them in spite of the sunshine. One said to another: \"The\nmagicians may still be here, or some of the old gods of this place.\"\n\n\"The son of Odin need not fear them,\" was answered; \"but we are not as\nhe is. Let us wait until he hath gone in.\"\n\nGreat was their faith in their jarl, but they were disappointed that in\nthis harbor they were to obtain no cattle nor any plunder.\n\nFirst went Lysias, as if he feared not at all; but he had seen many\ntemples, and this was one from which its gods must have gone away,\nleaving it solitary. His bow was in his hand, however, and suddenly he\nstood still, putting a long arrow upon the string in haste.\n\n\"Strike him!\" shouted Ulric. \"He may escape if I try to spear him.\"\n\n\"A splendid lion he is!\" shouted Tostig the Red. \"Thou canst not slay\nhim with thy arrows! Let me go to him!\"\n\nEven at that moment they had passed the portal, for at the top of the\nflight of steps was a level place, stone-floored, surrounded by these\nvast pillars whereof they had been speaking. Across this level was the\nportal, but no doors were in it to hinder. Beyond, as they now saw\nentering, was an open space, a hundred cubits wide and more in length,\nbut it had no roofing. It seemed like a place of assembly, and at its\nfurther end was a high dais, whereon was an altar and behind the altar\nan image. But on the altar couched this lion, tawny and large. His head\nhad been between his paws, but now he arose and sent toward them a roar\nthat was like half-smothered thunder.\n\nThe arrow sped and it smote him in the breast, entering deeply.\n\n\"Odin! What a bound was that!\" exclaimed Ulric, and all the Saxons\nshouted for the pleasure of seeing the stricken beast fly through the\nair toward them.\n\n\"He belongeth to the Greek,\" said Sigurd. \"Spoil not his sport. He\nshooteth well. He is a warrior's son.\"\n\nIt had been a disgrace to any viking to interfere, even if the lion\nshould slay the Greek, but Svip, the son of Leiknar went forward\nwrongfully, lifting his spear. All others did but stand where they were\nand they called out angrily to Svip.\n\n\"He is but a Greek,\" said the son of Leiknar; but the lion sprang again\nand he sprang far, with a short roar which was fierce and guttural,\ntaking Svip for his enemy. Brave was the son of Leiknar, but he knew\nnot aught of lions. Upon him fell the mighty beast, beating down the\nspear with a forepaw. Sharp were the long claws and swift and terrible\nwas the tearing. The shield was no defense and the mail was rent as if\nit had been leather. Torn into fragments was the strong viking ere he\nmight draw his seax, but the bow of Lysias twanged again and his arrow\nsped well.\n\n\"The lion hath no mark but his,\" said Sigurd, the son of Thorolf.\n\"Back! This is his battle. Let him win it or perish!\"\n\nThis was a moment when men look, but do not breathe, for the lion\nturned upon Lysias and the youth faced him boldly, drawing his long\narrow to the head.\n\n\"Well shot!\" shouted Tostig. \"O Greek, thou art a good bowman, but he\nhath thee!\"\n\nThe lion had gathered his strength to spring, but the shaft had gone in\ntoo far. The roar choked in his throat. His limbs refused to cast him.\nHe rolled over, snarling, and pawing at the pavement.\n\n\"I would thou wert a Roman!\" said Lysias. \"But such as thou art have\ntorn my kindred in the arena.\"\n\n\"Slain!\" shouted Sigurd. \"Thou hast done well, O Greek!\"\n\n\"Svip, the son of Leiknar, erred to his death,\" said the jarl. \"The\nfault was his own. But this lion was first smitten upon the stone of\nsacrifice. What sayest thou, O Jew; is there in this any offense to the\ngod of this place?\"\n\n\"There is no god,\" responded Ben Ezra. \"Here are but idols, and upon\ntheir altars couch the beasts of the field. We may go forward. Who\nneedeth to fear gods of stone, which are the work of men's hands and\nwhich neither walk nor speak?\"\n\n\"The lions have no god,\" said Lysias.\n\n[Illustration: \"Let him win it or perish!\"]\n\n\"I would not fear him greatly if they had,\" said an old viking, \"but if\nhe were a man, with a sword in his hand, then I would know what to do\nwith him.\"\n\nSome of the Saxons then declared that they knew what to do with the\nskin of such a lion, and they remained to take it off rather than go\nany nearer to the stone god behind the place of sacrifice. Grand and\nhuge was he, the idol of this broken temple of old time. He was the\nhead of a man upon the body of a beast, carved out of more stones than\none, and he crouched there, looking at them with a stern and terrible\nexpression.\n\n\"I think,\" said Ben Ezra, \"that he is one of the forgotten gods of the\nSidonians. They will not set him up in Egypt, but he was like Jupiter.\"\n\n\"There is no hammer,\" said Sigurd. \"It is not Thor. See the jarl!\"\n\nThey had paused, looking, but the son of Brander the Brave had walked\ncuriously to the side of the god and was studying his marks, for there\nwere many.\n\n\"I would,\" he muttered, \"that Hilda were here, for I think she would\nread. These are like the runes upon the old Odin stone beyond the\nfiord, and they were made when he came from the East. I think this to\nbe one of the Asas; but how came He to make this temple and place it\nhere? The gods do strangely at times.\"\n\nBy him now stood Lysias, and he said: \"O jarl of the Saxons, linger\nnot. The Jew hath found a stone which must be lifted. He waiteth for\nthee.\"\n\nNo message had Ben Ezra sent, but he was stooping over a flat slab in\nthe place of sacrifice. Upon it there were marks of fire and the stone\nwas crumbling.\n\n\"Why lift it?\" asked Ulric, drawing nearer. \"What have we to do with\nthe secrets of the gods? Why should we anger them?\"\n\n\"They are dead,\" said Ben Ezra, \"but I think this to be a door of the\npriests. It is but a broken stone. Give me thy spear.\"\n\n\"Nay,\" said Ulric, \"I can pry with a spear shaft. We will have it up if\nanything may be hidden here for us.\"\n\nThe fire-broken limestone yielded in several pieces to the prying of\nthe tough spear shafts. As its pieces were lifted, or as they fell\naway, behold stone steps, from which all shrank back save the Jew and\nthe son of Odin and the Greek. Even Sigurd held back a moment, saying:\n\n\"I like it not. It is the jarl's place. Let him venture first. He\nknoweth runes that we know not. So doth the Jew, but the Greek is a\nyoung fool.\"\n\nDangerous indeed it was for any man to step into a chamber under the\naltar of a strange god, but when they went down and entered it and\nlooked around there was but little to see.\n\n\"A store of broken weapons and rust-eaten armor,\" said Ulric. \"Some of\nthe hilts and shields are good enough. But there are many skulls and\nbones.\"\n\n\"A crown!\" shouted Ben Ezra, with a round thing in his hand glittering.\n\"Here placed they the ashes of kings from the altar. I know not why\nthey should have buried with one the diadem of his realm. It may be\nthat his dynasty was ended. Many of these stones are rare and precious.\nHere is gold, also, but the silver is of no great value. Let us bear\nall to the ship, for the spoil of this sacred tomb of the kings would\nbuy a Roman province.\"\n\nThe vikings in the outer air were summoned, and now they were not\nunwilling to venture, for the fear of the place had departed when they\nheard again the voice of the jarl. Neither did they care overmuch to\nfind merely the remains of the dead, and they were greatly pleased with\nthe treasures.\n\nBen Ezra bore away one shield which was heavy with gold, and in the\nmiddle of it was a jewel so like a great red eye that the vikings said\nit was looking at them revengefully, and they would not touch it.\n\n\"This place the Romans missed in their search,\" said Ulric. \"Little\nreverence have they for the altars of unknown gods.\"\n\nEven heavy were the burdens carried to the ship, and now all who\nhad been left to guard her were entitled to take their turn in the\nexploration of the city. They went and they came, but they found\nnothing to bring with them and they slew no wild beasts. They reported,\nhowever, that they had seen a leopard and a number of hideous beasts\nwhich Ben Ezra told them were hyenas, which delighted to feast upon the\ndead of battlefields. Successful fishing had been done in the harbor\nwith the small boats, and there was enough for all, but that night\nthere was much murmuring over the lack of fresh meat.\n\n\"Besides,\" said some of the men, \"this strange treasure hath its value,\nbut there hath been no good fighting. When will this jarl of ours\nlead us to a throwing of spears? The months of the summer are already\nwasted.\"\n\nTo these an answer was given by Sigurd, the son of Thorolf, that to\nthem was the fault, for by reason of their unruliness had there been\nneedless landings and delays on the coasts of Gaul and of Spain, and\nidle cruising after fishing boats and empty merchantmen which fought\nnot and paid but little.\n\n\"And the jarl forbade us to slaughter their crews,\" said one. \"I would\nhave slain all.\"\n\nMen who will to find fault may readily prepare a cause. Thus far the\nvoyage of _The Sword_ had been even too prosperous, being guided by\nprudence, and there was lacking the curbing which cometh from wholesome\ndisaster. The weather was all too warm for Northmen, and some few of\nthem had sickened, and of this sickness had four vikings died a cow's\ndeath but for the mark of a spear which was given them by the hands of\nfriends. Now, also, the skin of the lion aroused jealousy against the\nGreek. It was declared that an hour must be found for him to feel an\nedge of a seax, for he was not a Saxon and there should be no outland\nmen like him and Ben Ezra upon a ship from the Northland. The jarl was\ntoo hard in some matters and he was too soft in others. Nevertheless,\ndays went by while all looked at these temples and houses and the\nmighty fortifications. As for the jarl, he explored somewhat, but he\nabode mostly with the ship. He was silent and moody, for there were\nmany things upon his mind.\n\n\"I have come far out into the world,\" he thought. \"I have seen that\nwhich is exceedingly marvelous. I have looked, also, upon the face of\na dead god. Now I will go on until I may have speech with one that is\nliving.\"\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER XVII.\n\n THE MURMURING OF THE MEN.\n\n\nOut of the African harbor sailed _The Sword_ with a good wind, and\nthere was no present need for rowing. No longer were the Saxons willing\nto linger in that place and live upon fishes. Small pleasure was to be\nhad there, they said, save to lie at night and listen to the cries of\nmany wild beasts. They had not hunted at night save that one of the\nyouths of Sigurd's party had ventured beyond the jetty foolishly and\nhad not returned. Blood had been found in the morning, but not any of\nhis bones. It had been better if the weather had been rough or if the\nmen had been at the oars, for in their idleness upon this blue and\npeaceful sea was an occasion for discontent.\n\n\"The jarl must do better than this!\" they said to each other, and as\nthey talked of battles the thirst for blood increased among them, for\nit is as a wild fever when it cometh.\n\n\"O jarl,\" said Sigurd, the son of Thorolf, not long after _The Sword_\npassed beyond the ledge whereupon so many had been wrecked by reason\nof the revenge fire of Annibaal, \"I think we do well if we steer now\neastward. We shall find too many Roman triremes in this neighborhood.\"\n\n\"I would seek them,\" said Ulric, \"if not too many of them were\ntogether. Dost thou know of a shore or an island where there are\ncattle?\"\n\n\"Verily I do,\" said Ben Ezra, \"but I know not if we may find it\neasily. We may but sail on. Lysias is with the steersman now, and he is\npointing.\"\n\nVebba, the son of Uric, was at the helm, and he hated the Greek, but he\nlistened, for he could not despise a good bowman.\n\n\"I would carve the blood eagle on thy back,\" he said, laughing, \"but if\nthou wilt guide to where we may slay somebody, thou art better worth\nkilling. I hate thee.\"\n\n\"So do I hate thee,\" said Lysias, boldly, \"but we may not fight on the\nship. I will give thee thy sword play when we get to a good place. But\nI shall strike thy head from thy shoulders.\"\n\n\"Good!\" said Vebba. \"I like thee better. But bring us first to some\ngood fighting.\"\n\nThen went Lysias to Ulric and the Jew, and they conferred somewhat,\nbut Lysias passed from them to the after cabin, and came out bearing\nsomething that he took with him to the after deck.\n\n\"I saw it there,\" said Ulric. \"It is a harp, not half so large as that\nof Oswald's. What can the Greek do with it?\"\n\n\"Wait and see,\" replied Ben Ezra. \"Among the Greeks are those who are\nskilled in music. Hearken!\"\n\nAll ears upon _The Sword_ were suddenly turned to listen, for the harp\nwas a good one.\n\n\"He playeth well!\" said Sigurd. \"No man shall slay him. We needed\nharping.\"\n\n\"Aye,\" replied the discontented men, and then they shouted to Lysias:\n\"Sing!\"\n\nNot at once was he ready to sing, and the harp sounded on as if he\nheard them not.\n\n\"Sing! Sing!\" they shouted again. \"Sing, or we will slay thee!\"\n\n\"Slay on, cowards!\" laughed Lysias, angrily. \"What care I for slaying!\"\n\nFor he had been muttering hoarsely to himself something about Sapphira\nand there were tears in his eyes.\n\n\"Down!\" shouted Sigurd, to a viking who was drawing his seax. \"Harm him\nnot, lest I send thee a spear! I would hear his harp. Down, I say!\"\n\nThe spear of Sigurd was a matter to be avoided, and the seaman left his\nweapon sheathed and sat down. But at that moment arose the voice of\nLysias in a grand Greek song, a song of war and of contending warriors.\n\n\"Right!\" shouted the men to Sigurd. \"Thou shalt slay any that shall rob\nus of our harping. He singeth well.\"\n\nNone would have expected a voice so powerful and so sweet, and they who\nheard it clapped their hands or clashed their spears upon their shields.\n\nThen the war song ended, and the harp began to send out low, sweet\nmusic that made them think of the Northland. They said to one another\nthat now the trees were in leaf, and the grass was green, and the wind\nwas in the pines, and the waves were on the shores, and the voices of\nthe gods could be heard in the fiords. The women and the children, too,\nwere in the houses, or they were caring for the cattle, and the fisher\nboats were out from all the villages. So they grew quiet and looked\nacross the blue waters of the Middle Sea less discontentedly, and the\nthirst for blood waned away for the hour. And yet they knew not that\nnow the Greek was singing in his own tongue of Sapphira the Beautiful,\nand that he did not at all see the ship, or those who were in it, or\nthe sea, but that his eyes, like those of the blind, were seeking far\naway for a face and a form that were out of sight, beyond--he knew not\nwhere.\n\nHis own countenance, with its perfect outlines and its youthful color,\nexhibited his sadness in keeping with the flowing music of his lyre,\nbut he knew not that the eyes of Ulric and of Ben Ezra were reading\nhim. Unlike the rest of the vikings, excepting Sigurd, they understood\nthe words of the song, which was from one of the old poets of the\nbetter days of Greece.\n\n\"I have heard,\" whispered Ulric, \"that even as he saith, the young\nwomen of his people have great beauty.\"\n\n\"Yea,\" returned the Jew, \"I have seen many of them. I have seen this\nSapphira, and she did excel. But no maidens are as those of Israel and\nJudah, the roses of Sharon and the lilies of the valley. Their voices\nare those of birds and their forms are of the heaven. Such was the\nmother of my son in her youth. Such were my daughters. I am glad that\nthey fell by the sword----\"\n\n\"How were they not captured by the Romans?\" asked Ulric.\n\n\"Because of the swords of their husbands and their brethren,\" said the\nJew, calmly. \"All died together, but the fairest of them needed no\nsword save her own. She chose to die by her own hand rather than to\nbecome the sport of the heathen.\"\n\n\"She did well,\" muttered Ulric. \"She was dark and she was beautiful.\nShe was brave and true. I have never loved, but I would I could find\none like her.\"\n\n\"If she were of the race of Abraham,\" replied Ben Ezra, \"she might not\nwed save with one of her own people. That is our law concerning women.\"\n\n\"It is a good law,\" said Ulric. \"Hilda, the saga woman, told me of it.\nShe said that ye have good sagas of your own and that your runes are\nancient. Are there any among you that are descended from the gods?\"\n\n\"We have but one God,\" said Ben Ezra, \"and all we are his children, for\nhe is the creator and father of men.\"\n\n\"He is Odin, the all-father?\" said the young jarl, inquiringly. \"Then,\nwhen I get to Asgard, I shall see him. I have thought much concerning\ngods. That was a strange one in the temple in the city of ruins. He\ngave us much treasure.\"\n\n\"We took it,\" said Ben Ezra.\n\n\"Yea,\" replied Ulric, \"we did so. But the Romans did not find it, nor\nany others that came, until the god who sat there watching permitted it\nto be taken. That was but his stone face that we saw. Thou knowest not\nmuch of gods, to think that he saw us not. Is thy god blind, that thou\ncanst hide away from him?\"\n\n\"Not so,\" said Ben Ezra, thoughtfully. \"Talk no more. The Greek hath\nceased. I think thy men like him better, but there is a spear waiting\nat any hour for either him or me.\"\n\n\"So is mine waiting for him who may cast his own unduly,\" said Ulric,\nangrily, \"and that know they well. But the sun is sinking and a sail is\nin sight. Sigurd seeth afar. He is coming.\"\n\n\"A small trireme,\" said Sigurd, as he drew near. \"I think we must take\nher.\"\n\n\"Take her,\" said the jarl. \"Oars, all! Vebba, son of Uric, steer for\nyonder keel!\"\n\nLoud rang the shouts of the Saxons and the discontented became\ngood-humored, but there was little need for fast rowing. The stranger\nwas nearing them at its best speed, and ere long they could hear the\nsound of a trumpet.\n\n\"The grapplings!\" commanded Ulric. \"If we may not strike her with the\nship, we will board her!\"\n\nSwiftly the two keels approached each other, and rash indeed were the\nRomans, for they were arrogant, not knowing with what they had to deal.\nThey saw the Saxon flag on the mast. They heard the war horns. Many\nmen they saw not at the first, for concealment of his strength was the\nprudence of the jarl, lest his enemy might strive to escape. All the\nmore freely did the fighting men of the small trireme crowd her decks\nand gather at her bulwarks.\n\nEven from afar did the arrows of Lysias and Tostig and other bowmen and\nthe slingstones of Knud begin to go in among them, angering them as\nsome of them fell, hurt or slain. They, too, had bowmen, but neither\ngood nor many, and their arrows were short.\n\nCunningly did Vebba veer away _The Sword_ at the nearing, that a flight\nof spears might hurtle among the Roman soldiers, thinning them. Past\nthem shot the swift keel of the Saxons, only to turn again suddenly,\ncrashing back upon their further banks of oars. They, too, had been\nready for boarding, but their bulwarks were not so high as were those\nof _The Sword_. Her grapnels were well thrown, moreover, and the two\nships were as one when the legionaries made their brave rush to climb\non board their enemy. Well had it been for them if they had been more\nin number. Well if they had not been so rashly self-confident, and if\nthey had not been half beaten by astonishment at the sudden appearing\nof the Northmen at the ship's side.\n\nWith laughter and with mocking did the Saxons hurl their spears and\nthen follow with sword and ax. Over the bulwarks they went, through the\ngaps left by slain Romans, and quickly they went two for one, slaying\njoyously. No Roman thought to surrender, nor was any mercy in the\nhearts of the vikings, but among them all did none smite more eagerly\nthan did Ben Ezra and Lysias.\n\n\"Slay! Slay!\" shouted the Jew. \"O Greek, thou art too slow. Hew down!\nSmite under the fifth rib! Let none escape!\"\n\n\"Good fighters are they!\" shouted Vebba from the after deck of _The\nSword_. \"I will have a fine contest when I slay that Greek. I will\nfight him fairly. But I must get the Jew before me to see how he will\nhandle that crooked blade. He cleft a Roman to the chin. Hah! I am but\nsteersman and I miss the killing.\"\n\nSo did others of the vikings, for there were not enough on the trireme\nto put blood upon every good sword or spear. They were all gone too\nsoon, and there was disappointment. Nevertheless, the legionaries had\ndied hard, and nine of the Northern heroes had gone to Valhalla.\n\n\"To them the gods were kind,\" said Sigurd, \"but this trireme is a fair\nprize. There are ten head of small, fat cattle, besides four fresh\ncarcasses. We must have them on board _The Sword_, with the other\nplunder, before we kindle the fire.\"\n\nThe men were attending to that, for here was their fresh meat without\nthe trouble of landing to find it. All of the slain might be burned\nwith the trireme, with all honor, so there was no more care for that.\nSome Saxons were wounded, but not so that they might die, and there\nwere no prisoners. All provisions and arms were taken over speedily and\nthe good spirits of the men were returning, for none of them waited for\nneedless cooking of the beef that was ready. Roasting might be done\nafterward, but the sharp knife could shred, and a viking cared for\nlittle more at the end of a won battle.\n\n\"Fire, now,\" commanded Ulric, at the last. \"Throw off the grapplings\nand let her drift away. I would see her burn.\"\n\nSo the rowers pulled to a little distance and paused, letting _The\nSword_ rock gently over the soft waves while the fire blazed more and\nmore brightly upon the decks and in the waist of the Roman trireme.\n\n\"She burneth well,\" said Sigurd.\n\n\"So burn every Roman keel!\" exclaimed Ben Ezra. \"Jehovah of Hosts hath\nbeen with me this day, and I have gotten vengeance upon mine enemies.\nMy sword hath been deep in the hearts of the heathen.\"\n\nLysias was silent, but his fair face glistened with pleasure as he\ngazed upon the mounting flames. His lyre was now in his hand again and\nhis fingers wandered over the strings.\n\n\"The harp! the harp!\" shouted some of the vikings. \"If he playeth not,\nwe will slay him.\"\n\n\"An evil spirit is among them,\" muttered the Jew. \"Whence he cometh I\nknow not. Who shall cast him out? for we have neither scribe nor priest\non this accursed vessel. I think that he belongeth to the idol upon the\nfore deck.\"\n\nIn that he spoke of the anvil and hammer of Thor, for to him the Saxons\nascribed the gift of this victory.\n\n\"He is a demon,\" said Ben Ezra, \"and he hath entered into these\nuncircumcised. I would he might lead them to Gehenna.\"\n\n\"The harp! the harp!\" again demanded the vikings, and the voices of the\nrowers were joined to the shouts of those who were feasting.\n\n\"The wind riseth well and so do yonder flames,\" said Lysias; \"but they\nwho are dead feel no pain of burning. Within me is a fire which is a\ncontinual torment. The harp were a relief, and I will sing.\"\n\nIt seemed as if a strange spirit of wild song had come upon him and\nhis lyre. It mattered not greatly that few of the vikings understood\nhis words, so fierce and so triumphant was the music of his singing.\nMoreover, they looked upon his face and it gave them an interpretation,\nfor there was a terrible meaning in its expression.\n\nNow the rowers ceased and the sail was up, but the burning Roman ship\nalso felt the fresh wind, and it was as if it strove to keep them\ncompany while Lysias sang.\n\n\"She will founder shortly,\" said the jarl. \"We are leaving her. I would\nI knew more nearly whitherto we have come. We are far in the Middle Sea\nand we should be near some of its islands.\"\n\n\"Thou knowest,\" remarked Sigurd, the son of Thorolf, \"that opposite\nto the southerly point of Italy there lieth a great island, whereon\nis a volcano, vomiting fire, for under it is the world which burns,\nand there do the gods war with one another. I think we are between\nthat island, which is called Sicily, and a part of Africa. O Jew, what\nsayest thou? Thou hast visited many parts of Africa.\"\n\n\"We have wandered here and there,\" said Ben Ezra. \"The question is\ndifficult. But if yonder haze telleth of the coast of Sicily we may\nmeet another trireme soon. There are many hereabout. They will for the\ngreater part be merchantmen.\"\n\nDown sank the vessel they had burned, with much loud hissing of fire\nmeeting water, and the clouds of smoke and steam went up while the\nSaxons blew their war horns and shouted their exultation. They all had\nfeasted well, however, and those who were not on watch were willing to\nslumber while the increasing gale carried _The Sword_ swiftly toward\nthe east.\n\nAnother was at the helm, and Ulric, the son of Brander, went and sat\ndown upon a silken-covered couch in the after cabin. He was alone, and\nhe brought out his jewels to look at them. They were many and they were\nbeautiful, and he turned them over one by one.\n\n\"Never before,\" he said, \"did I have so good a lamp as this that\nhangeth here. The oil, too, is perfumed and the room is full of a sweet\nodor. These are the ways of the Roman captains and rich men. I may not\nsee Rome, for there are too many quinqueremes in the way, too many\nlegions of warriors on the land. We are few. I do not care much for\ntheir gods, for I have beaten them. I will go on to Asgard, but I will\ngo first to this temple in Jerusalem. Ben Ezra saith that I can buy\nboth priests and governors with these bright stones. But I may have to\nslay my own men if they obey not. If I cut down a few of them the rest\nwill be more peaceable. These Saxons that came with Sigurd hardly call\nme their jarl. If they were dead it would not matter. I will go my own\nway.\"\n\nThe ruby was now in his hand, the great red stone that was graven with\nthe name of the Hebrew god, and among them all there was no other like\nthis. It glowed like fire in the lamplight, and Ulric said: \"It is full\nof blood. It is a stone of stones. But whence came the blood, and how\nis it full of fire? Is he angry with me? I think I will carry his gem\nto him in his temple, and I will tell him I have brought it back. I\nwould not keep from any god that which is his.\"\n\nSo he put it back into the casket and took out an emerald. This, too,\nwas graven with deeply cut runes.\n\n\"One of them,\" said Ulric, \"is like the runes that Hilda showed me in\nthe sand by the sea, but it is alone. I care not until there are three.\nIt is green and wonderful. O Hilda of the hundred years, would that I\ncould show to thee this jewel of the old gods!\"\n\nThe lamp burned low and it was flickering. Without the gale roared\nloudly and the waves beat against the sides of the ship with a groaning\nsound. There was no voice but of the wind and of the surges. The\ncurtains in the cabin swayed to and fro, as did the cresset of the lamp.\n\n\"Hilda! Hilda!\" murmured Ulric, but he saw her not, and even his\nthought of her was confused in his mind. The saga woman was tall and\ndark, but not so tall and fairer was this thought which came before his\neyes as if he were in a dream:\n\n\"So beautiful! So beautiful!\" he said. \"Her eyes are like stars and her\nhair is a cloud of shining curls. Her lips are like the ruby of the\ntemple. I think she is one of the Hebrew maidens that Ben Ezra saith\nexcel all others. I will go to that land and find her, for it must be\nthat she also is of the daughters of the gods. And now I can see Hilda,\nand her hair is white, but her eyes are shut. Therefore I know that\nthey have carried her to the tomb that was made in the rock of Odin. I\nshall see her no more until I get to Asgard. If this is her hand upon\nmy head, she should speak, for I love her well.\"\n\nHe listened, and the lamp went out, but no voice came; and he lay down\nupon his couch, but a fire was kindling in his heart.\n\n\"Lysias loveth Sapphira,\" he thought, \"but thus did I never feel\nbefore. The Hebrew maiden! I would Ben Ezra had not told me of her, for\nnow I can have no other. I had thought that my love would be blue-eyed\nand a daughter of Odin. Shall I not be content if I find that she is\ndark, and that she is a daughter of this Jehovah, the god of the Jews?\nI will go on and I will see what she will say to me.\"\n\nThen he slept, and _The Sword_ swept onward swiftly toward the sunrise.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER XVIII.\n\n THE EVIL SPIRIT ON \"THE SWORD.\"\n\n\nThrough one day more the western gale blew furiously and _The Sword_\nwas driven before it, for none on board cared for any better steering.\nMany vessels were seen from time to time, but all were too busy caring\nfor themselves to pay overmuch attention to a trireme that might be\nfighting the storm as they were. The vikings were at ease concerning\nthe weather, but they grumbled much that the tossing and pitching of\ntheir ship prevented them from making fires wherewith to roast their\nbeef or to broil their fish. On board their Roman keel they had found\ngratings of iron for cooking, better than any of their North making.\nThese gratings were wide, upheld by iron feet, and under them were\nslabs of stone to receive ashes and cinders. Fire would remain upon\nthem well in any ordinary weather, but in such as this the brands and\ncoals might be cast hither and thither. It was not even a time for the\ntelling of sagas nor for the lyre of Lysias, and again the men grew\nmoody and sullen.\n\nThe night returned, and Ulric kept the helm through all its watches,\nfor a heavy weight was on his mind and he had heard from Ben Ezra\nconcerning the evil spirit. \"I would I could slay a demon,\" he had\nanswered, \"but of what good is a spear for an enemy thou canst not see?\nIt were almost as if one fought with a god. I have thought I would like\nto fight with one, but not with Thor or Odin nor with thy Jehovah.\"\n\n\"They who contend with him are broken,\" replied the Jew, \"but I tell\nthee we are far on our way. I think we are not far from Cyprus. We\nmight safely land in one of the havens of that island.\"\n\n\"We might meet a Roman fleet,\" said Ulric.\n\n\"They have none in these waters,\" said Ben Ezra. \"Their merchant ships\nof any consequence go and come in squadrons, well protected, and they\nhave driven out all pirates. They will not be watching, I think, for\nthe coming of such as thou art.\"\n\n\"We now are late in the season,\" replied Ulric. \"I had thought to have\nreached this water before any other keel from the North. We know not\nwhat may have called upon the Romans for watching. I am thinking that\nwhen this wind abateth I must find the men somewhat to occupy them.\"\n\n\"An evil spirit is a busy one,\" said Ben Ezra. \"All thine would find\nenough to do in Cyprus.\"\n\nAfterward many of the men came to the jarl with questionings, and also\nto the Jew and to Lysias. These were looked upon with more favor for\nthe time, for it was said that they might have some worth for piloting.\n\nA night and a day and a night went by and now the waters were again\nquieted. They were even too still, for the rowers had to be sent to the\noars, and the sun looked down upon them with fervent heat, making their\ntoil burdensome. Once more the ship was floating upon an even keel and\nthe men speedily bethought them of the fire gratings. Twain of the fat\ncattle were butchered, and the jarl thought well of it, that the men\nmight be kept in good humor. The fires were lighted, and casks of ale\nwere opened, but the evil spirit was, nevertheless, making himself busy\namong the hearts of the men.\n\nIn the trireme _The Sword_ itself, when she was captured, there had\nbeen a few skins of wine, but it had been red and sour and the vikings\nliked it not. Such as it was it had long since been consumed. In the\nspoil of the burned trireme, however, and hardly noticed at the first,\nthere had been found many wine skins. All had been taken with care, and\nnow one of them was opened to find out what it might be.\n\n\"Dark and sweet and good!\" exclaimed Vebba, the son of Uric. \"I will\nbear a horn of it to the jarl.\"\n\nLarge was the drinking horn, and he filled it to the brim. Sparkles\narose upon the surface of the wine, and it seemed to laugh, as if the\nevil spirit which lived in it were accomplishing his purpose.\n\n\"It is strong,\" said Ben Ezra. \"Drink it not, O jarl, for the demon of\nwine is thine enemy.\"\n\nBut he was too late, for the son of Brander drained the drinking horn\nas if it had held naught but ale. He felt it from his head to his feet,\nas if it had been poured upon a fire that was burning within him, and\nhe stood erect, straightening himself and clinching his hands.\n\n\"Bring me another horn of it,\" he said.\n\n\"That thou shalt not do,\" commanded Ben Ezra, sternly. \"Thou art the\ncaptain. I bid thee drink no more, lest thou lose thy life and thy\nvessel. The demon is upon thee, O jarl! Resist him, or he will bind\nthee hand and foot.\"\n\nThen remembered Ulric a saying of his father and of Hilda, and it was\nas if he had heard her voice saying: \"Son of Odin, beware of the dark\nwine of the south lands, for in it is death.\"\n\n\"Bring me no more,\" he said to Vebba, \"and let the wine skins be cast\ninto the sea.\"\n\nBut the demon had been very busy and from lip to lip had already passed\nthe goblets and the drinking horns. They had been emptied only to be\nquickly filled again, and now the Saxons of Sigurd shouted:\n\n\"Haha! O jarl! Thou wouldst rob us of our feast? We will show thee a\nthing.\"\n\nSigurd himself went among them, but to him, also, they paid no heed,\nand he came back again.\n\n\"I am sleepy,\" said Ulric. \"Wulf the Skater, these three nights I have\nwakened. I will lie down for a while. Take the helm.\"\n\nThen came Tostig the Red and Knud the Bear and four other Saxons of the\nhouse of Brander, and they sat down by Ulric, spear in hand, with their\naxes lying by them. Lysias brought his bow and Ben Ezra closed the\nvisor of his brazen helmet.\n\n\"Trouble cometh,\" he said. \"The heathen are full of wine and of the\nthirst of blood.\"\n\nThere was no quarrel between twain of the vikings that were stepping\nforth upon the fore deck, but they were berserkers, and their seaxes\nwere in their hands, for they were to fight without mail or shields.\n\nSkin after skin of that dark, strong wine was opening, and the men\nloved it, but they would see blood, they said, and the two berserkers\nshouted as they fought.\n\n\"Both of them are down!\" exclaimed Lysias. \"Two more take their places.\nO that the jarl were awake! But I cannot rouse him. Were the Romans to\ncome, we were all dead men.\"\n\nFurious was now the drinking, and a man cast a spear at another without\ncause, laughing to see him struggle and bleed.\n\n\"The evil spirit hath entered them all!\" groaned Ben Ezra. \"This is\nthat which I feared greatly. Every man's sword is against his neighbor.\"\n\nTerrible was that fighting, for warriors who had lost all skill of\nwarding blows or parrying spear casts were still strong to throw or to\nstrike.\n\n\"Where is now this jarl of ours?\" yelled a drunken viking. \"We will see\nif he be a son of Odin. We will slay him and then we may sail at our\npleasure. He hath ruled us with too hard a hand.\"\n\nSteady and stern had indeed been the rule of the son of Brander, and\nhe had brooked no gainsaying, but he had been a prudent captain from\nthe first, and there were a full third of the men now to stand by him\nin his peril. Would there had been more, for on both sides the slain\nwere many. Moreover, when a man went down that was quickly his end, on\nwhichever side he fought, for an enemy came to thrust him.\n\n\"Wake, son of Brander! Wake!\" shouted Tostig in the ear of Ulric. \"Call\nthou upon Odin, thy father, and draw thy sword.\"\n\nWaiting for no orders from any man, Lysias was sending his arrows, sure\nand deep striking, calling out:\n\n\"With me be thou, O Apollo, god of the bow! With me, O Mars, god of\nbattles!\"\n\nBut Ulric opened his eyes slowly and breathed hard. Then he sat up and\nhe saw the men fighting and the blood flowing.\n\n\"Odin!\" he roared, in a voice they had not heard before; but the weapon\nhe lifted was his pole ax, and he rushed forward to the front of his\nfriends.\n\n\"I go with him,\" said Ben Ezra. \"It may be his god hath come to help\nhim. Be with me, O Jehovah of strength!\"\n\n\"We will guard thee at the helm,\" said Knud and Tostig to Wulf the\nSkater. \"This will be ended speedily. Look at the jarl!\"\n\n\"He, too, hath a demon!\" burst from the lips of Ben Ezra, as he saw\nUlric striking. \"They go down before him like corn before the reaper.\"\n\nSigurd had been smitten to the deck by his own Saxons, and Ulric stood\nover him with his ax until the son of Thorolf was hidden by corpses of\nthe slain.\n\nMad with wine and with the fever of the thirst of blood, the rebellious\nvikings fought on, nor would they yield to the command of the son of\nBrander.\n\n\"We will die!\" they said. \"But we will first slay thee. It is a feast\nof swords.\"\n\n\"I would I could spare enough for rowers,\" said Ben Ezra, \"but their\nblood is on their own heads. The evil spirit destroyeth them.\"\n\n\"Thus endeth the cruise of _The Sword_!\" said Ulric, sadly, when at\nlast he might pause for breath. \"Save thee, O Ben Ezra, and Lysias,\nand these few faithful, there are none living save some for whom the\nvalkyrias are calling. What shall we do? for thou art old. What shall\nbe the end of these things?\"\n\nBut Tostig and Knud had watched the falling of Sigurd and they were\nlifting from him the corpses.\n\n\"The sail is up,\" said Ben Ezra. \"Steer eastward, for we may not do\naught else now than land in Syria. Thou and thine shall see Jerusalem.\"\n\n\"So be it!\" said Ulric. \"I think we are none of us wounded. I am not.\"\n\n\"Glad am I of that!\" exclaimed Lysias. \"I feared for thee in that\ncombat. But thou art of the heroes and Jove was thy keeper, with Mars\nand Apollo.\"\n\n\"A feast of blood!\" exclaimed Tostig as he lifted the body of Vebba,\nthe son of Uric, from Sigurd, the son of Thorolf. \"The sea king is not\ndead. He was but stunned.\"\n\nSlowly arose the old warrior until he sat erect and looked around him.\n\n\"I saw them!\" he said, huskily. \"I saw the Nornir in the air above the\nsail. I saw the valkyrias, but they looked sternly at me and passed by.\nWhy, I know not, for I fought well. Odin hath taken many this day. O\njarl, what doest thou?\"\n\n\"Eastward!\" said Ulric. \"Canst thou stand upon thy feet?\"\n\nTostig and Knud aided him, and they brought him a goblet of ale, for\nwine he would not drink.\n\n\"It is well with me now,\" he said. \"My helmet is cloven, but my skull\nis safe. The ax of Vebba was heavy, but he will strike no more. Sad is\nit that he and these are slain. Better had they fallen in a fight with\nthe Romans.\"\n\n\"Not so,\" said Ben Ezra, \"for if some of them were living all we were\ndead. Let us cast them into the sea.\"\n\nWulf the Skater had watched the clouds, and now he said:\n\n\"Ulric the Jarl, if thou wilt, they should be over the sides speedily,\nfor a wind cometh. We shall use no oars henceforth.\"\n\nSad work it was to cast so many forms of dead heroes into the sea, but\nso had it been foredoomed by the Nornir, and there were some of the\nwounded who died while the task went on.\n\nThen Ulric sat down by the hammer of Thor and bowed his head, for his\nheart was heavy.\n\n\"I can sing no song,\" he thought, \"over such a fight as this. I think\nit will now be long before I see the fiords and the hillsides of the\nNorthland. My fate hath changed for me in an hour, and I know not what\ncometh. O Hilda, was this thy dark saying, that I understood not?\"\n\nNo voice responded, nor any motion of the air, but he looked upward and\nhe saw birds that were flying eastward.\n\n\"So will I go,\" he muttered, \"and they who are with me. There is too\nmuch blood upon this keel. I would she were burned with fire, for I\nhate her. The gods of the Romans have had their revenge upon me. I will\nnever again speak lightly of any gods, for they have ways of their own\nand they are cunning. Who shall protect himself against an enemy whom\nhe cannot see?\"\n\nWell blew the wind, and there was little now to be done save to steer\nand to rest. All ate and drank, and Ben Ezra seemed to love that dark,\nstrong wine, but he used it sparingly.\n\n\"It is made in my own land,\" he said, \"but this came from a Greek\nisland, I think. There is good wine in Canaan. I would eat again of\nthe grapes and the pomegranates of Israel and Judah. O my son! That he\nmight have been with me! O my Rachel and my daughters and my firstborn\nand his brethren! The curse of Jehovah be upon Rome forever! Amen!\"\n\nSo the old Hebrew warrior wailed in the bitterness of his soul, and\n_The Sword_ sprang on over the billows, bearing him to his own land,\nbut she was now no longer a warship.\n\n\"We will not count the days,\" said Ulric to Lysias. \"We will speak to\nnone that we may pass.\"\n\n\"Pause not!\" replied Lysias. \"Thou hast thy life yet and I have mine. I\nhave it in my mind that I shall see my Sapphira. I have had a dream in\nthe night and she stood and beckoned me.\"\n\nUlric answered not, but that night he slept upon the deck dreaming, and\nin the morning he thought about his dream also.\n\n\"Hilda was there,\" he said, standing at the helm looking across the\nsea. \"Behind her was the sun rising. Between her and the sun were many\nwarriors, heroes of the gods, armed for battle. There was blood on some\nof them. But at the right hand of Hilda stood that dark and beautiful\none, and there were flowers in her hair, and the flowers were both red\nand white.\"\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER XIX.\n\n IN THE NIGHT AND IN THE FIRE.\n\n\nDays come and go and no man may hinder them. The vikings went to and\nfro about _The Sword_ and she seemed lonesome to them, for they were\nfew and she was a great vessel. From time to time many sails were seen\nnear and far, but none gave chase to _The Sword_. Even pirates and all\nmerchantmen avoid what seemeth to be a warship.\n\n\"Winds have been both good and bad for us,\" said the jarl to Ben Ezra\nat the close of a day. \"What thought is in thy mind as to our nearness\nto any land?\"\n\n\"O jarl,\" said Ben Ezra, thoughtfully, \"by the stars that I have\nwatched; by the sun and winds; by the islands which we have passed; by\na dim understanding which cometh to a man in such a case; by all the\nsigns which are given me, we are so near to our destination that we may\nfind a shore this night.\"\n\n\"And if a shore,\" said Ulric, \"what shall it be?\"\n\n\"Even the land that was given to the children of Israel by Jehovah,\ntheir god,\" said the Jew. \"It is ours yet, but the Romans have taken\nthe kingdom from us.\"\n\n\"Their gods are very strong,\" said Ulric, \"and they are exceedingly\ncunning. Else had Thor and Odin saved to us the swords that sailed with\nus from the Northland. Thy god refused to fight with the gods of the\nRomans. I think he was wise in that. But he agreed with them that they\nshould not harm his temple, and I will go and see it. I may meet him.\"\n\n\"Thou wilt not see him,\" said Ben Ezra. \"He was seen by Moses, our\nprophet, but to all others he hath hidden his face.\"\n\n\"I know not that,\" said Ulric. \"They who see the gods are forbidden to\ntell. Hilda, the saga woman, loved me, but she would tell me naught\nconcerning the dead save that they have a country of their own. There\nis much good in that country and when I am slain I shall go to it.\"\n\n\"Thou art to die by the sword?\" asked Ben Ezra. \"How knowest thou that?\"\n\n\"I am of Odin,\" said Ulric, \"and a cow's death is not for me. There\nwill be blood in the hour of my going. If thou seest me on a bed, be\nthou a Saxon unto me, and smite me through with a spear.\"\n\n\"So said Saul, our king, to his armor-bearer at the end of a lost\nbattle,\" said Ben Ezra, marveling somewhat. \"I will do as thou sayest;\nfor verily thou art a jarl and of the princes of the North. Never\nbefore saw I a man like unto thee for battle.\"\n\n\"Save Sigurd, the son of Thorolf, the sea king,\" said Ulric, \"I have\nmet none that might stand before me. He too, is of one line of the hero\nAsas, but not of Odin.\"\n\nBen Ezra was silent, thinking of these things, and _The Sword_ drove\nonward. He and Ulric were at the prow as the darkness deepened. They\ncould see no more save the stars above and the glancing waves around\nthe ship, but they could hear the music of the lyre of Lysias on the\nafter deck. Knud the Bear was at the helm, and all that remained of the\ncrew were gathered there. They cared not to sleep in the cabins or in\nthe bunks, for some of them said that the dead came at night to look\nagain at the keel from which they had departed and that the evil spirit\ncame also.\n\n\"I saw him not,\" said Wulf the Skater, \"but Vebba, the son of Ulric,\nspoke to me, and I think he said the Nornir were at hand. So sayeth\nSigurd, the son of Thorolf.\"\n\nGreatly dispirited were they all, and the lyre was a comfort, but the\nsong of Lysias was low-voiced and sad and they could not understand the\nwords.\n\nNow from the fore deck came back to them one who had heard from the\njarl that they were to look out for a land and be ready to lower the\nsail.\n\n\"Good!\" shouted Tostig the Red. \"O Sigurd, go to the jarl and ask if we\nare steering rightly.\"\n\n\"That are we,\" said Sigurd. \"Seest thou not the north star? Go we not\neastward? What need to trouble the jarl? I would that they who are dead\nhad obeyed him. Then had we all been more joyful.\"\n\n\"Never had crew such adventures as we are having,\" said Knud. \"I think\nwe may gain some good fighting before long. My hand goeth often to the\nhilt of my seax and my blood is unquiet.\"\n\n\"A good sign!\" exclaimed Wulf the Skater. \"I feel better for hearing\nthee. O Greek, sing us a war song!\"\n\nLoudly answered the smitten lyre for a moment, and Lysias obeyed, but\nquickly came back from the fore deck the command of Ulric, the son of\nBrander.\n\n\"Silence, all!\" he shouted. \"There is a trumpet, far away southerly. We\nare too few and we near the land. Hark to the breakers!\"\n\nListening diligently, all ears heard the dashing of that water as if\nupon rocks, and yet again came up from the southward that distant peal\nof the trumpet.\n\n\"Struck!\" suddenly exclaimed Sigurd. \"We go upon a shore. Is this thy\nland, O Jew?\"\n\nNot with a great shock, but glidingly and grating hard, did _The Sword_\ngo on a little while the sail was lowering. Then she stood fast, and\nall on board of her knew that the end of her voyage had come.\n\nNeeding no command, the Saxon sailors made ready two of the small boats\nand prepared to lower them.\n\n\"The trumpet is nearer,\" said Ben Ezra. \"But this ledge of rocks cannot\nbe far from the mainland. Thy men seem to know not of fear and they\nobey thee.\"\n\n\"No Roman arms or armor,\" shouted Ulric. \"We land as Saxons and we will\nleave behind us no token. Kindle a fire amidships.\"\n\nTo his cabin went he and Ben Ezra, and unto them shortly went Lysias,\nbut each prepared bundles of his own to carry to the boats.\n\n\"No man knoweth of thy treasure nor of mine,\" said Ben Ezra to Ulric.\n\"Let the Greek, too, have gold and silver coins, for he will need them.\nHe hath fought well.\"\n\nIn like manner was every man furnished speedily and the burdens were\nnot made uselessly heavy. Nevertheless, Ben Ezra said to Ulric:\n\n\"Never before landed boats of thy people bearing to any shore such\ntreasures as are these. We may buy any Roman governor if in so doing\nwe do not hire him to put us to the sword. We will say that we were\nwrecked, but we must not be seen on the coast.\"\n\nNow the boats were lowered and all entered them, but in every quarter\nof _The Sword_ was a hot fire kindled. The Roman trumpet had not\nsounded again when the Saxons rowed away into the darkness.\n\n\"Row harder!\" commanded Ulric. \"The light of the fire increaseth. We\nknow not how near may be an enemy.\"\n\nWell had he spoken, for the flames were rising furiously and the light\nwind fanned them well.\n\n\"A shore!\" said Sigurd. \"A sandy beach!\" But all others were looking\nback at _The Sword_, to see how fast she was burning, and at that\nmoment there swept past her, outside, as if nearing to grapple her, a\nvast shape of a warship. Then arose suddenly a great volume of shouts\nin the Latin tongue, and the notes of a trumpet sounding commands, but\nUlric said in a low voice to his comrades:\n\n\"A quinquereme! And she also is upon the ledge of rocks. What shall\nsave her from destruction by that fire?\"\n\n\"She cannot escape,\" said Wulf the Skater. \"It is as if we had set a\ngood trap. I think the fire hath already caught her sail. There will\nmany Romans perish this night.\"\n\n\"Pull!\" commanded Ulric. \"The beach! We are here. Haul up the boats.\nOut with all cargo and leave them. Hark to the shouts of them who burn!\"\n\nRashly in swift haste had the Roman warship dashed forward to discover\nwhat might be this unusual thing, of a light that grew and of a crew\nthat replied not to a trumpet of hailing. Not of any rocky ledge had\nher steersman or her sailing master been thinking, and her centurion\nhad deemed it his duty to grapple and to board this strange burning\ntrireme. He would yet have passed her once, only studying her case,\nbut his own ship had smitten a sunken rock, which forced her to swerve\naside heavily, plunging her alongside of her fiery destroyer.\n\nIn vain were then all struggles to release the quinquereme. In vain was\nany effort to extinguish the swiftly devouring flames. Even of small\nboats the Roman ship had but four, and there were sailors who secretly,\nquickly lowered these, dropping into them to row away at once. Of these\nhurrying runaways there were none but hired Ionian rowers, and they\ncared for their lives only.\n\nIll fared it for legionaries in heavy armor, for if they sprang\noverboard, it was to sink. Sad was the fate of many who went into the\nwater, crowding and clinging, for they perished grappling each other in\ntheir astonishment and despair. The Roman warship was on fire from end\nto end, and the side which was not yet burning was toward the sea. What\nwonder that all discipline failed and that all thought of obedience was\ngone? for every bond is loosed by fire.\n\n\"If any follow, they must not find us on the beach,\" said Ben Ezra to\nUlric. \"I can see that the land riseth high and that there are great\nrocks. Let us depart!\"\n\n\"Odin!\" responded the jarl. \"_The Sword_ hath once more smitten the\nRomans. Every man take up his burden. Follow me!\"\n\n\"A good captain,\" muttered Ben Ezra. \"I will cleave unto him. But\nverily our lives are worth but little. I would that we were among the\nmountains, even in Gilboa or in Lebanon, or in the wilderness of Judea.\"\n\n\"Guide thou after daylight cometh,\" said Ulric. \"I would find crags and\ntrees.\"\n\nOn went they, climbing a steep, and ever and anon they looked behind\nto watch the awful splendor of the burning of the two ships upon the\nledge.\n\n\"Here may we halt,\" said Ulric at last. \"We are on a height. It is a\nforest beyond us. The fire burneth lower. There will be no pursuit.\"\n\nThere they sat down, therefore, wearied with their burdens, putting\nthese aside, and ere long they slept, every man, without fear.\n\nAt the ledge of rocks in the sea there was silence, for the two\nships burned to the water's edge and there was little left of them.\nNevertheless, of the swimmers there were a number who reached the\nshore, but all were of sailors unarmored, and no officer or legionary\nwas among them. Here at the beach they found the two small boats\nleft by the Saxons, with oars in them, but the four boats of the\nquinquereme, with the Ionian rowers, had landed further on. There was\nlittle to be done by these exhausted swimmers but to lie down and rest,\nand the Ionians were likewise waiting for day, being full of fear over\nwhat they had been guilty of in taking away the boats of their ship.\nOnly the sword could await them if they were found by a Roman patrol of\nthe coast, for they were to be accounted deserters from their assigned\nposts.\n\nNot long was the remainder of the night. The morn came, and when the\nsun arose Ulric, the son of Brander, sat upon a rock, under an oak\ntree, looking out upon the blue waters of the Middle Sea. Beside him\nsat Sigurd, the son of Thorolf, and scattered around upon the grass\nwere the other Saxons. Lysias stood and leaned against the rock, but\nBen Ezra was nowhere to be seen. In the hand of Ulric was the long,\nstraight sword that had been found with Annibaal at the ruined city on\nthe African shore, but it was sheathed, and the jewels of its golden\nhilt were glittering.\n\n\"There are men upon the shore by our boats,\" said Sigurd. \"They are\nescaped from the burning vessel.\"\n\n\"Look southward!\" replied Ulric. \"A squadron of Roman cavalry. Let us\nsee what they will do, but let us step back behind trees out of their\nsight. They are too many for us.\"\n\n\"Worse than that,\" said Lysias. \"Horsemen might carry an alarm and\nlegionaries on foot might hunt us in these forests.\"\n\nThe cavalry rode fast, and the men at the beach looked mournfully into\neach other's faces, for there was no fleeing from riders. Quickly came\nthese and their officer sprang to the ground, speaking loudly.\n\nThe light of the burning ships had been seen from afar, and even now a\nswift galley had arrived, rowing around the rocks of the ledge, while\nthey who were on board of her studied well the charred fragments.\n\nThe officer questioned with care the rowers, and a small boat from the\ngalley came to the shore with another officer.\n\n\"Were there other boats than these?\" he asked, pointing at the twain\nleft there by the Saxons. \"These are from a warship.\"\n\n\"Yea,\" said the centurion of the cavalry, \"and these deserters took\naway all chance for the escape of our comrades.\"\n\n\"We all swam ashore,\" they said, \"and we found these boats here. Other\nmen than we made off with them, We are innocent.\"\n\nThe two centurions looked at each other and they were of one accord in\nthis matter. At a word of command soldiers dropped from their horses\nsword in hand. At another word the work of punishment began and the\nstern justice of the Roman military law was done in utter injustice,\nfor not one of these who were slain had sinned.\n\n\"They had done somewhat in other days,\" said Ulric, \"and the vengeance\nof their gods found them here, bringing upon them a sword. No man\nescapeth the gods. But I see another man down the beach. He is fleeing\nas if for his life. I think, therefore, that these were not all who\ncame to the shore in some manner.\"\n\nGreat was the wrath and the dismay of all those Romans at this terrible\naffair of wreck and fire, but there was no sign to suggest to them the\npresence of Saxons on the sea or on the land.\n\nUnto the four boatloads of Ionian rowers at their landing place, where\nthey still lingered, came running the one of their number who had gone\nforth as a scout. Pallid with fear and horror he gasped out to them the\nthing that he had seen, and he fell to the sand breathless with running.\n\n\"To the mountains!\" they shouted. \"We are slain if we are found on the\ncoast. They now know not that we are here.\"\n\nThen it could be seen that not only had they taken plenty of weapons\neven in their hasty flight from the burning ship, but that their\napparel was decent. Also their talk indicated that they had many coins\nof money, and that they knew this country whereupon they had landed.\nThey stood still for a moment, and they swore to one another by their\ngods that this should forever be a secret, and then they marched away\nup the steep and were hidden in the forest.\n\nNeither had they failed, in their talk upon the shore, to wonder much\nconcerning the first burning vessel which had been the cause of their\nown disaster. They knew not of the Saxon boats, but they had said of\nthemselves that they would not willingly fall in with any who had\nescaped lest their peril might be increased.\n\n\"It were death,\" they said, \"and we must at once put any such men to\nthe sword.\"\n\nThe Saxon men, whom they did not know, but of whom they had been\nspeaking, were gathered together on the mountain.\n\n\"O jarl,\" said Tostig the Red, \"well that thou didst order us to bring\nprovisions, also, for our first needs. Shall we not now go on into the\nforest and find a place where we may kindle a fire?\"\n\n\"O Tostig,\" said the jarl, \"Ben Ezra is our guide. This is his country.\nWhat sayest thou, O Jew?\"\n\n\"Only this,\" replied Ben Ezra; \"that we are upon Mount Carmel, and that\nthe forests thereof are deep. We are safe if we are prudent. It is a\nwilderness into which not many come at any time, but there are villages\nand cities not far away.\"\n\n\"Lead on thou, then,\" said Ulric. \"Let every man bring all his burden.\nWe will keep up strong hearts, and we will see to what this strange\ncoming on shore will take us.\"\n\nThey had need of cheerful words from their jarl, for upon them all was\na shadow deeper than any of the shadows of the forest. Their faces were\ndark, but among them all was there no face like that of Lysias, the\nGreek. There was no light in it, but rather a bitter sullenness.\n\n\"Sapphira! Sapphira!\" he muttered, walking apart from the rest. \"Am I\nindeed nearing thee? Am I to find thee? Am I, then, to love thee again\nor am I to slay thee? Thou shalt not live to be the bondslave of a\nRoman, even though he be a prince and a ruler!\"\n\nUlric the Jarl heard him. It was as if he had been spoken to concerning\nthe Hebrew maiden whom he had seen with Hilda.\n\n\"I think that she is somewhere in this land to which I have been\nguided,\" he thought. \"I will go on and I may find her. This forest is a\ndense cover of this mountain. I shall be glad to look upon that which\nis beyond it.\"\n\nBen Ezra led onward rapidly, but the way by which he went grew steeper.\nThey came out at last, much heated by their heavy burdens, upon a level\nplace, where were no trees, and here he halted.\n\n\"Here let the fire be made,\" he said to the jarl. \"But if thou and\nSigurd will walk with me a little distance further ye will see\nsomething.\"\n\nGladly did the wearied Saxons pause and make their camp, but their jarl\nand Sigurd followed the Jew. Not far did these go until they came out\nupon a bold, high promontory of rocks.\n\n\"Look!\" said Ben Ezra. \"The Middle Sea.\"\n\nThere were no trees to hinder sight and the air was pure, so that they\nsaw afar. There were many sails and there were also galleys which might\nbe warships.\n\n\"O jarl,\" said Ben Ezra, \"thou art escaped from a Roman fleet. Thou\nwouldst not have done so but for the ledge of rocks and the fire which\ndestroyed thy vessel. Thou art on the front of Carmel. Now turn thee\nto thy left. What seest thou?\"\n\n\"A heap of stones,\" said Ulric. \"They have been shapely, but now they\nare broken down. Was it one of the altars of thy god?\"\n\n\"Not so,\" said Ben Ezra, \"but our fathers made that heap for a sign of\nremembrance. In the ancient days there was on that spot an altar to\nJehovah. Upon it the prophet Elijah sacrificed oxen and the fire of our\ngod came down and consumed both the sacrifice and the altar. Here was\nJehovah's victory over Baal, the god of the heathen, and here were all\nthe priests and prophets of Baal slain with the sword.\"\n\n\"If thy god is here,\" said Ulric, \"I am willing to remain, for I think\nhe hath befriended us. But I have no quarrel with Baal or with any\nother god. I think Odin and Thor to be at peace with thy Jehovah, but I\nlike not at all the cunning gods of the Romans.\"\n\n\"Jehovah destroyeth them in the day of his appointing,\" said Ben Ezra.\n\"They cannot stand against him. He is mighty.\"\n\nThe jarl was silent, gazing out upon the sea, and Sigurd looked around\nhim among the trees.\n\n\"O jarl,\" he said, \"I like not this mountain, full of gods. The men\nhave kindled fires. Let us eat and drink and then let us depart.\"\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER XX.\n\n CARMEL AND ESDRAELON.\n\n\n\"Here are boats!\" exclaimed the Roman officer, as he drew rein at the\nplace upon the beach from which the Ionian rowers had fled. \"Then there\nwere more of these cowardly deserters. If all these boats had remained\nwith the ships, how many brave men might have been rescued! We will\nsearch the mountains for these rascals. If C\u00e6sar hath been robbed of\ntwo warships by the fire and the rocks, we will at least avenge the\nshades of our comrades who were left to perish.\"\n\nAn angry man was he, and with good cause so far as these men were\nconcerned, and their crime was well deserving of punishment. He rode\naway with his horsemen, but there would soon be terrible hunters for\nblood among the crags of Carmel. There would, however, be a delay of\nhours before forces could set out from the war garrisons, and meanwhile\nthe Ionians had been pushing their way into the forest.\n\nThey were of one accord that it would not be well for them to continue\nlong in one body, attracting attention, and each man was in dread of\nall his companions, fearing lest their very number should betray him to\nthe sword. They found what seemed a sufficiently hidden camping place\nand they slept. At their breaking of their fast next morning, having\nbut little to break it with, they were apparently almost cheerful,\nchatting lightly among themselves concerning their escape. In that\ncountry, they said, were great numbers of Greeks, who came and went\nunquestioned by the authorities. A few more, if scattered here and\nthere, would go unnoted. Not long time need pass before all of them\nmight be upon the sea again and far away, sailing from the many ports\nof Syria. Not many of them seemed to be warlike men, but it might be\nunderstood, in various forms of speech, that among them was no man who\ngrieved for the destruction of Roman keels and Roman soldiers. Rather\ndid some of them mutter that with their will whole legions had perished\ninstead of half a cohort. They believed themselves to be altogether\nunobserved, but upon them were now gazing eyes of intense hatred from\nthe leafy ambush of some dense thicket at a short distance.\n\n\"O ye who hear me,\" said one of the deserters, loudly, \"know ye this!\nFrom the first ship that struck the reef and began to burn did some\nsurely get to the land. Like us they are now in Carmel. What shall we\ndo with them?\"\n\n\"Slay them!\" sharply responded several voices. \"Lest they prove our\nruin. Slay them without mercy!\"\n\nOne of them was a tall, gray-haired man, with eyes that were set near\ntogether and with a pointed nose. His forehead was high and on it was\nan iron cap. He said:\n\n\"If they be too many, make friends with them at the first, but let none\nescape. I will attend to that.\"\n\nThey listened as if he might be a man of rank and a leader among them,\nbut hidden by the bushes were ears that understood the tongue in which\nhe and they were speaking, and there were other ears which did not\ninterpret.\n\n\"It is of no use to question this Greek of ours, O Knud,\" whispered\none to another of two strong men in the ambush, but his own face and\nhis manner asked a question.\n\n\"Be thou silent, Tostig the Red,\" replied Knud. \"Watch him. Do as he\ndoeth!\"\n\nFor Lysias was muttering low in Greek, \"He betrayed my father in\nCorinth. He would surely destroy me. He is a liar and he must die.\"\n\nTo the head he drew his long arrow, and his companions hindered him\nnot, for his face was burning with wrath, and it pleased them to see\nhim raise his bow.\n\n\"He is a young warrior,\" they thought. \"He knoweth what these have\nspoken.\"\n\nTruly sped the arrow, and the tall old Corinthian traitor was smitten\nthrough the face, so that he spoke no more. Up sprang his companions,\nwild with fear, but another and another of them went down before\nthey could escape among the trees, for the spears of Tostig and Knud\nfollowed the arrows of Lysias and they three followed closely, sword in\nhand.\n\n\"I think,\" said Knud the Bear when he and his friends returned from a\nbrief chasing, \"that too many escaped. I have counted but eleven slain.\nI will ask the Greek his reasons for this when we reach an interpreter.\"\n\n\"Take all coin from these who are slain,\" said Lysias, but he made his\nwords plain by action.\n\n\"They are Greek and Roman coins,\" said Knud. \"We may need them. I am\nlearning much concerning coins. Oswald, the harper, hath many, but I\ncared not for them. A sword is better than money.\"\n\n\"Not in a place of buying,\" laughed Tostig, \"and we are not now an\narmy. We must pay.\"\n\n\"I am not a thief,\" said Knud. \"I will pay, but I shall surely be\ncheated.\"\n\n\"No doubt,\" said Tostig. \"So do we need to take more coins. The Greek\nis right.\"\n\nThen they returned to their camp and Lysias stood before Ulric\nspeaking. The jarl listened with care and he became very thoughtful,\nfor Lysias told him all the words of the Ionians.\n\n\"So, we are to have foot soldiers hunting in these forests,\" he said.\n\"I had thought of that. Thou didst well to slay them. But we who are\nSaxons may not disperse. Go thou and seek thine own safety. Go thou,\nalso, Ben Ezra. Thou art among thine own people.\"\n\n\"Not so,\" said Ben Ezra. \"Let Lysias go, but I remain with thee for\na season. Thou needest a guide. It were well for thee and thy men to\ncross the plains of Esdraelon and get into the mountains of Gilboa. We\nwill go by night, for there is no safety for us in Carmel.\"\n\nTo all the Saxons Ulric interpreted the words of the Jew, and they said\nto him:\n\n\"Thou art the jarl; we will follow thee. But should we not first slay\nthis Lysias?\"\n\n\"Not so,\" said Ulric. \"He hath fought for us this day.\"\n\n\"Not so!\" shouted also Knud the Bear. \"He is a good archer. I will cut\noff the hand that is laid upon him.\"\n\n\"So will I,\" said Tostig, and his seax was in his hand quickly.\n\nThere the matter ended, but Ben Ezra talked with Ulric apart.\n\n\"I send Lysias to Jerusalem,\" he said. \"With him I send a jewel to the\nchief priest and another to the captain of the temple. We will pass\nover to Gilboa. Thence we will go over the Jordan, at the middle ford.\nAfterward we will go down to the wilderness of Judea. In that hiding\nplace no search can find us, as I have often told thee, and it is near\nJerusalem on the east.\"\n\n\"We are a score of men without Lysias,\" said Ulric. \"Shall we march\nnow?\"\n\n\"Come thou first with me,\" said Ben Ezra. \"Not with so much treasure\nmay we cross to Gilboa lest we lose it all on the way. I have found a\ncave in Carmel. Here will we leave the precious stones save a few. I\nswear to thee by my god that I will keep faith with thee.\"\n\n\"I swear not,\" said Ulric, \"for I know not of an oath with a true\ncompanion. Faith of a son of Odin cannot be broken. It is a tryst of\nblood between me and thee.\"\n\n\"Better than any oath,\" said Ben Ezra. \"Knowest thou not, O heathen\njarl, that thou hast covenanted in the name of thy god, whom thou\ncallest thy father?\"\n\n\"Odin!\" exclaimed Ulric. \"So it is. He would be angry with me forever\nif I failed thee in this matter. It is well to beware of provoking the\ngods. See to it that thou anger not thine own.\"\n\nThey walked away together, none following. Not far to go was it before\nthe Jew stood still and looked around him.\n\n\"It is well if we are unseen,\" he said, \"for I have great doubts in my\nmind.\"\n\n\"I see here a great cleft in the face of this crag,\" said Ulric. \"Like\nthis are many entrances of caves in the Northland. I found some among\nthe faces of the fiords. In them are great bones of men and beasts and\nstore of old-time weapons that are made of stone.\"\n\n\"Thou wilt find bones here,\" said the Jew, \"but I think not many\nweapons. The cave is dark, and we will have torches.\"\n\nExceedingly skillful was he in the kindling of a flame among dry\nmosses, and Ulric found withered branches of pine full of resin. A\ntorch for each was lighted, and they went in at the cleft, going\ncautiously.\n\n\"In such places as these dwelt the ancient prophets of Jehovah,\" said\nBen Ezra, \"but now the caves of the land of Israel are the strongholds\nof all robbers. I have heard that there are robbers dwelling in Carmel.\nTurn, now. Let us be sure that no enemy followed us.\"\n\nThe turning was quickly made, for they at that moment heard a sound\nbehind them. Then followed an angry cry and a javelin sped over the\nhead of the stooping Jew to glance from the shield of Ulric. He spoke\nnot, but he threw his spear and drew his seax, for in the cleft passage\nwere armed men. True was the spear-cast and the javelin thrower fell,\nbut over his body sprang Ben Ezra. It was then but a brief struggle\nbetween him in his perfect mail and a robber whose garb was but a tunic.\n\n\"These were but fools,\" said the Jew as his scimiter fell upon a fourth\nof these half-armed men. \"I think they are robbers and that they are\nSamaritans. Accursed are they! I will look to know if there are more of\nthem outside.\"\n\nHe was gone but a moment, and when he returned he exclaimed, hastily:\n\n\"Not any, O jarl! We will leave these bodies here for a token. Now we\nmay enter the cave.\"\n\n\"Touch them not,\" said Ulric. \"Thou art wise. I think that any comrade\nof theirs who may come to see will believe this to be the work of the\nofficers of the law.\"\n\n\"In that were better security for aught that we may will to hide,\" said\nBen Ezra. \"Seest thou now, O jarl? This cave is deep. We will go in\nfurther.\"\n\n\"There are bones to build heaps with,\" replied the jarl. \"Here hath\nbeen a massacre, but these are dry and the slaying was long ago.\"\n\nGloomy and terrible was that deep cave in Carmel, with its dark shadows\nand its whitening skeletons. Among its corners the Jew was searching,\nholding forward his torch.\n\n\"A soft spot in the floor here,\" he said. \"We will dig with our knives.\nWe may come to it again by sure marks, for behind it is the solid rock\nand at its right a fathom and a half is yonder broken altar.\"\n\n\"Knowest thou,\" asked Ulric, \"to what god belongeth this altar? Was it\nthine?\"\n\n\"Nay,\" said the Jew, \"he hath no altars in the caves, but only in the\ntemple at Jerusalem. In the old time was Carmel a stronghold of the\nPhilistines. There have been many gods among these mountains. They were\nall destroyed by Jehovah.\"\n\n\"I would, then, that he might have a care for these treasures of ours,\"\nsaid Ulric, digging rapidly with his broad dagger. \"Go deeper into the\nearth. Make it wider. Now it is enough. O Jew, if thou and I are slain,\nno other hand will ever take out that which we will shortly put in.\"\n\nThe casket and some other matters brought by them were now placed in\nthe cavity which the jarl had dug, and the covering was done with care\nand a removing of surface traces. Then Ulric turned to look upon the\naltar.\n\n\"There are deeply cut runes upon it,\" he said. \"Canst thou read them?\"\n\n\"Nay, but I know that they are Chaldee,\" said the Jew. \"This altar\nis exceedingly old. Who shall say what men and what gods have been\ndwellers in this cave!\"\n\n\"We may now do no more,\" said the jarl. \"We will return to the men. It\nis a good prudence, every way, that we leave a mark of blood at the\nentrance.\"\n\n\"Even so!\" exclaimed Ben Ezra. \"They were robbers, but also are the\nSamaritans the enemies of my people. Now am I sure that Jehovah is with\nthee, and I remember that which is written of such as thou art, that he\nmaketh the heathen his sword.\"\n\nUlric was thinking of another matter.\n\n\"The burdens of the men will still be heavy,\" he said, \"but not now\nwill they carry any weight of provisions. We will obtain pack beasts\nwhen we may. And now we have need for haste lest evil come upon us.\"\n\nThey went out of the cave together and returned to the camp, but Sigurd\nmet them.\n\n\"O jarl,\" he exclaimed. \"Lysias hath disappeared and the men are angry.\nWe had thought he would for a while go with us.\"\n\n\"We will guard our own heads, O Sigurd, the son of Thorolf,\" replied\nUlric. \"We are better without the Greek. He hath gone on an errand. We\nwill but eat and then we will depart, for the Romans come quickly. The\nJew hath a guiding for us.\"\n\nNevertheless, the Saxons all were angry, and they ate in silence. Their\njarl was too soft with strangers, they said to each other. He avoided\ntoo much the shedding of dangerous blood.\n\nHe himself was stern and moody, for he was thinking of his lost ship\nand of the Northland and of Hilda.\n\n\"If she knoweth where I am,\" he thought, \"surely she would give me a\ntoken. I doubt if she can follow me unto this place. How could she find\nme in Carmel?\"\n\nHe stood erect soon, and there was a strong impulse upon him, for he\nlifted his war horn and blew three blasts, toward the sea, and toward\nthe forest, and toward the great crag that standeth on the promontory\nof the mountain. The sea replied not, nor did the forest, but from the\ngreat wall of rock there came back an answer such as will come in the\nwinter time from out the deep throats of the fiords when the gods are\nconversing. Once and again it spoke, and Knud the Bear exclaimed:\n\n\"Odin is here, or Thor, for that is a war horn of the North answering\nthine, O son of Brander. It is a good omen. I like to feel that the old\ngods are with us.\"\n\n\"We will follow thee!\" added Wulf the Skater. \"Go where thou wilt. I\nwill not again forget that thou art of Odin.\"\n\nSo Ulric took up his spear and shield and Ben Ezra led the way; but the\nforest was dense before them and it was a long walk eastward before\nthey came out into an open place.\n\nFrom every lip burst a sudden shout as the Saxons halted to gaze upon\nthat which was before them.\n\n\"The valley of the gods!\" said Ulric.\n\n\"The valley of the slain!\" responded Ben Ezra. \"The plain of Esdraelon.\nThe valley which is before Jezreel. The valley of Decision. O jarl of\nthe Saxons, it is the place of the meeting of the hosts of kings. Since\nthe world was made here hath been the place of battles. Thereon have\nfallen more dead than on any other piece of ground. The chariots and\nthe horsemen have there gone down together.\"\n\n\"Here, then, have Thor and Odin contended with the other gods,\"\nresponded Ulric. \"Thy god hath been here----\"\n\n\"And all the gods of Africa and all the gods of the East!\" shouted the\nJew, enthusiastically. \"Here the hosts of Joshua contended with the\nhosts of Canaan. Here have Judah, and Israel, and Egypt, and Babylon,\nand Nineveh, and Persia, and Greece, and Assyria drawn the sword. In\nthe last days here in Armageddon will perish Gog and Magog, going down\nbefore the spear of Jehovah.\"\n\n\"Glad am I to have seen the place,\" said Ulric, and every viking\nshouted for joy that he had looked upon the greatest battlefield of the\nbroad world.\n\nWell was it worth coming so far to see, and gladly would they have gone\ninto one of those great combats of the kings; but now they were led on\nrapidly, for the day was passing. Not long did it take them to walk\ndown to the level plain, but all the while their eyes were busy.\n\nCities they saw and villages, and many scattered abodes of men. The\nfields were long since reaped, but here had grown much wheat. There\nwere many vineyards, with groves of olive trees and other fruit trees.\nRivers not large but shining. Small hills whereon were towers, as if\nfor watchmen and for garrisons. Names were given to some villages by\nBen Ezra, but the greatest town of all was dimly seen, far away across\nthe plain, and he said it was the ancient city of Jezreel. Beyond all,\ntoward the east, arose mountains in long ridges, and they knew from\nhim that these were the Gilboa to which he was leading them.\n\n\"O Jew,\" said Ulric, \"where halt we this night?\"\n\n\"Not on all the plain,\" said Ben Ezra. \"Even now we near the great\nhighway from the south and in it walks a multitude, but I see no armed\nmen. I think that many eyes are already aware of our coming.\"\n\nThat might well be, for the sunlight flashed upon their armor and their\nhelmets and their spear points, but Tostig answered:\n\n\"O jarl, what care we for armed men? I think the Jew is right. We must\nhasten, even if we have to slay a few Romans.\"\n\n\"None are here,\" said Ben Ezra. \"And the people will trouble us not.\nPontius the Spearman, the procurator of Judea, hath many gladiators and\nhe hath mercenaries whose speech is strange to the nation. None will\nquestion you because ye are not legionaries.\"\n\n\"Well for them that they do not,\" growled Knud the Bear. \"I am no hired\ngladiator. I am a free Saxon. What sayest thou, O jarl?\"\n\n\"Nothing,\" said Ulric, striding forward. \"Let us see what this crowd\nmeaneth.\"\n\n\"We have naught to do with them,\" said Sigurd, \"but I am curious to\nhave a look at the people of the land. None of them can say to himself\nthat we came out of the sea on the other side of Carmel.\"\n\nEvery Saxon was as Sigurd in willing to see the people and to know what\nthis might mean, for there were very many in the highway, men and women\nand children, and there were no horsemen, nor did there seem to be so\nmuch as a spear or a shield among them.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER XXI.\n\n THE RABBI FROM NAZARETH.\n\n\nLysias, the Greek, stood in a copse of thick bushes near the forest\nborder and looked out upon the plain, but not toward Gilboa. He had\nbeen digging in the earth, as Ulric and Ben Ezra had digged in the\ncave, but he had not been hiding treasure. He had but wrapped his\nweapons and his armor in a woolen robe-cloth that he might conceal such\nperilous evidence from inquiring officials of Rome or of any local\nauthority. Earth and flat stones and sods were over them now, and he\nhad made marks upon trees whereby he might find that place again if he\nshould at any future day will to do so. He now walked out beyond the\nbushes with no trace upon him that he had been a warrior.\n\n\"Well was it for me,\" he said, \"that I found such goodly raiment among\nthe spoils of the trireme. Fewer questions are asked of him who is\nhandsomely appareled. Soon I will procure me a beast and I will go with\nall speed to Jerusalem. It is a city to which strangers come from all\nthe world, and he who escapeth into a multitude hideth himself in a\nsolitude.\"\n\nThe tunic which he wore was of silk and his robe was of embroidered\nlinen. Sandals were on his feet and his white turban was of a costly\nsilken fabric. If he had retained any weapon, it was now perfectly\nconcealed. To the eye of one who might chance to meet him he would\nsuggest beauty and riches and peace, and not at all an archer whose bow\nhad sent many messengers of death.\n\n\"Now must I be careful concerning robbers,\" he thought. \"I have both\ngold and jewels with me. But to all who ask my errand I shall be but a\nscholar in the school of Gamaliel at Jerusalem, and therefore I may not\nenter Samaria, but must pass on swiftly. The Romans themselves favor\nall such scholars, and I shall have their protection. Their laws are\ngood and my time for smiting them again hath not come. But never will I\nshow mercy to a Roman.\"\n\nOther things he said concerning the much-vaunted laws and justice of\nthe world's conquerors. Beyond a doubt they not only claimed much in\nthe way of righteousness, and also did many things righteously, but\nbehind this sternly formal justice of theirs, and but little concealed,\nwas a man holding out his hand for bribes, and near him was a place of\nscourging and the sword of a ready executioner.\n\nNevertheless, Lysias walked on joyously. Soon he was in a highway, and\nby it passed through hamlets. He looked inquiringly at all places as\nhe went, but he paused not for conversation with any whom he met or\ngreeted. At last he came to the open gate of a wall, behind which were\na goodly house and some outbuildings of stone. In the gateway stood an\nold man, well appareled, and before him Lysias stood making reverent\nobeisance, as to an elder.\n\n\"I am Simon Ben Assur,\" said the old man. \"Who art thou, O Greek?\"\n\n\"I am Lysias, the scholar, of the school of Gamaliel at Jerusalem,\" he\nreplied. \"I have lost my beast, for he was worthless and he would go\nno further. Hast thou a good ass for sale, that will travel swiftly?\"\n\n\"I see that some one hath sent thee to me,\" replied Ben Assur. \"Thou\nknowest, therefore, that the beast is a swift one.\"\n\n\"Well with thee,\" said Lysias. \"I would buy him but for thy\nextortionate price. Wilt thou now give me an honest bidding, that I may\npay thee and take him away?\"\n\n\"Ha!\" said Ben Assur. \"They told thee my price? There is more which\nthey did not tell thee. The ass is young and there is none swifter than\nhe. He is well trained. The saddle and the bridle are to be purchased\nwith him, as thou needest.\"\n\n\"One needeth them to ride withal,\" said Lysias. \"But every beast hath\nfaults and thine is not worth, upon the market, the half of thy asking.\nI will but look at him and pass on about my business.\"\n\nLoudly laughed Simon then, looking keenly into the handsome face of the\nGreek. He turned and spoke to some one within the inclosure, bidding\nhim bring the ass.\n\n\"O youth,\" he said, \"I mind not that thou hast spoken with that evil\nbeast of a Samaritan. Arcas offereth that he will pay me for the ass\nnext Passover week; and I rejected him not, but told him that the price\nmust now be paid to me in five golden pieces. I will say to thee that\nthe pay days of Arcas never come, and wise men deal not at all with him\nunless he giveth double security.\"\n\n\"I deal not with him,\" said Lysias, \"but I will see thy beast.\"\n\nAnd now a serving man led forth to the gate a large and well-shaped\nanimal, upon which were a fair saddle and bridle.\n\n\"Mount and try him,\" said Simon. \"If thou canst ride at all, thou wilt\nascertain what is under thee; but an unskillful rider may wisely choose\nanother, for he is full of life.\"\n\nLysias sprang to the saddle and rode back and forth along the highway.\n\n\"He must be mine at any price,\" he thought, \"for in his legs is my\nsafety.\"\n\n\"Wilt thou take thy good bargain, O Greek?\" shouted Ben Assur as Lysias\nreturned.\n\n\"He is no good bargain at five pieces,\" said Lysias. \"No ass is worth\nso much. I will give thee one piece--\"\n\n\"Thou art no Samaritan,\" interrupted the old Jew. \"Thou art not Arcas,\nto buy of me and afterward to rob me of my pay with false witnesses\nbefore the magistrate's seat, proving that thou hast already paid me.\nHast thou not two pieces in thy hand? I will give thee a writing of\nsale lest he be taken from thee in Samaria.\"\n\n\"Two I will give,\" said Lysias, after again galloping up and down the\nroad. \"Make out thy bill of sale to Lysias, the scholar. I now return\nspeedily to Jerusalem.\"\n\n\"I think well of thee!\" exclaimed Simon; afterward adding, \"I pray thee\ntake my greeting to the great Rabbi Gamaliel. He knoweth me. I deal\nfairly with thee. I am not ashamed to have thee show unto even him this\nthy purchase.\"\n\nBack into the house he went and he soon returned with a small square\nparchment of a bill of sale. But the coins which he received were heavy\ncoins of Athens and he weighed them thoughtfully in his hand.\n\n\"Good youth,\" he said, \"take thou now the counsel of thy elder. Carry\nnot too many of such as these with thee. Open not thy purse before\nstrangers. Thou art overwell appareled. Get thee as far as the gate\nof a walled town having a garrison before the sun goeth down. Ride\nfast and far that thou mayest be beyond any who might inquire of thee\nconcerning that which is now under thee. Thou hadst better not enter\nSamaria.\"\n\n\"Fare thee well,\" said Lysias, urging the ass promptly. \"I take thy\ncounsel.\"\n\n\"Well for him if he so doeth,\" muttered Ben Assur in the gateway,\n\"since Arcas claimeth the beast as already his own. I will myself now\ndepart for Damascus and the Samaritan devil may seek for his five\npieces where he will. I have beaten him.\"\n\nThe thought then in the mind of Lysias did not err greatly.\n\n\"Something is concealed from me as to this swift one,\" he said to\nhimself. \"I have no business in Samaria that I should risk being robbed\nand then imprisoned as a thief. But if I now meet a Roman patrol, no\nofficer will deem me a pirate coming ashore from a burning trireme with\na band of Saxons.\"\n\nTherefore he blessed his gods for guiding him to the house of Ben\nAssur, and he rode on in safety, but not as yet was there any safety\nfor the others who, like him, had escaped the sea and the fire. Far\nbehind him on Mount Carmel, in a place of few trees, an Ionian sailor\nfell breathless upon the grass while beside him halted a Roman horseman.\n\n\"Get thee up!\" he shouted. \"Answer truly lest I slay thee! Where are\nthy companions?\"\n\n\"Slain by robbers in the armor of Saxons,\" responded the fallen man,\nrising. \"I will tell thee.\"\n\nAnother horseman came galloping to the side of the first and\nlegionaries on foot might be seen not far away. The wisdom of a\ncommander had sent a band of searchers to the side of Carmel toward the\nplain rather than among the crags and forests.\n\nGaining his breath as he could, for he had been running swiftly, the\nIonian told all save that he claimed to have swam to the shore.\n\n\"Thou sawest but three of these Saxons?\" said the officer at last. \"I\nhad no knowledge of any such pirate trireme. The Saxons are to be the\nscourge of the Middle Sea if C\u00e6sar destroyeth them not.\"\n\nMore questions were put to the frightened Ionian, and then he was told:\n\n\"I will not slay thee. Thou wilt come with me to Samaria. Thy testimony\nmust go before the procurator that a fleet may cruise against these\nrovers from the ocean stream. Thy companions that remain must be sought\nout that they may confirm thee.\"\n\nCalm and wise was this man, and he at once sent forward, also, swift\nrunners to ask here and there if anything had been seen of a band, or\nof single men, of the Saxons who had escaped from the trireme.\n\nNow the plain of Esdraelon is wide and the skirts of Carmel are long\nand rugged. There were none who had seen Ulric the Jarl and his\nvikings up to the hour when they walked out into the highway. By his\ndirections, as a prudent captain, they marched orderly, two and two, as\nif they belonged to the auxiliary of some Roman legion and were going\nby due authority.\n\n\"So,\" advised Ben Ezra, \"no man less than a quaternion or a magistrate\nwill run the risk of asking thee a question. No man of the people may\ndemand the errand of a soldier lest harm come to him.\"\n\n\"The multitude hath paused,\" said Sigurd. \"They gather around a man.\nLet us go see.\"\n\nRight and left parted the crowd as the Saxon column marched onward, but\nit halted suddenly, the people closing around and behind it, curiously\nstaring, but not touching nor inquiring whence it came.\n\nThere was an open space on the broad highway, and five paces in front\nof the jarl stood the man of whom Sigurd had spoken. He was of full\nheight and broad, but Ulric said in a low tone to Ben Ezra, in Latin:\n\n\"He looketh not altogether like a Jew. I have seen darker Saxons. I\nthink he is a jarl. Such as he might be a leader of men.\"\n\nProud was the bearing of Sigurd, the son of Thorolf, the sea king; high\nand stern was the aspect of Ulric, the son of Odin; tall and powerful\nmen were all the other vikings; but not among them all was there one\nwith the dignity of this plainly dressed Jew rabbi, who stood there\nunarmed and with only a turban on his head.\n\nHe spoke not now to the Saxons, but before him on the earth rolled and\nwallowed one who seemed in agony. His eyes were starting from their\nsockets and there was foam upon his lips. A shriek burst from him as\nhis convulsed limbs beat the earth.\n\n\"He hath a demon!\" said Ben Ezra to Ulric. \"The evil spirit teareth\nhim. There are many such. Let us see what this rabbi will do. I think\nhim a learned one. Only the learned may deal with demons.\"\n\n\"Come out of him!\" commanded the princely man, stooping to touch the\ndemoniac.\n\nOn his face was a kindly smile, nevertheless, but they saw not his\neyes, for he was looking downward.\n\nWild was the shriek that came back, as if in a fiercer spasm of inward\npain, but a voice followed it, saying:\n\n\"I know thee, who thou art, thou Jesus of Nazareth! Thou holy one of\nGod!\"\n\nAgain he said, \"Come out of him!\" and it was as if some unseen being\ncalled out loudly in an unknown tongue and fled away.\n\nThen arose from the ground the man in whom the evil spirit had been\ndwelling, and he stood erect, unharmed, like other men.\n\n\"A great rabbi!\" whispered Ben Ezra. \"One of the learned, from\nJerusalem. Thou mayest not speak to him while he is healing.\"\n\n\"He that fled called him a son of Odin,\" replied Ulric. \"He looketh\nlike one.\"\n\n\"He may be one of the gods of this land,\" muttered Wulf the Skater. \"I\nlike him not. He commandeth evil spirits and they obey him. I am glad\nthe jarl is also a son of Odin.\"\n\n\"I am glad to have seen a god,\" replied Knud the Bear. \"He is nobler\nthan other men. Let us see what he will do to that crippled one.\"\n\nBent and deformed, as if his arms and legs had little shape left them,\nwas this man whom his friends now half led, half carried, before this\nrabbi of the Jews.\n\n\"Canst thou do anything for him?\" asked one. \"He hath been thus from\nhis birth.\"\n\nNo answer made the man Jesus, but he laid his hand upon the arm of the\ncrippled one.\n\n\"Odin!\" exclaimed Ulric. \"Look! He can stand upon his feet! He lifteth\nhis hands! Thou art right, Ben Ezra. It were evil for me to speak. The\n singeth! He is praising his god, and well he may.\"\n\n\"Go thou to the priest at Jerusalem,\" he heard the rabbi from Nazareth\nsay to each in turn of the men who had been cured. \"See thou tell no\nman.\"\n\n\"What meaneth he?\" thought Ulric. \"Have not all we seen with our own\neyes this which hath been done? I would I were healed of something,\nthen would I know what is this secret between them and their god. He\nis a strong one. What will Ben Ezra now say about his Jehovah? I think\nthis may be a stronger god, for Jehovah doth not well guard the Jews\nfrom the Romans.\"\n\nBut there stood the rabbi, Jesus, and he was saying many things to the\nmultitude. Clear was his voice and deep, and they who were not near him\nneeded not to lose a word that he was saying.\n\n\"I understand him not,\" muttered Sigurd. \"I am glad to have seen him,\nbut he is not like our gods of the North. It is time we were marching,\nO jarl.\"\n\n\"Haste then,\" added Ben Ezra. \"This Jesus is a learned rabbi, and he\nhealeth, but the swords of the Romans are not far behind us.\"\n\n\"I would have speech with him before I go,\" said Ulric to Ben Ezra.\n\"What is this that he saith concerning unending life? Do we not all\ndie? Do we not all go to the gods? He is lying. It is not good for a\nson of Odin to lie.\"\n\n\"Speak to him not,\" said Ben Ezra. \"He is touching the sick. Never\nbefore have I seen a rabbi like this.\"\n\n\"He is of the seed of David,\" said a short, dark man who stood near.\n\"He is the Christ that was to come. He is yet to be our King. I am one\nof his disciples. I shall be a prince when he is crowned.\"\n\n\"Thou a prince?\" said Ulric. \"Thou lookest not like a captain of\nwarriors. What couldst thou do in a feast of swords?\"\n\nThe short man shrank away chinking a small bag that was attached to his\nbelt, and his black eyes were glittering with anger.\n\n\"If I were a king,\" said Ulric, \"I would find me better captains than\nhe. I like not his face. He loveth his bag too well. Come on, now!\"\n\nThe order went to his Saxons, but at that moment he heard the rabbi\nsaying: \"Let him sell all that he hath and come and follow me. So shall\nhe have treasure in the heavens.\"\n\n\"Where are they, Ben Ezra?\" asked the jarl.\n\n\"No man knoweth,\" replied Ben Ezra. \"I think they are above the sky. It\nis the place of our people. Thou art a heathen and they have no part\nwith Israel.\"\n\n\"I go to Valhalla and to the city of Asgard,\" said Ulric. \"To the city\nof the gods. I want no treasure in any place of the Jews. Thou mayest\nhave thy heavens to thyself. Lead on!\"\n\nNevertheless, Ulric strode forward and stood for a moment before the\nrabbi looking him in the face.\n\n\"O thou of the sons of the gods,\" he said, \"I also am of the line of\nOdin. I think thou wouldst make a leader of men. I will fight for thee\nif thou wilt.\"\n\n\"Thou art not far from the kingdom,\" said the rabbi, smiling\nwonderfully. \"Go thou thy way, for thou wilt see me again. Thou wilt\ncome unto me in the day in which I shall call thee.\"\n\n\"That will I!\" exclaimed Ulric with an energy that was sudden. \"But I\nthink thou wilt need all the Saxons if thou art to contend with C\u00e6sar.\nIt will be a great battle when his legions meet thee. I have slain many\nRomans already. I am thy man.\"\n\n\"Thou knowest not yet what thou art,\" replied the rabbi, \"but the\nSaxons also are my people. I shall send for them.\"\n\n\"That do thou,\" said Ulric; \"and I, Ulric the Jarl, the son of Brander\nthe Brave, the son of Odin, I will lead them for thee, for I am a jarl\nand a sea king. Fare thee well.\"\n\nNo answer made the rabbi, for he turned to speak to a woman in the\ncrowd, and Ulric turned to walk away with Ben Ezra.\n\n\"The Romans will slay him,\" said Ben Ezra. \"Thou wert imprudent. I\nwonder much. Can this be the Christ that is to come?\"\n\n\"Who, then, is he?\" asked Ulric, and as they went onward the Jew told\nhim many things that were hard to understand.\n\n\"It seemeth to me,\" said the jarl at last, \"that thou speakest a saga\nthat Hilda of the hundred years told me in my childhood. Odin is to\nreturn bringing the gods with him, and some say he hath returned\nalready and that he who saileth far enough to the eastward and\nsouthward may find Asgard. I must see this city, Jerusalem, and its\ntemple, for now I do know that thy Jehovah is a god like Thor or Odin.\"\n\n\"He is the greatest of all gods,\" said Ben Ezra stoutly, \"but this\nrabbi cannot be the Christ. He is but a healer, and there have been\nmany who wrought cures and cast out demons.\"\n\n\"I would he had been with us in _The Sword_,\" replied Ulric, \"in the\nday when the evil spirit took possession of my vikings. But he could\nhave done nothing against the Nornir and the valkyrias. Even Odin could\nnot prevent their calling. It was the time for those men to die.\"\n\n\"I heard this demon that was cast out by the rabbi,\" said Ben Ezra,\n\"but I did not see him. I wonder what he is like?\"\n\n\"I have heard that such are exceedingly wonderful,\" said Ulric. \"They\nare of many shapes, but none are beautiful. Some of them are strong and\nthe gods have to tie them up to trees lest they do mischief.\"\n\n\"So have I heard,\" said the Jew, \"only the demons tied up by thy gods\nare not like our own. We have many, and they seize men by night. They\nserve the magicians.\"\n\n\"I would slay all magicians,\" said Ezra. \"They interfere with the gods\ntoo much. But I see the glint of spears away yonder. I trust there are\nnot too many of them.\"\n\nThey had marched far into Esdraelon and the night was falling. The men\nwere weary and their hearts were heavy.\n\n\"Be thou prudent,\" said Ben Ezra. \"If this be a Roman patrol, smite\nnot, but let me have speech with their officer.\"\n\n\"We may not flee,\" replied the jarl. \"Not only are we overworn, but\nthese are in part mounted men. Silence all! They come!\"\n\nThe Saxons halted, leaning upon their spears, not knowing the purpose\nof their jarl, but trusting him. On toward them rode but three, of whom\none wore a white cloak with a purple border.\n\n\"A Roman of high rank,\" said Ben Ezra. \"Slay him not. The band is\nstrong.\"\n\nNot loudly uttered was the hail of the Roman officer, reining his horse.\n\n\"I am Julius, the centurion of Tiberias,\" he said. \"I know ye, who ye\nare--the gladiators of Caius from Jerusalem for the games at Tiberias.\nYe have taken the wrong road. Who art thou, O Jew?\"\n\n\"I am Ben Ezra, their interpreter,\" replied the Jew. \"Were we not\nforbidden to go by the way of Jezreel?\"\n\nThe centurion laughed freely at that.\n\n\"Caius is careful of his wagers and would not have thy men seen by the\nwrong eyes,\" he said, \"but I have had fortune to beat his cunning by\nthis meeting. I will look well at them. They seem better than any that\nmay be now ready to contend with them.\"\n\n\"Study them well,\" said Ben Ezra, and the centurion rode slowly around\nthe motionless body of Saxons.\n\n\"Would I might slay him!\" muttered Knud the Bear, but none heard.\n\n\"He is a fine mark!\" whispered Wulf the Skater. \"I could spear him off\nhis horse. But the jarl is cunning.\"\n\n\"Cease,\" said Tostig the Red. \"The legionaries are twoscore and we are\nweary.\"\n\n\"O thou,\" said Julius to Ulric, discovering that he was the captain,\n\"thou art a tall one.\"\n\n\"He understandeth Latin,\" said Ben Ezra. \"He is not new, as are the\nothers.\"\n\n\"He looketh a tried swordsman,\" said Julius, for one soldier judgeth\neasily another. \"Saxon, thou wilt win sesterces at Tiberias, but thou\nwilt lose some of thy company.\"\n\n\"Not unless ye have better swords than any we have met,\" replied Ulric.\n\n\"Truly!\" exclaimed Julius, \"this is a deep trick of Caius. He will get\nno foolish wagers from me. But thou, O Saxon, thou wilt have a Numidian\nlion to fight, and he is larger than any Syrian beast. What sayest thou\nto that? Canst thou meet him?\"\n\n\"Judge thou of that when thou seest him before me,\" said Ulric. \"I\nwould gladly meet thy lion if he is a strong one.\"\n\n\"Hard fighters are the Saxons,\" said Julius. \"I will give thy big\nHercules a tiger.\"\n\nHe pointed at Sigurd, and the sea king's face flushed hotly, but he was\nsilent.\n\n\"O Jew,\" said the centurion, \"obey thou Caius lest thou get the\nscourge. Enter not Jezreel. Show not thy gladiators to any. Tell not\nany man that I have seen them and I will give thee ten sesterces. If\nthou tellest, I will reward thee otherwise. Go on a little. Camp in the\nold tower by the highway from Galilee. It hath now no garrison. Thy\nSaxon wolves are guard enough against jackals and robbers.\"\n\n\"I obey thee, O noble Julius,\" said Ben Ezra. \"Thou wilt answer for us\nif we are inquired of concerning this tower?\"\n\n\"I will acquit thee,\" replied the centurion, and he rode away followed\nby his own company.\n\nAll that had been spoken was now interpreted to the Saxons, and it\nseemed to them as if a good jest had been made of this Roman. They\nwere glad, also, of a sure camping place, and they marched on in the\ntwilight; but the Jew purchased for them two fat sheep and a skin of\nwine at a place which they passed in going. Then came they to the empty\ntower at the highway from Galilee, but when they halted Ben Ezra would\nallow none to enter until he had kindled a flame and had made torches.\n\n\"These old towers are abodes of demons,\" he said, \"and the rabbi Jesus\nis not here to cast them out. This Julius may have played a trick upon\nus, sending us to contend with evil spirits which have heretofore\ndriven all garrisons out of this place.\"\n\n\"Have thou thy will,\" said the jarl. \"But a son of Odin careth not much\nfor demons.\"\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER XXII.\n\n THE TOMB SONG OF SIGURD.\n\n\nThe broken portal of the old tower in Esdraelon was as the entrance to\na dark cavern, and from it came out a wide-winged owl while Ben Ezra\nwas kindling his flame. Away into the darkness fled the bird of night\nhooting loudly, and the men said to one another:\n\n\"We like not these birds. They are of evil omen. They are friendly with\nbad spirits and the demons have them for their companions.\"\n\nUlric the Jarl stood waiting, and he cared not for the owl, but when a\ntorch was handed to him by the Jew he strode forward, looking warily\naround him as he went, and others followed him closely.\n\nNaught was there to be seen but bare walls of stone and a flight of\nstone steps that were builded spirally, leading upward.\n\n\"O jarl!\" suddenly exclaimed Tostig the Red, going past him, sword in\nhand, \"here, also, are other steps. Look! They go down into the under\nworld. Beneath this tower might be vaults and a prison.\"\n\n\"Such places are ever the abode of the evil spirits,\" said Ben Ezra.\n\"Go not down this at first. It is likely there have been many men slain\nhere, for this tower hath been a place of defense since the old time.\nIt was builded by the Philistines, but the stonework hath been repaired\nby the kings of the nations who came after them.\"\n\nEasy it was to obtain enough of fuel for a bright fire upon the stone\nfloor, and the Saxons loved the light of its blaze, although little\nneed was for warmth. There was a well near by, with a bucket for\nbringing up water and a trough for beasts to drink from. They who\nplanned the tower had provided wisely, but Ben Ezra said of the deep\nwell:\n\n\"Many are the demons which dwell in old wells. They entice men to fall\nin, and they themselves come out to deal evilly with lone wayfarers.\nTherefore some who encamp by the wells are heard of no more. Only the\nvery learned of the rabbis know how to cast them out. Let us hope that\nthis fountain hath been purified.\"\n\n\"The water is good,\" said Knud the Bear, \"and I was thirsty. The gods\nmake wells.\"\n\nThey ate and drank, and then Ulric the Jarl knew that it was his duty\nto further explore the tower. He first climbed the stone stairway to\nthe upper part. Here was no roof, and the walls were notched well for\nbowmen. There was a place, also, for the burning of a beacon light.\n\n\"It is a strong tower,\" said the jarl. \"A few men might keep it against\nmany if the portal had a stout gate with arrow holes. We are garrison\nenough. I will go down.\"\n\nThe stars above were bright, but there was no moon, and nothing could\nhe discern of the plain or of the mountains. He descended the stairway\nand went to the downward steps, taking a larger torch but asking no\ncompany.\n\n\"O jarl,\" said Sigurd, \"have a care for thyself. Thou knowest not who\nmay be the god of this place.\"\n\n\"Odin!\" laughed Ulric. \"Whoever he may be he hath not hindered our\ncoming in. I will see what is below.\"\n\nNone followed him but Tostig the Red, who was ever curious and who had\nno fear of demons, thinking them of no account.\n\n\"O jarl,\" he said, at the bottom of the steps, \"hold up thy torch. This\nwinding stairway hath taken us down two fathoms or more. There is a bad\nsmell. I like it not. I hear something that moveth.\"\n\n\"Help me! For the sake of Jehovah the Blessed!\" gasped a human voice\nnot far away. \"I perish with thirst. They bound me and left me here to\ndie.\"\n\nHe spoke in the old Hebrew tongue, not unlike the tongue which was\ncommonly spoken in that land, and Ulric answered:\n\n\"Who art thou?\"\n\n\"I am Abbas, the merchant, of Jerusalem,\" responded the voice. \"Water!\nWater! They were robbers from Mount Gilboa. I was rash, for I had\nlittle treasure with me. They got but my ass and a bag of denarii, and\nthey were wroth to have so little. This was their hiding place, but\nthey are gone out for prey.\"\n\nOver him stood Ulric, holding the torch, while Tostig with his knife\ncut the hempen fetters and lifted Abbas to his feet. He was naked save\na torn tunic, but he did not seem to be wounded. The Saxons above had\nheard, and a horn of water was brought down by Sigurd, the son of\nThorolf, for Ben Ezra was outside of the tower. Abbas drank, gaining\nstrength, and went up the stairway with little help, while Tostig\nsearched that place in vain for anything worth the taking.\n\n\"They take their spoils elsewhere,\" he muttered, \"but we will care\nlittle for that if Odin hath sent us the slaying of them. I would be\nglad to kill some robbers.\"\n\n\"Men in Galilee owed me money for merchandise,\" explained Abbas as he\nate. \"I came to obtain it, thinking to return in strong company. The\nRomans make the highways safe to all, and I had no fear. But this band\nnumbereth a score. I think they will return before the morning.\"\n\n\"Put out the fire!\" commanded the jarl. \"Every man to his spear and\nshield. We will not let one of them escape. It is evil to leave a man\nto die of thirst instead of giving him the sword.\"\n\n\"The Romans will thank thee well, O chief of the gladiators,\" said\nAbbas. \"They have striven to destroy these robbers of Gilboa, but if\nthese are pressed hardly, they flee across the Jordan. They are from\nthe wilderness.\"\n\nBen Ezra heard standing in the doorway, and he already knew all. To\nUlric he said in the North tongue:\n\n\"Beware whom thou slayest. Thou art but a gladiator in this tower. Thou\nart not here a jarl, to do as thou wilt.\"\n\n\"Ever am I a son of Odin,\" said Ulric. \"I have sold my sword to no man.\nWho shall stay me from slaying? I will spare not one.\"\n\n\"If thou slayest one, slay all,\" said Ben Ezra. \"There is danger in the\nenmity of the men of the wilderness. They forget not, and the next of\nkin may find thee.\"\n\n\"Not if he be wise,\" said Ulric, but he bade his men lie down and rest,\nkeeping watches.\n\nThen spoke to him the Jew Abbas:\n\n\"I will tell thee a thing. Me they may have thought to ransom. I know\nnot. But they will be here at the dawn to lie in wait for a company\nthat cometh from Tiberias with much merchandise. Thou mayest be sure\nthat, if thou slayest them not, then thou and all of thine are to be\nslain.\"\n\n\"That I may well believe,\" said the jarl, \"but they who slay Saxons may\ncount their men and we will count how many remain.\"\n\n\"So be it,\" said Abbas. \"Thou art a tall one. But thou, Ben Ezra, come\nhither and commune with me.\"\n\nSo went they apart and they talked much together in the old Hebrew\ntongue, and it seemed to the jarl that these two Jews might be of kin\nto each other, so many names did they speak of men and of women and of\nplaces.\n\n\"I will trust Ben Ezra,\" he thought, \"but of this Abbas I shall know\nmore at another time. I would see the sun upon his face before I can\nread its meaning.\"\n\nThen came around him and Sigurd all the other Saxons asking curiously\nconcerning all these things which had taken place. They asked about the\ntower and the plain and the mountains until they were satisfied.\n\n\"Thou art a prudent jarl,\" said Tostig the Red, \"but I would rather\nfight lions than to be hidden away among the hills like a wolf. Are\nthere not cities to be seen, and wonderful places? I like not deserts.\"\n\n\"We came out to see the world,\" said Knud the Bear. \"O jarl, there\nmight be excellent fighting if we go in the right direction.\"\n\n\"That would please me also,\" said Wulf the Skater, \"and we may begin\nwith these robbers if they are to come upon us. They may be swordsmen.\"\n\nOther of the vikings spoke strongly, as became warriors, and Ulric\nsaw that they were in earnest. They liked not Gilboa and its caves.\nThey had been shut up on shipboard long and they were in great wonder\nconcerning this country of the Jews.\n\n\"Even so am I,\" Ulric said to them. \"We will go on and see cities, as\nyou desire. We will not be Roman soldiers, but there is no disgrace to\na Northman in slaying a fighting beast or a fighting man. Only I will\nserve no master, even though he be a king. I am of Odin.\"\n\n\"We are as thou art in this matter,\" said the Saxons. \"We will serve\nnone save in thy company, but we pray thee lead us into a better place\nthan this tower or a desert.\"\n\nNow, also, some remembered to speak again of Lysias, the Greek,\nwondering whether or not he had escaped and where he might be. \"Ought\nwe not rather to have slain him?\" they said. \"Who knoweth what report\nhe may send out concerning us?\"\n\n\"He will have good care for his own life in that matter,\" said the\njarl. \"He will be secret for his own sake. Do ye not also remember that\nhe is a good bowman?\"\n\n\"I like him for his archery,\" said Tostig the Red. \"I trust that his\ngods may be with him to help him slay more Romans.\"\n\n\"That seemeth not to be for us,\" said Knud the Bear. \"We are to be\nfriends with them for a season. But I would see a tiger if I may, and\nalso some of these great elephants, which cause me to think of a whale\nwalking upon the land.\"\n\n\"Thou wilt see them at Tiberias if thou goest there,\" said Ben Ezra;\n\"but be careful of thy speech, for thou art now in a Roman land and\nthou art but one man. Thou canst not fight a cohort.\"\n\n\"A warrior may be prudent without dishonor,\" responded Knud. \"I like\nthe Romans better, now I have killed so many of them. They are good\nfighters and they die where they stand, not running away.\"\n\nSo said other of the Saxons, and all slept but the watchers, and the\nnight passed.\n\nIt was in the dull hour before the sun's rising that Abbas, the Jew,\ncame to the jarl and touched him, saying:\n\n\"Arise, O captain of the Saxons. The sentinel at the roadside needeth\nthee.\"\n\n\"Stir up the men,\" spoke Ulric to Sigurd, the son of Thorolf, \"but bid\nthem keep in the tower. Come thou unto me at the road.\"\n\nSo went he out and stood by the sentinel, and with them were Ben Ezra\nand Abbas.\n\n\"O jarl,\" said Wulf the Skater, \"I might not leave my post, but I have\nslain this man that lieth here. What he is I know not, but he crept\nnear me stealthily and I speared him. It was a cast in the dark. He\nweareth a turban.\"\n\n\"A robber from beyond Jordan,\" said Abbas stooping. \"He is a bowman.\nTherefore there are others with him. What sayest thou, captain of the\nSaxons?\"\n\n\"Let no man speak loudly,\" said Ulric. \"Bring no light. I hear horses.\nBe ready. Slay all who come, but give no warning.\"\n\nSo did Sigurd, the son of Thorolf, give direction in the tower, and the\nmen were prudent, waiting for what might come. But Sigurd now stood by\nUlric and seemed like a giant in the gloom. By him stood another Saxon\nquickly, and he was lifting his shield when something smote it, making\nit ring.\n\n\"An arrow,\" he said, \"sent strongly. A dozen men, O jarl!\"\n\n\"Smitten am I!\" shouted Sigurd, but he sprang forward swinging his pole\nax.\n\nUpon him darkly, suddenly, pressed hard a swarm of men, and they were\nas locusts crushed by the foot as his ax fell on them.\n\nUlric stood fast for a moment, but forward with Sigurd went Wulf the\nSkater full of war wrath. More than one arrow rattled on the shield of\nthe jarl, but he had cast his spear and he was now swinging the long,\nstraight sword of Annibaal, the Carthaginian, for men were upon him and\nhe mowed them as rushes.\n\n\"Back to the tower, Ben Ezra!\" exclaimed Abbas.\n\nPast Abbas and Ben Ezra charged four Saxons with Knud the Bear; but the\ntwo Jews went back to the tower, for they were cunning and they willed\nnot to be discovered by these robbers whose vengeance is forever.\n\nMen half armored, moderate in stature, not expecting great resistance,\nwere without hope in such a fray as this. They were there to be\nslaughtered, but at a little distance were others who were on\nhorseback. From among these rode one a little nearer, while the others\nwithheld their archery for fear of hitting their own men.\n\n\"O Abbas, of Jerusalem!\" he shouted. \"Would we had slain thee at once!\nThou hast betrayed us to the Romans. I will yet have revenge upon thee\nand upon thy son. Thou art the father of that Bar Abbas that smote me\nand mine beyond Mach\u00e6rus. May the Romans crucify him!\"\n\nAbbas at the tower heard well, but he replied not, and the Saxons were\nslaying fast the robbers who were on foot. Not one of them escaped, so\nswiftly fell the steel of the strong ones from the Northland.\n\nAgain shouted the man, the robber chief on horseback, shouting to his\nfootmen, but no voice went back to him. Only a spear thrown by Knud the\nBear went through him from breast to back and Ulric blew a blast upon\nhis war horn, for he heard a clash of swords behind him.\n\n\"It is naught!\" shouted Tostig the Red, from the doorway. \"We were\nthree and with us were the two Jews. Some thieves who came here are\ndead, dying easily. Fight on.\"\n\nLoud were the shouts of wrath among the horsemen, and one was\ninterpreted by Abbas to Ulric:\n\n\"He saith 'a Roman garrison is in the tower.' No robber will venture\nnearer.\"\n\n\"Woe to thee, Abbas!\" came fiercely out of the gloom. \"Woe to thee and\nthine! I curse thee by my gods for ever and ever!\"\n\nNo word spoke Abbas, but the horsemen wheeled and rode away swiftly,\nwhile Ulric stooped over one who lay upon the ground.\n\n\"O son of Thorolf!\" he exclaimed, \"I would thou hadst not been smitten.\"\n\n\"That am I,\" said Sigurd. \"The valkyrias have not passed me by. It was\nthe arrow in the dark, and the bowman was near and it pierced my mail.\"\n\n\"Thou didst fight well, being smitten,\" said Ulric, \"for thou art of\nthe heroes.\"\n\n\"Burn me not,\" said Sigurd, \"but bury me by this tower, in my armor,\nlaying my weapons with me. I may need them when I awake among the gods.\nI know not much of these matters, but I have great curiosity.\"\n\n\"Aye,\" said Ulric, \"and if thou seest Hilda of the hundred years, thou\nmayest tell her where I am. Speak thou also to my father, to Brander\nthe Brave, the sea king. Tell him I go on to Asgard, and that I have\nseen one of the gods in this land and that I seek to see him again.\"\n\n\"I also saw him there in the road,\" said Sigurd. \"I think him one of\nthem by his face and by the word of the evil spirits. If thou meetest\nhim again, greet him for me. Give me thy hand, Ulric the Jarl! The\nvalkyrias! Odin!\"\n\nHalf sprang to his feet the mighty son of Thorolf and he uttered a\ngreat cry. Then crashing heavily down he fell prostrate, his shield and\nhis mail clanging. Silently around him stood the Saxons, and one of\nthem said:\n\n\"O jarl, so fall we, one by one. I like it not. We shall never again\nsee the Northland. The gods are against us!\"\n\n\"He died not in his bed,\" said Knud the Bear. \"It is well with him,\nJarl Ulric.\"\n\n\"So die I!\" exclaimed Wulf the Skater. \"Come! Let us dig, for the\nravens must not whet their beaks on the bones of the hero.\"\n\nTherefore, with knives and spearheads and flat stones the Saxons dug a\ndeep hollow in the earth, and into it the sun looked down when he was\nrisen.\n\n\"It will do,\" said Ulric; \"but now we will eat and drink. We have slain\neighteen of these robbers. I would we had slain them all.\"\n\nMany coins had been found upon the dead, especially upon him who had\nbeen mounted, and all these the jarl divided among the men, Ben Ezra\ncounting for him their value.\n\n\"Keep thou some,\" said Knud the Bear.\n\n\"Not so,\" replied Ulric. \"I have enough. I like not too many coins. Ye\nmay need them to buy with. What have I to do with such things?\"\n\n\"Thou art jarl,\" reasoned Knud. \"If thou take them not now we will yet\ncompel thee. Thou canst not do altogether as thou wilt. We think thou\nwilt need many coins. They are the custom of this land.\"\n\n\"So be it,\" said Ulric. \"I am learning much about them. But I would\nrather be rich in cattle and in horses. I have all the lands of\nBrander. I think I will take some coins with me when I go, to keep them\nin a bag like old Oswald, the harper.\"\n\n\"We will pay ours here, I think,\" said Knud. \"But let the Jew make thy\nbargains for thee; for the sons of Odin are not good merchants.\"\n\nBen Ezra spoke then, agreeing well with Knud, but the heart of Ulric\nwas heavy because of Sigurd, for the son of Thorolf had kept good faith\nwith him, and the men who are true to friends are the men who are most\nmissed when the valkyrias come to them.\n\nThere were eating and drinking and there was much curious examination\nof the weapons and clothing and armor of the robbers from beyond\nJordan. Ben Ezra and Abbas answered all questions, but they said, also,\nthat there must be no going away from the tower until a messenger\nshould arrive from Julius or from some other Roman officer.\n\nEven while he was saying this to Ulric there was heard from the\nsouthward along the highway the sound of a trumpet.\n\n\"Whoever cometh,\" said Ben Ezra, \"let me have first speech with him. In\nslaying these who lie here we have been under the orders of Julius, the\ncenturion, and our official responsibility is to him; but he referreth\nus to Caius, of the household of the procurator at Jerusalem. We have\nneed of cunning.\"\n\nThe sun was high now, and Esdraelon was exceedingly beautiful between\nits mountains. It was a plain of brown and green under blue heavens,\na place where the gods might walk; but Ulric, the son of Brander,\nlistened to the trumpet and looked from the bodies of the dead to the\nSaxons, who stood in line on guard at the roadside.\n\n\"This is the valley of battles,\" he said, aloud. \"O Jew, I will heed\nthee. Knowest thou anything of this Julius?\"\n\n\"Not of myself,\" said Ben Ezra, \"but Abbas knoweth of him that he is\nsaid to be a subtle serpent, winning much money on wagers, and that he\nis cruel.\"\n\n\"Mark thou this, then,\" said Ulric. \"I saw in his face a thing that\nI read better now that we have lost a brave swordsman. Deal thou\ncarefully with these who come. I like not this place where too many\nhave fallen, and where thou sayest the multitudes are to perish in the\nlatter days.\"\n\nDark was the brow of the young jarl, and he went and stood by the open\ntomb and by the body of Sigurd, the son of Thorolf.\n\nOut stepped Ben Ezra into the highway, and he stood there making due\nobeisance and uttering a greeting, when a Roman officer wearing a white\ncloak with a purple border drew rein before him.\n\n\"I am Caius, of Thessalonica,\" said the Roman. \"Who art thou and who\nare these?\"\n\n\"If thou art Caius, thou art well arrived,\" said Ben Ezra. \"Thy\nswordsmen rested here at the command of Julius, the centurion, and I\nhave somewhat to tell----\"\n\n\"These, then, were hired for me by that traitor Hyles?\" suddenly\nexclaimed Caius, in wrath. \"And he sent them on to be murdered by\nJulius? Thou knowest not that Hyles was slain in Samaria yesterday?\nTell all!\"\n\nRapidly spoke the Jew, while other horsemen and four chariots halted\nnear in the highway.\n\nCaius dismounted and walked on to where Ulric stood, and the jarl\ngreeted him, pointing down at Sigurd.\n\n\"So! I have lost a good sword by this Julius,\" exclaimed Caius. \"He\nmeant me to lose all that he might win the games. Are any more of thy\nmen hurt?\"\n\n\"None,\" said Ulric in Latin, \"but this was a chief, a hero, a leader of\nmen. Him we must bury before we march.\"\n\n\"I, too, am a soldier!\" shouted Caius. \"He was a brave man! Bury him\naccording to thy custom. Thinkest thou I am a dog? I, too, will stand\nby. Brave men grow scarce. I would that C\u00e6sar had ten legions of such\nas thou art. The new levies are dwarfs!\"\n\nOut went the hand of Ulric freely, for the man's face had scars on it\nand he was of good stature.\n\n\"I will go with thee,\" he said. \"I am Ulric the Jarl, of the sons of\nOdin. It was promised me that I should have a lion to slay and that I\nshould see Jerusalem. Wilt thou keep faith with me?\"\n\n\"No!\" said Caius. \"I will give thee not to a lion; but thou shalt go\nwhere thou wilt, and then thou shalt see Rome and fight before C\u00e6sar.\nWait till thou hast seen this lion prepared for thy destruction. I am\nnot thine enemy to betray thee to ruin.\"\n\n\"I will wait,\" said Ulric, but he turned and beckoned to the Saxons.\n\nAll came and they took up the body of Sigurd, laying it in the deep\ntomb.\n\n\"Put in stones and earth,\" said Ulric; but Caius, of Thessalonica,\nstepped forward and threw in the first handful.\n\n\"Cunning is he,\" whispered Abbas to Ben Ezra. \"He knoweth men. He is\nwinning these Saxons for himself. There are no men more cunning than\nthe Romans.\"\n\nSlowly filled they the tomb, but Ulric stood at the head, looking down,\nand he said aloud: \"Who shall sing the tomb song of Sigurd, the son of\nThorolf?\"\n\n\"Thou, O jarl,\" said Knud the Bear. \"We have no harp nor any saga\nwoman. Sing thou to the hero and to the gods.\"\n\nSong came upon the soul of Ulric and his lips opened--and it was as if\nHilda were with him, for he sang wonderfully. There were women in the\nchariots and they sat listening to the musical voice of the jarl. The\nlegionaries on the horses sat like statues. The Saxons waited, holding\neach his war horn in his hand, as did the jarl, until the tomb was\nfilled, and they laid a broad stone thereon from a ruined part of the\ntower.\n\nUlric lifted his war horn and all the rest did likewise, answering his\nblast and then shouting. He blew again and he cried out:\n\n\"O Sigurd, son of Thorolf, the sea king, I have done as thou didst bid\nme. Bear thou my messages to the dead. Tell them I come. Keep thou a\nplace for me in Valhalla, in the day when the valkyrias come for me.\"\n\n\"Thou hast bidden farewell to thy comrade,\" said Caius, frankly. \"What\ndoest thou with the corpses of these robbers?\"\n\n\"Let the ravens and the wolves care for that matter,\" said Ulric. \"They\nare not ours.\"\n\n\"It is well,\" said the Roman, for there was pride in the manner of\nthe jarl. \"Such work is for slaves, not for thee. An officer will do\nwhatever is needful. Prepare thee to march for Tiberias. Thou wilt have\ngood quarters, near the amphitheater. No man may molest thee, O chief\nof the Saxons. I like thee well, and I would thy tall comrade were\nliving. Subtle indeed is Julius, the gambler, but he hath obtained only\nthe slaying of robbers, and the qu\u00e6stor will but laugh as at a jest.\"\n\nWell pleased were all the Saxons at the respect shown to them and to\ntheir jarl, but they went and looked curiously at the chariots in the\nhighway. They studied well the wheels and the harness, but most of all\ndid they gaze at the charioteers.\n\n\"Now,\" said Knud the Bear, \"I believe that which was told me, for I\nhave seen black men. I must slay one some day that I may know the color\nof his blood and of his flesh. They have strange hair, also, and they\nwear arm rings of silver and rings in their noses and in their ears.\"\n\n\"Those women are like other women,\" thought Ulric. \"Not yet have I seen\nher who stood by Hilda in my dreams. She is tenfold more beautiful than\nany of these.\"\n\nNevertheless, haste was made, and when the trumpet sounded the march\nthe Saxons were ready for the highway; but it was after the middle\nof the day, and Ben Ezra had all directions for the way. On went\nthe chariots and the horsemen, and then Ulric and his men followed,\nsaluting first the tomb of Sigurd.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER XXIII.\n\n IN A PLACE APART AT NIGHT.\n\n\n\"Halt thou! This is the place provided for thy band.\"\n\nSo said to Ulric the Jarl the Roman soldier who stood in the highway\nbefore the inn.\n\nIt was near the setting of the sun and the Saxons were weary with the\nheat. They were thirsty, likewise, and they were glad of a light red\nwine which was brought to them, but Ulric said to the bringers:\n\n\"For me water only. I fear much the evil spirit that hideth in the wine\nof this land. I think he is mine enemy and that my gods are at war with\nhim.\"\n\nSo he drank only water, but they all went in to the supper which had\nbeen ordered for them by Caius. They talked not much with any, for the\npeople of the inn were afraid of them, and men and women and children\nof the neighborhood who came to gaze did so as those who look but in\nreadiness to run away.\n\nThe place was but a hamlet in Esdraelon, and around it were vineyards\nwith many olive trees and fig trees.\n\nThere was a spirit of unrest upon Ulric, the son of Brander, and his\nsoul was troubled within him. He remained not in the inn after supper,\nbut walked out alone fully armed. He conversed in Latin a brief space\nwith the soldier on duty there, asking him questions, and the answers\ndid not please him.\n\n\"Thou wilt feed the beasts of the circus right well,\" said the\nlegionary scornfully. \"They will be hungry when they are let loose\nupon thee and thine. Thou art no Roman. All barbarians are fit to be\ncrucified.\"\n\nDown into his face looked Ulric the Jarl. \"O Roman,\" he said, \"I am a\nmatch for seven such as thou art. I could lift thee above my head and\ncast thee like a stone from a sling. Well said Caius that these new\nlegions were worthless against the strong in battle. Thou hast no part\nin Thor the Hammerer.\"\n\nThe soldier's face was dark with anger, but the jarl laughed and passed\non, and neither of them knew that Knud the Bear in the door of the inn\nhad been balancing his spear.\n\n\"If he lifteth but a hand against the jarl, I will smite him through!\"\nmuttered Knud. \"The jarl is imprudent. I like it not.\"\n\n\"Lower thy spear,\" said Ben Ezra near him. \"There will be no harm to\nthy chief. Thou art overhasty and thou wilt soon die.\"\n\n\"There will be blood at my dying,\" said Knud. \"I will strike for the\njarl if all the legions of C\u00e6sar should come.\"\n\n\"Wait,\" said Ben Ezra. \"Thou wilt find a better hour to use thy spear.\"\n\n\"So be it,\" replied Knud. \"Thou art old and thou art wise and thou\nhatest Romans.\"\n\nOn walked the jarl, but he was thinking, and the thoughts in his mind\nwere heated.\n\n\"Where am I now?\" he said, but not aloud. \"Where is the good ship _The\nSword_? Where are my companions who sailed with me from the Northland?\nWhere is Asgard? I have seen one god, but when shall I look into\nhis face again? When shall I find the maiden who stood by Hilda? My\nheart is on fire when I think of her. None like her was ever seen in\nthe Northland. O Hilda, canst thou tell me does this thy beautiful\ncompanion dwell among the gods? Then will I go to them that I may greet\nher, for she is mine.\"\n\nOther thoughts came to be uttered, but he spoke them not, and he walked\nonward into the deepening gloom. Very dark it was until the moon arose,\nand he knew not that the Saxons at the inn were inquiring angrily\nconcerning him.\n\n\"What are we if we lose our jarl?\" said Wulf the Skater. \"But for him\nwe had been lost long since. We would have no more help of Odin if our\njarl were taken away.\"\n\nBen Ezra and Abbas pacified them, and Tostig the Red said to the others:\n\n\"There are but few Romans near and they are bound under Caius. What\ndanger to the son of Brander were a drove of these Syrian cattle, even\nif they were armed?\"\n\n\"The son of Thorolf was slain by an arrow shot in the dark,\" said a\nviking, surlily. \"The jarl doeth not well to go among arrows. I would\nsee his face again.\"\n\nMurmurs were many, and they all came out and stood before the inn\nexamining their weapons and tightening their mail.\n\nUlric walked on, but not far, in the brightening moonlight.\n\n\"It is like the North country moon in winter,\" he said, for the air was\nclear and many things could be seen as in the day.\n\nBeyond him arose a hill, such as may be in so great a plain, and on it\nthere were ruins, grass-grown and mossy. In the old time there had been\nhere a castle or a pleasure palace, none could tell which, and some of\nthe stones were large, arising as pillars with stones laid across their\nsummits.\n\n\"Not a temple,\" said Ulric, thoughtfully. \"I hope not. I would not go\ntoo near an abiding place of the dead gods. Oft they come back again to\ntrouble men. So saith Ben Ezra. So saith Abbas. They hate men, for men\nworship them no more.\"\n\nHe walked more slowly, thinking of the gods and of Hilda and of the\nstrangeness that he himself was here without a ship or a strong\ncompany, and not knowing what might be before him on the morrow.\n\n\"I am jarl no more,\" he began to say, but at that moment he was\nsuddenly silenced and he stood still to listen.\n\nNot many paces beyond him was an open space on the summit of the hill\nand around it were fallen pillars, many and great, made of white stone.\nFrom this open there arose a voice and the light of the moon trembled\namong the white pillars.\n\n\"He kneeleth!\" said Ulric to himself. \"Ben Ezra called him the rabbi of\nNazareth. If there be dead gods or evil demons here, he feareth them\nnot, for they know him.\"\n\nNot loudly but with exceeding melody of voice the tongue of the\nkneeling man spoke on, and Ulric said:\n\n\"He singeth not to the dead of this place. It is not a saga of heroes.\nHe asketh many things, that they may be given him. I am glad of the old\nHebrew tongue that I understand him somewhat, but much that he speaketh\nI do not understand.\"\n\nSo he listened more, and the voice went on and the moonlight fell\ngloriously upon the face of him who was kneeling.\n\n\"I have been gone long from the inn,\" said Ulric in his thoughts. \"I\nmust return, but I have learned a thing. He is not alone here, as I\nam. The gods are with him, and he talketh with them as one god may\ntalk to another, as friend to friend, right kindly. He is not at war\nwith them, and one of them is his father. I would it were Odin, for I\nlike this god and I like his asking for these things that he needeth.\nI, too, need many things, but Odin is far away and I know him not very\nwell. The face of a god is very beautiful in the moonlight. He is a\ntall, strong man, a good fighter. But the gods have a strength of their\nown, greater than that of men. They can uproot trees and overturn rocks\nand drive the ice out of the fiords. This god could do a great many\nmighty things. I will have a talk with him some day, and I will ask him\nconcerning Asgard.\"\n\nUlric gazed earnestly at the face of Jesus of Nazareth, but the closed\neyes did not open and the wonderful voice continued its many petitions.\n\n\"I would I might see some of the other gods,\" thought the jarl, \"but to\nremain here is not well. He hath come to this place to be alone with\nhis father and his friends, and no brave warrior would be an intruder\nupon the affairs of others. I will go.\"\n\nHe turned and walked away, but his thoughts were dark and heavy within\nhim.\n\n\"This man is of the sons of Odin,\" he said. \"So am I. Therefore he and\nI are of kin, and I would know more of him. I would ask him concerning\nHilda and my father. If he may thus talk with the gods, my right is\nthe same. But he is more than I, for the evil spirits obey him. He is\nno magician, to be friendly with them, but he was not unkind to the\ndemon whom he sent away. If I were a god, I think I would deal well\nwith demons and make them fight for me.\"\n\nSo he communed with himself, walking, until he was loudly greeted at\nthe door of the inn.\n\n\"O jarl,\" shouted Knud, \"thou art safe! I did not know where to search\nfor thee. It is wrong for thee to leave us in this manner.\"\n\n\"O Knud,\" said Ulric, \"I am not a child. The night is quiet. Let us all\nsleep, for the march on the morrow may be long, under a hot sun.\"\n\nThe others reproved him sharply, but they now were glad to rest, and\nthe night waned.\n\nThere was no sound of trumpet at the sun's rising, but a quaternion of\nlegionaries came and the guard was changed. The officer also brought\norders from Caius that the gladiators should move on toward Galilee.\nAlso a chariot came to carry for them their burdens and their heavier\narms and armor, of which there was too much in weight for those who\nwould march rapidly.\n\n\"This is not a country for bearskins,\" said Knud. \"Even Wulf the Skater\nis willing to take off his mail and his helmet. He never would do that\nthing until this day.\"\n\n\"There is no fighting to be done among these vineyards,\" said Wulf,\n\"and I think this red wine maketh one's blood hot. I am thinking that I\nwould gladly see a tiger.\"\n\n\"There will be nothing in this land greater to contend with than\nwas the white bear slain by Jarl Ulric,\" said Tostig the Red. \"The\nchildren of the ice king were strong ones. I would rejoice in ice and\nsnow at this hour.\"\n\n\"It will be long before thou art frozen, O red one,\" laughed another of\nthe Saxons. \"I am melting, like the ice king.\"\n\n\"Thou wilt make less noise when thou fallest,\" said Tostig. \"But cause\nme not to remember too much the sea and the good ship _The Sword_. Such\nthoughts bring me to hate the land, and I listen for the washing of the\nwaves and for the cries of seabirds. It is not good, for the sea is far\naway.\"\n\nSilence came then and the Saxons walked on along the highway, seeing\nall things as they went, but thinking of the blue waters and of the\nplowing keels and of the North. Ulric strode on in advance, and with\nhim were Abbas and Ben Ezra, telling him many things that he might not\nbe ignorant in his dealings with that which was before him.\n\n\"Caius believeth,\" Ben Ezra told him, \"that thou and thy Saxons were\nengaged for him by his bondsman and purveyor Hyles, who was slain at\nSamaria for cheating him. We will have all care concerning that matter,\nbut Julius feareth Caius of Thessalonica because of his near friendship\nwith this Pontius the Spearman, who is master of Judea and Samaria\nunder C\u00e6sar. Win thou the good will of Caius, for he is a man of rank\nand gaineth power. Only trust not any Roman, for they care not for the\nlife of a barbarian more than of a dog.\"\n\nUlric answered little, but he thought, and spoke it not.\n\n\"These twain are Jews, but one is as a free Northman, a warrior, and\nthe other is as a slave in spirit, fearing the Romans even more than\nhe hateth them. I like not Abbas. He would sell me and mine as if we\nwere cattle. Ben Ezra proveth a true friend and I will abide by his\nsayings. Here cometh a party!\"\n\nLooking along the highway at that moment, he saw chariots and horsemen,\nbut no flag nor any armor.\n\n\"Who are these?\" he asked of Ben Ezra.\n\n\"Let them come nearer,\" said the Jew. \"It is likely they are travelers\nof importance. Halt thy men at the roadside and we will see.\"\n\nAt the word the Saxons halted, leaving the road free, and they were all\nwilling to stand and watch this company that came.\n\nFour chariots there were, but the one which came first was gilded\nand carven and was drawn by four white horses. Over it was a silken\ncanopy, and in it sat three veiled women. Of these two were on a front\nseat, behind the charioteers. He who drove was black and exceedingly\nuncomely, and beside him sat a large brown man bearing a spear and\ngirded with a sword. These were turbaned and their apparel was good,\nbut not upon them did the eyes of Ulric linger. On the back seat of the\nchariot, half reclining, was the third woman, and he said to himself:\n\n\"This is the princess and the others are her servants. I would see a\nprincess of this country.\"\n\nForward he strode three paces, and Knud said to Wulf the Skater:\n\n\"How splendid is the youth of our jarl, with his golden hair and his\nface like that of Odin! There is none other like him!\"\n\n[Illustration: \"O companion of Hilda!\"]\n\n\"Beautiful is he!\" exclaimed Wulf. \"But his face is full of pride\nthis day, and I think he is in anger. Speak not to him.\"\n\n\"The woman lifteth her veil,\" said Tostig, \"and she leaneth forward.\nOdin! She is wonderful! Her headdress is of jewels. Mark the jarl!\"\n\nDark yet fair, with the red of the new rose in her cheeks and with\neyes like the lone stars in a winter night, was the young woman who\nso suddenly leaned forth to look at Ulric. Into his eyes, also, came\nflashing a great light and a smile of joy was on his face.\n\n\"O companion of Hilda!\" he shouted in Hebrew. \"How camest thou hither\nfrom thy place among the gods? I am Ulric the Jarl, and I saw thee when\nI was on the sea.\"\n\nSilent was this beautiful princess for a moment, but she grew pale and\nthen red and she seemed to tremble greatly.\n\n\"O maiden,\" said Ben Ezra, \"whoever thou art, drive on. He will not\nharm thee. He is a prince of the Saxons and thou mayest not have\nconversation with him. He is not for such as thou art, O daughter of\nIsrael.\"\n\n\"Hold thou thy peace!\" came from the maiden, as one of high rank may\nspeak. \"Warrior of the Saxons, come thou nearer. Thou didst not see me,\nfor I was never on any ship. What is thy meaning?\"\n\nAlmost at the side of the chariot was the jarl, gazing into her face,\nbut his voice was as the murmur of a harp in the wind when he replied\nto her.\n\n\"O beautiful one!\" he said. \"Princess of the light and of the morning!\nMore beautiful than are the flowers and the stars! Thy face was where\nthe gods live and I saw thee in my dreams. I will give thee this token\nfrom Ulric, of the sons of the gods.\"\n\nHis hand had passed under the mail of his bosom and the bag of gems was\nthere. Now he drew out his hand and he raised before the eyes of the\nJewish maiden the perfect gem of which Ben Ezra had said that it was\npriceless.\n\n\"He must not give her that,\" whispered Abbas.\n\n\"Hinder him not!\" said Ben Ezra. \"Little thou knowest such as he.\nWert thou to interfere now, thy head were at the roadside before thou\ncouldst breathe twice. Leave it upon thy shoulders, madman!\"\n\nAbbas shrank back, clutching his fingers and scowling, but the Jewish\nmaiden's hand was already grasping the jewel and her lips were smiling\nwith a surpassing sweetness.\n\n\"I am Miriam,\" she said, \"and I dwell in Jerusalem. I shall see thee\nno more. But I give thee a ring for my token. Never have I looked upon\nsuch a face as thine.\"\n\nFrom her hand she took a ring, and in it was a large, pure pearl, very\nbrilliant, and the gold of the ring was yellow and heavy.\n\n\"O Miriam,\" said Ulric, in the deep tones of the harp of Oswald, \"I\nwill wear thy ring, but not in battle. I come soon to Jerusalem, and I\nwill meet thee there, or I will meet thee in Asgard, among the gods,\nand I will take thee to the house of my father, Odin. Thou art fit to\nbe a princess in Asgard.\"\n\nHis face was like the sun, but hers grew white again, and she drew her\nveil over it, for Ben Ezra said to Ulric:\n\n\"Let none hear thee, O jarl. I know not this matter. Thy words may\nbring upon her a peril. Harm her not, but be prudent. Thou art a wise\ncaptain. Let her drive on. Forward, charioteer! On thy life linger\nnot!\"\n\n\"Thou art right!\" shouted back the brown man, nodding his head at Ben\nEzra. \"She is my mistress, but she is willful. On!\"\n\nThe black charioteer slackened the reins of his prancing horses and\nthey sprang forward, but a great cry burst from the lips of Miriam, and\nthe word of Hebrew that was in the sound of it was:\n\n\"Farewell, my beloved! I have seen thee!\"\n\n\"Farewell, O princess!\" but in the voice of Ulric, the son of Brander,\nwas a faintness of strong pain, and he turned upon his heel, bowing his\nhead.\n\n\"Speak not to the jarl!\" said Tostig, grasping the arm of Abbas. \"What\nhast thou to do with an affair of a warrior and a woman? Wert thou to\nmeddle with me in such a case, I would cleave thee to the jaws.\"\n\nBut the chariots all moved swiftly away, and so did the horsemen who\nwere with them, but none of these were soldiers, and in the other\nchariots were but servants and much baggage.\n\n\"The jarl hath marched on,\" said Tostig the Red. \"Follow and trouble\nhim not; for that maiden was wonderfully beautiful and she gave him a\nring of remembrance.\"\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER XXIV.\n\n THE PASSING OF OSWALD.\n\n\nThe Northland under the autumn sun was as the South, with green fields\nand forests and with glowing blooms upon shrubbery and in the hollows\nof the hills. The fiords were shadowy, with a coolness in the breezes\nwhich breathed among them that was pleasant to the wearied fishermen in\nreturning boats.\n\nUpon the high promontory looking seaward at the north of the cove and\nof the village and of the house of Brander there were no pine trees.\nIts bald granite knob glittered in the waning light so that it might be\nseen from far at sea as if it were a beacon. It was not a place for men\nto seek having no errand to lead them, and not many feet had trodden\nupon it since the world was made.\n\nNevertheless, this place was not at the closing of the day unoccupied,\nand from it there came a sound which went out over the wide water,\nand downward that it might mingle with the voices of the fiords, and\nlandward, also, that it might be joined with the soft sighing and low\nwhispering of the forests. Not loud was this sound at the first, but it\ngrew louder, and then with it went forth a voice.\n\n\"I think my strength faileth me,\" said Oswald, the harper, pausing in\nhis song. \"The harp was overheavy to bring up the mountain. I grow\nold and I am alone. Hilda sleepeth in the tomb of Odin's sons, Ulric\nis afar among unknown seas. Am I to die a cow's death before he\nreturneth? Who is there to make the mark of a spear upon my breast,\nlest I fail of Valhalla? I have fought in many a feast of swords. Why\nam I to perish slowly, without honor? Sad is the fate of Oswald if the\nvalkyrias pass him and leave him to die in his bed.\"\n\nOnce more the song arose, but now his voice was stronger and he sang of\nwar to the rocks and to the trees and to the gods among the fiords. The\nold gier-eagle on the withered pine tree northward listened intently,\nnow and then fanning with his wide wings, until the spirit that was in\nthe harping awakened him well. Loud was the scream that he sent back\nto Oswald, and he dropped suddenly from the branch of the pine tree,\nspreading his pinions and floating over the sea in a wide circle,\nrising as he went.\n\n\"He is free to come and to go,\" mourned Oswald, \"but I am bound at home\nand I shall no more ride the war steeds of the open sea nor hear the\nclang of shields nor see the red blood flow. Where is the good ship\n_The Sword_ this day? Where are Ulric the Jarl and his vikings?\"\n\nLow bowed his head and his hands sought fitfully the strings of his\nharp, bringing out the notes of sorrow.\n\n\"I will arise,\" he said, \"and I will go to Hilda's room. I will play\nto her there and see if she will answer me. She hath not spoken to me\nsince her eyes were closed. But she is with the gods and she hath many\nmatters upon her mind. She hath spoken to Brander the Brave and to\njarls and chiefs and kings that were of old. She hath seen Odin, and\nshe hath heard sagas that we hear not until the return of the gods.\"\n\nHe stood erect upon the rock where he had been sitting, and he was not\nweak, for he shouldered his great harp and bore it with ease as he went\ndown the rugged side of the mountain. Many saw him come, and they who\nwere near enough greeted him, but he paused not to speak. He went not\nthrough the village, among the houses, but along the shore, where the\ntide was coming in and where the waves called out to him as he passed.\nHe turned to listen to them, but across the water came no other voice,\nand he shook his head sadly.\n\n\"Here was _The Sword_ launched,\" he said, halting at the head of the\ncove. \"Here was the White Horse of the Saxons sacrificed to Odin. From\nhence the new keel went out behind the outing ice. Hilda of the hundred\nwinters told me that there would be no return. Is it so? Will the young\njarl never again put his foot upon this beach? Or did she speak only of\nthe vessel? Who may know the counsel of the gods! For they speak unto\nall men in riddles and the meaning thereof is hidden from us.\"\n\nHe turned and walked to the house, passing through the great hall,\nbearing his harp, and he went on to the room of Hilda, looking in.\n\n\"It is empty,\" he said. \"No other hath slept therein since she\ndeparted.\"\n\nBare were the walls, and the floor of cloven pine logs lay black,\nuncovered by rushes. One small table only remained, and upon this was\na Roman lamp of bronze, which Brander, the sea king, had brought back\nfrom one of his voyages to Britain. There was oil in it and a wick, for\nsuch had been a bidding of Hilda to one of the older women and to the\nhousemaidens. They feared much to let that lamp go without filling, if\nthe oil dried away; but it had not been lighted, although a wick was in\nit.\n\n\"I will bring fire,\" said Oswald, and he did so, going out and\nreturning. He set the flame of his small torch to the wick and it\nsurprised him, for it would not burn.\n\n\"O Hilda,\" he exclaimed, \"what is this thing that I cannot light thy\nlamp?\"\n\nThere was no spoken answer, but suddenly the wick took the fire and it\nblazed up a handbreadth, as if for a token.\n\n\"Burn thou, then,\" said Oswald. \"I will sing to her.\"\n\nQuickly they who were in the other rooms of the house and in the hall\nheard the sound of harping and the voice of a wonderful song, for it\nwas as a love song sung to the dead, telling her of the living and\nasking her concerning the gods and of all the places of the gods, where\nshe was dwelling. Men and women listened, looking into one another's\nfaces and whispering low, for the song was very beautiful and the harp\nanswered as if it were alive.\n\nJoyously burned the lamp, with a clear golden flame, as the song went\non, but it at last burned lower and lower and there came a red color\ninto the fire.\n\n\"There hath been much blood!\" exclaimed Oswald. \"I would I had been\nwith the jarl in the feast of swords. The battle is ended!\"\n\nFor the lamp went out and the room was very dark, but he sat in the\ngloom by his harp waiting for what might come.\n\n\"Disturb him not,\" said all the household. \"He ever mourneth for Ulric\nand for Hilda.\"\n\nMuch time went by and now and then there came from that room harp\nnotes, one by one, very faint and low, but Oswald was saying to himself:\n\n\"I have heard and I have not heard. All things are a riddle that I\ncannot read. Surely she touched the harp and her face was in the\nshadows. O Hilda, speak to me, for I am lonely! Tell me that thou hast\nnot forgotten thy kindred!\"\n\nThen fell he down upon his face in a deep swoon, and they who went in\nbecause they heard the sound found, also, the harp lying by him with\nits strings broken. They lifted him and carried him away, taking,\nalso, the harp, but when he again began to breathe and opened his eyes\nthe words that he first uttered were in another tongue than that of\nthe Northland. They heard the name of Hilda, but even when he aroused\nhimself and talked with them he told them naught of what things had\noccurred to him in the room of Hilda, the prophetess. For there are\nsecrets in the lives of men wherein other men have no part, and no\nman openeth his hidden heart unwisely. The thoughts of friends whose\nbodies are far apart are often apt to draw near and to walk the earth\nside by side. Oswald, indeed, was sending his heart out after Hilda\nand after Ulric. If the saga woman had in any manner answered him, no\nman knoweth. Nor can any say that the soul of Ulric was nearer to that\nof Oswald because both were thinking of each other and of her who had\ndeparted from them.\n\nSo may the gods look on from their places and see what men see not, and\nthey may often smile, if they are kindly minded, to see men and women\nmeet and embrace without the touching of the bodily flesh.\n\nThree days went by, and because of a request of Oswald's many messages\nhad gone out from house to house and from village to village, up and\ndown the coast and far inland. To everyone it was told that the hour\nwas at hand and that a token of the gods had come to Oswald, but that\nhe was still living. Upon the fourth day all who were entitled to come,\nby reason of kinship or of their high descent, had arrived. Many men\nand many women had gathered, and among them were those who brought\nharps. These sat apart and they spoke to each other in low voices,\ntuning their harps and listening to the sounds which answered them from\nthe strings.\n\n\"The harp of Oswald is broken,\" said one. \"Who shall take it after him?\"\n\n\"No man,\" replied the oldest of them all. \"It is a harp which came from\nthe East, in the ship of a sea king, and he gave it to the father of\nOswald in the days when Hilda was yet unborn. Upon it are strange runes\nthat none may read.\"\n\n\"It shall rest with him in his grave, then,\" said another, \"but Hilda\nsaid that he would need it not in the place to which he hath gone.\"\n\n\"They have both harps and harpers there,\" said the old man,\nthoughtfully. \"I know not the meaning of Hilda's word. So good a harp\nmust find a player, and I think the gods can mend it. We cannot, for we\nhave no strings like these.\"\n\nBefore them lay the great harp upon the floor of the hall, and one\nlifted it, placing it before a chair as if it might be played upon.\nThere were yet three strings remaining, and the old man sat down in the\nchair and put out his hands, touching, also, the strings which were\nbroken. Not from these, assuredly, came the sound which now fell upon\nthe ears of the gathered vikings, but all were silent, for the spirit\nof song was upon this ancient one whom no man knew. Clear was his\nvoice, but thin, and at times it wavered as if with age and weakness,\nbut he sang the departing song of Oswald and of the old time. Strong\nwere his hands also, for as he ceased he gripped with them and these\nthree strings, also, were snapped asunder with loud twanging.\n\n\"Hilda is right!\" he exclaimed. \"The harp of Oswald is dead. It will\nnever sound again. Build ye a fire, high and hot, and burn upon it this\nframe of wood. I go to Oswald's room.\"\n\nRising from his chair, all saw that he was tall and white-bearded, and\nnone detained him while he went to the room of Oswald.\n\n\"Thou art awakened, O Oswald, the harper?\" he asked, as he entered the\nroom.\n\n\"Waiting for thee, old man,\" came hoarsely from the lips of him who lay\nupon the bed. \"Now lift me up that I may stand erect, and put my sword\nin my hand. I will not die a cow's death, and thou art mine enemy,\nhaving full right in this matter.\"\n\n\"We burn thy harp, as Hilda gave thee directions,\" said the old man.\n\"We bury thee in a coffin at the foot of the great stone, thy arms and\nthy armor with thee.\"\n\n\"Also my bag of coins,\" said Oswald, \"and my cup of silver. I know not\nif I may need them. They have drinking horns in Valhalla. Smite me in\nthe breast. Let the spear mark be a deep one that I may be known as a\nwarrior.\"\n\nIn the doorway and within the room stood now chiefs and heroes and\nthey had heard, and they said to the old one, \"Strike him!\"\n\nDeep and kindly was the thrust of the spear that was given to Oswald,\nand he fell to the ground as if he had fallen in battle, so that all\nthe vikings were satisfied.\n\n\"Art thou to be smitten,\" asked a chief of the old man, \"or goest thou\nhence?\"\n\n\"I am to see the earth put upon him,\" said the old man. \"I came far for\nthis thing, from my place below the great south fiord, toward Denmark.\nAsk me not my name lest there be a blood revenge in the mind of some\nfoolish one. Take Oswald to his tomb and smite me there, for we are to\nbe buried together and my harp goeth with me.\"\n\nAll went out of the room and the bearers brought the body of Oswald,\nthe harpers playing and the women also chanting. The ancient one took\nup his harp, which was not very large, and he seemed joyful as he\nwalked with those who went forth to the place of tombs. The grave of\nOswald was deep and by it lay a coffin of cloven pine pieces. In this\nthey laid him, bending his swords and seax and breaking the shaft\nof his spear. His shield and his mail were broken and all were laid\nupon the body. Then one placed the bag of coins and the goblet at the\nhead and a jarl of rank covered all with a slab of pine, throwing in\nhandfuls of earth and many stones.\n\n\"Art thou ready?\" he asked of the old one.\n\n\"Not thy spear,\" he said. \"Strike with thy sword; and let it be a blow\nthrough the heart. As I cease this song to the gods and to the dead I\nwill lay my harp in the tomb. Strike me then.\"\n\nNow his voice failed him not and he sang well, bringing loud music from\nhis harp.\n\n\"I have fought in fourscore of battles!\" he shouted. \"I have sailed in\nall seas! I have spared none in the feasts of swords! I have seen the\nred blood flow from the hearts of many! I die by the hand of a jarl at\nthe grave of my old foeman. O Oswald, I shall be with thee in Valhalla,\nand there will we cross our swords and fight before the gods. Strike,\nthou of the sword!\"\n\nDown dropped his harp upon the coffin of Oswald and the sword of the\njarl passed through him, flashing and returning. Then the ancient one\nlay upon his harp and earth and stones were thrown in until the tomb\nwas filled and heaped. All the while the other harpers harped and sang,\nso that due reverence was given to the passing of Oswald.\n\n\"Will he see Hilda this night?\" asked one of the women. \"I bade him\ngreet her for me.\"\n\n\"They say that one who dieth must walk alone a little distance,\"\nreplied the other woman, \"and then he cometh to a dog; and he shall\nknow then where to seek a house that he may enter.\"\n\n\"I have heard many things,\" said the first speaker, \"but they do not\nagree. I think we know but little certainly. It would be well if one of\nthe dead were to come back and say what he hath seen.\"\n\n\"I would rather hear a saga,\" said yet another of the women. \"I like\nnot the dead. They are cold and they bring ill fortune. Let them stay\nwith the gods.\"\n\nSo said the greater part, but one woman went away muttering to herself.\n\"The dead! The dead!\" she said. \"They are of no use to us after they\nare buried. They care not for us any more. But I would willingly have\nspeech with one of them if he would not be overchurlish. I will go,\nsome night, and watch at the place of tombs. The witches watch at tombs\nand they see wonders. But it was worth seeing, the slaying of the old\none. He was a brave warrior and he died well.\"\n\nThere was a feast that night in the house of Brander the Brave, for his\nkinsmen and his kinswomen entertained their friends joyfully. There\nwas much singing and harping, and the horns and the cups came and went\noften around the tables. They drank deeply to the success of Ulric, the\nson of Brander, and to the voyage of his good ship _The Sword_, and\nto his return in glory from doing great deeds among the fleets of the\nRomans and among the islands and cities of the Middle Sea.\n\n\"The jarl will come again!\" they shouted. \"And here will he tell us of\nthe feasts of swords and of the crashing of ship against ship. Hael to\nJarl Ulric! Hael!\"\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER XXV.\n\n THE MESSENGER OF THE PROCURATOR.\n\n\n\"Not in Samaria this night,\" had Lysias said to himself when he rode\naway upon the swift ass whose ownership might be questioned, \"but there\nare many places by the way wherein a wayfarer may find welcome if he\npayeth.\"\n\nBehind the saddle had been fastened the leathern sack which he had\nbrought with him from _The Sword_. It contained changes of raiment,\nbut little else, for his coins and his jewels, which were not very\nvaluable, were concealed about his person. More than once as he rode on\nhe both thought and spoke concerning Ulric the Jarl and the vikings,\nbut always did he seem well pleased that he was no longer in their\ncompany.\n\n\"The jarl is my sure friend,\" he remarked, \"but some of his tall\ncomrades walk with a hand too near the hilt of a sudden weapon.\"\n\nIt was toward the evening when, after riding through towns and\nvillages, he came to what was evidently a caravansary of good size and\ncleanly keeping at the roadside.\n\n\"Here will I halt,\" he said. \"I am now far escaped from burning wrecks\nand hasty-tempered pirates. I will have this beast of mine well cared\nfor. He showeth no weariness. I think--O ye gods! I know--I am nearer\nmy Sapphira!\"\n\nEre he could dismount, however, before him stood the keeper of the\nhostelry. Such as he are ever ready to greet with smiling faces the\nwell appareled, riding beasts of price. \"He will have money to pay\nwith,\" thought the innkeeper. \"But the land swarmeth with Greeks.\"\n\nLoud and friendly was his greeting, and in a moment more he was made\nto understand that this elegant stranger was Lysias, the student,\nreturning to Jerusalem to the school of Gamaliel from a journey to\nthe Lebanon and to the cities of Galilee. Being a man of Samaria, the\nkeeper was the better pleased that his guest was not a Jew, for of them\nhe spoke with scorn and hatred.\n\n\"O youth,\" he said, as they went into the inn, \"thou art fortunate.\nThou abidest with me this night and on the morrow thy journey will have\ngoodly companionship. There is here a company from Bethsaida and from\nother cities near the sea of Tiberias. They are merchants, and among\nthem are a taxgatherer and one who dealeth in slaves. There is neither\nscribe nor Levite to make thee uncomfortable with his evil speech. May\nthey all perish! It is said that the roads are not entirely safe and\nthe robbers come and go without warning.\"\n\n\"I shall be glad of them,\" said Lysias, \"but I think this village must\nbe safe, for I saw the helmet of a legionary as I rode in.\"\n\n\"Where they are the robbers come not,\" said the keeper, \"but they will\nnot be with thee always on the road.\"\n\nThen walked he away, and Lysias overheard him muttering curses upon all\nRomans and contempt for all Greeks.\n\n\"I think I heard somewhat else,\" thought Lysias, \"and I will look well\nat this company with which I am to journey to Jerusalem. There have\nbeen innkeepers who had no enemies among the robbers and there have\nbeen robbers who paid tribute to all innkeepers. I may not carry a bow,\nbut mine eyes and mine ears may do me good service.\"\n\nVery good was the entertainment given to him and to his comely brown\nbeast, but the departure was early the next morning. Even more in\nnumber than he had expected were these who came out into the road at\nthe door of the inn to go on together.\n\n\"They are of many kinds,\" thought Lysias. \"No twain are alike. I will\nnot have much conversation with them, but I will watch, for I think\nthey know this innkeeper exceedingly well.\"\n\nSo did he, and it was late in the day when he halted upon the summit of\na hill, looking thoughtfully forward and then behind him.\n\n\"O ass,\" he said, \"how fast canst thou gallop if it is to save thy\nmaster's throat from cutting? Thou hast robbers for companions, and\nthey do but await their opportunity, which I have not yet given them by\nthe way.\"\n\nThe ass did but pull at the bit and the rein was loosened that he might\ngo. On the northerly of that hill, however, the company of men\nand animals which had seemed but peaceful at the outset had halted for\na rest before ascending the steep. There were now Jews among them, and\nothers of whose race and lineage there might be curious questioning.\nNow, also, there were weapons to be seen, such as privileged merchants\nmight be allowed to carry for their protection, and no doubt they had\nwith them written authority to show to any Roman officer. At the first\nthere had been but a dozen men and the women who were with them, but\nmore had joined at a hamlet upon this side of the city of Samaria, now\nfar behind them. Of these latter was an exceedingly black-browed man,\nhaving but one eye, and he seemed to be a sort of leader and commander\nover the others. To Lysias he had averred that he was a dealer in\ncattle, having a contract with the purveyors of the Roman garrisons.\nThus far he had purchased no beasts, but he had looked covetously at\nthe fine ass which carried the young Greek. At this hour he was saying\nto another of his crew:\n\n\"To-night, then. He hath treasure with him, and the beast will bear\nme swiftly to the wilderness. We will throw his carcass into the pit\nnear the three palms at the crossroad. None will be the wiser and his\nfriends will in vain make inquiry.\"\n\n\"I will stab him as he sleepeth,\" replied the man spoken to. \"The\nRomans care little if there be one Greek the less. We will speak softly\nto him when we catch up with him. I have seen that he hath no manner of\nunquiet mind as to us.\"\n\nOn went the ass, however, at his swiftest pace, even while they were\ntalking, and a long league of the highway did he pass before the\nintending stabber rode over the crest of that hill.\n\n\"Where is the Greek?\" he exclaimed.\n\n\"Ridden on a little,\" replied the evil-faced captain. \"Pursue not, lest\nthou alarm him. He will wait for us. He liketh well to prove the speed\nof his fine beast.\"\n\nHe had not spoken untruly, for Lysias was gladly discovering for the\nfirst time that he had found a treasure with four legs, a swift and\ntireless runner that took pleasure in a race, needing no urging. Only\nin hamlets and villages, of which there were many, was the rein drawn,\nand wayfarers who greeted the rider received but brief responses.\n\n\"Here am I safe!\" he exclaimed at last, \"for yonder on the hill is a\nfort and near it is a camp of Romans. My thieves are no longer a peril.\nGlad am I, too, that I am so far from the Saxon jarl and his pirates.\nTheir short, sharp blades are ever too near even to each other, and a\nspear in the hand of a Saxon is but an eager hunter seeking for a mark.\nI will rest here, and then I will let this beast shorten the road to\nJerusalem.\"\n\nThey who had proposed to take the swift ass from him had also hastened\nsomewhat until they inquired carefully of one whom they met, describing\nLysias and his bearer.\n\n\"Yea,\" said the man, \"ye mean the hasty messenger. He passed me going\nlike the wind. He who sent the message may be sure of its speedy\ndelivery.\"\n\nLoud and fierce were the utterances of the evil-faced one and his\ncompanions, and they cursed their gods for this disappointment. Also\nthey blamed themselves much that they had not sooner taken courage to\nslay the Greek. It was for this, their cowardice and delay, they said,\nthat the gods had mocked them.\n\n\"Never again,\" said the evil-faced one, \"will I throw away a gift that\nthey have placed in my hand. But they might have allowed me the chance\nI had chosen this night. I have but small confidence in the gods. They\nare treacherous.\"\n\nStrong and well made was the Roman camp at the foot of the hill whereon\nwas the castle. There were intrenchments and a mound and lines of\npalisades, and before these there was drawn up a full cohort of\nlegionaries. It was an evening parade, and along the glittering line\nthere rode without companions an eagle-faced man, who wore no armor.\n\n\"Half drilled!\" he muttered, angrily. \"It is well we are at peace. Of\nwhat good were such as these upon the Parthian frontier? Julius C\u00e6sar\nwould never have beaten the Nervii with these dwarfs to face the stout\nbarbarians. He would but have left them to rot in the wilderness, as\nCrassus did his Syrian levies. But I think I can teach these fellows\nthat they cannot trifle with Pontius the Spearman.\"\n\nBackward and all around the cohort rode the wrathful procurator of\nJudea, addressing no man, and then he wheeled and rode out to the\nhighway.\n\n\"O thou upon the swift ass!\" he suddenly shouted. \"Come hither! I\nrequire thee.\"\n\nBowing low, but answering not, Lysias obeyed him, awaiting further\nspeech.\n\n\"Is thy beast as swift as he seemeth?\" said Pontius. \"I know a good\nbeast. Is he tired?\"\n\n\"Never saw I one as swift,\" said Lysias. \"But at the close of a day he\nwere better for a rest.\"\n\n\"He may have a short one,\" said the Roman general, wisely. \"I prepare a\nmessage that will take thy head with it if it be not delivered rightly.\nI have naught here but clumsy beasts that travel a league a day.\"\n\nThen he turned to summon a servant, to whom he gave direction and with\nwhom Lysias rode into the camp, wondering much at his good fortune at\nsuch an hour.\n\n\"This is of Mercurius,\" he thought. \"I have ever thought well of him,\nand my father was once a priest of his temple at Corinth; the god hath\nnow remembered me. To him I owe my prosperity upon this journey, and he\ndid not favor the thieves as is his wont.\"\n\nThe ass had been hard ridden, but seemed not much the worse for it.\nWater and grain were brought to him, and Lysias, also, ate and drank.\nMore time went by than he had expected before a soldier came to summon\nhim to the camp gate.\n\n\"Saddle and mount!\" said the soldier. \"The hand of the procurator is\nheavy.\"\n\nNo answer might be made except to obey, and shortly the young Greek was\nat the gate.\n\n\"Kill not thy beast, lest thou fail of thy errand,\" said the\neagle-faced commander. \"Take thou this letter to the captain of the\nDamascus gate at Jerusalem. This also, and this. He will further\ndeliver them. Abide thou with him until he give thee answers. Bring\nthem to me.\"\n\nFew and brief had been his questionings of the young Greek, the pupil\nof Gamaliel. He was but a tool, an instrument, intelligent, sufficient,\nsure to serve well because of the scourge or the sword, or of reward.\nSo rule the Romans, and they who receive orders from a Roman general\nhesitate not to obey.\n\nSilently sat Lysias until the procurator ceased speaking and motioned\nwith his hand. Then, as if of his own accord, the ass went forward.\nTherefore Lysias had become a royal messenger, whom all men would be\neager to speed upon his way, for the fear of Pontius went with him.\n\n\"Mercurius!\" he shouted, at a goodly distance from the camp. \"Better\nto me art thou than is Jupiter. Now may Venus, also, be my aid if it\nbe true that my Sapphira was sold into the household of this bloody\none. O that I might send an arrow into his heart and a flame into his\ndwelling! But I will not fail of the due delivery of his messages. Who\nknoweth to what the gods may have destined me? Soon will all the Saxons\nperish and no man then will know the manner of my coming into Syria.\nSapphira! Sapphira! O swift beast! O Venus, goddess of love! Let me go\non to Jerusalem that I may once more look into her eyes and hear her\nvoice and touch her hand. She shall not be for another, but for me, for\nthe gods have favored me greatly!\"\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER XXVI.\n\n THE CUNNING OF JULIUS.\n\n\n\"O Jew, thou hast brought to Tiberias the gladiators of Caius of\nThessalonica! Woe to thee and to thy accursed race! But I have orders\nconcerning thee and these. They will give us fine sport before long.\"\n\nLow bowed Ben Ezra to the Roman officer of the gate and his reverent\nreply came not fully to the ears of Ulric; but the jarl's face flushed\nhaughtily, for he liked neither the speech nor the manner of the\nRoman. The Saxons, also, were watching their jarl and their faces also\nreddened, the hands of men tightening upon the shafts of their spears.\n\n\"He will be prudent,\" they said, \"but we are not slaves, to be trodden\non. As he doeth so will we.\"\n\nUnto him now the officer turned as if he were looking at some newly\ncaught wild beast.\n\n\"O Saxon,\" he said, \"I have heard of thee. Thou didst well by the\nrobbers, but they cost thy Caius of Thessalonica a tall swordsman.\nNow thou art to be made food for a lion. I shall see thee torn in the\ncircus shortly, please the gods.\"\n\nWith an effort did the jarl steady his temper, but there was a deepness\nin his voice:\n\n\"O Roman, I shall be ready for thy lion. But if thou hast anything\nfurther to say thou mayest say it to Caius of Thessalonica. He is a man\nand he will answer thee.\"\n\n\"What care I for him?\" exclaimed the officer.\n\n\"He will answer thee that thing also,\" said the jarl. \"It is between\nthee and him. I have no words with one who openeth and shutteth a gate.\"\n\n\"I will have thee scourged.\"\n\n\"Silence!\" ordered a stern, hard voice behind him. \"Thou forgettest\nthyself, Demetrius, of the gate. The scourging of gladiators is not\nwith thee. O Saxon, thy answer is good. March on to thy quarters.\"\n\n\"O noble Julius, the centurion,\" replied Ulric, \"thy tower was a fair\nabiding place, and thou wert correct in providing it with a garrison.\"\n\nThe face of Julius flushed somewhat, for the jarl spoke to him as one\ncaptain may to another.\n\n\"I have an account of that affair,\" he said. \"Keep thou thy speech to\nthyself. Thou hast but slain a few robbers.\"\n\n\"I have heard of thee,\" said the jarl, \"that thou art thyself a good\nfighter and entitled to the respect of the brave. Thou hast led a\nlegion to victory in a hard battle. Well with thee!\"\n\nThere is vanity in all men, and the anger passed from Julius while the\nhaughty mannered jarl of the Saxons ascribed to him this fame.\n\n\"I have fought more fights than ever thou hast,\" he said. \"But thou art\na seaman. I would put thee upon a ship if I had one.\"\n\n\"I am of the sea kings,\" said Ulric, \"but yonder water is too small for\na great battle. It is but a fishing pond.\"\n\nThe ground upon which they stood was the high and difficult hill which\nariseth behind the city. This, with its palace gardens, was more than\ntwo leagues in circuit if the wall were measured around it from a\npoint on the south shore to a point on the north shore. But part of\nthis distance was of crags crowned with forts, and much of the city\nwas a suburb, having no wall. Within were temples and great buildings,\nand there was an amphitheater near the shore. The Saxons had wondered\nat the beauty and grandeur of this place as they drew near. They had\nmarched by way of small towns and villages, but up to this hour never\nbefore had one of them seen such a city as Tiberias or such a lake as\nGalilee.\n\n\"Speak no more,\" said Ben Ezra, \"but obey him and march on. Our\nquarters are in the lower town, near the circus. He giveth orders to\nthe guards at the gate.\"\n\nForward strode Ulric, followed by his men, and Julius glanced after\nthem. \"Caius hath beaten me,\" he muttered. \"I have none to contend with\nthese. They must be destroyed by tigers and lions. I will not waste an\nelephant upon them.\"\n\nOnce they were within the wall they could obtain from that height a\nfair view of the city, and they halted as one man.\n\n\"O Jew,\" said Tostig the Red, \"is thy Jerusalem larger and better than\nthis?\"\n\n\"An hundredfold!\" exclaimed Ben Ezra. \"This abomination of the heathen\nis but as a handful compared with Zion, the city of Jehovah, God of\nHosts.\"\n\n\"Then, O jarl,\" said Tostig, \"I will not get myself killed until I have\nseen Jerusalem. Manage thou with care, for I think thou wouldst like to\nsee it thyself.\"\n\n\"So will I,\" replied Ulric. \"But I think we shall suffer no harm in\nthis place. I have not seen any strong men yet except some of these\nJews, who do not carry arms. They would make good fighting men.\"\n\nFor he had looked at all whom he met with the eye of a captain, and the\nrabble of that land did not please him.\n\n\"Thou art right,\" said Ben Ezra. \"Thou hast seen men of the tribe of\nZebulun and of the tribe of Naphtali and some of Ephraim and Manasseh.\nThey are swordsmen if they had a king. Ere long our king cometh. But\nthese heathen of Tiberias are fit only to be crushed under the foot\nlike vipers.\"\n\n\"Speak not so loudly,\" said Abbas at his side. \"Remember that thou art\na Jew, and they hate thee.\"\n\n\"O thou of a weak heart!\" exclaimed Ben Ezra. \"When shall a\nmoney-lender be fit to wear a sword! Knowest thou not that I can lead\nthese Saxons through a host of these dogs of the gentiles? The Romans\nare warriors, but the rabble of Tiberias are scorned even by the\nlepers. Let us go on.\"\n\nFierce was the countenance of the Jew as they went down the long\nstreet, for it was broad and on either side of it were temples and\nshrines.\n\n\"Pollution! Abomination!\" he exclaimed. \"O jarl of the Saxons, these\ngods of Tiberias are but of wood and stone, the work of men's hands.\nThis place is cursed because of them.\"\n\n\"I will inquire shortly of what sort they may be,\" said Ulric. \"I grow\ncurious concerning gods. What need of so many? They would all go down\nbefore the hammer of Thor. Where is thy god that he permitteth them to\nbe here?\"\n\n\"This was never a city of my people,\" said Ben Ezra. \"It is a work of\nthe Greeks and the Romans. In Jerusalem thou wilt see only the temple\nof the living god, and of him thou wilt find no image in stone or wood\nor metal. No man hath ever seen his face.\"\n\n\"I like that,\" said Ulric, striding onward. \"There would be harm if the\ngods were seen too often. I will yet look again into the face of one,\nbut I am of their kindred and Odin is my father. Thy god seemeth a good\none.\"\n\nAll the while the other Saxons gazed as they went, saying not much, but\nwondering, and all who met them stepped aside, for their stature was\ngreat and their arms were splendid. The jarl had bidden them prepare\nfor this on the previous day, and Julius and the gate guards had seen\nNorthmen appareled and armored as if they were now marching to a feast\nof swords.\n\nBehind them now came on their baggage chariot, and shortly it was\njoined by horsemen, servants of Caius, sent by him to care for the\nguidance and welfare of his gladiators.\n\nBefore a palace in the main street of the city, well down toward the\nsea, sat upon their horses two horsemen from whom others reined aside\nrespectfully. These were face to face and they had greeted one another\nwith all ceremony.\n\n\"Thy northern wolves have arrived, O Caius,\" said one. \"But thou art\nshort of a tall fighter.\"\n\n\"So art thou robbed of thy robbers, O Julius,\" replied the friend of\nUlric. \"Thy tower was a subtle trap, but it hath not profited thee\ngreatly.\"\n\n\"Ha!\" responded Julius, mockingly. \"Thou hast lost thy best sword. A\nthousand sesterces that my Numidian lion slayeth thy Saxon chief.\"\n\n\"Wagered!\" exclaimed Caius. \"And a thousand sesterces more that thy\nHyrcanian tiger shall also be slain by the man I will name against him.\"\n\n\"I have thee!\" shouted Julius. \"We will write these wagers with care\nand let thy words be recorded with exactness. If either the lion or the\ntiger shall be slain by a Saxon, I lose that wager, but if a Saxon be\novercome by the tiger or the lion, thou losest.\"\n\n\"Thou hast some cunning of thine own in this,\" laughed Caius, \"but thy\nsesterces and mine will be in the keeping of Sempronius, the judge of\nthe games. I will trust him.\"\n\nEach of these carried a tablet of wax and a pointed stylus of steel\nwherewith they wrote, and the words were compared with care, that they\nmight then be written upon parchments, to be held by the judge of the\ngames.\n\n\"What meaneth he?\" thought Caius as he rode away from the gate. \"I will\nsee the Jew, Ben Ezra, as to this matter. There is a trap. I have not\nyet seen the laws of this circus, and Julius knoweth them well.\"\n\nLike an inn, large and well appointed, was the house to which the\nSaxons were guided, near the circus, and they entered it gladly, for\nthey were as men who were walking on into a new world.\n\n\"O Abbas,\" said Ben Ezra, \"come with me to the amphitheater. I would\ninquire there concerning many things.\"\n\n\"Not so,\" replied Abbas. \"Go thou. I have a friend to commune with and\nI go to meet him.\"\n\n\"O jarl of the Saxons,\" said Ben Ezra, as Abbas departed, \"it is well\nthat he goeth not with us. Come! Trust him not. He is overfond of\nmoney. Thou art a soldier. Thou must see thine enemy. Speak not to any\nman, but hear well. Who here knoweth thy gift of tongues? I am thine\ninterpreter, and be thou as if thou wert deaf.\"\n\nUlric did but bow his head in answer to Ben Ezra, but the other Saxons\nknew the errand of their jarl and approved of his going.\n\nA high arch of marble was the gate of the amphitheater, and on one\nside of it, upon the wall, was a broad tablet of wood. Upon this were\ninscribed many things, and both Ben Ezra and the jarl read them.\n\n\"Speak not,\" said the Jew. \"One cometh to lead us to the dens.\"\n\nThrough the portal they went, guided by a soldier of Julius, and he\nseemed pleased to show them all things. First went they across the\narena, and this was a broad place, egg-shaped, with vast tiers of seats\narising upon all sides. Under these tiers were the keeping places,\nand from some of these came cries and roarings of wild beasts and the\nshouts of men.\n\n\"Here are the prisons of criminals and of captured rebels,\" said the\nsoldier as the guard before a door opened it to let them in, \"but thou\nhast little to do with these. They are to slay each other or to be torn\nby beasts. There are trained swordsmen for thee and thine.\"\n\nNevertheless, he and the jarl and the Jew went into more than one of\nthese prisons, looking well at what they found there.\n\n\"Wretches!\" murmured Ulric. \"Some of them hardly seem like men and\nwomen. It is well for such as they are to be slain quickly. The gods\ncare not for these people, and so they are given to the Romans.\"\n\nNot so thought Ben Ezra, for he beat his breast more than once and he\nwhispered to himself in Hebrew:\n\n\"O God of Israel!\" he gasped. \"Here are of thine own chosen people,\nalso, many scores, taken in the snares of the heathen. Where art thou,\nO Jehovah, that thou hearest not? Canst thou not see this city of\npollution, wherein thy name hath not been written? Unclean! Unclean!\nWoe is me that I am here! It is as Sodom and Gomorrah, and thy fire\nlingereth!\"\n\nWhat he meant Ulric understood only in part, but he saw that many of\nthese who were doomed were Jews.\n\n\"They are not warriors,\" he thought, \"except that some of them are tall\nand strong. They must all die and get out of these prisons, but they go\nnot to Valhalla, and I know not where they go. I care not to slay such\npersons.\"\n\nNow the guard led him and his interpreter to the dens of the animals\nand Ulric was displeased that his men were not with him to see.\n\n\"The wolves,\" he said in Saxon, \"are like those of the North. I think\nnot much of the hyenas, nor of the small leopards. The great leopards\nare fierce beasts and so are the bears, but I could meet one of them.\"\n\nThere were four elephants in one den, and he walked around among them,\nwondering at their size and at their peacefulness, while Ben Ezra told\nhim of their intelligence and of their manner of fighting.\n\nThe jarl did but study them thoughtfully, and now a keeper said to Ben\nEzra:\n\n\"It is known by us that this Saxon is to fight the great lion. Come.\"\n\nThe den was near and in it the lion was pacing to and fro.\n\n\"He is almost as large in body as was the ice bear,\" thought Ulric.\n\"He standeth higher and his head is vast. He is a springing beast. He\nis stronger than the one we saw in Africa. I think he would fail if his\nheart were cloven. Now I will see the tiger.\"\n\nNear was his den also, and he, too, walked to and fro, snarling\nfiercely, for he was hungry.\n\n\"O Abbas,\" said the keeper of the beasts to Ben Ezra, mistaking him,\n\"thou art for Julius in this matter. What thinkest thou of thy Saxon?\nIf he can meet a lion, can he fight, also, the tiger? How will he not\nbe rent quickly when both are let loose upon him!\"\n\n\"Silence, thou unwise one!\" said Ben Ezra. \"Is it for thee to let out\nthis tiger?\"\n\n\"That is my care,\" said the keeper. \"I stand in this small box to throw\nopen the door, and the tiger will be famished on the day of the games.\"\n\n\"Mark thou this thine instruction!\" said Ben Ezra. \"Wait thou not! Send\nout thy tiger when thou hearest the trumpet call for the lion. So shall\nJulius win two thousand sesterces. Hold not thy door till the lion be\nslain, lest thou be smitten with a sword. Thy life for it! The beasts\ngo out together.\"\n\nUlric heard and he understood, for a fire flashed in his eyes, but he\nheld his tongue. \"I am to be torn without hope!\" he thought. \"I am\nbetrayed by Abbas, but I know the thing in the mind of Ben Ezra. He\ndoeth cunningly.\"\n\nSo they walked on across the arena, and as they went Ben Ezra stood\nstill.\n\n\"Here,\" he said in Saxon, \"wilt thou halt if thou art wise. Thou wilt\nhave thy mail on, but only thy sword and thy shield.\"\n\n\"I will wear no armor!\" said Ulric. \"I will bear no weights. What were\nmail and shield against these monsters? I will bring with me the long\nsword of Annibaal. Odin be with me! He who fighteth a lion must spring\nas lightly as doth a lion. He who faceth a tiger must move as the\nlightning or he is lost.\"\n\n\"Thou art wise!\" exclaimed the Jew. \"I have seen no warrior like thee.\nVerily I am true to thee. Sharpen thy sword and let thy hand and thy\nheart be strong. I would that Jehovah of Hosts might fight for thee,\nbut thou art a heathen and thou must look to thine own gods, if so be\nthey can do anything in such a case.\"\n\nDark was the face of the Jew, but he said no more, and they went back\nto the house of the gladiators.\n\nEager were all the Saxons to hear the account of their jarl, and he\ntold them many things, but in the gloom of the evening Caius came and\nhe spoke to Tostig the Red.\n\n\"Thou art to meet a black giant with a net and a trident against thy\nsword and shield,\" he said. \"What thinkest thou, O Saxon? Am I safe to\nwager upon thy success?\"\n\nIt was Abbas who interpreted, but the men had already heard much of\nthese nets and tridents and Tostig stood still for a moment.\n\n\"I have not seen this giant, O Roman captain,\" he said. \"May I be\nguided by my own jarl?\"\n\n\"Verily!\" exclaimed Caius. \"Do thou as he will tell thee, and I know\nnot what it is. O jarl, can he win?\"\n\n\"I saw thy giant,\" said Ulric. \"Tostig the Red will slay him for thee.\nMake thy wagers. I would talk with Abbas.\"\n\n\"So do!\" said Caius, for Ben Ezra had beckoned him and he stepped away\na little.\n\n\"What is it?\" asked Abbas of the jarl.\n\n\"Only this,\" said Ulric. \"I have seen the lion of Julius. He is a great\none. Hath he slain many?\"\n\n\"That I know not,\" said Abbas. \"Why askest thou? What matters it to\nthee?\"\n\n\"Little,\" said Ulric, \"but I was curious,\" and he asked him other\nquestions, keeping him while Ben Ezra talked with Caius, getting full\npermission that the jarl should wear arms of his own choosing and not\nthe armor of a Roman soldier.\n\nCaius rode away and many great ones came and went, as they had been\ndoing; for they who were to make wagers willed to see these pirates of\nCaius, as they called them. Not any, it seemed, went away believing\nthat the jarl could face the Numidian, and they declared that Julius\nwould win his wager.\n\nThen the night passed and in the early dawn Ulric, the son of Brander,\nsat apart by himself sharpening the long, beautiful sword on the stone\nwhich Wulf the Skater had brought to him from the North Cape, at the\nend of the world. To him came then Ben Ezra, looking like one whose\nsoul is burdened within him.\n\n\"O jarl,\" he said, \"the great games are set down for the third day\nhence. Wilt thou then be rested after thy journeying?\"\n\n\"Were I to meet the lion this day,\" replied Ulric, \"I am not weary.\nI care more for the training of Tostig the Red in the matter of this\nblack giant. I pray thee procure for me a net and trident that the\nthing he is to do may not be altogether new to him.\"\n\n\"That will I do,\" said Ben Ezra, \"but thou canst not instruct thyself\nconcerning lions.\"\n\nBefore the close of that day the jarl and Tostig were in a room by\nthemselves, but they told not to any man what they did with these\nstrange weapons whereby so many good swordsmen had been destroyed. That\nday, moreover, and the next day and the next the Saxons wandered much\naround the city of Tiberias, for they were permitted to do so freely,\nand all the people wondered at their stature and their armor.\n\n\"What thinkest thou of all these temples?\" asked Wulf the Skater of\nUlric. \"Would it not be well for thee and Tostig to offer sacrifices to\nsome of these gods?\"\n\n\"What good?\" said the jarl. \"I know them not and they know not me. I\nwould sacrifice to Jehovah if he had an altar here, because he is the\ngod of all this land. I heard Jesus of Nazareth praying to him and\ncalling him his father. If Jesus were here I would ask him that Jehovah\nmight be to me instead of Odin, for I think the North gods are far\naway. Caius may sacrifice to his Roman gods if he will, but thou and I\nhave no business with them.\"\n\n\"Thou art wise, O jarl,\" said Wulf. \"I will waste none of my coins upon\nthese priests and temples.\"\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER XXVII.\n\n THE LION AND THE TIGER.\n\n\nSplendid was the appearance of the Saxons on the morning of the great\nday of the games at Tiberias, when they marched around the arena with\nthe jarl at their head, for their arms and armor were bright and their\nbearing was that of warriors accustomed to conquer. They themselves\ngazed, wondering, as they went, at the throngs which crowded the\nrising tiers of seats. Among these were many in gorgeous apparel,\nand the rich women had vied with each other in the colors and shapes\nof their garments and in the gold and jewels of their tiaras and\nother ornaments. There was a place on a lower tier for all the free\ngladiators, and to this the Saxons went after their marching. In it was\na covered stairway going down to the door by which any among them might\nenter a room adjoining the arena to wait for his summons to combat.\nEach company of the trained ones was by itself and they were not too\nnear each other.\n\nJulius and Caius and other great men, with their glittering women, had\na place which was as if it were full of thrones, but in the center of\nthis was one splendid chair in which only a C\u00e6sar or a proconsul might\nat any time presume to sit. It was this day unoccupied, but against\nit leaned the eagle standard of a legion and before it were scattered\nflowers.\n\nThe games began with races, both of footmen and chariots, and in these\nthe multitude were interested greatly, but only they who had wagers\ncared much who might win.\n\nWhen these were over it was time for the shedding of blood, and a band\nof captives were driven in, knowing that their fate had come.\n\n\"I see no swordsmen,\" was in the mind of Ulric. \"Each of these hath a\ndart, but he is naked and so are the women and children.\"\n\nThen uttered he a loud exclamation, for a door under the tiers of seats\nswung open widely and the den behind it vomited wolves famished with\nhunger and thirst.\n\n\"So many!\" said Ulric. \"Where got they so many? This is the cruelty\nof the Romans. I see no sport in this thing. It is but tearing and\nshrieking, for the small darts avail not.\"\n\nNevertheless, many wolves were slain before all the captives were torn\ndown. Men in full armor went out to drive the rest of the beasts back\nto their den, but it was not difficult, for hunger was satiated and a\nwolf might carry with him a torn limb or a fragment of raw flesh.\n\nSwiftly a crowd of bondservants cleansed the arena, and the feast of\nthe wolves had not been long in duration.\n\n\"There cometh now thy giant with the net and trident,\" said Ulric to\nTostig. \"He is very black. He is from Africa. Watch him well, for\nthis thing of his is but a trick of skill. Thou couldst parry that\nthree-pronged spear?\"\n\n\"That can I,\" said Tostig. \"But the net? Let us see what he doeth with\nthat short-legged brown swordsman in mail and helmet.\"\n\nBrave seemed to be the brown warrior, but the net flew over him and\nthe stepped backward, dragging. Then it was but as a flash and\nthe trident was driven deeply through mail and breast.\n\nLoud were the plaudits of the multitude, for the pitiless black had\nseemed to show both skill and strength.\n\nThe next comer was a large man, and Ben Ezra, sitting near Ulric,\nground his teeth.\n\n\"A warrior of Israel, from the Lebanon!\" he exclaimed. \"He will but be\nnetted!\"\n\n\"Watch!\" whispered Ulric to Tostig. \"Thy turn cometh next. Mark how he\nfaileth and remember what I taught thee.\"\n\n\"I see his sleight of hand,\" said Tostig. \"I have beaten harder\nfighters than he is. The Jew is snared!\"\n\nLonger this time had been the contest, for the Jew ran, dodging,\nadvancing, retreating, striking, and it was only by his utmost skill\nthat the huge African at last threw over him the fatal net. Even then\nthe trident was parried oft, but it struck and the brave Jew went down.\n\n\"Now!\" said Ulric to Tostig. \"I go with thee. We will show them a\nthing. Let me see thy seax. It is sharp. It will do. Off with thy\narmor! Take this heavy shield and see that thou cast it well.\"\n\nBare, save a cloth around his loins and a helmet on his head, Tostig\nwent out into the arena, and the multitude shouted loudly, but\nJulius bit his lip. \"Here is something more than the Nubian hath yet\nencountered,\" he muttered. \"I would I might change my wagers. Yonder\nSaxon is an athlete for the Olympian games.\"\n\nWell used were the rabble of Tiberias, however, to see their black\nfavorite net his victims. Neither they nor he expected aught but a sure\nand speedy victory.\n\nFacing each other at twenty cubits' distance were now the two\ncombatants, and on the face of Tostig the Red was a smile.\n\n\"Now do I see more plainly the meaning of the jarl!\" he exclaimed. \"Let\nthis black one but cast his net. Thor and Odin! What a simple trick is\nthis to be slain by!\"\n\nThe black uttered a great cry, laughing, as he strode forward, but\nTostig made no retreat. He did but stamp with one foot, balancing\nhimself, and loosened the exceedingly heavy shield upon his left arm,\nto seize it, also, with his right hand.\n\nThrough the air swept the net of peril, whistling as it went, and\nflying, with a wide hollowing, to fall over Tostig as it had fallen\nover many another. Laughed, also, Tostig, throwing with all his\nstrength, and midway in the air the heavy shield struck into the\nhollow of the net, swinging it suddenly downward, but it fell also\nover the points of the lowered trident, tangling it. Around and under\nthe tangle, not touched by it, went the white and muscular shape of\nthe Saxon and the swift seax went twice into the bosom of the African\njuggler with nets.\n\n\"Thy sesterces, O Julius!\" shouted Caius. \"Thy favorite is gone from\nthee. What thinkest thou of my Saxons?\"\n\nTrue gamester was Julius, for his face changed not its proud serenity.\n\n\"I have but learned how a strong swordsman may overcome the weapons of\nNeptune,\" he responded. \"My lion will bring me back my sesterces.\"\n\n\"Well for thee, O jarl!\" muttered Caius. \"My Saxons have a cunning\ncaptain. He is a man to win battles. I must keep him. But great is his\nperil now. Jove guard him lest I lose many sesterces.\"\n\nThe multitude was hoarse with shouting, and now they grew silent, for\nthey knew by the lists that they were next to see a trained swordsman\ntorn asunder by the unconquerable lion from Numidia, the beast which\nhad slain heroes before C\u00e6sar.\n\nThe trumpet had not yet sounded when Ulric, the son of Brander, went\ndown the stairway to the room below where waited for him the master of\nthe games, and upon this man's face was a bitter smile, for he was a\nservant of Julius.\n\n\"O Saxon,\" he said, \"the edict forbiddeth thee to wear mail. Thou hast\nbut a sword and buckler. The lion weareth no armor.\"\n\n\"Ulric the Jarl,\" exclaimed Wulf the Skater, \"this is a trick for thy\ndestruction!\"\n\n\"Wait thou, true friend,\" said the jarl. \"Trust me yet a little. Odin\nis with me this day, and fear not thou these tricksters.\"\n\nThe master of the games understood not the Saxon tongue, but he read\nwell the fierce eyes of Wulf and he fell back a little, for the\nSkater's hand was on his sword-hilt and the Saxons were known to act\nsuddenly.\n\n\"No helmet!\" said the cunning friend of Julius. \"The lion fighteth\nbareheaded.\"\n\nThe sword of Wulf rattled loosely in the sheath as the helmet was put\naside, but he obeyed a sign from Ulric and drew it not.\n\n\"If the jarl be slain,\" he muttered, \"that dog must die. I will see to\nthis matter.\"\n\nKnud the Bear had come down, but he was silent and his face was dark.\nHe and Wulf turned and went up the stairs and so did the master of the\ngames, well satisfied.\n\n\"Now the long sword!\" said Ulric, throwing aside the short falchion\nprovided for him. \"O but its edge is keen!\"\n\nHe heard the trumpet sound and the door before him opened. Then the\ngreat multitude shouted with admiration and the Saxons themselves\nwondered.\n\n\"He is so beautiful!\" exclaimed Tostig the Red. \"O that we must lose\nhim! What shall we do without our jarl?\"\n\n\"Would that I might die with him!\" groaned Wulf the Skater, but Knud\nwas thoughtful.\n\n\"Do we not know him?\" he said. \"Is he not the son of Odin? Are all our\ngods dead? I think the Nornir are not here and that the valkyrias will\nnot come.\"\n\nA tower of white stood the jarl, with but a silken garment from waist\nto knee, and his golden-curled head was a glory. In his hand was the\nAfrican sword, its bright blade and the jewels of its hilt glittering.\n\n\"It is not the sword I sent him,\" muttered Julius. \"That might have\nbroken in his hand, but this will not. He is like Mars! O Caius, what\nthinkest thou of thy barbarian and of thy sesterces?\"\n\n\"Wilt thou double thy wager?\" asked Caius. \"I am pleased with my Saxon\nlion.\"\n\n\"Nay,\" laughed Julius, \"thou wilt have losses enough. Thou wilt see him\ntorn shortly.\"\n\nFor the trumpet spoke again and the lion sprang out of his cage with a\nroar like distant thunder. The sun rays fell upon his face, however,\nand he lifted his head, blinded for a moment. Then he saw the throng\nand he walked along a few paces, as if willing to spring among the\ntiers of seats, but they were high and he looked again around the\narena. Motionless stood Ulric, watching the lion, and between them\nnow was but half the width of the arena. Men breathed not, but leaned\nforward in their places, and now the eyes of the great beast perceived\nthe jarl and he roared with the roar of hunger and wrath.\n\n\"Now for thy Saxon!\" said Julius to Caius. \"I think his hour hath come.\"\n\n\"O jarl!\" murmured Wulf. \"Is it for this thou didst sail to the Middle\nSea? Where is now thy city of Asgard!\"\n\n\"Hark!\" exclaimed Knud the Bear. \"Another cometh! Here is more\ntreachery! A tiger!\"\n\nNot with a roar, but with a snarl that was dreadful did the Hyrcanian\nmonster rush from his den into the arena. He was more terrible to look\nupon than was even the lion, and he paused not in his going. He seemed\nto rush along the ground, crouching stealthily, and he looked longer\nand larger as he went.\n\n\"The jarl is lost!\" said Tostig the Red. \"O to be near with my spear\nfor one cast. This is twain upon one!\"\n\n\"This was thy bargain,\" said Caius to the cunning Julius. \"Thy tiger\nwas to contend with the swordsman of my naming. I have appointed this\nchief.\"\n\n\"So be it!\" said Julius calmly. \"I accept!\"\n\n\"Wait!\" muttered Ben Ezra to the Saxons. \"The beasts have seen each\nother. Mark now the swift movement of the jarl! The lion is about to\nspring! The tiger! O God of Israel, aid thou, even though he be a\nheathen!\"\n\nThe tiger's rush was rapid and Ulric sprang forward as if to meet him;\nbut the lion was in the air with a vast bound, his black mane streaming\nand his teeth showing in the cavern of his jaws.\n\nNot upon Ulric did he alight, however, for at his spring and roar the\ntiger turned in his tracks as toward one who would wrest from him his\nintended prey. Past both of them darted the jarl as the Numidian fell\nheavily upon the Hyrcanian; then his turning was as the light in its\nquickness and he thrust with his might upon the beasts as they grappled\neach other, rolling upon the ground and tearing.\n\n\"He hath cut off one forepaw of the tiger,\" exclaimed Knud. \"That\nthrust was at the lion. Again! Again! Such roaring was never heard.\"\n\nThe wild beasts tore as they roared and the multitude uttered loud\noutcries, but all of the movements in the arena were untellably rapid,\nnor might they who were watching separate Ulric from his two enemies.\nHe was with them at every spring and turn and roll. The long, keen\nsword dripped blood and the white skin of the son of Odin was spattered\nredly, as if he were sorely wounded.\n\n\"If he be slain at all thou losest,\" said Julius.\n\n\"O friend,\" replied Caius, \"be thou contented. Thou must buy thee\nbetter beasts than these.\"\n\n\"Mark!\" exclaimed Tostig the Red. \"That was a thrust behind the\nshoulder. The tiger falleth undermost. O jarl! Beware now of thy lion!\"\n\nOver the dying tiger stood the huge Numidian, panting and roaring, and\nbefore him stood the jarl, looking him in the eyes.\n\n\"Splendid is he!\" exclaimed Ben Ezra. \"Jehovah of Hosts, be with him\nnow! It is the last.\"\n\nForward went the lion, but not with a bound, and he swerved in his\nrush owing to his many wounds. High in the air and over him, in a leap\nfor life, went the son of Odin, and as his feet touched the earth he\nturned, thrusting swiftly, and he sprang again. Wild were the plaudits\nof the multitude, but the lion was staggering and his roar was muffled.\n\n\"One thrust more,\" muttered Ulric. \"I am sorely spent and I bleed.\nHael, Odin! I have cloven his heart! He dieth!\"\n\nThen turned he and walked steadily to the front of the place of the\ngreat ones, while a vast clamor arose in all the tiers of seats.\n\n\"O Saxon,\" said Caius, \"art thou wounded?\"\n\n\"A scratch or two,\" replied the jarl, cunningly. \"Am I to fight another\nlion this day, or wait I until the morrow?\"\n\n\"O Caius, the sesterces are thine,\" said Julius. \"Thy barbarian hath\nwon for thee. Never saw I the like of this.\"\n\n\"To thy place, O jarl,\" shouted Caius. \"I come to thee quickly. Be thou\nsilent!\"\n\nAway strode Ulric, stepping proudly, but the door of the room he sought\nopened as he came.\n\n\"Enter! Enter!\" shouted Knud the Bear. \"O our beloved, art thou slain?\"\n\n\"Water, quickly!\" said Ulric. \"I would drink. Wash me also. Bind up my\nhurts and put on my mail. Let no man see these tearings in my limbs. I\nshall not die!\"\n\n\"Glory to the God of Israel!\" exclaimed Ben Ezra. \"I am the physician\nfor thy hurts. Bring bandages. These are not to death. I feared for\nthee greatly.\"\n\n\"Nevertheless,\" growled Wulf the Skater, \"I will slay that master of\nthe games. O jarl, if we had lost thee!\"\n\nSo said the other Saxons, crowding down to greet him, but the bandages\nwere made firm, the mail and the helmet were put on, and then out\nacross the arena marched they all, the jarl leading them.\n\n\"Truly he is not slain,\" muttered Julius. \"I have lost my beasts and my\nsesterces!\"\n\nAt the great portal, however, Caius waited with a chariot.\n\n\"Not to thy quarters, O Saxon jarl,\" he said. \"I take thee to Capernaum\nfor thy healing. All thy men will follow now, and a ship waiteth at the\nseaside. Julius must not see how thou art wounded. Wilt thou live?\"\n\n\"He will live,\" said Ben Ezra. \"Speak not now. Harm was done by claws,\nbut more by a paw stroke on the head. But for that he had slain them\nsooner, and he was torn only while he was fallen. A hard battle, O\nCaius of Thessalonica.\"\n\n\"He and his have beaten Julius for me,\" said Caius. \"They shall fight\nno more save at Jerusalem and at Rome.\"\n\n\"May we tarry long enough to offer sacrifices to the gods of this\nplace?\" asked Knud. \"I would leave them in good humor. It is well to be\non good terms with the gods.\"\n\n\"What sayest he?\" asked Caius of Ben Ezra, but Ulric himself responded:\n\n\"Peace with thy gods, O Knud. Let alone. I saw when I was under the\ntiger's paw. I thought at first of the valkyrias, but they came not.\nThe gods of this place we will leave here. They are nothing to us.\nCome!\"\n\n\"So be it!\" said Knud. \"I meant only to deal prudently. Thou art our\njarl. We will come.\"\n\nThey lifted Ulric into the chariot, Ben Ezra and Knud and Tostig\nentering with him, and the other Saxons followed, led by Wulf the\nSkater. With them now was Abbas, and he said to Ben Ezra:\n\n\"The keeper of the tiger's cage hath lost his head for letting him out\ntoo soon, and the master of the games lieth slain under the tiers, no\nman knoweth by whose hand.\"\n\n\"They who butcher many,\" said Ben Ezra, \"do well to avoid knives. The\nman with all other men for enemies dieth speedily.\"\n\nBut Wulf the Skater smiled joyously and he said to Lars, the son of\nBeolf, at his side:\n\n\"The Jew is a wise one; but beware thou of Abbas, lest he sell thee.\"\n\nLars looked at the spear in his hand and at Abbas, and he answered not.\n\n\"We have our jarl!\" laughed Wulf as they went forward, and quickly they\nwere at the shore of the Sea of Galilee, and they saw a galley, like\na pleasure boat, rowing rapidly nearer to the place where the chariot\nhalted.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER XXVIII.\n\n THE JARL AND THE RABBI.\n\n\nSoftly and easily may a wounded man be borne along upon cushions over\nsmooth water under a silken canopy. There was no further fatigue for\nthe jarl, the victor, that day, and before its close he lay upon a\ncouch in a room of one of the seaside palaces. All men went out from\nhim save Caius.\n\n\"O jarl, my friend,\" he said, \"I must leave thee. Gain thou thy\nstrength as rapidly as thou mayest. Thy Jew, Ben Ezra, telleth me that\nhe may not tarry here.\"\n\n\"He is not any more needed while I lie thus,\" said the jarl. \"I would\nsee him. If thou art willing, he may go.\"\n\n\"I consent,\" said Caius. \"Thou art interpreter enough for thy men. I\nwill send him to thee, but now I must return to Tiberias, for I have\nmuch upon my hands. May all the gods give thee a speedy recovery, and I\npromise thee that thou shalt yet fight before C\u00e6sar himself. Thou art\nworthy!\"\n\nSo saying, the centurion departed, and in a moment more Ben Ezra came\nand sat down sadly by the side of Ulric.\n\n\"Thou goest from me?\" asked the jarl.\n\n\"Hardly of mine own will,\" replied Ben Ezra, \"but I must go to\nJerusalem, and I will return to thee if thou comest not soon to me. I\ncommit thee to the keeping of Jehovah, my god. Abbas goeth also, and\nthere will be one double tongue the less in Galilee. Fare thee well. I\nhave done for thee what I could.\"\n\n\"O Jew, I thank thee,\" said the jarl. \"Come thou again to me and I will\never welcome thee as if thou wert of my kindred.\"\n\nLittle more did they say, for the jarl was in fever and in pain and the\nhour was late. Ben Ezra departed, but at the door of the room stood\nTostig, spear in hand, although this palace was a place of peace.\n\n\"O Tostig,\" said Ben Ezra. \"I go away for a season. Guard thee well\nyour jarl!\"\n\n\"That will we, O Jew,\" said Tostig. \"There will be swords and spears\naround him by day and night. Whither goest thou?\"\n\n\"To Jerusalem,\" said Ben Ezra, \"and I think I may have somewhat to do\nthere for thy jarl. I love him much. I come again shortly.\"\n\n\"The gods go with thee,\" said Tostig. \"I think thee a brave warrior.\nArt thou sure that the jarl healeth of these hurts?\"\n\n\"No man knoweth surely,\" said Ben Ezra, \"but see ye to it that he hath\nquiet.\"\n\n\"We will care for that,\" said Tostig. \"I have been sore wounded myself,\nand while the cuts were knitting I would fain have cleft the head of\nany who came near me.\"\n\nSo Ben Ezra departed from Tiberias, taking with him Abbas, and the\npalace of the friend of Caius by the Sea of Galilee contained now only\nthe servants of its owner and these who were called the gladiators of\nCaius of Thessalonica. For these there was sufficient occupation of\nmind at the first, for many came to gaze at them, and men of rank,\nalso, were interested, but none might ask undue questions of men whose\nspeech was unknown and whose behavior was silent and haughty. To them,\nalso, not only were all buildings new to be examined, but there were\nfruits and wines and strange ways of living to become accustomed to.\nBoats were there, to be used at any time, and the Saxons talked much\nof the fiords and fishing of their own land while they were amusing\nthemselves upon the Sea of Galilee. Over it did they go from end to end\nthat they might look upon all things upon its shores, and they wondered\nmuch that one small sea should contain such abundance of fishes and\nhave so many towns and cities builded beside it, as if there were no\nother place for the cities of this marvelous land. Few days went by in\nthis manner, but there were other affairs than those of the Saxons.\n\nEver is it true that the cunning, who believe their ways to be\nhidden, are sometimes read as are books in strange tongues read by\nthose who are learned in difficult runes. Julius, the centurion, the\nchief commander of the Roman forces in Galilee, had other hopes and\nambitions than the winning of sesterces in gambling, and he had other\ncunnings besides his tricks of the circus. At this time Herod, tetrarch\nof Galilee and loving to be called a king, was plotting to gain for\nhimself the entire realm which had been ruled by his cruel father,\nHerod the Great. To this end he might require the removal by C\u00e6sar of\nPontius the Spearman from being procurator, and the destruction of\nhis own brother, Herod Antipas, tetrarch of the lands northward of\nGalilee. If, therefore, Herod of Mach\u00e6rus and Julius, the centurion,\nwere working together against the procurator, then the near friend of\nPontius was as a spy and an enemy in their camp. Nevertheless, Caius\nof Thessalonica had been received in Tiberias with all the welcoming\ndue to an exceedingly distinguished visitor, an honored friend.\nNot that Herod was here to meet him at this time, for the tetrarch\npreferred the safekeeping of his Black Castle, Mach\u00e6rus, on the\neasterly side of the Sea of Death, which hath no waves and whereon the\nseabirds die.\n\nCaius, the centurion, walked one evening alone by the shore of the Lake\nof Galilee, and he communed deeply with himself.\n\n\"Thus far Jove hath been with me. I have escaped the treachery of both\nthe wolf Julius and the foxes, the Herods. I do now know that Herod\nAntipas refuseth to join them, to his ruin. Why linger I here, where\nI am not safe for an hour but for the swords of my Saxon gladiators?\nI trust their jarl, for they are his more than mine. He mendeth but\nslowly from the tiger's clawing. I would he were able to ride even in\na chariot, for my errand here is done. Unless he were with me I could\ndo little with his barbarians. Abbas is a traitor, ready for a buyer,\nand I believe him already bought. Ben Ezra--he is a Jew, and every Jew\nhateth every Roman, with good cause. I am glad he hath departed. The\nbarbarians are not so, for they are but gladiators, and this Jarl Ulric\nis not as a common man. I may trust him.\"\n\nSo spoke with himself the grim centurion, the near friend of Pontius\nthe Spearman, considering the affairs of princes and of kingdoms. He\nwalked on, thinking deeply, and ere long he was at the palace by the\nseashore. A legionary stood guard at the portal, but no Saxons were to\nbe seen.\n\nIf one had walked with these at this hour, he would have been at a\nplace from which might be seen the walls of Capernaum. Along the beach\nwere boats and sailing vessels, larger and smaller, and out upon the\nsea were many fishermen. At the water side were some who spread out a\nnet to dry, but above them, on the high ground, had gathered rapidly a\nmingled concourse of people. Said one of the net dryers to another:\n\n\"The rabbi of Nazareth is there. He healeth the people. Only John is\nwith him. We ought not to be here. Let us go to him.\"\n\n\"Did he not bid us go a-fishing?\" replied another. \"We have caught\nmany. It is enough. Let us go.\"\n\nSo left they their net and went up the bank, and as they went they\nheard the voice of the rabbi preaching to the multitude. They listened,\nhastening, and they spoke no more to each other. All utterances were\nstilled save the wonderful voice of the preacher, the music of the\nwaves upon the beach, and the low, painful mutterings of one man who\nhobbled along upon crutches as if to join the gathering.\n\n\"O that I am to be maimed!\" he said. \"I, Ulric, the son of Brander!\nThat I shall no more walk firmly! The tendons and the muscles of my\nlimbs refuse to heal, as if the tiger's claws were poisonous. What\nthinkest thou, Wulf the Skater? Shall we not go on and see this man?\"\n\n\"Thou art faint, O jarl,\" said Wulf. \"It is not well that thou hast\nwalked so far. I fear thou wilt but cure the more slowly. One goeth by\nus! Look at him! Hear him! He is a leper!\"\n\n\"Unclean! Unclean! Unclean!\" a hoarse and croaking sound came to their\nears from the ulcered, shriveled lips of him at whom Wulf pointed.\n\nBehind him were four who carried a sick one in a litter, but they held\nback, not overtaking the leper.\n\n\"Come!\" said Ulric. \"I would look into the face of this god once more.\nWe may hear another of the demons. I have much curiosity concerning\nthem. Put thy arm around me and aid me on.\"\n\n\"Woe is me, son of Brander,\" moaned Wulf, but his strong arm went\naround the waist of his jarl and they walked along.\n\n\"Unclean! Unclean! Unclean!\" the terrible voice repeated, but on the\nbrow of a little knoll the rabbi of Nazareth stood and ceased not his\npreaching.\n\nAll around him were men and women, the old and the young, but these\nstepped suddenly away, as if in fear, while the leper came toward them.\n\n\"He hath no right!\" exclaimed one.\n\n\"Touch him not! Breathe not his breath,\" said another, \"lest thou\nbecome leprous!\"\n\nDown knelt the leper, but the rabbi ceased speaking and looked upon him\nkindly.\n\n\"What wilt thou?\" he asked.\n\n\"That I might be clean,\" gasped the leper.\n\n\"Be thou clean!\" said Jesus.\n\n\"O jarl!\" exclaimed Wulf. \"What is this? He standeth erect! He is\nstrengthening! Would almost that thou wert a Jew, for their god is a\nstrong healer.\"\n\n\"Come!\" said Ulric. \"He hath cured this leper. I will have speech with\nhim. Nearer! I walk more easily. My hurts cease to pain as they did.\nO Wulf, aid me strongly, that I may get to him. Pass me on! I breathe\nmore freely! I strengthen! I fail not! Fear thou not for me that this\nshall do me harm!\"\n\n[Illustration: \"O thou Jesus, of the sons of the gods!\"]\n\n\"O jarl!\" said Wulf. \"This is but a sudden strength that cometh to\nthee. Afterward thou wilt fall!\"\n\n\"On! On!\" exclaimed the jarl. \"I have somewhat to say that I had\nforgotten. I must speak!\"\n\nNear were they now, and the rabbi of Nazareth again ceased speaking as\nhe looked upon the white face of the jarl, but the crutches of Ulric\nhad fallen from his hands and the arm of Wulf seemed still to uphold\nhim.\n\n\"O thou Jesus, of the sons of the gods,\" said the jarl. \"Sigurd, the\nson of Thorolf, hath fallen in battle with robbers, many of whom he\nslew. He bade me that I should see thee again and bring thee his\ngreeting.\"\n\n\"O rabbi of the Jews!\" exclaimed Wulf the Skater, earnestly, \"it is\nUlric, the son of Brander the Brave, of the Northland. His gods are not\nthy gods, for he is a son of Odin, whom thou knowest not. But he is our\njarl and we love him. We pray thee that thou wilt ask of thy god for\nhim that his hurts may be healed and that he may become strong to lead\nus, for we are but as lost children without him.\"\n\nAs yet Jesus answered not, but the jarl stood firmly upon his feet\nand stepped one step nearer, Wulf stepping with him, but of the other\nSaxons was none with them.\n\n\"O rabbi,\" said Ulric, \"I was torn by wild beasts in the arena of\nTiberias. I slew both the lion and the tiger, while they were tearing\neach other. And now I shall be no more a warrior, for my sword\nfalleth from my hand.\" As he spoke he held out the hand which had\nbeen so strong, and which was now so weak, and it was touched by the\noutstretched hand of this rabbi of Nazareth.\n\n\"Go, thou,\" he said. \"Be thou healed. And remember thou that which\nthou hast this day seen and heard. Speak not again now.\"\n\nWulf the Skater took up the crutches, but the jarl put them away,\nsaying:\n\n\"Hath he not bidden us to go our way? Shall we not now do as he hath\nsaid? Come! I walk as if I had not been torn. He is a god!\"\n\n\"O jarl,\" whispered Wulf, trembling, \"what meaneth he? I understand him\nnot. And what is this strange thing which hath come upon thee, as if\nthou wert a Jew? I think his god is a good god and very strong.\"\n\nBut both he and Ulric stepped backward and the rabbi and the man who\nwas leprous stood face to face.\n\n\"Silence, Wulf the Skater!\" whispered Ulric. \"The god hath spoken to me\nas to this one. I have looked into his face. What he hath said I know\nnot, but I go to Caius quickly. Where thou art commanded well do thou\nobey lest evil befall thee.\"\n\n\"Clean! Clean!\" sprang from the lips of the healed leper. \"Hallelujah!\nI glorify the god of Abraham. This man is a great rabbi!\"\n\n\"He is of the sons of the gods, thou stupid one!\" said Ulric. \"I am\nhealed. Who but a god can cure the scratch of a lion or a tiger? He is\nas Odin, and I think they are friends, and that Odin bade him heal me.\nI will fight for him when he gathereth his army. O Wulf the Skater,\ncome! My arm telleth me that I could cast a spear. O thou of Nazareth,\nthank thy father for me, for thou wilt see him before I do. When I am\nslain I shall go to Asgard and I will meet him there, and I hope to\nmeet thee. Also, in thine hour, thou shalt be my captain.\"\n\n\"Go now!\" said Jesus, turning to a sick one.\n\n\"He meaneth he will send for thee,\" said Wulf, walking on at the side\nof Ulric. \"But we need more Saxons for his army if he is to overcome\nthe Roman legionaries. He would do well to gather the sea kings and all\nthe men of the fiords and of the forests. Even from Denmark and the\nislands we might bring to him good fighters. How well could a captain\nkeep his army if he might heal all who were but hurt, losing only the\nheroes for whom the valkyrias had come.\"\n\n\"I walk more strongly!\" said Ulric. \"I would be where I may look at\nmyself, for the marks were deep and they ran as sores. We will go with\nCaius to Jerusalem. I think it well for us that we guard him.\"\n\n\"O jarl,\" said Wulf, \"a friend is a friend, but a Roman valueth a Saxon\nonly for his sword and for his spear. I have thought, indeed, that he\nmight yet give one of us a chance to kill this Julius. I shall not be\nfully contented until I have seen his blood upon a blade of steel.\"\n\nAs a man in a dream walked Ulric, the son of Brander. With him, looking\nat him as they went, walked Wulf the Skater, and now other men drew\nnear.\n\n\"How is it with the jarl?\" asked Knud the Bear. \"He hath no crutches\nthis day.\"\n\n\"He walketh strongly,\" said Tostig the Red. \"His face is ruddy and his\neye is bright. Thou hast been with him, O Wulf; what is this?\"\n\n\"The son of Odin hath had speech with this god of the Jews,\" slowly\nresponded Wulf. \"I myself asked for his healing, but the sons of the\ngods are not like other men. Hold ye your peace, for the jarl was\nbidden to tell no man.\"\n\n\"Let him alone, then,\" said Tostig. \"It is enough that he walketh so\nwell. But yonder is the centurion, Julius, talking with Caius.\"\n\n\"I am to slay him yet,\" said Wulf. \"Watch ye, for we belong to Caius.\"\n\nEnough of Saxon knew their master to gather that saying, and it pleased\nhim well, for he turned and saw blue eyes that flashed a little, and\ndark eyes that seemed to ask his bidding.\n\n\"There is truth in these Saxons!\" he said to himself. \"Were I to\ncommand the death of Julius, he were dead this hour.\"\n\nBut at that moment the voice of Julius rose in a sound of chiding.\n\n\"O Caius,\" he said, \"I did indeed pay my wagers, as became me, but thy\nSaxon died and the payment should be restored to me. If the lion and\nthe tiger slew him, the wager is void.\"\n\n\"Justly spoken, O my friend,\" replied Caius; \"but knowest thou this\nman, or is he dead?\"\n\nThen turned Julius, wondering, for before him stood the son of Brander\nsmiling in a mockery, and saying:\n\n\"Hael to thee, O Julius, the captain! Hast thou any wild beasts with\nthee this day? I am Ulric the Jarl!\"\n\nProud and strong he stood, with the sunlight upon his golden curls and\nthe strength of a hero showing in his movements, but the centurions,\nboth of them, stared at him as if they were in amazement.\n\n\"Thou art not dead?\" said Julius.\n\n\"O jarl, let him take thy hand,\" said Caius. \"Let him be sure of thee\nthat thou art well.\"\n\n\"O Caius,\" said his enemy, \"thy swordsman liveth. I have been\nmisinformed. But how were his wounds that they have healed?\"\n\n\"Scratches!\" said Caius. \"I have care for my gladiators after a fight\nthat they may be ready again. Hast thou any to put against him for a\nthousand sesterces, man for man?\"\n\n\"That have not I!\" exclaimed Julius, looking hard at Ulric. \"He hath\ncost me enough!\"\n\nThen, also, for he was cunning, he understood the looks of the other\nSaxons, closing around the jarl lovingly, and he ground his teeth,\nfor the thought in his mind was: \"They would slay half a cohort of my\ndwarfs. They would slay me, if Caius bade them. I would I had such a\nbodyguard that knew nothing but mine own will.\"\n\nSo thought Caius in his mind, silently, but he said aloud:\n\n\"O Julius, now the games are ended, and my mission to thee from Pontius\nis fulfilled, I will set out on the morrow for Jerusalem. The winter is\nhere. What sayest thou?\"\n\n\"The gods go with thee!\" said Julius. \"Also, if thou art wise, take\nwith thee thy swordsmen. Thou wilt be safe by the way.\"\n\nSo he and Caius walked on by themselves toward the palace and the\nSaxons gathered gladly around their jarl, feeling of his wounds that\nwere healed and wondering greatly at his meeting with this son of the\nunseen god of the Jews.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER XXIX.\n\n BEAUTIFUL AS APHRODITE.\n\n\nAt the Damascus gate of the city of Jerusalem halted a weary-seeming\nass, upon whose back was a dusty and travel-worn rider.\n\n\"Wonderful indeed is the grandeur of this city,\" he had said, as his\njaded beast toiled up the road from the bridge over the Kidron. \"I\nwould willingly have paused longer upon the Mount of Olives, but the\nlash of the procurator is close behind all who ride upon his errands.\nSomewhere in this city of the temple is my Sapphira even now, but how\nshall she be made to know that I am here? Not now, but I will climb\nover all barriers, even these great walls and forts, until I find her.\"\n\nAt the gate was a Roman guard, and to the sentinel on post rode Lysias,\nsaying:\n\n\"O guard! From the procurator to the captain of the gate! In haste! I\nam Lysias, a messenger, with a token in writing. I may not dismount\nuntil he cometh.\"\n\nThe soldier saluted ceremoniously the name and authority of the\nprocurator, but he stirred not from his place. He did but shout loudly,\nand an officer came forth, to whom the Greek repeated his utterances.\n\n\"Sit thou in thy saddle,\" said the officer. \"I may not touch that which\nis in thy keeping. But the centurion cometh shortly--the captain to\nwhom thou art commanded to make thy delivery.\"\n\nNo word spoke Lysias to the important man when he came, but the\nsubofficer made the announcement and the parcel from Pontius the\nSpearman was placed in the right hands.\n\n\"O messenger,\" he said, \"dismount. Thy beast is worn out. So art thou.\nHe will be kept for thee in the stables of the procurator. Thou, too,\nwilt have refreshment. Rest thee and be ready when thy return message\nshall be prepared.\"\n\nHere ended for the present the dangerous responsibilities of Lysias,\nbut in no manner had he yet escaped from the grip which had been put\nupon him. The lodgings to which he was speedily conducted were as a\njail of secure detention and from them he might not think of going\nforth, lest evil should befall him. He might but eat and sleep while\nhis next duties were in course of preparation. Nevertheless rest was\nsweet, and his dreams were free to wander where they would, seeking a\nfair face and welcoming eyes which might not now be far away.\n\nEarly upon the morrow he was summoned to come forth, and he was led to\nthe Damascus gate without having had speech with any save with soldiers\nwho were as his jailers. Here a saddled horse of Arabia awaited him and\nalso a high official, whom he knew not, and the captain of the gate,\nwhom he had already seen.\n\n\"Hear thou with care, O messenger,\" said the latter, sternly, handing\nto him sealed parchments. \"This first to the procurator, from me. These\nfrom the high priest and from the captain of the temple. I give thee,\nalso, a spoken message, which may not be written, for thee to deliver\nand then to forget; for thou art of the household of the procurator,\nand he trusteth thee. Were another to hear these words, lost were his\nhead and thine. Slain is the secret messenger of Herod, and he went\nnot to C\u00e6sar. Caius of Thessalonica is in Galilee watching Julius, the\nsubtle, who plotteth, also, with Herod and with Herod Antipas. Caius\nmay die there, or ere he returneth, but he is trustworthy. Well were it\nthat the procurator should now leave his inspection of the garrisons\nand of Samaria until a better day and that he should now return to\nJerusalem. Go!\"\n\nWords in reply or questioning might not be spoken. Lysias sprang upon\nthe Arabian horse, the letters being hidden in his bosom. Away he rode\ndown into the valley of the Kidron, thinking within himself: \"Great is\nthe peril to him who carrieth the secrets of rulers. Sure is my death\nif I do not this errand well, and yet the very doing of it may bring a\nsword upon me. And now I am indeed of the household of Pontius, wherein\nis hidden my Sapphira. Surely Venus and Juno are with me, and Mercurius\nhimself hath given me this fleet stallion to ride. He goeth like the\nwind.\"\n\nThe remainder of that day went by, and the night also came and went.\nNot any did the messenger have speech with but seemed ready to speed\nhim and glad to see him go from them, as if in having met him might\nbide a future peril. It was only in the forenoon of the next day,\nhowever, that his Arabian steed was halted in the middle of the\nnorthward highway, and before him in a gilded chariot sat Pontius, the\nprocurator, reading slowly and thoughtfully the letters delivered to\nhim by the Greek.\n\n\"Thou hast done well,\" he said. \"Thou art a speedy messenger. Was there\naught else?\"\n\n\"Here are ears near thee, most noble Pontius,\" replied Lysias. \"I pray\nthee bid me be prudent.\"\n\nDown from the chariot sprang the procurator with a fierce flush upon\nhis face.\n\n\"Dismount thee! Come!\" he said. \"Back, all! I would have speech with\nthis man.\"\n\nNot far behind the chariot, but not as if they belonged to the same\ncompany, rode two men upon asses, of whom one said to the other:\n\n\"A messenger, O Ben Ezra. There may be tidings of importance. What\nsayest thou?\"\n\n\"Silence! O Abbas,\" replied the other, \"thus far our god hath\nbefriended us upon our way. Trifle not with the business of the great\nlest the sword seek thee. Thou art overcurious. Let it suffice that we\nare permitted to travel under guard of the procurator's horsemen.\"\n\nAt the roadside now stood he and the Greek and none dared approach\nthem, for the spear of Pontius was in his hand and his brow was dark.\n\"Speak with care!\" he said to Lysias. \"Forget not!\"\n\n\"Thus said the captain of the gate,\" replied Lysias, \"and a centurion\nwho stood by him and who gave me this cornelian for a token, telling me\nnot his name----\"\n\n\"Cornelius of C\u00e6sarea!\" muttered Pontius, but the Greek spoke on,\nuttering exactly the words which had been given him.\n\n\"It is well,\" he said. \"I have word of Caius that he is wise and that\nhis Saxon swordsmen are his bodyguard. More than one secret messenger\nhath been slain, saith Ben Ezra, the bringer of tidings from Galilee.\nTrust him, but not the Jew Abbas who is with him, for he is of Julius.\nI come to Jerusalem quickly. I will give thee a fresh horse in the\nmorning and thou wilt again return, but thou wilt wait for me in mine\nown house. Go, now, and speak to these Jews, questioning them. What\nthey say thou wilt tell me. It is well that thou wilt be in the school\nof Gamaliel and also in the service of the procurator, but let no man\nknow of more than of the school.\"\n\nThe strong man is often in desire of a willing servitor, and it pleased\nPontius that the eyes of the Greek brightened with delight. His lips\nparted also, but the word \"Sapphira\" that was upon them was not uttered\naloud.\n\nThe ruler turned and walked away to his chariot and Lysias remounted\nhis weary horse.\n\n\"I must be cunning with these Jews,\" he thought; \"and in one of them is\nmy deadly peril.\"\n\nThe train passed on and they were riding at his side.\n\n\"Who art thou?\" he asked of Ben Ezra.\n\nThere was no sign of recognition in the face of his former comrade upon\nthe good ship _The Sword_.\n\n\"I am a Jew of Spain,\" he responded, \"and my name is Ben Ezra. I go to\nfulfill a vow in the temple of Jehovah at Jerusalem. Who art thou?\"\n\n\"I am a Greek of Alexandria, named Lysias,\" was replied as cunningly.\n\"I am of the household of the procurator, but I am also a student in\nthe school of the great Gamaliel. Thou doest well to perform thy vows.\nI am now bidden to be with thee. And who is this man?\"\n\n\"I am Abbas of Jerusalem,\" he said for himself, bowing low to one who\nseemed to be trusted by Pontius the Spearman. \"I am a merchant and I\nhave had dealings with the procurator.\"\n\n\"O Abbas,\" said Lysias, \"many have heard of thee. Thou art a lender of\nmoney and thou art hard in thy dealings. Why dost thou pretend that\nthou knowest me not? Hast thou not seen me many times in the markets? I\nthink that thou art never seen in the schools. Tell me, how was it with\nthat trouble of thine that thou didst have before the magistrate? Didst\nthou escape with no more harm than a fine?\"\n\n\"Nay! Nay!\" exclaimed Abbas. \"Speak not too much of that matter. The\njudge compelled that unjust person to pay me my dues and he was cast\ninto prison. I exact no more than my right.\"\n\n\"Thou art, then, a rare money-lender,\" said Lysias; but the cunning of\nthe Greek had succeeded and Abbas was ready thenceforth to say to any\ninquirer that he knew this man well.\n\n\"O youth,\" he said, \"I will talk with thee further concerning certain\nmatters when we may have opportunity. Be not thou too much influenced\nby what thou hearest. Is there any news?\"\n\n\"Tell us what things have occurred,\" added Ben Ezra, \"for we have been\nin Galilee. I journeyed thither as interpreter for the Saxon gladiators\nof Caius, the centurion, of Thessalonica. In his service am I to this\nday.\"\n\n\"A good man and highly honored,\" said Lysias. \"He is a friend of the\nprocurator.\"\n\nSo they rode on conversing, but in Greek. Nor was it difficult as they\nwent for Ben Ezra, even aided by Abbas unwittingly, to inform Lysias\ncompletely concerning the doings of the Saxons.\n\n\"The procurator,\" he said, \"calleth the gladiators of Caius his own.\nThou wilt soon meet them and I will make thee acquainted with them.\"\n\n\"I will gladly have speech with such strange ones,\" said Lysias, \"but\nthe scholars of Gamaliel may not meddle much with the circus.\"\n\nEre long as they rode he and Ben Ezra were able to be out of hearing of\nAbbas and the others, but the speech of the Jew was brief.\n\n\"O Greek,\" he said, \"if thou art imprudent in this matter, for thee is\nnot the scourge, but the sword.\"\n\n\"And for thee crucifixion,\" said Lysias. \"Fear not for me. Thou art as\nI am, and we are one with the jarl and his company.\"\n\nThe place of the procurator's abiding was at hand. It was an ancient\npalace, which was also a fort, and they who occupied it were of high\ndegree. Of them the two Jews and Lysias might see or know but little,\nbut they had quarters assigned them. In the morning orders came to\nLysias only, and he was quickly in the saddle with a message for\nCornelius, the centurion. If he found him not at Jerusalem, he was to\nride on after him, even to C\u00e6sarea.\n\n\"O to be in the procurator's house!\" thought Lysias, \"for she will be\nthere and I shall see her.\"\n\nEven as he rode away from the palace gate, however, bright eyes were\nupon him from a window above and a young girl said in a low, musical\nvoice:\n\n\"O Lysias! Lysias! Do I not know that he is in search of me? Woe to\nhim and woe to me if he should find me! What is this which is come? Am\nI not happy as I am? Surely I do love him. He is very beautiful. He\nloveth me. But what have I, the favorite of the wife of Pontius, to do\nwith him? What have I to do with a love that I lost so long ago and\nthat is gone? It were but a sharp peril now. If I meet him, I can but\ntell him that I am no longer his. He is but a swift messenger of the\nprocurator; a fellow to ride horses and to be scourged if he rideth not\nspeedily. I am one to dwell in palaces, wearing gay apparel and jewels\nand having the favors of the great.\"\n\nFull of pride was her fair face as she spoke, and in it was a scorn\nfor any who were lowly. To her the apparel of her servitude was more\nworth than was the love of a youth who had been robbed of his patrimony\nand whose rank was lost. She sat at the window watching him as he rode\naway, and she sighed deeply.\n\n\"Yes,\" she said, \"I love him, and it is pleasant to love. He is a good\nhorseman. So are all my Roman lovers. What is he compared with a Roman?\nEven the Jews, if they are rich and of power, are better than a poor\nGreek boy, fit only for errands.\"\n\nShe arose and walked away, but a mirror was near and she gazed long at\nher reflection, admiring it greatly.\n\n\"I am as beautiful as Aphrodite, they tell me,\" she said. \"I will\nsacrifice to her this day, and to Juno. There are no gods upon whom\nLysias may call for great gifts. He can bring them no rich offerings,\nwhile I can have oxen slain before the altar. Aye, and I have had\nmen sent to prison and to the arena if they offended me. I sent that\nfoolish Jew girl to the lions at Jerusalem. I taught her better than to\ninterfere with me.\"\n\nHer red lips tightened cruelly, and her eyes were terrible and her\nmovements were lithe as those of a young panther as she walked on along\na corridor. But Lysias galloping northward was alone upon the highway,\nand he shouted aloud:\n\n\"Sapphira! Sapphira! My beautiful one! My beloved! I am drawing nearer\nto thee! Thou art dearer than life and I believe thou art true to thy\nlover. I will find thee yet, and I will look into thine eyes and I will\ntouch thy hand and I will tell thee all that is in my heart.\"\n\nStrong is love and wonderful are its follies and its treacheries, for\neven then his Sapphira sank upon a couch in her own room sighing and\nmurmuring in a low voice:\n\n\"Lysias! Lysias! My beloved! If I have any other lovers I will name\nthem Lysias in my mind, for I do love thee, and love is pleasant.\"\n\nThe procurator made no great haste that morning, although he prepared\nfor journeying. He had many affairs and his messengers came and went,\nand it might be seen that he was a thoughtful governor, attending to\nall who came, only that he sent out some edicts which were full of\nblood and vengeance.\n\nNot long was it before he stood in a private place with Ben Ezra\nquestioning.\n\n\"O Jew,\" he said, \"now thou hast told me how Julius plotted to destroy\nthe Saxon guards of Caius, thou hast told me enough. But for this tall\njarl of thine and his pirates I should never again meet my friend. He\nmay give them to me and I will not waste them in the arena. I know of\na place to which I may send a good sword and where I may not send a\nlegionary.\"\n\nLow bowed the Jew and the unspoken word in his heart was bitter.\n\n\"Do I not know thee?\" he thought. \"Thou treacherous one! Thou wilt send\na Saxon to do a deed, and when it is done for thee thou wilt slay him\nand clear thyself. This is the cunning of the Romans. I will beware of\nthee and thy errands, but I care little for my own neck. O that the\nMessiah, the Prince of Judah, were even now smiting thee and thine from\nthe earth! He cometh soon, I think.\"\n\nSo, bowing as became his station, but guarding well his face and\nletting his eyelids fall over any glitter that might betray him, Ben\nEzra went out of the palace and was joined by Abbas.\n\n\"O my friend,\" said Abbas, \"why linger we?\"\n\n\"We may not linger,\" said Ben Ezra. \"We depart, but thou wilt travel\nalone. I have commands from the procurator. See to it that thou art\nquickly in Jerusalem.\"\n\n\"Whither goest thou?\" asked Abbas.\n\n\"Art thou mad?\" said Ben Ezra. \"Or dost thou know but little of\nPontius? Keep thy questions to thyself and tarry thou not, for I think\nthou hast a spot on thy name. Beware lest it turn into red on thy\ngarments.\"\n\nVery pale was Abbas, but his face was that of a fox with a wolf for his\nfather.\n\n\"O Ben Ezra,\" he said, \"thy counsel is good. But be thou careful of\nthine own head. I can tell much concerning thee.\"\n\n\"In the day that thou chatterest unwisely,\" said Ben Ezra, \"thou wilt\nspread thy arms upon a piece of wood and thou wilt hear the sound of\nhammers. Then thou wilt be set up at a wayside for men to mock thee.\nThe Romans hesitate but little concerning such as thou art.\"\n\nGhastly was now the face of Abbas.\n\n\"O my friend!\" he exclaimed, \"I meant no evil! I will be true to thee!\"\n\n\"Thou wilt remember this thy warning!\" said Ben Ezra, sternly. \"Thou\nwilt not sin against thine own life. If thou shalt at any time err, it\nis no fault of mine. Thy blood is upon thine own head.\"\n\nThey parted one from another, and then came to pass a strange thing,\nfor a servitor led Ben Ezra to the armory of the palace. Here he\nremained but briefly, and when he came out he was armed from head to\nfoot in the panoply allotted to the Jewish servants of the temple under\nits Roman captain. So arrayed he might ride as if he were a Roman\nunder the sure protection of the procurator. A horse was ready for him\nand he mounted, riding to the palace gate. At this place was now the\nprocurator in his chariot.\n\n\"Go thou speedily as thou hast said,\" commanded the procurator. \"Be not\noverhasty, but prudent. If it prove as thou tellest me, well with thee.\"\n\n\"On my head be it,\" said Ben Ezra, and he rode away northward.\n\n\"I have purchased him with a price,\" he said to himself, \"but I will\ndeal truly with the jarl. If some of his treasure and some of mine must\nbe paid as tribute to this Roman governor, all that remaineth--and\nit will be enough for us--will be kept for our own uses. Now for the\ncavern in Carmel, and the journey will be neither long nor unsafe for a\nman traveling with the seal of Pontius.\"\n\nAs for the procurator in his chariot, he, too, had a thought upon his\nmind, and it made his face brighten.\n\n\"The gold is well,\" he thought, \"but the jewels! There is naught else\nfor which C\u00e6sar hath so great a lust. I care little for such things. Of\nwhat value are bright stones except that they will sometimes buy more\nthan will gold or silver? Let the Jew bring his gems and with them I\nwill defeat Herod and Julius.\"\n\nFar on along the southward highway rode Abbas, having a pack beast\nwith him and two fellow-travelers. The Jerusalem road through Judea\nwas accounted safe unless one rode alone or unarmed. Still was his\nface turned backward now and then as that of one who feareth lest he\nmay be followed, for the words of Ben Ezra had been severe, and Abbas\nknew that he who uttered them had been much in conversation with the\nprocurator.\n\n\"He is deep as a well!\" he thought. \"Can he know anything of my\ndealings with Herod? Even now I must go to the ford of the Jordan and\nto Mach\u00e6rus before I go to Jerusalem. Alas! The Black Castle! How many\nhave entered it who never were seen again! Well is it set so near to\nthe Sea of Death! I am a Jew! I hurt not my own people! But it is\nrighteous to profit by the dissensions of the heathen. If Herod and his\nbrother Antipas and this Pontius the Spearman were to slay one another,\nwhat harm to the children of Abraham? Ben Ezra doeth not well to keep\nfaith with a Roman or an Edomite. They have defiled even the temple of\nthe Most High.\"\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER XXX.\n\n THE JAVELIN OF HEROD.\n\n\nThe Saxons and their jarl in the palace by the Sea of Galilee were now\nmore impatiently awaiting the orders of Caius of Thessalonica. It was\nat the close of a day that he came to have speech with Ulric, the son\nof Brander, and to wonder again at his swift healing. He examined the\nscars, touching them, and asking many things concerning this learned\nrabbi of Nazareth and of his marvelous cures, for these were things\nwhich no reasonable man might easily believe.\n\n\"Thou hast thy strength again,\" he said at last. \"Never have I\nthought much concerning the gods, but I shall deem it prudent to make\nsacrifices to such as I think may aid me. I have never found them\nprofitable. Take now thy weapons and walk out along the shore with me,\nfor I am restless. I linger here too long on thy account. Come!\"\n\n\"I shall delay thee no longer, O noble Caius,\" said the jarl, \"but well\nam I assured that thou doest well to wear mail and to have thy good\nsword at thy side. Put on thy helmet.\"\n\n\"So do thou,\" said Caius. \"But what said to thee the Jew, thy\ninterpreter? Was it aught more important than thou hast told me?\"\n\n\"Not so,\" said Ulric, \"but the keeper of the tiger's den told much\nunwittingly. The beasts were prepared to win more than sesterces. Had\nI been slain, and Tostig, thou wouldst now have less perfect guarding.\nI will tell thee, O Caius: I like thee well and I am jarl; not another\nwill my men obey. I think thee a good fighter, and such as I am agree\nnot well with cowards or with those who deal in subtleties.\"\n\n\"O jarl,\" said Caius, \"speak not of Julius, the centurion, as if he\nwere a coward, but he is exceedingly deep in his counsels. There is\nmore than thou knowest in this matter. Thou mayest yet have a chance to\nuse thy long, sharp sword again.\"\n\n\"That might please me well,\" said the jarl. \"I like not to leave a\nblade too long in the sheath lest it might rust. But glad am I as we\nwalk to feel no more any hindrance from the work of the tearing claws.\"\n\n\"Well with thee, O jarl!\" exclaimed Caius. \"And now look without\nlooking and mark well without seeming to mark. Seest thou the men in\narmor who have landed from yonder boat at the shore? They walk not\noverrapidly, but they aim to come between us and the palace. Canst thou\nread a riddle?\"\n\n\"I had noted them already,\" said the jarl. \"Men have told me that the\nother shore of this Sea of Galilee belongeth to Herod Antipas, the\nbrother of the Herod who ruleth here under C\u00e6sar. I have heard that men\nwho are hated by the Herods die at distances. But thinkest thou that\neither of them would dare to send a sword against a Roman, and such as\nthou art?\"\n\n\"Consider, O jarl,\" said Caius, calmly. \"Who then would know concerning\nthe sword or him who sent it if thou and I were slain upon this beach\nand our bodies conveyed in yonder boat to be sunken in the sea? Would\nnot the thing be well hidden if the doers of it were shortly also slain\nby Herod Antipas or by his brother, whichever sent them?\"\n\n\"Great would be the inquiry,\" said Ulric.\n\n\"Thou art young!\" said Caius. \"C\u00e6sar might demand my blood of him of\nMach\u00e6rus, in whose land we are, or even of this Julius. What if Antipas\nthus plotted harm to both of them? He could strike them no deeper stab\nthan this! Thy spear, Saxon! O for my shield! I was imprudent!\"\n\n\"Take mine!\" said Ulric, casting his spear. \"I need it not. There are\nnow but four. Ha! A javelin! I caught it! Out with thy sword!\"\n\nEven while talking had they permitted the five men from the boat to\ndraw much nearer and as if unobserved. Sudden and fierce had then begun\nthis assailing. The javelin had been well aimed, but the quick sword of\nthe jarl had parried it. These were men of war who were coming and they\nhad deemed themselves sure of victory, for one had said:\n\n\"On! With him is no one but his tiger-torn gladiator. He hardly may\nstand erect. The centurion is at our mercy. End him!\"\n\n\"Use well the shield,\" said Ulric. \"Thou art thyself a good swordsman.\"\n\nNow he who seemed the leader of these murderers drew back astonished to\nsee how this Saxon, whom he deemed crippled, sprang toward him with a\nwar cry. He was no match for such a one, and his next comrade, turning\naffrighted to see him fall, left his own neck unguarded against the\nsword of Caius. What then were the two who remained against two mighty\nmen of valor?\n\nIll advised had been he who had sent them upon this errand, for the\njarl laughed exultingly to find how well his strength had come back to\nhim.\n\n\"O noble Caius!\" he shouted. \"Thou art a good swordsman. They are all\ndown. But these fellows are Jews. How is this?\"\n\n\"None the less are they from Antipas,\" said Caius. \"I can read his\ncunning. He will say they are but robbers from the rebel bands beyond\nthe Jordan. Therefore I may bring no accusation against him. But I\nthink thou art enough for five such as these. Well is it for me that\nthou art healed. Now will I send word to Julius, and his servants may\nhave the care of this carrion.\"\n\nUlric was silent, looking down upon the slain. \"Jews?\" he said. \"I\nthink now that they are not so, but they are like them. What is thy\nthought, O Caius?\"\n\n\"Samaritans!\" suddenly exclaimed the centurion after a closer\nexamination. \"Not from Antipas. Here is a deeper treachery. These are\nfrom the elder Herod, the fox of Galilee. O jarl, haste! To the palace!\nWe will make ready for our journey. But know thou that our road to\nJerusalem passeth through Samaria, whence these came. Verily I have a\nnew tale to tell the procurator.\"\n\n\"And I have a new thought concerning the keeping of thy life,\" said\nUlric. \"But there will be more than one round shield with thee in\nSamaria. A man needeth to have many eyes in this land.\"\n\nAt that moment, while they still gazed down at the dark yet pallid\nfaces of the dead, they heard near them shouts of angry chiding, but\nthe tongue was not the tongue of that country.\n\n\"O jarl!\" shouted Lars, the son of Beolf, \"we saw thee afar! We came\nin haste! What doest thou here with thy sword in thy hand--thou that\nwert torn by the Roman tiger?\"\n\n\"Woe to thee, O jarl!\" shouted another. \"Thy men should have been with\nthee!\"\n\n\"O Caius,\" exclaimed Tostig the Red, \"thou didst fight for our jarl?\nThen will we fight for thee. Thou hast made good friends this day.\"\n\nSufficiently well did Caius understand Tostig and the others who now\ncame running to see how it might be with the son of Brander, and it\npleased him greatly.\n\n\"I may now depend upon these wolves of the North,\" he thought, \"and\nsore may be my need of such as they who think not but strike, knowing\nonly a friend and a foe and taking no account of numbers against them.\"\n\nThe jarl explained the matter and he seemed to be forgiven, but he and\nthe centurion returned to the palace surrounded by spears ready for the\ncasting.\n\n\"It is well, O jarl,\" said Caius. \"Let all be ready to depart upon the\nmorrow; but I may not go in unseemly haste as in fear.\"\n\n\"Thou wilt go as becometh thee,\" said Ulric. \"He who fleeth unduly from\na sword loseth the regard of brave men. We will be ready.\"\n\nNevertheless, Caius of Thessalonica rode swiftly to the house of Julius\nat Tiberias and was himself the bringer of this tidings.\n\nJulius listened to him in a white wrath. \"O thou, my friend!\" he\nshouted. \"Seest thou not that this thing is aimed at me as much as at\nthee? If thou hadst thus been slain, it had been my utter ruin. Woe to\nthese Herods! They shall both fall by the sword of C\u00e6sar. The gods be\nwith thy Saxons. Thou needest them. Commend me unto Pontius and say to\nhim that thou and I are henceforth one in all these matters. The Herods\nnow seek to stab him also. Let him guard well his head.\"\n\nSo talked they long together in a nearness which they had not known\nbefore, finding themselves in the same peril from the serpents which\nbite in the dark.\n\nFrom the gate of Tiberias on the morrow went out a company worth the\nseeing. Not without armed Roman escort and many bondservants might the\nchariots of so important a man as Caius of Thessalonica set forth.\nWhen to all these were added the vikings, in their best armor and well\nmounted, it was as if a small army had been ordered southward. To the\nplace of parting and of farewell came, also, Julius and many men of\nnote to do all honor to the friend of the procurator.\n\n\"O Caius,\" said Julius, \"I already have a swift messenger from Antipas.\nHe hath sent his horsemen to search the hills beyond the sea and\nTarich\u00e6a. They will ride with all diligence, and beyond doubt they will\nfind some to slay, but thy shield must be nearer to thee than is the\nJordan.\"\n\n\"It will be very near,\" said Caius, smiling, for near him rode Tostig\nthe Red watching all keenly, and his spear was in his hand.\n\nThis, too, saw Julius, and he laughed.\n\n\"O my friend,\" he said, \"it is even so. Fare thee well; but they who\ncome to meet thee should have due warning, for thy protectors are no\nrespecters of persons.\"\n\nAll then rode on, and the Saxons talked much among themselves\nconcerning the things which they had already seen in this land. They\nhad visited all towns and villages around the sea, but none of them\nwere more splendid than Tiberias.\n\n\"I would have visited Capernaum,\" said Ulric.\n\n\"There is no great thing there,\" said Tostig the Red. \"What hadst thou\nin thy mind?\"\n\n\"Only this,\" said the jarl: \"that this son of the old god of the Jews,\nthis rabbi of Nazareth, dwelleth there at times. I owe him thanks and\ngifts for my healing. Also I have it in mind to ask him questions\nconcerning my father, and Hilda, and Valhalla, and Asgard. Hilda I have\nnot seen but in my dream on _The Sword_.\"\n\n\"One was with her, I heard thee say when thou didst meet her. It was\nwell to give her thy ring. I would have done so. But what would this\ngod of the Jews know concerning thy maiden? The gods care not for such\nthings. She was fair to look upon. But, O Ulric the Jarl, I would I\nwere on the sea again!\"\n\nSo said all the vikings many times, but they told the jarl that not in\nany of their goings to Capernaum had they seen Jesus, the rabbi. They\nhad heard of him, that he was away in other places, here and there,\nteaching and preaching and healing many and casting out evil spirits.\n\n\"It is good that he so doeth,\" said Lars, the son of Beolf, \"and that\nhe healed the tiger scratches upon the jarl, but what good is it for\nhim to sing sagas to these people of no account?\"\n\nThere was none to answer him, for even Ulric himself was silent.\nNevertheless, the son of Brander had many thoughts which he did not\nutter and he forgot not any of the words which he had heard spoken by\nthis one who had healed his hurts.\n\n\"I understand them not,\" he said to himself. \"He bade us think of the\ngods, and that I do. Even now I am seeking their city and that I may\nget acquainted with my kindred. How shall I do so completely before\nI am slain? And he who dieth a cow's death, so say the sagas, shall\nnot enter Valhalla, but shall find his place in Hel. I would join the\nheroes of the old time and dwell with Thor and Odin. I think I shall\nknow more after I have seen the city Jerusalem, which Ben Ezra saith is\nlike Asgard. At all events I will sacrifice horses and oxen and sheep\nin the temple of Jehovah as if he were Odin himself, for he is the\nchief god of this wonderful land.\"\n\nMore and more wonderful indeed did it seem to the Saxons as they rode\nonward all that day, for it swarmed with inhabitants and the villages\nand towns were many in number.\n\nIt was at the gate of Jezreel that their company halted, at the setting\nof the sun, and Ulric sat upon his horse looking toward Carmel. Behind\nthe city arose Gilboa, wooded and craggy. Before it stretched Esdraelon.\n\n\"O Wulf the Skater,\" said the jarl, \"do you bear in mind the things\nwhich were said of this city and plain by Ben Ezra and Abbas?\"\n\n\"More was said to thee than to others,\" replied Wulf. \"It is a city of\nsieges and a plain of many battles. I can see the blue ridge of Carmel\nand beyond is the Middle Sea. I would I might see waves this hour and\nsmell the salt air. This is a woeful land, where never is good ice or\ndeep snow. We go on into the winter and we may yet see a snow squall if\nwe are fortunate. But Knud will need no bearskins and Wulf will need no\nskates--and I sicken when I think of such a winter.\"\n\n\"The great battle of the end of the world and the twilight of the\ngods!\" exclaimed Ulric. \"O ye! If Ben Ezra's Jewish sagas lie not, here\nshall we witness the greatest of all the feasts of swords. Here shall\nwe have for our jarl a god, the son of a god, and there will be gods\nand heroes to fight with. I, the son of Odin, will be here! Hael, Odin!\"\n\n\"I will be with thee, then,\" said Knud, \"but if it is soon to come, it\nwere better for some of us to go back to the Northland and return with\nmany keels full of men like ourselves. This god will need Saxons if\nhe is to fight Romans. These Jews will go down like wheat before the\nsickle, for I have been looking at them and at the legionaries.\"\n\n\"Thou art right!\" exclaimed Tostig the Red. \"But there is room on\nthis plain for great armies to meet. They will come from many places,\nAbbas told me, and among them will also be black and yellow men, and\nthere will be great beasts, and the eagles that are wide-winged, and\ncreatures whereof he could not tell me the shape. They may be like the\none we saw come up from under the ice to tear the whales, only that\nsuch as he do not come out upon the land.\"\n\n\"No man knoweth from whence these will come,\" said Knud, \"but some of\nthem are as great serpents with wings. I like not to think of them, for\nthey are full of fire and sulphur, and who can fight well in a smoke\nthat choketh him?\"\n\nAfter this they entered the city of Jezreel, and they wondered greatly\nat the strength of its walls and towers, but they saw not many soldiers.\n\n\"The land is at peace,\" thought Ulric, \"and garrisons may be small. I\nam learning something of war cunning from these Romans. What they take\nthey will hold until a stronger people shall come against them. I know\nof no such people except in the Northlands.\"\n\nYet another thought was in the mind of the jarl, and his eyes wandered\nanxiously wherever he went. In all towns and villages and whenever\ncompanies had been met by the way he had seemed to be searching, and a\nsadness of disappointment was growing upon his face.\n\n\"I heard her say she would see me at Jerusalem,\" he told himself, \"but\nnow the time is long. She may have come hitherward. Of these damsels\nwhom I have seen as I came many are fair to look upon, but none are\nas beautiful as Miriam. Cannot Hilda lead me to her? Shall I indeed\nnot see Miriam until I meet her in Asgard? I would that Caius were in\ngreater haste. We travel slowly.\"\n\nIf he had looked upon fair faces inquiringly with his sad blue eyes,\nalso had all the Saxons laughed to one another quietly to note how many\nwomen put aside their veils a little to turn for another look at the\nface of the jarl.\n\n\"Never before have these seen any like him,\" they said. \"They will not\nsee him again, and he careth not for women save for the one to whom he\ngave a token. He will forever keep his troth with the dark one, the\nbeautiful one, in whose hand he put the ring of the bright red stone as\nwe came through Esdraelon.\"\n\nGood welcome was given to Caius of Thessalonica and his company by the\ngovernor of Jezreel, but the vikings went to their quarters listlessly,\nfor they had all looked across the plain toward Carmel, and the thought\nwithin them was that beyond Carmel was the sea and that upon the sea\nwere ships.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER XXXI.\n\n THE PLACES OF SACRIFICE.\n\n\nQuestions which are asked by the heart of a man may go far. It is as if\nthey were winged and flew on to a chosen place of alighting, as do the\nmessenger doves carrying letters homeward. One of the birds set free\nby the ever-beating heart of Ulric the Jarl found a wonderful resting\nplace.\n\nIt was in a house in a great city, and upon all the earth was nothing\nmore magnificent than this house of houses. Upon the top of a high\nmount in the city was a vast space girded with white walls and towers,\nso that of this whole area was made a fortress of surpassing strength.\nWithin these walls were great buildings not a few and porticos and\nseparated courts for varied uses.\n\nThere was one building which was greater than any of the others,\nand to this as to a center all the many structures related; for\nthe arrangement and the architecture were everywhere exceedingly\nharmonious and convenient. To this greatest building there were several\napproaches, but the main entrance was by an ample ascent of broad stone\nsteps. Beyond the level at the head of this stairway were mighty doors\nwhose surfaces were covered with beaten gold and many designs of golden\nornamentation.\n\nWithin the doors, if one might enter--for here stood ever armed\nguards--they who went on might see yet more splendors of carven\nstonework, whereof some of the stones were rare and precious, and of\ngolden and brazen ornament. Here in high places were altars which\nsmoked with almost unceasing sacrifices. Serving at and about the\naltars were numbers of robed priests with their assistants, and often\nthese were chanting the sagas of their worship, but not in all this\nplace was there any image whereby a stranger might obtain information\nconcerning the shape or person of a god. It was as if he were worshiped\nin ignorance, none having at any time seen him to make a sculpture or a\npainting of his likeness.\n\nIn this inner space or court where were the altars there stood this day\na multitude of men with covered heads, and they now and then uttered\nloud voices in unison, which were responses answering the sagas of the\npriests.\n\nHere were no women, but at the right was a portal and a passage leading\ninto another court, which was also large and splendid. This was the\ncourt of the women, of whom a large number were present, both of the\nyoung and of the old.\n\nThis was the temple of Jehovah, the God of the Jews, in the city of\nJerusalem. To him only were any sacrifices offered upon the altars, and\nthe sagas were chanted that he might hear them if he would, but none\ncould tell whether or not at any time he might be listening. So many\nof the sagas formally besought him not to remain at a distance, but to\ncome to this place and listen and do the things asked for by those who\nbrought to his altars these sacrifices.\n\nSad and sorrowful, yet full of strange music, was the sound of this\nsinging, while the smoke went up from the burnings and while the\ncensers were swung to and fro by the priests to send out upon the air\ntheir clouds of sweet odors. Sad and sorrowful was the pleading, for\nthere cometh a heaviness of soul to him who calleth in vain upon a god\nwho is far away, who is unseen, and who answereth not by voice or sign.\n\nOn the stone pavement, near to a pillar of bright bronze-work and\nsomewhat apart from any of the groups of the other women, knelt one who\nwas veiled and whose voice arose in low murmurings as of a recitation\nand a prayer. The hand which drew her veil more closely was well shaped\nand white and upon one of its fingers was a golden ring among other\nrings less beautiful. So deep was the red light of the ruby in this\nring that its glow seemed hot like fire, and it throbbed as if it had\npulses at the movement of her hand changing the light upon it. Also her\nbosom arose and fell and there were tremors in her voice, and she said,\nwhispering softly in the old Hebrew tongue:\n\n\"O thou who art God over all gods, I have sinned to look upon him,\nfor I am a daughter of Abraham and he is one of the heathen. O that\nhe might also be one of Abraham's children and serve the living God,\neven our God. I have sinned, O Jehovah of Hosts, but I have made my sin\noffering and I have made an offering of atonement also for him.\"\n\nThen the gem flashed a great light, but her hand fell and her veil\nslipped away and the marvel of her face was seen for a moment. Upon it\nwas a smile and a light, and her eyes were closed, but her lips were\nparted.\n\n\"Have I indeed been spoken to?\" she whispered. \"I have been told that\nan angel cometh oft into the court of the women. Never have I seen an\nangel. Who knoweth that one might not come to me? Would he be fairer\nto look upon than was he whom I saw at the wayside? If this be truth,\nthen do I know that my offering hath been accepted and that it is no\nlonger a sin for me to remember him. Woe is me, then, if I am to never\nsee him more! O he was beautiful! Exceedingly! And I have brought into\nthe house of Jehovah this token which he gave me. But what is this\nwhich hath come to me?\"\n\nHer eyes were opened, looking downward, and the red glow of the ruby\nanswered them as if it were speaking to her of love. Then she arose,\ncovering with her long silken veil, and she walked out of the court of\nthe women; but a dove, escaped from the cages of the offerings, flew\nover her head and went out above the great gate and the wall, flying\nswiftly until he disappeared over the Mount of Olives.\n\nOn walked the young woman beyond the temple walls and the sacred mount,\ngoing until she came to a street of palaces, ascending another mount.\nHere shortly she disappeared, but she was more beautiful than any\npalace and in her light stepping there were both gracefulness and a\ngreat pride of manner, as if she were of high degree.\n\nNow at that hour of the evening sacrifice the city was exceedingly\nstill, for men and women everywhere paused in whatever they were\ndoing and turned their faces toward the temple. Horsemen drew rein\nand chariots halted, and there were many who knelt even in the open\nstreets. But of these were none but Jews and Jewish proselytes from\nother nations, and there were those who were worshipers of other gods\nthat were sufficient for them. Roman soldiers who were marching halted\nnot, and of these a body of a hundred spearmen passed out at the\nDamascus gate with an officer at their head.\n\n\"O captain of the gate,\" he shouted, \"yonder cometh a messenger. I will\nawait him.\"\n\n\"Hinder him not!\" replied the keeper of the gate. \"He is known to me.\nIt is the swift messenger of the procurator.\"\n\n\"Am I not captain of the temple?\" shouted the officer so loudly that he\nwho came heard him.\n\n\"If thou art he,\" was uttered, hastily, \"I pray thee come to me!\"\n\nFor the messenger halted, not dismounting.\n\n\"Dog of a Greek!\" exclaimed the captain of the temple, haughtily,\n\"shall I come to thee?\"\n\n\"There are men with thee and in the gate, O captain,\" said Lysias,\nreverently. \"I pray thee permit me to obey the procurator and speak to\nthee only.\"\n\n\"Ho! Thou art right. I come! Hast thou a letter from Pontius?\"\n\n\"This little script only,\" said Lysias, handing him a parchment, \"and\nthese words----\"\n\n\"Utter them quickly!\" said the officer.\n\n\"'Pontius to the captain of the temple: slay the messenger of Herod\nAntipas and let the spy from Mach\u00e6rus not live to sail for Rome. Speed\nthis Lysias to Cornelius, the centurion, and keep him afterward in my\nhouse safely until I come. Let him have speech with no man and let no\nharm come to him.'\"\n\n\"Even so!\" said the captain of the temple. \"Yonder road along the\nvalley of the Kidron bringeth thee to the Joppa gate. From thence is\nthe Joppa highway, and thou wilt find Cornelius at the harbor fort if\nhe hath not departed for C\u00e6sarea. I will give thee a fresh horse.\nTarry not in Joppa or in C\u00e6sarea, but return quickly to me.\"\n\n\"But not to speech with the high priest,\" said Lysias, \"nor to any from\nHerod.\"\n\n\"I will see to that,\" laughed the captain. \"Thou art careful of thy\nhead. Wert thou unmindful of the commands of Pontius, thy shoulders\nwere bare quickly. Thy fresh horse cometh. Mount and ride on.\"\n\nWithout more words Lysias obeyed, but as he rode on along the brook\nKidron he said aloud: \"Well for me that I took rest and food while I\ncould, that I fall not from my horse. I can reach Joppa in due season,\nbut what will yonder captain of the temple do with me when I return? I\nhave heard that the messengers of Roman governors are changed like the\nchanging of guards, and that they who are released go sometimes upon\nerrands from which they do not return. I will sacrifice to Mercury!\"\n\nWhether or not he were weary, Lysias rode well and his fresh horse was\nswift. It was but little to reach the Joppa gate, and the sun was but\nsetting when he turned into the highway leading toward the sea. It was\nbroad and well kept, for chariots and for marching cohorts. Looking\nback, Lysias saw that the gate was closed and none was in the road\nbehind him. Looking forward, he saw no man, but there were houses on\neither side of the way except at one wide, open space which arose at\nthe left in a small hill. Bare was this ascent and he wondered at it,\nsaying to himself:\n\n\"So near the gate and no building thereon? It were a place for one of\nthese outer palaces.\"\n\nHe had paused to fasten the buckle of his bridle and he looked again\nupon the hill, and now shriek after shriek of utter agony came to his\nears from beyond the crest of the ascent. Voice answered unto voice,\nand he shuddered as he heard, but a man in armor came slowly down the\n.\n\n\"In the name of the procurator!\" shouted Lysias. \"Is this the Joppa\nroad?\"\n\n\"Art thou of his messengers?\" said the soldier. \"If thou art, thine\nears will tell thee that a score of his enemies are on the wood. This\nplace of skulls will soon smell but badly under this hot sun. Ride on,\nfor this is thy right road.\"\n\n\"This, then, is the hill of crucifixion?\" asked Lysias.\n\n\"Any place will do,\" said the soldier, \"but the procurator humoreth the\nJews and will set up no crosses in the city. The day may come when we\nwill nail them in their temple and set up there an image of Jupiter.\nThey troubled Pontius mightily when we did but carry our eagles to the\ntemple gate, as if one god were not as good as another. What care I for\ngods!\"\n\nLoudly rang again the piercing shrieks while he was speaking, and his\nhard face widened into a grim smile, as if the sounds pleased him. But\nLysias shuddered and his blood ran cold, and he wheeled away to gallop\nout of hearing of those terrible outcries.\n\n\"No Roman may be crucified,\" he exclaimed. \"These are not Romans. To\nthem all other men are less than brutes. I will watch that captain\nof the temple; but whither should I flee from the pursuit of a\nprocurator's executioner?\"\n\nUnder such fear as this dwelt all who were governed by the servants of\nC\u00e6sar, and yet it was said that the common people were more sure of\njustice than from any other rulers if they remained quiet and paid all\ntaxes without murmuring.\n\n\"I will risk all!\" shouted Lysias, \"if I may but once more look into\nthe blue eyes of my Sapphira, for I know she loveth me!\"\n\nThe sun went down as he rode, and the shadows came, and through the\nshadows he galloped on, but now and then it seemed to him as if the\nshrieks from Golgotha were ringing warningly in his ears.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER XXXII.\n\n THE MOB OF SAMARIA.\n\n\nThe city of Jezreel was for Caius of Thessalonica and his train but\na resting place for a night. After leaving behind its towers and the\nvalley of battles, at the side of which it seemed to be posted as a\nsentinel, Ulric the Jarl himself was satisfied with the speed of the\ngoing which brought him to Samaria.\n\nHere, also, as they drew near, the Saxons noted well the fortifications.\n\n\"These walls are old,\" said one. \"Those of Tiberias are newer and\nbetter. I care not for walls. Better is it to fight in the open field,\nwhere swordsmen may come together, shield to shield, in a fair combat.\"\n\nTostig the Red heard, and he shouted loudly:\n\n\"O jarl, not walls! Rather would I have a good keel like _The Sword_\nthan any fort. Towers and walls rest where they are builded, but a ship\nmay sail into new seas. I am hungry for the sea!\"\n\n\"I like not the land at all!\" said Knud the Bear. \"Never again may I be\nfound so far from the rush of waves. I am minded to seek me a keel ere\nlong. I think we shall all die if we may not again see the Northland.\"\n\nHe did but speak for all. While they had been inactive on the shore\nof the Sea of Galilee, and even more after setting out as if to find\nnew adventures, the vikings had returned in their hearts to their old\nmanner of living. They had thought continually of the sea and of ships.\nThey had talked together of the cruise of _The Sword_ and of all the\nstrange things which had befallen them by the way in which they came to\nthis country. They had also told many tales of the great deeds of sea\nkings, but there had been no minstrel or saga woman with them to sing\nthem a saga or to play for them upon a harp. Often, also, did their\nconversings deal with the Northland itself in its summer beauty. They\nlonged for the high mountains and the shadowy coolness of the fiords,\nand for the faces of men and of women and of children on the shores and\nabout the houses. There is ever a kind of sickness which cometh upon\nbrave men in the thinking of such thoughts and in the talking of such\nremembrances afar. So these vikings, who were all that remained of the\nmighty crew of _The Sword_, were not only weary at heart, but almost\nsick in body.\n\n\"A keel?\" said Wulf the Skater to Knud. \"Thou wilt find thee a keel?\nWert thou in thine own seas now thou wouldst find them closed against\nthee. Beautiful would be the ice to look upon. But I think I could make\nme good skates and reach the fiords over the floes.\"\n\nSo said other Saxons, and they did but look listlessly at the walls of\nSamaria.\n\n\"O jarl,\" said Caius from his chariot, \"come thou hither to me. I have\na word for thee.\"\n\nUlric rode to the side of the chariot.\n\n\"What aileth thy men,\" asked the centurion, \"that their faces are so\ncloudy? Are they discontented?\"\n\n\"Not with thee, O noble Caius,\" laughed Ulric, \"but they are ill at\nease on horseback and in peace. They would rather fight for thee than\ntravel like pleasure-seekers. One man is ever afraid that, if this\ncontinueth, he may die in his bed and go to Hel instead of to Valhalla.\"\n\nStern yet pleasant was the countenance of the centurion.\n\n\"I understand thy men,\" he said. \"Let them be posted in the doorway of\nthe house where I abide this night. I have no others here whom I may\ntrust, and this is a city of the enemies of the procurator.\"\n\n\"Thou mayest sleep safely,\" said Ulric. \"I will myself keep that house.\"\n\n\"Thy men could not be bribed,\" said Caius. \"I know that of them.\"\n\n\"They have too many coins already,\" said Ulric. \"But I bade them keep\nall and spend them at Jerusalem. No man need offer them any more. As to\ntreachery, let thine enemy speak of that to Tostig the Red, but first\nlet the seax of Tostig be taken from him.\"\n\n\"I will leave it at his belt,\" said Caius, \"and he may strike with it\nin such a case. But be not thou overhasty with a man of rank, for thou\nwilt be held accountable.\"\n\n\"I will be prudent,\" said Ulric; \"but how is it with thy legionaries?\nIf they are on post, is it not life and death with them?\"\n\n\"Men have died suddenly,\" said Caius, \"with a legionary motionless at\nthe outer door. He stirred not, being as a pillar of wood. Thy men\nwill be free, and will act as if they were hunters of game instead of\nstatues. Thy head is as good as thy hand.\"\n\n\"I will keep thee,\" said Ulric, \"and I would that the men might have a\nchance to draw a sword or throw a spear.\"\n\n\"They will not,\" said Caius. \"There are no men in Samaria who would\ntrifle with such a guard as thy Saxons. Think not but what I will\nremember thee for this matter.\"\n\nThe jarl reined away his horse, thinking deeply.\n\n\"O Caius, do I not know that thou art as other Romans? So soon as thou\nart done with us thou wouldst give us to the lions and look on while we\nwere torn, being amused. Soft words are well enough, however, and thou\nart better than are some of thy people.\"\n\nFor the jarl grew crafty under the burden of leadership, and he seemed\nolder than when he stood with Hilda on the shore of the North sea\nlooking at her runes upon the sand.\n\nA large house like a castle near the eastern wall of the city was\nassigned to so great a man as Caius, but he went the next day to a\nfeast, being entertained by the governor and other notables, among whom\nwere certain lords of Herod's household.\n\n\"It will be late when I return,\" he said to Ulric at his going. \"I will\nsend for thee.\"\n\n\"Not so,\" said the jarl. \"I will come without thy sending. There have\nbeen tumults in Samaria since the sun's rising. There will be good\nspears around thy chariot.\"\n\n\"Do as thou wilt, O jarl,\" said Caius. \"I fear no tumult and I have\ngood attendance.\"\n\n\"Hast thou indeed a guard, and is it not from this man, the governor?\"\nsaid Ulric. \"Leave thou such matters to me, I pray thee, that thou\nmayest at all reach Jerusalem.\"\n\nThe chariot of the centurion rolled away from the palace gate, and\nwith it rode a score of mounted soldiers sent by the governor as a\nguard of honor for his distinguished guest. Hardly were they out of\nsight, however, before the Saxons sprang to their feet at a sudden\nsummons.\n\n\"Spears and shields!\" commanded the jarl. \"Let every man look well to\nhis weapons and to his armor. Be ye all ready to march, but first let\nevery man come to me and report whatever things he hath heard or seen\nthis day.\"\n\nOne had this thing to speak of and another that thing, but for the\ngreater part it all seemed to be of little worth. Their eyes, too,\nhad been better than their ears in a city of an unknown tongue.\nNevertheless, the jarl said to Wulf the Skater:\n\n\"Thou hast scented this danger, then, thou keen old hunter? So is it\nwith me, only that I better understand sayings uttered in my hearing,\nand some who spoke believed that I was as a stone wall, having no ears.\nThey were, therefore, careless. I will say to thee that the soldiers\nwho are now with Caius are all from this new legion wherein Julius was\nfor a while the chief officer. It is for our interest that Caius may\nsuffer no harm. Moreover, we may have some good fighting, and that is\nworth while.\"\n\n\"Thank the gods!\" interrupted Knud the Bear. \"Now may I the more\ncomfortably eat my supper. It is well to have a thoughtful jarl.\"\n\nA city by itself was Samaria, as it had been during long centuries.\nThey who called themselves Samaritans bore deadly hatred to all Jews,\nbut could not prevent them from entering the city and transacting\nbusiness there, although they could have no dealings with the\nSamaritans. All other nationalities came and went freely, and here was\na gathering of the offscourings of the earth. The Jews risk all perils\nfor the sake of traffic, and they had in this matter the protection\nof the Roman laws. Nevertheless, these hatreds were the root of many\ntroubles, and from time to time there had been bloody riots to be\nsuppressed by the legionaries with but small care upon whom their\nswords might fall. It might have been trusted that a Roman of rank like\nCaius would be as safe in Samaria as in Jerusalem or in Rome, and so he\nwould have been but for the intrigues of those who were greater than\nhe. Herod Archelaus, to whom Judea and Samaria had fallen by the will\nof his father, Herod the Great, had forfeited his realm to the Romans\nand it was now ruled by Pontius the Spearman. Both the Herod of the\nBlack Castle, whose legacy had been Galilee and some provinces beyond\nthe Dead Sea, and Herod Antipas, who had inherited large districts at\nthe north and east of Galilee, were plotting to overthrow Pontius and\nalso to defeat each other. The favor of C\u00e6sar was the path to increase\nof power not only for them, but for Roman plotters such as Julius, and\nthere were intrigues against them all at Rome itself. The strifes of\nthose who fought continually for the spoils of Roman conquests were\never records of bloodshed, and no man's life was safe. To be a great\nRoman was to walk on toward destruction.\n\nSplendid was the feast to which Caius went at the palace of the\ngovernor of Samaria, but he was wary and he did not become drunken.\nLong reclined the guests on the couches at the tables, to be served\nwith all the delicacies of the earth. Also there were dancers and mimes\nand musicians. But the end came. Some were to abide in the palace,\nsome were to go to their houses near, in the city. The chariot of Caius\nwaited for him, but as he and his slaves walked out at the main portal\nthey heard a sound of trumpets and great outcries of a multitude.\n\n\"It is nothing,\" said Caius. \"I heard that the rabble had risen against\nthe Jews. Let the legionaries form in the road. Drive on!\"\n\nHe spoke scornfully, but the outcries were near, and now came a great\nrush of men, of whom many were armed. In front of the governor's palace\nwas an open space, into which the multitude was pouring, but from the\nopposite direction came forward another throng of men. In the foreranks\nof these was a small man in armor, with the visor of his helmet closed.\n\n\"Yonder is the chariot of Caius,\" he said. \"Wait only till the Iberians\ncharge. Then slay him and flee. Let the blame fall on the Jews and the\nSamaritans.\"\n\nTwo score were the legionaries, and it was the governor, standing upon\nthe steps of the palace portal, who shouted to them:\n\n\"Charge ye the mob lest they hinder the going of my guest. Slay them! O\nmost noble Caius, I send out also quickly my own guards and servants.\nThou art safe!\"\n\nIf this were indeed the craft of the governor, it was well hidden,\nfor the soldiers went forward smiting all in their way, and armed men\nfrom the palace went also. By this very charge, however, the chariot\nwould have been left alone save for Caius and his charioteers and a few\nmounted bondsmen. Not in the silken robes of a man at a feast was the\ncenturion at this moment, nevertheless. The robes were to be seen in\nthe light of the torches, but they covered good mail and armor, and\nsuddenly upon his head was a helmet and in his hand a pilum.\n\n\"Treachery!\" he shouted. \"The jarl was correct! O for my Saxons!\"\n\n\"Here, O Caius!\" loudly responded a voice from among the shadows of the\npalace front. \"Halt not thy chariot, but drive slowly. We have abundant\njavelins.\"\n\nThe torches held by the bondsmen flared in swinging, more being\nlighted, and past them seemed to go dull red flashes, but these were\nthe bright blades of Syrian darts obtained by Ulric for this business.\nStrong were the arms hurling, and the darts were better than arrows at\nso short a distance.\n\n\"Jupiter Tonans!\" roared Caius. \"I have a sheaf of them here in the\nchariot, for myself and my charioteers. Wise is the Saxon, and he\nprovided them for me!\"\n\nA good thrower was he, and some who had stealthily crept on too nearly\nwere smitten as they sprang forward. Then came the charge which had\nbeen purposed across the open space, but between its front and the\nchariot was a wall of Saxons, in full armor, shouting with the fierce\njoy of battle.\n\nDown went the small leader, cloven to the jaws as if his helmet were of\nwood. Down went his companions rapidly, while the battle laughter of\nthe vikings rang derisively in their ears.\n\nThe other multitude the legionaries were slaughtering pitilessly, but\nthe command of the governor had been to follow, and the soldiers came\nnot back at once.\n\n\"Slay! Slay!\" shouted Caius. \"I come!\"\n\n\"Come not!\" replied Ulric. \"Abide where thou art and press on to thy\nhouse. We will keep these wolves at bay.\"\n\n\"A fight and I not in it?\" said Caius, angrily. \"Commandest thou me?\"\n\n\"In the fight I am jarl!\" said Ulric. \"I am answerable for thy head.\nDrive on!\"\n\n\"Thou art right!\" said Caius, justly. \"On, O charioteer! Obey thou the\nSaxon. I forgot that he is a prince and a captain among his own people.\nI will make him a Roman yet. He should not be a barbarian.\"\n\nHardly might any less than a king, nor even a king except at great cost\nand for policy, obtain Roman citizenship, but this was the meaning of\nthe words of Caius.\n\nThen an arrow flew and struck him upon the left arm, wounding him; but\nhe mentioned it not, for he saw that the charge was broken and that the\nSaxons came to march with the chariot.\n\n\"Not one of them is missing,\" he thought. \"So much for broad shields\nand good mail. The rioters had weapons, but no armor, and they were\nslain as cattle. This arm of mine is but scratched.\"\n\n\"On!\" commanded the jarl, to his men. \"I heard the centurion say he is\nwounded. O Caius, how art thou?\"\n\n\"A sting on my arm,\" replied Caius. \"We shall soon be at the house.\nThis is naught.\"\n\n\"Let me see it speedily,\" said Ulric. \"I have picked up an arrow with a\ngrooved head. Thou knowest what that meaneth.\"\n\n\"Haste! Haste!\" shouted Caius. \"This thing is of Herod, the jackal! I\nam lost.\"\n\nBut the tumult had been stricken to quiet and the ground was strewn\nwith the dead. Now as they went there came swiftly armed horsemen\nof the governor and behind these marched the Iberian legionaries. No\nvisible fault might be charged by Caius upon his host of the feast. Not\nfar was it to his place of abiding, but when the chariot halted there\nhe sprang down and entered in a gloomy silence, followed by the jarl.\n\n\"Home, now,\" commanded the officer of the legionaries. \"Our duty is\ndone.\"\n\nBack with them went all servants of the governor, but Caius was in an\ninner room removing his armor.\n\n\"I wore no armlets,\" he said, \"lest the governor might see them. The\narrow went past my shield while I threw a spear. Thou hast done well, O\nSaxon chief. But for thee I had been murdered. This is a small wound.\"\n\n\"I will suck it for thee before I bind it,\" said Ulric. \"Then watch\nthou if it beginneth to burn, but set thou out hence before dawn.\"\n\n\"That will I this hour,\" said Caius, and orders went forth.\n\nGreat was the declared wrath of the governor of Samaria, for he came\nhimself to inquire concerning the welfare of his guest. Not to him\nwas anything said of a groove in an arrow wherein might be pressed\nsome deadly juice, and he returned to his palace a seeming friend of\nCaius, complaining bitterly of the Jews and Samaritans, more of whom he\nthreatened to slaughter for this night's business.\n\nUlric cared for his men. They had cuts and bruises which they made\nlight of, but among them was no arrow wound. So light a missile would\nhave been stopped by a leathern hauberk, and all their mail was of the\nhighest temper of steel.\n\n\"We will ride soon,\" he told them. \"Be ready to mount and leave this\nplace of thieves.\"\n\n\"I like it well!\" exclaimed Knud the Bear. \"It was not a hard fight, as\nif these fellows had been Danes or Northmen, but I cleft many skulls\nand I think Wulf the Skater killed a score of them. Tostig was unlucky,\nand Ven, the son of Gerta, slew more Samaritans that he did.\"\n\n\"He did not,\" said Wulf. \"Thy counting is not good. And I slew two men\nin armor also.\"\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER XXXIII.\n\n THE HOUSE OF PONTIUS THE SPEARMAN.\n\n\nThe road from Samaria to Jerusalem hath many windings and there are\nhills to weary the wayfarer. Climbing one of these slowly was the\nchariot of Caius of Thessalonica. He was lying heavily upon the back\nseat, as one to whom this journey had become an insupportable burden.\n\n\"This long day draweth to its close, O jarl,\" he said to the horseman\nnearest him on the right. \"The roads are worse to pass than were those\nof yesterday. We are now on the level near the ridge of the Mount of\nOlives. Soon we may see the city. My arm burneth and it is swelling.\"\n\n\"I would we were already with thy learned physician,\" replied Ulric.\n\"Be of better cheer. I know little of such matters, but I think thou\ndoest well. I will offer sacrifices for thee in this temple of the\nJews. Hast thou ever done aught against their god? He is revengeful.\"\n\n\"I have not harmed him,\" said Caius. \"I have not slain Jews. Do as thou\nwilt, for at this time there is no other god in Jerusalem. I will pay\nfor thy oxen and Pontius will command the priests to offer them upon\nhis altar. Thinkest thou, O Saxon, that any god hath power to heal the\nwound made by a poisoned arrow?\"\n\n\"That I know not,\" said Ulric. \"I have often wondered much what the\ngods may do. One of them healed me of my hurts from the tiger of\nJulius. Such a god might cast out a poison. He casteth out demons and\nhe healed a leper. He opened the eyes of a blind man. I would that he\nwere now in Jerusalem and that thou mightest look into his face. Also\nI must offer sacrifices of thanks for that matter. It is not right to\nobtain a gift from any god and then not to keep faith with him. A god\nshould be dealt with as if he were a brave warrior.\"\n\n\"Well for thee!\" exclaimed Caius. \"I would indeed that he were here\ninstead of in Galilee. No god may heal aught so far away, and as for\nthis god of the Jews, they will not that a Roman enter his temple.\"\n\n\"Ben Ezra told me of the temple,\" said Ulric, \"that a court is prepared\ninto which all may come. There only will I enter. It is not well to\nanger priests in their temple, for they know the ways of their god and\nwe know them not.\"\n\n\"Thou art young, but thou art cunning,\" said Caius. \"But I have a great\nfear concerning this wound in my arm. It is not like any other, and I\nhave been wounded often. A strange thing is poison. I have considered\nwhy the gods make such a thing and why they put it into the teeth of\nserpents. They are evil!\"\n\n\"A god may need a serpent as thou needest a spear,\" said Ulric. \"It\nis plain to me. If I were a god, I would make what I required for\nmy errands. So do they work with winds and seas and rocks, and with\nthunders and with plagues of many kinds. No man getteth away from\nthem if they have aught against him. Anger not the gods, for they are\npowerful and they are cunning.\"\n\n\"As thou hast said,\" replied Caius, gloomily, \"I have spoken against\nthem at times, and now they have reached me with this Syrian arrow from\nthe quiver of Herod the jackal.\"\n\n\"Odin!\" suddenly exclaimed the jarl; for the overwearied horse under\nhim stood still without a pull of the rein, and before the eyes of the\nSaxons was the City of the Great King, the Holy City, Jerusalem the\nBeautiful.\n\nDeep is the valley of Jehoshaphat, through which runneth the brook\nKidron under its many bridges and between its gardens and palaces.\nBeyond this valley, as the whole company stood still to admire, they\nsaw the mighty walls of the city, high and white, and the castles and\nthe towers, but beyond and above all these, in the bright light of the\ndeclining sun, they saw the glories of the temple which was accounted\none of the seven wonders of the world.\n\n\"It is Asgard!\" said Ulric, thoughtfully, \"and I see the temple of a\ngod that hath power on earth to heal wounds and to give sight, and to\nwhom demons give obedience. I think he is not as are the gods of the\nNorth, and I will ask this son of his more about him.\"\n\nBut the Saxons who were halted with him said one to another:\n\n\"We have come out into the world far enough. We will see this one city\nand we will do somewhat of fighting perhaps. But then we will find a\nkeel, or take one, and we will return to the Northland, whether the\njarl goeth with us or not. The winter of this land is warm, not cold,\nand we may not abide it. We will go into our own fiords as the ice\ncometh out, seeing we may not get there sooner.\"\n\nSo strong is homesickness, and so it will change the hearts and the\nwills of brave men.\n\nAt that hour a youth sat in a vaulted chamber of a great building upon\none of the hills of Jerusalem. Around him the furniture was good,\nbut somewhat plain, and there were weapons and armor of many kinds\nscattered here and there. In a corner was a couch, and there were\nchairs and tables, and on the tables unlighted lamps.\n\n\"I do know,\" he said, \"that Pontius the Spearman is in the city. Why\ndoth he not send for me? I am not in a prison, yet I am not permitted\nto go out into the city since I returned from C\u00e6sarea. The procurator\ncannot think that I know aught more than my messages, nor fear lest\nI should betray him. Why, then, am I shut up in this chamber of the\ncastle?\"\n\nLittle remembered the haughty procurator of so small a matter as a\nyoung Greek messenger for whom he had no present need. Somewhere among\nthe household this Lysias was sure to be awaiting a summons, and there\nwere weighty matters on hand. One was before him pressingly in the\nhall of audience, for he himself stood there angrily reading a written\nscroll which had been brought to him.\n\n\"The high priest and the eagles once more!\" he exclaimed. \"This god\nof the Jews! What is he to me? I anger him not. Little he careth for\nthe standards of the cohorts. Go thou! Tell Caiaphas it shall be as\nhe willeth, and I will send him oxen for his sacrifices. The tribute\ngatherers have brought me even too many horned cattle, and his god may\nhave them.\"\n\nA dignified man, long-robed, gray-bearded, solemn-faced, who stood\nbefore him, bowed low, responding:\n\n\"I hear thee, most noble Pontius. I will bear to the high priest thy\nanswer. It shall be to us as a promise from C\u00e6sar. May the blessing of\nJehovah of Hosts be upon him and thee.\"\n\n\"Go!\" said Pontius, petulantly. \"If he cannot do better for the Romans\nthan he hath done for the Jews, my oxen are but wasted.\"\n\nLowly bowed the Jewish noble, but there was pride in his obeisance, and\nas he went out at the gate he muttered:\n\n\"The gift of Jehovah to these heathen would be the coming of Messiah\nthe Prince and the slaughter of their legions in the valley that is\nbefore Jezreel until the blood should be as a river to wade horses in.\"\n\n\"What thinkest thou, Cornelius,\" said the procurator to a soldier\nof noble presence who stood near him; \"must we yield to these dogs\nforever, with their continual turmoil?\"\n\n\"They have their god,\" said Cornelius. \"I have read much about him. He\nis gone from them for a while, but he hath promised to come back again.\nI think we should make him one of the gods of Rome and set up his image\nin the Pantheon with that of Jupiter.\"\n\n\"That were good policy,\" said Pontius, \"and it would leave these\npriests of his nothing more to complain of. They are a pestilent nest\nof fault-finders and some of them get to the ear of C\u00e6sar, doing us\nmischief; for they are crafty serpents.\"\n\n\"I fear God,\" said Cornelius. \"We are but men and we see but little,\nwhile the eyes of God are everywhere.\"\n\n\"Go thou to Joppa, then,\" said Pontius, \"and let no man pass out of the\nfort without thy knowledge. Thou keepest the gate. Keep it well.\"\n\nSoldierly, friendly, was the parting word of Cornelius to his\ncommander, but he was a free Roman and there was no servility in his\ncourtesy, nor was there any fear.\n\n\"Him, also, I may trust,\" said Pontius, \"but O for the coming of Caius\nof Thessalonica! I will see, also, Lysias, the Greek, and I would that\nBen Ezra were returned from his cave in Carmel with his treasures. I\nwill let him keep a part of them because I have further use for him\nbefore he dieth.\"\n\nIn the strong inner chamber of the procurator's castle Lysias walked\nslowly up and down chafing at his imprisonment, but his eyes glanced\nhither and thither and they were watchful.\n\n\"What!\" he suddenly exclaimed, low-voiced. \"Is the corridor door ajar?\nWould it be my death warrant to look out into the corridor? I am under\nno command not to look, but I may well be prudent where there are so\nmany sharp swords.\"\n\nThe door was but slightly opened, as if he who last passed through had\nshut it carelessly; but there are traps in prison houses, and Lysias\nhesitated, going to listen at the narrow crevice, but not laying a hand\nupon wall or door.\n\n\"No sound,\" he thought. \"I may open and close again. Who knoweth what\nmay be here? I offend no order of any officer.\"\n\nNevertheless, he trembled as he obeyed the strong impulse that was in\nhim. A step forward and he was in the corridor. It was lofty, its floor\nwas of pictured tiling, and it was lighted by windows at each end. Into\nit came another vaulted passage three fathoms away, and he went swiftly\nto that opening.\n\n\"Vast is this palace,\" he was thinking, but at the next beating of his\nheart he went forward with a great bound, for the music of a woman's\nvoice in a gay song fell upon his ear.\n\n\"She is here!\" he exclaimed. \"Now I care not if I die, so I but see\nher.\"\n\nWide open was a door into this second passage and through it poured the\nsong, accompanied by the touching of a small harp. It was a love song,\nand he heard:\n\n \"Now cometh he, my love,\n From the land beyond the sea,\n And the fair wind blowing knoweth,\n That it bringeth him to me.\"\n\n\"Sapphira! O my beloved! I am here!\"\n\nShe sprang to her feet and the lyre fell from her hand. O she was\nbeautiful, in her sudden astonishment and fear, but he who came toward\nher with open arms seemed even more beautiful than she, for his face\nwas radiant and his eyes were a flame of fire.\n\n\"Sapphira?\"\n\n\"O rash one! Thou art lost! What am I to thee any more? Am I not the\nslave of the procurator of Judea? Thou art not my Lysias; thou art but\na rider of horses.\"\n\nIn her face was a great struggle of pain, nevertheless, and in his was\na whiteness, for he fell upon the floor and lay there moaning.\n\n\"Foolish boy!\" she said, stooping over him. \"I love thee, but I am not\nnow thine, nor can I be. The past is dead, and the gods have bidden us\neternal separation. Destroy me not and destroy not thyself. Go lest the\nsword find thee here! The scourge is close to thee, and sudden death\nboth for thee and me.\"\n\n\"I care not for the scourge or the sword,\" said Lysias, slowly rising\nand gazing at her. \"I care only for thee, O false one! Hast thou\nutterly changed away from me?\"\n\n\"What I was that I am not,\" she said. \"What thou art thou knowest. Art\nthou mad, also, to cast thyself against the power of Pontius? Leave me\nlest I call for help! I will not die on thy account. I love life, and\nlife is full of love for such as I am. What need have I of thee, O lost\nlover?\"\n\nAnger was in her eyes now, and greater fear, for that which she said\nwas true.\n\n\"Kiss me!\" he said, faintly, \"and I will go. The gods have abandoned\nme!\"\n\nThen stepped she forward and kissed him on the lips and a spasm shook\nhim from head to foot, shaking her also.\n\n\"Let thy love die within thee,\" she said, \"and trouble me no more, for\nI live happily in this palace, where all are my friends. Make me not\nthine enemy, for in this thou art a robber.\"\n\n\"That am I,\" he murmured. \"I will go. I came far and risked all to see\nthee. I knew nothing concerning women. Now that I know thee, what thou\nart, I have no need of thee. Love will die, for all else is dead. Sing\nthou thy song, but be sure that all thy roses will wither on thy bosom.\"\n\n\"Cursest thou me?\" she exclaimed. \"Beware what thou sayest! I have\npower!\"\n\n\"As a caged leopard hath power, so hast thou,\" said Lysias. \"I leave\nthee. Be thou a slave, for that is all that is in thee\"--and he was\ngone.\n\nShe stood and looked at the doorway by which he had departed, and her\nlips were without color and her hand was on her bosom.\n\n\"What is this?\" she asked. \"Did I love him better than I knew? Was I\ntoo much in fear that I sent him from me? One cometh who would slay\nhim. It is best that he should go lest he should die. Women must be\nprudent, but this pain is great. I did love him. O that he had not come\nagain, for before he came I was happy. O ye gods, what shall I do? O\nbeautiful Aphrodite, help me, for thou knowest love!\"\n\nIn the corridor lingered Lysias listening, and then he walked on,\nstaggering as he went.\n\n\"O woman! woman!\" he whispered. \"What is woman and what is man? She\nis changed and I change not. I cannot hate her, as I thought I could,\nnow she hath spoken. I will wait cunningly, for I am sure that in this\npalace is one who calleth for my knife or for a spear thrust. I will\nfind him.\"\n\nIn a moment more he was in his own place, still leaving its door ajar,\nas at the first, but he began to search among the weapons and the armor\nin the room, finding a small, sharp blade with an ivory handle, and\nhiding it in his bosom.\n\n\"It will do,\" he said, \"but I would I might wear mail.\"\n\nAt that he was stooping over some fine steelwork and he heard a step\nbehind him. It was a crafty thought which bade him continue his speech.\n\n\"The procurator knoweth me only as a postboy,\" he said. \"I might serve\nhim better in mail. He hath not many who would be true to him as I\nwould. There are those who are false, but I could bring him a good\nsword in a hand he might surely trust.\"\n\n\"O Greek!\" said a deep, stern voice. \"What is this that thou sayest?\nPut on the mail!\"\n\n\"O most noble Pontius!\" exclaimed Lysias, turning, but lifting the\narmor. \"Thou didst not send for me, therefore I came not.\"\n\n\"Speak not,\" said Pontius, \"save to tell me all that thou hast seen and\nheard here and at Joppa and at C\u00e6sarea. I have a work for thee.\"\n\nLysias told all save his meeting with Sapphira, and the procurator\nlistened.\n\n\"Thou hast ears and thou hast eyes,\" he said at last. \"I set thee free\nof all other service but this that I now tell thee. Thou wilt have\nanother abiding place than this, but thou wilt come and go freely among\nmy servants, being known to them as my messenger whom none may hinder.\nNow hath one come from the Damascus gate saying that my friend Caius\nof Thessalonica draweth near, and with him his Saxon gladiators. He\nis wounded, and my physician meeteth him. Go thou. Hear all. See all.\nReport to me of his swordsmen.\n\n\"Now hearken! Among the female slaves of my wife is one in whom is a\nperil, for she is fair. For women I care not, but there are men who\nare fools before bright eyes. In the banquet room and in the balconies\nget thou speech with this Sapphira. She will be spoken to by my wife\nthat she may hide nothing from thee lest she die in the arena. Judea\nand Samaria are worth more to me than is the blood of one fair serpent.\nCome!\"\n\nLysias now stood before the procurator in mail and helmet, girded with\na light sword and bearing a silver-gilded buckler. It was the arms and\narmor of the Syrian mercenaries of Pontius, but as of an officer among\nthem, ordered to duty at the palace.\n\n\"Thou wilt go on foot to the Damascus gate,\" said Pontius. \"The\nphysician waiteth Caius at his house. Deliver this scroll to Caius\nand remain with his company until thou canst bring me exact tidings\nconcerning his wound.\"\n\n\"O most noble Pontius,\" said Lysias, \"I pray thee permission to say\nthis word.\"\n\n\"Say on!\" said the Spearman.\n\n\"Only in being true to thee have I any hope of life, for thy enemies\nare my enemies. I also will at times to attend at the school of\nGamaliel, as I told thee.\"\n\n\"That is thy value to me,\" said Pontius. \"Wert thou any man's\nbondservant, or wert thou other than a youth, a scholar of Gamaliel,\nI would have no use for thee. All they of his manner of teaching are\nhandicraftsmen, even if they are rich. What is thy work?\"\n\n\"I am a shaper of arrows,\" said Lysias, \"and I know the making of a\nbow. Thou mayest yet require to have a sharp arrow sent surely to a\nmark of thy choosing.\"\n\n\"Say thou no more!\" commanded the procurator. \"Thou art wise to\npreserve thy head. Only a fool throweth away his life. Go!\"\n\nFor they had walked out along the passage and before them was a gate\nof the palace. It was not the great gate, but even here were armed\nlegionaries, and their officer and others with him took note of Lysias\nand of the manner of his sending.\n\n\"He is the trusted messenger of the procurator,\" said one. \"I heard of\nhim from the captain of the temple. When he hath borne many messages we\nshall cease to see him.\"\n\nLysias passed on down the steep street in his brilliant armor as one\nhaving a shadow of authority, but his heart was bitter within him.\n\n\"I am to see her again,\" he murmured. \"I would she were dead and I dead\nwith her. I will but live to strike this unknown one, even if I stab\nhim with a blade of Pontius. But I must be cunning with these Saxons.\nDo I not know what manner of pirates they are? Not among any other\ncrew, I think, shall I find men so tall and so strong as are my old\ncomrades from _The Sword_. Their jarl would be a prince of gladiators,\nbut I am not glad that he and his come now to Jerusalem.\"\n\nAway behind him in the palace, in the room where he had met her, sat\nSapphira.\n\n\"What is this?\" she exclaimed. \"Did I not see him walking with the\nprocurator as one walketh with a near friend? Is he, then, more than a\nhorse boy? Is he an officer of the palace, and greater than I? Now am I\nindeed in pain, for I have need of friends. O love! Why was I cruel to\nthee? Come again, O my beloved! My Lysias! I will tell thee that I am\nnot changed! Will he return if I call him? He will, for I am beautiful.\nI am favored by Aphrodite. She will make him bend to me as I will. It\nwas but for a moment, and I was in fear. None must see me this day. I\nwill go at once as if I were summoned by the wife of the procurator.\nWoe to any who shall hinder me.\"\n\nShe caught up and threw over her head a veil and over her body a\nflowing robe of silk embroidered with needlework. Then, as if fear\nhastened her, she flitted away along the main corridor and disappeared.\n\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER XXXIV.\n\n THE SCHOOL OF GAMALIEL.\n\n\nWith all honor did the captain of the Damascus gate of Jerusalem\nreceive Caius of Thessalonica, the friend of Pontius the Spearman. The\nchariot halted before the gate and in it sat the stern Roman centurion,\ngiving no external token of a wound or of suffering.\n\n\"O noble Caius,\" said the captain, after his first greeting, \"I have\nthis, also, for thee from the procurator, that his physician, who is\nalso thine, hath gone before thee to thy house. May the gods give him\nboth skill and success.\"\n\n\"I thank the procurator and thee, also,\" said Caius. \"I will now drive\non.\"\n\n\"A moment, O most noble Caius,\" interrupted the officer of the guard.\n\"A messenger even now. He is from the procurator.\"\n\nThere was no stir among the mounted swordsmen who rode before and\nbehind the chariot, but they sent quick glances to each other as their\neyes fell upon this messenger.\n\n\"Silence, O jarl,\" he had said in Greek to Ulric as he drew near him.\n\"I shall go with thee speedily. I thank the gods that I now see thee\nagain. I can do many good things for thee and thine. I pray thee bid\nthem, also, to be as if we were strangers.\"\n\n\"They need no bidding,\" said Ulric. \"Hael to thee.\"\n\nNo further word did either of them speak, but Lysias waited at the side\nof the chariot while Caius read the parchment epistle. It was but\nbrief, and when it was ended the centurion said to Lysias:\n\n\"Go thou and come again. I will answer for thee to Pontius. Say that I\nbid him be with me within the hour lest evil come. Haste! On thy head!\nO charioteer, drive to my house! On, O jarl!\"\n\n\"Behold,\" thought Lysias, \"I am in a sore strait. Pontius will scourge\nme! But I will run.\"\n\nA swift runner was he, even with the mail upon him, and at the gate of\nthe procurator's palace he halted to draw breath.\n\n\"In! In!\" exclaimed the officer of the portal. \"I will announce thee.\nThe procurator giveth a feast, but I may go to him. This must be some\nstrange errand!\"\n\n\"The gods be with thee!\" said Lysias. \"Tell him!\"\n\nIt was but a few terrible moments, full of fear for the young Greek,\nand he stood in an anteroom before the stern Spearman.\n\n\"What did I bid thee?\" he demanded.\n\n\"Slay thou me if thou wilt, most noble procurator,\" bravely responded\nLysias, \"but Caius of Thessalonica sendeth thee greeting and these\nwords: 'Be thou with me within the hour lest evil come.' I beg thee, O\nPontius, let me say this much more: for I heard him whisper, 'Lest he\ngive his power into the hand of him of the Black Castle and his neck to\nthe headsman of C\u00e6sar.' I have not at all disobeyed thee, O Pontius. He\nbade me return to his house for another commandment.\"\n\n\"Be thou there on his arrival and I will count it thy strict\nobedience,\" said Pontius. \"Thou art not a legionary, nor under the law\nof the legion. I think thou servest me well.\"\n\nAway ran Lysias murmuring: \"So narrow is the measure between Roman\nfavor and Roman vengeance! He may die ere I risk his wrath again.\"\n\nNevertheless, it is not easy for one of the great to depart from a\nfeast whereat governors and senators and princes are reclining, and\nPontius went in to pay the duty of host to his many guests, so that\nLysias was in no peril concerning his errand.\n\nThe chariot had reached its halting place and Caius had walked into his\nhouse, upheld somewhat by his pride, but more by the arm of Ulric, the\nson of Brander.\n\nAlready the physician had examined the wound made by the Syrian grooved\narrow.\n\n\"O Saxon,\" he asked, \"thou didst suck this poison well and quickly?\"\n\nUlric did but nod his head.\n\n\"Then know thou, my lord Caius,\" said the man of skill, \"that but for\nthy swordsman thou wert already dead. I will do what I can for thee,\nbut it will be long before thou wilt bear thine armor. This wound must\nbe neither bandaged nor closed, but washed only and kept open. Saxon,\ngive me thy sharpest blade.\"\n\n\"It is my seax,\" said Ulric, drawing it. \"What am I to do?\"\n\n\"Cut into this hard swelling,\" said the physician. \"Cut the depth of\ntwo finger breadths and withdraw thy blade.\"\n\n\"Cut!\" said Caius. \"Am I afraid of an edge?\"\n\n\"So bidden, I will cut,\" said Ulric, and the sword point went into the\nswollen arm.\n\n\"I thought so,\" said the physician. \"With that green corruption\nspurteth out much evil. Widen the cut. Caius is saved. I will put into\nthe gash an ointment that I will bring. It is well for thee, O Caius,\nthat thy strong swordsman is thy trusty friend. I go.\"\n\nBehind them, by express authority, now stood Lysias, listening, and he\nsaid:\n\n\"Most noble Caius, this is my command from the procurator. I must go to\nhim.\"\n\n\"Tell thou him the saying of the physician,\" said Caius. \"Tell him,\nalso, that I change not my greeting. He must come.\"\n\nAgain went Lysias, and again he stood before the procurator telling all\nthat he had heard and seen.\n\n\"Pause thou here a moment,\" said Pontius. \"I would have speech with my\nwife.\"\n\nStill as a statue stood the young Greek, and none who came or went\ndared ask him whence he came, but suddenly an arm was around his neck\nand a kiss was upon his cheek.\n\n\"I am here, beloved, but I may not linger. I will see thee often. I am\nstill thy Sapphira.\"\n\nHe stirred not, spoke not, nor did he turn to see, but there was a\ngrating of teeth.\n\n\"O Lysias! O love!\"\n\n\"Speak not of that which is dead,\" he said to her. \"Go thou thy way.\nThis is no place for the foolishness of unfaithful women. I will indeed\nmeet thee again, but thou art a slave and I am a free warrior. Go!\"\n\nWhite was now the face of Sapphira and her lips were quivering, but she\nwhispered:\n\n\"Scorn me not! I was frightened, and so I was cruel. I do love thee;\nand thou wilt need me in this place, which is as a spider's web. I go.\nFollow me not!\"\n\n\"Follow thee?\" laughed Lysias, scornfully. \"I did follow thee from\nfar, but now I am as a weapon in the hand of the procurator. I shall\nserve not thee, but him.\"\n\n\"Ha!\" muttered one who heard. \"This is, then, the trusted one. Him we\nmust slay.\"\n\nWell for that speaker if his lips had been closed, for in the shadow\nbehind him stood Pontius the Spearman.\n\n\"They who will not betray me must die?\" he thought within himself.\n\"Then do I now know one mark at which my Greek may send his sharpest\narrow and be guiltless. He may slay this Iberian swine with his own\nhand.\"\n\nFor the mutterer was a guest who had risen from a table, and he was one\nwho had been an officer of Herod's household, but was now pretending to\nbe an enemy of the cunning tetrarch, the jackal of the Black Castle.\n\nThe guest returned to his reclining, and Sapphira had vanished as a\nlamp that goeth out, but the procurator came forward.\n\n\"Say to Caius that I come. Abide thou in his house this night and on\nthe morrow until I send for thee, save that thou mayest go in the\nmorning to the school of Gamaliel. Hast thou money for thy uses?\"\n\n\"O most noble Pontius,\" said Lysias, \"the swift ass that was mine own\nis in thy stable. All baggage of mine is in the armory room where thou\ndidst find me. I have gold and silver pieces enough in my pouch for\nthis present. I am not poor, so that what I have be not taken from me.\"\n\n\"I will give orders in these thy matters,\" replied Pontius. \"He who\nserveth me well is rich enough. Thou shalt have thy swift ass and\nsuch other beasts as thou wilt. Go now. I believe thee brave and\nprudent. Thou art young, too, and the girl is fair. Youth is the time\nfor trifling. Provide thee soon a good bow and arrows of thine own\nchoosing.\"\n\n\"Thanks, O noble Pontius! Thanks! I will send sure arrows at thy\nbidding!\" So saying, the young Greek departed.\n\nLong was the conference that night between the Saxons and Lysias.\n\n\"We are little surprised,\" said the jarl, \"for we knew thou wert going\nto this place. Thou art a good fighter and thou hast rightly taken the\nprocurator for thy captain. I have heard that he casteth the pilum even\nbetter than do other Romans. I could follow such a man into battle,\nknowing that he is fitted to lead. Hast thou found thy Sapphira?\"\n\n\"Speak not of her, O jarl,\" said Lysias. \"Ere long thou mayest thyself\nlook upon her, but there is a peril in her name at this hour.\"\n\n\"I read thy face,\" said Ulric. \"Keep thou thine own secret. But thou\nmayest say to Pontius the Spearman that he hath no surer friend than\nCaius of Thessalonica.\"\n\n\"Even now they are together,\" replied Lysias. \"The procurator will know\nall that is known to thy friend, but I fear the careless tongues of thy\nSaxons. They speak to one another concerning triremes and old fights at\nsea. I would they were in their North country.\"\n\n\"So would not I,\" said Ulric, \"unless I were to sail with them. I may\nnot now leave this city of Jerusalem, and to sail to the north were to\nsail into ice fields. We must wait until the spring.\"\n\nNot so thought the homesick vikings in their comfortable lodgings in\nthe house of Caius. Even now they were talking of the sea.\n\n\"It is but a few miles to this seaport called Joppa,\" they said. \"We\nwill learn somewhat concerning the road thither and the shipping. We\nare free men, with the Middle Sea so near at hand.\"\n\nCaius of Thessalonica slept well after his long communing with the\nprocurator, and when he awoke the jarl sat near him.\n\n\"Thou art watchful!\" exclaimed Caius. \"But in Jerusalem I am safe. I\nhave to tell thee, however, that thy gladiators may not abide within\nthe walls. The quarters for such as they are out in the valley of\nJehoshaphat, near the amphitheater. No games are going on at this time,\nbut there will be abundant sport in the days after the Passover feast,\nwhen Herod cometh.\"\n\nThe jarl's brow darkened, but he said only: \"So be it. I will guide\nthem to their place. I myself will inspect the city and the forts and\noffer sacrifices, as I told thee. But this know thou, O noble Caius,\nthat not in this city nor in any other is treachery dead. I fear for\nthee. How is thine arm? I would see it.\"\n\n\"Thou hast knowledge of wounds, but not of poison,\" replied Caius.\n\"Uncover it.\"\n\nThe jarl did so, and he looked thoughtfully at the sore and then at the\nfeverish face of the noble Roman.\n\n\"This man will die slowly,\" he thought, \"but he will die, for this\nwound healeth not. I will not be here when he dieth, lest I be\ndeemed by others only fit food for wild beasts. So will I say to my\ncompanions.\"\n\n\"It changeth little,\" he said aloud to Caius. \"Who shall read a thing\nlike this? I will go and return, but I would my sword might be near\nthee if there is need of it.\"\n\n\"Go, O jarl,\" said Caius. \"I will send for thee if I require thee.\nFulfill thy will concerning the city, for all men may come and go. Only\nthat thou must leave thy weapons from thee or the legionaries will\ndisarm thee. The Jews, also, go unarmed.\"\n\n\"For that I have no care,\" said Ulric, \"but it were a sore thing for\nTostig the Red, for instance, to have no hilt near his grip.\"\n\n\"March them away quickly!\" exclaimed Caius. \"While thou art known to be\nwith me as a guard thou mayest wear thy sword and thy mail. The rules\ngo no further, for there have been many tumults and much bloodshed in\nJerusalem.\"\n\nThe jarl answered not to that, but took his leave, and not at all as a\nservant. Rather did it seem as if the centurion were under his command.\nHe went to his men, and well pleased were they to find their quarters\nwere to be without the walls.\n\n\"O jarl,\" said Wulf the Skater, \"this is much better. I would thou\nwert able now to show us our way to the sea. We have learned much from\nLysias and from others. There is good shipping upon the coast and the\nright keel might be found by brave men.\"\n\n\"Also triremes of C\u00e6sar,\" replied the jarl. \"The coast is well guarded.\nWe will wait a little.\"\n\nOut into the streets they marched, with him at their head, and many\nturned to look upon their array as they went on to the gate. The\ndwellers in Jerusalem were accustomed to seeing various kinds of armed\nmen, but these were unlike any others. Nevertheless, there were devout\nJews who lifted hands to curse them in the name of Jehovah, as heathen\ngladiators whose presence was a pollution of the city of God.\n\nThe amphitheater, when they came to it, was found to be larger than\nthat of Tiberias, with more dens for wild beasts and with a better and\nlonger course for the running of races.\n\n\"I have been told,\" said the circus servitor who guided them, \"that\nHerod the Great delighted much in horses. Also that one value of the\ncircus was as a place of execution for tribes who had rebelled against\nhim. His horsemen on the frontier scouted far and wide for captives and\nhis cages here were ever full.\"\n\n\"I care not for circuses,\" said Wulf the Skater. \"I have seen enough of\nthem.\"\n\n\"And I,\" replied Tostig; \"if I might kill an elephant, it would please\nme. I have a curiosity to know how long it taketh so huge a beast to\ndie.\"\n\n\"Thou wilt see elephants enough,\" said the servitor, \"but they do not\noften spend them upon the games. They are costly, and they come from\nfar. Men and women are plentiful, and they make as good sport in the\nkilling.\"\n\nThe buildings prepared as quarters for trained gladiators, not slaves,\nwere rude but spacious, and here did Ulric leave his friends while he\nreturned to the city, but he remembered the saying of Caius concerning\nhis armor.\n\n\"I may wear a tunic and robe only at most times,\" he said to himself.\n\"But under the tunic may be a coat of fine mail and hidden by the robe\nmay be a seax. I will not be defenseless altogether where there are so\nmany secret daggers as I hear of. I would have speech with Lysias, if I\nmay. I trust him not entirely, and I forget not that he is now of the\nhousehold of the procurator.\"\n\nNot justly altogether was he thinking of the young Greek, for Lysias\nwas a man walking among perils and having a wounded heart under his\nbright mail and his gay apparel. It was but the next day when he made\nhis first entrance at the school of Gamaliel. Celebrated over the\ninhabited earth was this academy, and many came from distant lands\nto hear the teachings of the great and learned rabbi. Among them,\nalso, were those whose real purpose was to obtain for themselves the\nreputation of scholarship through the name of Gamaliel their teacher,\nand they were even as Lysias in that matter. In such a company,\nhowever, small attention was paid to one more young Greek, who seemed\nto be rich, save that none questioned him unwisely after being informed\nthat his protector was Pontius the Spearman. Moreover, if there were\nthose who bowed and made way for him on that account, there were others\nwho bent their brows and drew aside their garments that he should not\ntouch them.\n\n\"Thou art imprudent,\" said an elderly man to one of these. \"Restrain\nthy zeal, I pray thee.\"\n\n\"He is a dog!\" growled the zealot. \"His heathen master slew my father\ncauselessly in the temple, mingling his blood with his sacrifice to\nJehovah. I am of Galilee.\"\n\n\"I will ask thee, then,\" said his adviser, \"sawest thou ever this\nGalilean prophet who cometh from Nazareth? It is said that he worketh\nmany wonders.\"\n\n\"I have seen him,\" said the zealot, \"and wonders he doth work. Hath any\nother rabbi raised the dead? Who else cleanseth a leper or openeth the\neyes of the blind?\"\n\n\"If thou liest not,\" was the surly response, \"he is indeed one of the\nlearned. I will hear his teachings when he cometh to Jerusalem to the\nPassover feast. But he will work no wonders here.\"\n\n\"Knowest thou that?\" sneered the zealot. \"But this thou knowest from\nthe law, that it is not well for thee to speak evil of a rabbi. He who\nrevileth one of the learned goeth to Gehenna.\"\n\n\"I reviled him not!\" exclaimed the adviser, as if in sudden fear. \"I am\na Pharisee of the Pharisees. I am a keeper of the whole law. Verily I\nwill hear thy rabbi when he speaketh. But beware thou of offending the\nprocurator!\"\n\n\"Messiah cometh!\" said the Galilean fiercely. \"He bringeth a sword! He\nwill make his garments red in the blood of the heathen!\"\n\n\"Let not the priests hear thee!\" sharply responded the Pharisee. \"To\nthem only is given the discerning of such matters. Thou wilt yet be\ncast out of the synagogue.\"\n\nThe angry Galilean walked slowly away. \"What know the Pharisees and the\npriests concerning Jesus of Nazareth?\" he muttered. \"I think of him\nthat he is a more learned rabbi than any here in Jerusalem.\"\n\nNow Lysias heard these men, and already had he learned from the Saxons\nin what manner their jarl had been healed of his hurts in Galilee.\n\n\"This prophet!\" he thought. \"I will see him if I may. Alas for me,\nthere is no temple here to Mercurius or to Apollo! I have great need\nto offer sacrifices. No! not to Juno nor to Venus! They have not dealt\nwell with me. I think I shall now hate Sapphira when I see her. How is\nit then that I also love her, seeing that I would slay her if I could?\nThis is that strange thing between a fool and a woman.\"\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER XXXV.\n\n IN THE COURT OF THE WOMEN.\n\n\nIt was still the winter time in the Northland, but in Judea the spring\nhad returned. In the lowlands there was already much heat and a swift\ngrowth of all fruits of the earth, but in a high place, like Jerusalem\nupon her hills, the days were cooler and oft the nights were frosty, so\nthat men builded fires in their braziers.\n\n\"This is not according to nature,\" said Lars, the son of Beolf, among\nhis companions. \"We have had no snow save a few flakes, and there hath\nbeen no ice thicker than the blade of my seax. I weary of this land!\"\n\n\"Hael to the Northland!\" exclaimed Tostig the Red. \"Hael to the driving\nstorms and the glittering ice, and to the frost and to the snow!\"\n\n\"I will not stay here,\" said Knud the Bear. \"I will depart from an\naccursed country wherein there is never good winter. But didst thou\nhear the keeper? He saith that ships at Joppa dare not put to sea\nbecause of the rough weather. What seamen are these!\"\n\n\"O men!\" said Wulf the Skater. \"By Odin! If vikings were at the oars\nand if I were at the helm, a keel would seek the open sea.\"\n\n\"We will even go to Joppa when we may,\" said Tostig. \"But our errand\nwill be to the Northland, that we may bring back fleets, and in them\nSaxons, to march with the jarl into the great battle in Esdraelon. We\nare too few.\"\n\n\"I am with thee,\" said another tall viking. \"I have considered this\nmatter, and I think it is also the mind of the jarl. He may not go with\nus, but his secret will is that we go speedily without him. Then will\nhe truthfully say to the Romans that he did not command us to go. I\nwill no longer be shut up in this place as if I were one of the beasts\nin yonder dens waiting for my turn to be made a bloody show of. I am a\nfree warrior, not a caged wild creature. I will go to the sea.\"\n\nOther voices were raised in strong accord with his, and their talk went\non until their minds were on fire and their purposes had become firmly\nfixed, for they were men of experience and of great courage. The jarl\ncame not among them at this time, for he was even then at the temple\ngate inquiring as to the right method of obtaining cattle for his\nsacrifices to Jehovah. A servitor went into one of the inner courts and\nbrought out a dealer who had bullocks at hand, and this man began to\nname prices, counting them in shekels of the temple.\n\n\"What know I of shekels?\" exclaimed Ulric.\n\n\"Thou dost not need to know,\" broke in a voice behind him. \"O jarl, I\nam here. He asketh thee too much. Let me attend to this matter. Well\nfor thee that thou hast it in thy mind to offer sacrifices to the\nliving Jehovah!\"\n\n\"O my friend!\" exclaimed the jarl. \"Glad am I of thy coming! This\ncharge is thine.\"\n\n\"Who art thou that meddlest with another man's affair?\" demanded the\ndealer angrily.\n\n\"Silence, thou!\" was the peremptory reply. \"I am Ben Ezra, the\ninterpreter of Caius of Thessalonica, and this is the captain of his\nguard and of his Saxons. Beware that thou deal not fraudulently with\nany of his people lest I have a hand laid upon thee. I am in my right\nin this matter.\"\n\n\"That do I now admit,\" replied the dealer in a changed manner, \"but I\ncharge him not too much. Come thou and see the cattle.\"\n\nBut the prices he shortly named were less than the half of his former\nasking.\n\n\"Pay him, O jarl,\" said Ben Ezra. \"It is well. Offer thy burnt\noffering, for thou hast great need of the favor of Jehovah in that\nwhich cometh upon thee. I will remain with thee, for I also offer\nsacrifices. O dealer, I will buy of thee. Let the beasts be without\nblemish. I will have, also, a lamb and two doves and wine for the\noblation. Pause not, for I have conferred with the high priest and he\nknoweth my matter, and this is of his direction.\"\n\nBut for the guiding of Ben Ezra the jarl had been dealt with as an\nignorant man, a foreigner having money, but now all things were\naccomplished with order and rectitude. Nevertheless, the jarl was\ndispleased that he was compelled to remain without in the court of the\nheathen, not going near the altar whereon his offerings were burnt.\n\n\"They would prevent such as I am,\" he said, \"from drawing too near\ntheir God and getting acquainted with him. I would both see his face\nand hear his voice. Evil, evil, is this manner of the Jews! Are they of\nhigher degree in the sight of their God than am I, the son of Odin?\"\n\nNevertheless, from the place assigned him he might see all, and there\nhe stood watching the manner of the slaying of his bullocks and the\ngoing up of the great smoke and the swinging of the censers. He\nlistened, also, reverently to the chanting of the priests and the\nLevites and the responses of the Jewish congregations in the other\ncourts.\n\n\"Ben Ezra,\" he remarked, \"might enter the inner court, going where he\nwould, for he is a Jew of high degree. He told me, also, that over\nyonder is the court of the women. I have offered my sacrifice. Why\ndo I linger here?\" For his face grew suddenly pale as if he had been\nstricken through with a spear, and he exclaimed again, \"The court of\nthe women.\"\n\nLoudly swelled the sonorous chorus of the many chanting voices and\nthere came back strange echoes from the inner walls of the temple.\nThe majesty and the splendor of the temple service were unspeakable,\nbut the jarl turned away from it and strode swiftly out of the court\nof the heathen. He walked on until he might stand in a place near the\nbroad passage by which the women worshipers, veiled or unveiled, were\ncontinually coming and going.\n\n\"O Miriam!\" he thought. \"My eyes have sought thee as I have walked\nthe streets of this city. Hilda cometh not any more to counsel me. I\nam dark in all my mind. If thou art not here what do I any longer in\nJerusalem? It is not Asgard, and here are no gods at all. It is but\na city of men like myself, and the women are as other women, and the\nRomans have the rule in spite of this Jehovah.\"\n\nHis thoughts were burning within him and he felt the sickness of\ndisappointment and failure, and his eyes were dull with longing as he\ngazed upon this procession of Hebrew women. Suddenly his heart gave a\ngreat leap, but he stood still, for he heard a voice saying:\n\n\"Miriam! Thy veil! Cover thyself! Yonder Roman stareth at thee!\"\n\n\"I will cleave him to the jaws!\" exclaimed Ulric, turning quickly.\n\nBut before he could move a pace or discern one man from another whom to\nstrike a hand was upon his arm and he heard a whisper which thrilled\nhim from head to foot.\n\n\"I am Miriam! I am now veiled! Harm not thyself nor me. I think he\nheard thee not. Strike not a Roman lest thou be crucified. Follow me,\nO beautiful one. Follow not too nearly, but mark well the house into\nwhich I go. The woman with me is my aunt. The Roman of whom she warned\nme is but a dealer in slaves--but he is a Roman. Come!\"\n\n\"I follow thee, O my beloved,\" whispered the jarl, \"but if he toucheth\nthee, he shall die if he were C\u00e6sar!\"\n\nSunken-eyed, hollow-cheeked, with a forehead low and sloping, was the\ndealer in human cattle who stood shortly at the street side without the\nportal. His lips were moving with an evil expression upon them, and his\neyes had seen too well the exceeding beauty of the Jewish maiden.\n\n\"A thousand sesterces for her at Rome,\" he muttered. \"How shall I\nobtain her? Pontius hath bidden us beware of angering the Jews.\"\n\nThen he came forward a pace and spoke aloud, with small ceremony, to\nUlric.\n\n\"She spoke unto thee, O gladiator. Who is she, and what doest thou\nhere?\"\n\nEven for the sake of Miriam was the jarl somewhat calm in his manner\nand cunning in his speech, but his voice was unpleasant.\n\n\"O Roman,\" he said, \"art thou unwise? Seest thou not that I am a sword?\nOne greater than thou art will answer for my going and coming. I but\ndo his bidding. When thy head passeth suddenly from thy shoulders thou\nwilt ask no more questions concerning a damsel who is guarded by the\nstrong and high one. I will watch for thee henceforth. I am one who\nneedeth not to be commanded a second time concerning a sword cut.\"\n\n\"Aha!\" snarled the dealer. \"I have seen thee heretofore. Thou art\ncaptain of the gladiators of Caius of Thessalonica. I quarrel not with\nhim.\"\n\n\"Nor dost thou need any quarrel with the procurator,\" said Ulric. \"His\narm is longer than thine. Keep back thy foot from unknown ground lest\nthou shalt meet a man coming unto thee in sudden haste.\"\n\nNo word came back, but the man's face darkened venomously, for a Roman\nliketh not a rebuke from a barbarian; but there was fire in the eyes\nof the jarl and his right hand went under his mantle, and the dealer\nunderstood well the meaning of the movement. Nevertheless, a mere\ntrafficker in the flesh of men and women may not wisely stir the wrath\nof a centurion or of a man in authority. A Roman may not be scourged\nor crucified, but he may die suddenly as well as another. So turned he\nsullenly away about his affairs, and the jarl went on his way.\n\nThe streets of Jerusalem are narrow with the exception of the broad\nthoroughfares which lead to the outer gates and the main approaches to\nthe temple. It was a narrow passage between high palace buildings into\nwhich Miriam and her aunt hastily turned their feet not long after,\nescaping from observation by the cruel eyes of the dealer in slaves.\nNo word did they utter, and those whom they met spoke not unto them,\nfor there are laws of privacy and due reserve among the Jews relating\nto the public greeting of women. He who annoyeth them transgresseth and\nis liable to be called to an accounting. They walked onward rapidly,\nand now the way led along the side of a mount beyond which was the\nvalley which divideth the city into, as it were, two cities. Ever\nat a little distance behind them strode a tall shape which did not\nmanifestly appear to pursue them, but for which all other wayfarers\nmade room on approaching.\n\n\"The gladiator seemeth to be in wrath,\" said one who looked upon him.\n\"Beware of the anger of these wild heathen, for they are even as\ntigers, and they know no law.\"\n\nLight was now in his eyes, nevertheless, and his stepping was that of a\nstag upon the hills.\n\n\"I have found her!\" he muttered, joyously. \"I have fulfilled the token\nthat was given me by Hilda in my dream upon _The Sword_. Now shall I\nnot soon see Hilda herself? Hath she not guided me in this, and is she\nnot now with the gods? This may indeed be the city from which I shall\npass on into Asgard. I am glad that I offered sacrifices in the temple\nthis day, for at once have I received this answer from Jehovah that he\nhath shown favor unto me. He is indeed the chief God of this land to\nthis day, for he hath not permitted the Romans to destroy his temple\nnor to slay his priests. I think that if they were to do so, he would\nbe angry and he would surely take his revenge upon them. That would I\ndo if I were a god.\"\n\nThe door of a large house swung open as of itself before Miriam and\nher companion, but Miriam paused upon the threshold. Turning and\nglancing quickly up and down the street, and seeing no peril, she\nraised a hand and beckoned. Ulric came quickly, but Miriam's aunt was\nalready within.\n\n\"Think not to enter with me now,\" said the Jewish maiden, hastily. \"But\ntell me quickly, what art thou in Jerusalem? Why art thou here? What\ndoest thou in Jehovah's temple?\"\n\n\"O Miriam, the beautiful!\" he responded, gazing upon her joyously,\n\"I am even as I said to thee in Esdraelon. I am Ulric, the jarl of\nthe Saxons. I am of Odin's line. Of the sons of the gods. I offered\nsacrifices in the temple of Jehovah asking for thee, and thou seest\nthat he granted my petition.\"\n\nEven as he spoke she stepped back within the doorway, and he also\nentered with her, but as yet the door closed not behind them.\n\n\"I understand thee partly,\" she said, trembling greatly. \"Thou art a\nprince among thine own people. O that thou wert a son of Abraham! O\nthat thou wert not a slayer of men in the circus!\"\n\n\"That I am not!\" exclaimed Ulric. \"Such business is not for me. I am\na free warrior. I go not again into the circus. I am with Caius of\nThessalonica for a season, for I am his friend and his guard. I came\nout from the Northland into the world that I might seek for the city of\nthe gods, that there I may meet my kindred. But I will ask of thee, O\nbeautiful one! O Miriam! how knowest thou Hilda of the hundred years?\"\n\nHer eyes burned earnestly upon him while he was speaking and her face\nwas as the dawn of a new day, for in it there were many changes, the\ncolor coming and departing and the lips quivering.\n\n\"I know her not,\" she said; and now they had drifted on into a small\nanteroom near the door, her veil, also, having been put aside more\nperfectly. \"Who is this Hilda, that thou askest of me such a question?\"\n\n\"Surely thou knowest her?\" he said. \"She is a saga woman of the\nNorthland. She is learned in all the old runes that are written on the\nrocks and on the tombs, and she talketh with the gods in their places.\nI know that it is now many months since she hath been laid in her own\ntomb in the cleft of the rocks, but I saw her with thee, speaking to\nme in a dream, when I was on the sea in my ship. She bade me sail on\nand find thee, and this I have done. Therefore I am glad that I offered\nsacrifices to thy God. Henceforth he shall be to me as Odin, the God\nwho is over all the other gods.\"\n\nShe listened as if his voice were music and as if she willed that he\nmight not cease speaking.\n\n\"Thou hast said!\" she now exclaimed, and a voice behind her, deep and\nsonorous, added:\n\n\"Amen! A great King is he, above all gods. He is the God of gods,\nand beside him there is no other; for Jehovah, our God, is one God,\nand there is none like him. O heathen man, thou hast well spoken.\nThis day hast thou become his servant, for he hath sent unto thee his\ncommandment in a dream, and thou hast obeyed him. Also thou hast done\nwell in offering thy burnt sacrifices.\"\n\n\"That did I according to the directions given me by Ben Ezra from the\npriests,\" said the jarl. \"But who art thou?\"\n\n\"I am Isaac, the aged, the kinsman of this maiden,\" was the response.\n\"O heathen man, I am glad that thou hast powerful friends, for at this\nhour we are among perils, both she and I--and all our house. I will\ntell thee, for one Abbas--accursed be he of Jehovah!--threateneth us\nwith destruction.\"\n\n\"Do I not know him!\" exclaimed Ulric. \"But surely he is nidering! He is\na weak man, and a traitor and a thief. If this be so, his blood be upon\nhis own head, for he must die. I have a matter concerning him that he\nknoweth not. O Miriam, I am a leader of men, and I am not imprudent.\nEvil is he who is careless concerning such as thou art. Tell thou me,\nthat I may have strength to obey thee, do I now remain here longer, or\ndo I depart?\"\n\nAs a man wrestling with himself was the jarl, and her face grew\nwonderfully kind and sweet as she looked upon him; but Isaac now stood\nby her gazing at the jarl, and the wrinkled features of the old man\nwere full of fear and trouble.\n\n\"Depart!\" she said, softly. \"It is enough that I have seen thee again.\nFail not to return, but when thou comest to the door ask only for\nIsaac. O that thou wert of my own people!\"\n\n\"I care not for that matter!\" exclaimed Ulric. \"It will not be long\nbefore I come----\"\n\nBut his eyes were looking down, for upon his own broad, powerful\nhand came, gently alighting as a bird, a whiteness which was lighted\nwonderfully by the red glow of the ruby in the ring. But the hand\nof Miriam lingered not, flitting coyly away as if the bird were\nfrightened, and in the fingers of the jarl, the son of Odin, there was\na strong tremor.\n\n\"Ulric,\" she said, pronouncing his name for the first time, with a\ngreat sigh, \"God hath sent us this promise of deliverance from our\ndestroyers. Thy Hilda was in the Northland?\"\n\n\"An hundred years old was she,\" said the jarl, \"when I bade her\nfarewell. I loved her more than aught else upon earth. She was a\nprincess, and her hair was as the snow, and her smile was exceedingly\ndear to me. Didst thou ever know and love such a one?\"\n\n\"I think she is as Hannah, the prophetess of my people!\" exclaimed\nMiriam. \"But she, too, hath departed. She was a mother in Israel!\"\n\n\"Haste!\" interrupted Isaac. \"Let the young heathen go his way! This is\nunseemly for a maiden of Judah! He may not remain. But, O youth, if\nthou canst do anything, withhold not thy hand.\"\n\n\"Fear not!\" said the jarl. \"I will quickly attend to Abbas and to\nwhoever worketh with him!\"\n\nBut his eyes were gazing deeply into the eyes of Miriam, and it seemed\nas if in this manner they were speaking to one another.\n\n\"Go!\" she whispered. \"Have I not thy ruby? Keep thou, also, my token. I\nam thine!\"\n\n\"O Miriam,\" whispered back Ulric, \"I think thee also a daughter of the\ngods. I go!\"\n\nThe door closed behind him and he strode away, but immediately Isaac\nspoke chidingly.\n\n\"Thou art mad!\" he exclaimed, \"O foolish daughter of Israel! O unwise\ndamsel! What is this stranger unto thee?\"\n\n\"O Isaac, my kinsman,\" she replied, \"this matter concerneth both thy\nlife and mine. Did he not fulfill the law of sacrifices? I will go to\nmy chamber, but I enjoin upon thee that thou greet him kindly when he\nreturneth.\"\n\n\"That much I will do,\" said the old man as one who prudently\nconsidereth a difficult affair. \"Am not I a man of understanding? If\nJehovah hath sent us a sword for our protection, blessed be his name!\nEven this day hath Abbas been with me, and he hath afflicted me sorely.\"\n\n\"What said he?\" she inquired.\n\n\"More than I may wisely tell thee,\" said Isaac. \"Only that he again\nhath demanded thee as the bride of this Tyrsus of Chronea. If thou\nshalt refuse, he will surely bring thee and thy household before a\njudge with whom is a gift and in whose hand is destruction.\"\n\n\"Tell thou that to Ulric the Jarl!\" she said, vehemently. \"Where is now\nthy wisdom? What more, then, hast thou to say? Is not this the spoiling\nof thy goods? If I were given to Tyrsus wouldst thou escape the greed\nof Abbas?\"\n\n\"Father Abraham!\" groaned the old man. \"We are in the power of the\nheathen. Do as thou wilt and I will speak well to thy swordsman.\"\n\nFar down the street, not knowing or caring whither he went, was Ulric\nthe Jarl, but one who stood at the wayside watched his coming and put\nout a hand.\n\n\"Halt, O jarl! Go no further. Such as thou art have need of caution. At\nyonder turn into the valley there are Roman guards and they will arrest\nthee as a gladiator escaped from the circus. Enter not a difficulty.\"\n\n\"O Ben Ezra,\" exclaimed Ulric, \"what sayest thou? Am not I a free\nwarrior?\"\n\n\"Not long wilt thou be free at all,\" said the Jew, \"if thou wanderest\nimprudently. The edicts have been strengthened. The master of the\ngames is a hard man and subtle. Go thou rather to the house of Caius or\nout into the valley of Jehoshaphat.\"\n\n\"Thou art my friend,\" said Ulric, \"and I will ask thee of an important\nmatter. Knowest thou of the doings of Abbas?\"\n\n\"He is in the city,\" said Ben Ezra. \"What is thy need of him? He is\nevil.\"\n\n\"I require of him nothing but his blood upon a blade,\" said Ulric. \"He\nis a plotter against both Caius and the procurator.\"\n\n\"Come thou with me to thy friend's house,\" replied Ben Ezra. \"I know\nthis to be true, but Abbas may not be slain openly.\"\n\n\"If Pontius will command me,\" said Ulric, \"I will bring him this\nserpent's head on the morrow. Otherwise I will guide my own doing. It\nis but a stroke of a sharp sword.\"\n\nLittle said they after that until they were in the house of Caius, but\nwhen they were there it was Ben Ezra and not the jarl who was summoned\nto confer with the centurion. Not long was he absent, but when he\nreturned his face was dark.\n\n\"Trust not a Roman,\" he whispered to Ulric. \"To them all other men are\nbut as cattle. Thou art only a swordsman in the eyes of this Caius.\nSlay not Abbas lest thou anger him. He is thy friend truly, but it is a\nRoman friendship, with a dagger in it. Go thou to thy men. Would thou\nwert on the sea! Thou hast no right to sell them to the circus.\"\n\n\"That will I not!\" said Ulric. \"But I will confer with them speedily.\"\n\nSo went he away, but he went with Ben Ezra.\n\nThere are many cunnings among those who struggle in the net of power,\nand a great subtlety had been born in the mind of Lysias. \"If the\nSaxons remain,\" he had thought, \"I am lost. It is long before they may\nbe slain in the arena. I will go and talk with them again. This galley\nthat, is to bear the messenger of Herod lieth at Joppa.\"\n\nTherefore, even while Ulric had offered his sacrifices, the young Greek\nwas among the Saxons telling them many things.\n\n\"This is no merchant craft,\" he had told them. \"This galley of Herod is\nsmall, but strong for a rough sea. Ye are crew enough.\"\n\n\"That are we,\" said Tostig the Red. \"But the jarl might forbid our\ngoing.\"\n\n\"If ye go not,\" said Lysias, \"ye will be penned as dangerous beasts.\nThe jarl only is secure among the great, his friends. He cannot protect\nyou from the master of the games.\"\n\n\"That dog was here to look at us to-day,\" said Knud the Bear. \"I like\nhim not. I will wear no fetters of his clamping. O ye sons of the free\nvikings, I go to the sea. Who will go with me to take this keel of\nHerod?\"\n\n\"No man will remain behind,\" said Wulf. \"The night shadows come. There\nare horses in the stables. Every man to his armor, and let us take our\ntreasure with us. We will slay as we go and leave behind us a good\nmark.\"\n\nNevertheless, they were prudent, as became warriors who were few in\nnumber, and the guards of the circus had as yet no command concerning\nthem save to let them come and go as they would for a season. The\nstables were near and the horses were many, and with these were only\nslaves who feared to speak to a swordsman. Therefore, if a Saxon came\nto look at beasts or to examine saddles and bridles, no man hindered\nhim. It was but thought that he had curiosity as to trappings which he\nmight use in the games. He did well to take thought concerning his own\nbusiness against the hour when he must slay or be slain. But all the\nwhile a fire burned more hotly in the hearts of the men, for the words\nof Lysias were in full accord with many sayings of the jarl.\n\n\"He hath been troubled in mind concerning us,\" they said. \"He knoweth\nnot what to do. We will take away from him this burden, for we are men\nand we may save ourselves. It is not meet that we should encumber our\njarl unduly. He hath done well with us. He would not have us linger to\nbe slain.\"\n\nNevertheless, the dusky hour was at hand and Ulric came not to them,\nas he at first thought. From the house of Caius he had been silently\nled to the house of Ben Ezra, his friend guiding him as a man who is\nin deep thought. The way seemed one which led toward the valley of\nJehoshaphat, through many streets, but they came to a door before which\nBen Ezra paused and turned to the jarl.\n\n\"I will trust thee,\" he said, \"for it is needful. This is the house of\nmy abiding.\"\n\n\"Not large,\" said Ulric, \"and the front of it is dark and ancient. I\nwill go in with thee.\"\n\n\"In it dwelleth no other beside myself,\" said Ben Ezra, opening the\ndoor with a key. \"But he who knoweth of this place knoweth of death. It\nis a hidden thing in Israel, and I charge thee by thy gods and by the\nwrath of Jehovah, my God, that thou make thyself as one of us to keep\nwell a thing that is shown unto thee in secret.\"\n\n\"I am a keeper of faith,\" said Ulric. \"I will call it a secret of the\ngods, as if it were the tomb of my father. But in this chamber which we\nhave entered I see nothing save plain and simple matters.\"\n\n\"Come further,\" said Ben Ezra, \"for thou hast taken upon thee thy oath.\nDid I not tell thee that I had been to the cave in Carmel and that I\nhad made thy treasure secure?\"\n\n\"It was buried well,\" said Ulric. \"I think no stranger could have found\nit.\"\n\n\"Neither would it have been of any use to thee or me,\" said Ben Ezra.\n\"Couldst thou strike with thy seax if it were buried in a cave in\nCarmel? It is better at thy hand.\"\n\n\"I understand thee,\" exclaimed Ulric. \"At this hour, here in Jerusalem,\nI have need of money. I was never so at any time. It is true that gold\ncoins may be good weapons. I will be glad of them and of the jewels.\"\n\n\"O jarl,\" said Ben Ezra, \"already have I paid much to Pontius the\nSpearman and to the high priest and to the captain of the temple.\nGreedy were they, but I have satisfied them. Of thy share in the matter\nthey know not. Thou hast no need to go to thy men this night, for the\nmorning will do as well, and thou canst plan how they may escape to\ntheir own land.\"\n\n\"So will I do,\" said Ulric. \"I will abide with thee. But this seemeth\nto be as other houses.\"\n\n\"So hath it seemed to any who dwelt here,\" said Ben Ezra, \"unless\nthey were as I am. Is not this back wall strongly made of well-fitted\nmasonwork?\"\n\n\"A well-made wall,\" said Ulric. \"None may break it through. The stones\nare very large.\"\n\nFar back from the street were they now, and the house which had\nappeared small was seen to be of great extent, as if builded down a\nsteep . Suddenly the jarl exclaimed:\n\n\"A door of a stone! O Jew, how is it that this great marble turneth at\nthy pushing?\"\n\n\"See thou,\" said Ben Ezra. \"It is set into the wall upon pivotings.\nTherefore it is as firm as the rest of the wall unless it shall be\ntried by one who knoweth the catch-pin at the side. Even then a weak\nhand moveth it not. I will show thee, and then do thou make trial for\nthyself.\"\n\nThe jarl watched and understood.\n\n\"A marvelous trick!\" he exclaimed, opening and shutting the secret\ndoor and finding that much strength was required. \"O Jew, beyond is a\ncorridor of stone, and I see steps which go downward.\"\n\n\"Before thee is a great deep,\" replied Ben Ezra. \"Thou art trusted as\nto this thing in the name of Jehovah. Go in, O jarl of the Saxons. Thou\nwilt go down into the secret chambers of Jerusalem with me.\"\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER XXXVI.\n\n THE SECRET MESSENGER.\n\n\nLysias, the Greek, stood reverently before the Roman ruler of\nJerusalem, and the dark, piercing eyes of Pontius were watching his\nface intently.\n\n\"O most noble Pontius,\" said Lysias, \"I have done as thou didst order.\nAll these were the words of Ben Ezra, nor have I failed to tell thee\nevery saying of Abbas and of him who was with him. The messenger from\nMach\u00e6rus goeth swiftly to Joppa and the galley of Herod waiteth for\nhim.\"\n\nThey were standing in the small chamber near the banquet hall, and\nthe voice of Lysias was hushed and tremulous, for the brows of the\nprocurator were knitting and the veins in his temples were swelling.\n\n\"Well for thee, O Greek,\" he muttered, hoarsely. \"But now it is as if\nHerod himself were to be with C\u00e6sar, bringing gifts. The very gods are\nagainst me!\"\n\n\"O most noble Pontius,\" said Lysias, raising his head courageously,\n\"bid me depart and it may be that neither galley nor messenger shall\ncross the sea to Rome.\"\n\n\"I may not hinder a royal messenger,\" said Pontius, gloomily. \"To do so\nwere sure destruction. Thou canst do nothing.\"\n\n\"But if,\" whispered Lysias--\"if Herod, the tetrarch, might know that\nhis galley had departed, and if afterward no man came to tell him of\nher voyage?\"\n\n\"A man may hear good tidings,\" said the procurator, with a dark smile\ndawning in his face. \"But be not thou at any time the bringer of news\nconcerning this galley. Thou hast a letter to bear for me to Cornelius\nat C\u00e6sarea. I bid thee to go by way of Joppa and to return. I now write\nthe parchment. Ride thou thy own swift beast. Whoever may be traveling\nupon their own errands at this time, I meddle not with their affairs.\"\n\n\"Thanks, noble Pontius,\" said Lysias, \"but I will give thee a token. A\nman will come to thee in haste shortly from the keeper of the circus.\nHe will know nothing of the galley of Herod, but he will tell thee of\nher departure from Joppa and of her crew. So shalt thou be sure that I\nknow not aught except my errand to Cornelius.\"\n\nHasty was now the going and the returning of the procurator, but Lysias\nhad now a small tablet and not a parchment to put into his pouch,\nneither looked he upon the writing on the tablet.\n\n\"Go!\" said Pontius. \"I will wait for thy man from the circus. Tell me\nno more!\"\n\nThen passed Lysias out into the corridor and the eyes of Pontius\nfollowed him.\n\n\"Subtle are the Greeks,\" he muttered. \"Already yonder youth knoweth\nenough to kindle a fire that would burn to Tartarus. Let him do this\none thing and I will give him a gift which he hath never yet received.\"\n\nNot far had Lysias gone along the corridor when a hand withheld him and\nthere was a whisper.\n\n\"Lysias! Love! Whither goest thou?\"\n\n\"Sapphira! O beautiful one! I may not linger. I ride swiftly to\nC\u00e6sarea. I will return to thee. Wait thou for me!\"\n\n\"O Lysias! Favored of Aphrodite! Go and return to me. I shall then have\nmany things to tell thee. Then shalt thou know I have loved thee.\"\n\nHer arms were around him, her kiss was upon his lips, and she was gone.\nHe, too, went on in haste, leaving the palace, but she had retreated\ninto an inner chamber, luxuriously furnished, wherein a lamp was\nburning.\n\n\"I will wait here for my mistress,\" she said. \"A strange thing is love,\nfor it may be lighted like this lamp. It may go out and it may burn\nagain if one willeth. I think I must put out this love of mine for\nLysias lest it should burn me. Alas for him or for any who may be made\nthe bearer of secret messages! And I? O Lysias! Well for thee that thou\nknowest not this change which is in store for me. And thou, O beautiful\nAphrodite, be not angry with me that I am to become also a Jewish\nproselyte and offer sacrifices to the God of the Jews. My mistress hath\nbidden me to become free and to wed Ananias. It is better so than to be\na slave, or to throw myself away upon a Greek youth who must shortly\ndisappear. I love not ruin. I am to be rich and I shall be the favorite\nof more gods than one.\"\n\nShe spoke with a triumph upon her face and with exultation in her\nvoice. Then she reclined upon a couch, with the light of the lamp\nshining brilliantly upon her goodly raiment and her beauty, and so she\nawaited the coming of the wife of the procurator.\n\nThrough the Damascus gate passed Lysias, and not long afterward an ass\nhalted near the amphitheater, further down the valley. A slave came out\nto attend to the ass, and was followed by the master of the games.\n\n\"Who art thou?\" he demanded, surlily.\n\n\"See that thou hinder me not,\" said Lysias. \"Look well upon this\nsignet.\"\n\n\"I obey the procurator,\" said the master of the games. \"Do thou his\nbidding. But I will see nothing that thou hast in thy hand by any\ncommandment from him. Hold thou thy peace, O messenger. I meddle not.\"\n\nLysias had dismounted and, without more words, he passed on into the\nquarters of the Saxons. Excepting themselves, no others were present to\nobserve or to hear, but he did not find men who were taking rest. Some\nwere making up packages for carrying, some were examining carefully\ntheir arms and armor as if about to go into battle, but they greeted\nthe Greek heartily. He looked around him for a moment, not without an\nunderstanding of this which they were doing.\n\n\"I am in season, O Tostig the Red,\" he said altogether as if he had\nbeen expected to come. \"But put ye on Roman helmets, every man. Ye are\nto ride fast to Joppa this night. Right glad am I to be your guide, for\nthe roads might prove misleading.\"\n\n\"Hael to thee, O Greek!\" exclaimed Tostig. \"Even now are the horses\nnearly prepared. We will mount at thy bidding. But hast thou at all\nseen the jarl?\"\n\n\"By the will of the gods, and not by his own, he may not now come,\"\nsaid Lysias. \"Were he here, he would say that ye go forth at once and\nthat ye ride well. Mark this saying, however, that there will be one\nat the shore who must by all means enter the galley, but who must not\ntravel far in her.\"\n\n\"It is but a spear thrust,\" said Knud the Bear. \"We will attend to his\ncase.\"\n\nSilently all, but openly and boldly as by men who obeyed a high\ncommand, were the horses led out and mounted. There were also led\nhorses for the packages and for changes, and there was no Roman officer\nof rank at hand to call this doing in question.\n\n\"Ride!\" said Tostig. \"Odin! It will not be well for any who shall cross\nour path!\"\n\nNone was likely to do so. The Romans held Judea by garrisons in forts\nand camps, and not greatly by moving forces. The highway to Joppa would\nbe deserted after nightfall. Who should rashly interfere with mounted\nspearmen, whose very helmets were as a sharp warning to the imprudent?\n\n\"Swiftly! Swiftly!\" exclaimed Lysias, before long. \"We now pass the\nhill of Golgotha. On that mount have many been crucified. Make thee\nsure that ye get well away with this galley of Herod and that no man\nmay find you upon it in after time. I tell you truly that if ye are now\ntaken prisoners ye would but climb yonder Hill of Skulls.\"\n\nSilent were the Saxons at that hard saying, but the horses under them\nappeared to spring forward as if with one accord.\n\nIt was at the foot of a steep declivity that the galloping ceased for a\nbrief resting of the horses, and Tostig exclaimed:\n\n\"O Knud the Bear, this is well. We have gone far. But I like not this\nmanner of departing from our jarl. I think I should have seen his face\nand heard his commandment. Were he to need my sword on the morrow, I\nwould be at his side.\"\n\n\"I also,\" responded Knud. \"We are his own men and he is ours. It is in\nhis heart that we may return to the Middle Sea with a hundred keels.\nWhat, then, would we care for Roman triremes? We could slay all the\nlegionaries in Judea.\"\n\n\"If we might indeed land here again,\" said Wulf the Skater, doubtfully.\n\"At all events we have no more upon our hands this night than to take\nthe keel which is prepared for us and to put to sea.\"\n\nSo said they all, and again they pushed forward, but after a while the\nroad by which they traveled was no longer so rugged and so hilly.\n\n\"We shall kill the horses,\" they said, \"but we may reach the sea before\nthe dawn.\"\n\nSo did it prove, for more than one horse gave out and his rider mounted\nanother from those which were led without any heavy burden. It was yet\ndark, at the last, when Tostig exclaimed:\n\n\"O Greek, I hear the sound of waves upon a beach. Are we now near\nJoppa?\"\n\n\"Too near,\" replied Lysias, \"for into the town itself we may not safely\ngo. We will turn here by this road at the right. If we encounter guards\nor a patrol, let there be no report made of our passing.\"\n\n\"Halt!\" rang out in the road a little ahead of them. \"The password! Who\nare ye?\"\n\nIt was a legionary at his post, a sentry on guard, and to him rode Knud\nthe Bear.\n\n\"I am this,\" he said. \"Take thou my token!\"\n\nDown fell the soldier, speared through the face, so that he spoke not\nagain, and on rode the Saxons toward the sea.\n\n\"We have now only starlight,\" said Lysias, \"but yonder at anchor\nfloateth the galley of Herod, the tetrarch. This is according to the\nsaying of the procurator. All is well, for he who cometh hath not\narrived. There are boats; take them. But here do I leave you, for I\nhave a further errand. Fare thee well.\"\n\n\"Success to thee, O Lysias,\" said Tostig. \"We are thy friends\nhenceforth. Haste thee about thy business. We can care for ourselves\nnow that we see keels and waves.\"\n\nMany voices bade him good speed, and the strong ass appeared but little\nwearied as he sprang away northward along the beach.\n\n\"Glad am I not to be in Joppa this day,\" said Lysias. \"If I am heard\nfrom next at the house of Cornelius at C\u00e6sarea, no man will accuse me\nof having too much acquaintance with the doings of the gladiators of\nCaius. I did but bring to them an order whereof I knew not the meaning.\nI am but a messenger, carrying letters to and fro.\"\n\nNevertheless, his heart was full of great anxiety and he remembered how\ndark had been the hard face of the procurator.\n\nThe fishing boats were many, but only two large ones were taken. Into\nthese the Saxons put their baggage of all kinds, but they drove away\ntheir horses to a good distance down the beach. Then they took the oars\nand in a short rowing they were near the galley.\n\nOver the bulwark leaned an armed man as the boats touched the side.\n\n\"Whence come ye?\" he demanded, but he spoke as to friends, for he was\nat that hour expecting such an arrival and he saw the Roman helmets.\n\nFor a moment no voice replied to him, but the Saxons went quickly over\nthe bulwark.\n\n\"Slay now, but cast none overboard!\" commanded Tostig. \"Here are\nsoldiers sleeping.\"\n\nThese who slept were not many of them Romans, but more were soldiers\nof Herod, Jews and Arabians and Edomites. They died speedily under the\nswift thrusting of the Saxon spears, but the watchman had fallen first.\n\n\"Spare the rowers in their places,\" said Wulf the Skater. \"We will use\nthem.\"\n\nBut these rowers were all slaves, in chains, and they looked upon the\nslaughter in silence, as if it were no affair of their own.\n\n\"Be ready, all!\" suddenly commanded Tostig. \"Utter no sound! A boat\ncometh from the shore, as Lysias gave us to expect. Not from this\nbeach, but from a pier in the harbor. In it are but few men. In the\nprow is some great one, but he weareth no helmet. Let them come on\nboard with all safety, but none in that boat may return to Joppa.\"\n\nFor a cause known to themselves not one of them had any purpose of at\nonce returning. They came swiftly to the galley and all climbed eagerly\non board, casting adrift their boat to float where it would.\n\n\"Away!\" shouted he who seemed their leader, as if speaking to sailors\nwho were under his own direction. \"Row out of the harbor quickly.\nSpeed, or a scourge for every back!\"\n\nSaxon hands were already raising the anchor and the rowers put out\ntheir oars as they were bidden.\n\n\"O all ye gods!\" suddenly cried out the great man, stumbling over a\nfallen soldier. \"What is this? O my destruction! The hand of Pontius\nthe Spearman is here! I perish!\"\n\nThen fell his head upon the deck at the stroke of Knud the Bear, and\nshortly all his companions went down in like manner, for they were\nastonished and they did no fighting.\n\nBeing in fear of death, the rowers rowed with great vigor and Tostig\nwas at the helm.\n\n\"She is swift!\" he exclaimed. \"She is a good keel and she rideth well\nthe waves. We are upon the sea! Hael to the Northland!\"\n\nLoudly shouted all the vikings, clashing their shields, for it was a\njoy to feel the lifting of the long billows and once more to wipe the\nsalt spray from their faces. They rapidly examined the ship from stem\nto stern, but there was much which required more thorough searching.\n\n\"O that the jarl were here with us!\" groaned Tostig. \"The day is here.\nWe, his friends, have escaped from the Romans and from the circus, but\nour jarl is on the land. It is evil! How shall I answer concerning him\nwhen I am inquired of at his own house? Will not some men say that I am\nnidering?\"\n\nLong leagues were rowed and then, for the wind was now right, the sail\nwas lifted.\n\n\"We will cast overboard these who were slain,\" said Knud. \"We will\nweight them, that they may sink. So shall none tell a tale of us to any\nwho may follow. We do as the jarl would have bidden.\"\n\n\"Thou art prudent,\" said Tostig. \"So much for the secret messengers of\nHerod. We have shed blood upon this ship and the gods of the North are\nwith us. Only let us with care avoid all triremes, for we do not need\nto be inquired of by a stronger force.\"\n\n\"This is now the spring,\" said Lars, the son of Beolf. \"If we pause\nnot needlessly, we shall soon reach the fiords, but there will be no\nice in them.\"\n\n\"It is a good cruise,\" said another. \"We may take much plunder by the\nway. Let us now search again the cabins of this galley.\"\n\nMuch that astonished them had been found with those who came on board\nin the boat that they might be slain. More was now discovered in secret\nplaces.\n\n\"Odin!\" exclaimed Knud, examining these matters. \"Here are many coins\nof silver and of gold and a number of bright stones. I think these may\nhave been gifts from Herod, the king, to C\u00e6sar at Rome, but he will not\nsoon see them.\"\n\n\"There are also fine weapons and garments,\" said Wulf. \"It is a very\nrich galley.\"\n\nThe sun was unclouded, the wind blew fairly from the east, the galley\nsped forward gallantly, and the rowers rested upon their seats, but now\nTostig the Red stood upon the after deck with all the Saxons around him.\n\n\"I have heard ye all,\" he said, for they had been speaking many things.\n\"We are of one mind. But if it be your will that I shall now take upon\nme the command of this keel, put ye your hands in mine and give me your\noath to this saying, that we will be satisfied with this great plunder\nwhich we have already taken; that we will keep the open sea, not\nlanding save for food or water; that we will care to take no other keel\nbut this; and that we will sail on until we see the house of Brander\nthe Brave upon the shore of the Northland. After that we will come back\nto the Middle Sea with many swords and we will seek for Ulric, our\njarl, until we find him.\"\n\n\"So will we do!\" shouted Knud the Bear.\n\nOne by one did the Saxons then step forward and put their hands between\nthe hands of Tostig, and the oath was an oath.\n\nNevertheless, they were as men who had sailed away forever, unless the\ngods should see fit to accomplish this their purpose of coming again\nwith a fleet, and with a host to follow Ulric the Jarl and his captain\ninto the great battle in Esdraelon.\n\nWell was it for them that they had thus escaped the sure perils of\nthe circus if they might also escape the many perils of the sea. They\nmight indeed avoid the triremes of Rome, and little cared hardy vikings\nfor rough weather, but the voyage would be long and they were not\nmany spearmen. The slave rowers, however, were sturdy fellows, well\nselected, and these were likely to be better contented with masters who\nflogged them not unduly and who thought it a shame that even a beast,\nbeing their own, should not be well fed and cared for.\n\nAs for Tostig the Red, he had become stern and moody, smiling not\nat all, and he told the rest of the vikings that Ulric, the son of\nBrander, was still his jarl, and that as Ulric, to his thinking, would\nhave directed in any case, so would he order.\n\n\"That will be well for us,\" they said.\n\n\"I have been troubled in my mind,\" he told them. \"I think that I may\nyet slay many Romans at the side of the son of Odin. I myself saw that\nJewish god of his that healed him of his hurts. I heard his words and\nthey were good to hear, although I understood him not very well. If he\nis to be the captain of the host, over the jarl, I am contented. But\nnever yet did I see a better sword than is our jarl.\"\n\n\"Nor did we,\" they answered him. \"We will surely return with thee to\nthe Middle Sea, and our treasure shall go with thine to the making of\nmany great keels and the gathering of the swordsmen of the North.\"\n\nAll things seemed going well with them, but there was, nevertheless, a\nshadow upon the ship, and when the sun was setting Tostig the Red sat\nupon the after deck sharpening his seax upon a stone and now and then\ngazing backward toward the east.\n\n\"Would I were with him this hour,\" he said in a low, sad voice. \"How\nshall the years go by with me henceforth if I am never again to see the\nface of my jarl?\"\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER XXXVII.\n\n THE HOUSE OF BEN EZRA.\n\n\nIn the house of Ben Ezra, at the head of the flight of stone steps in\nthe secret passage, Ulric the Jarl stood looking down into a great\ndarkness. But now Ben Ezra came to him, having lighted a large brazen\nlamp which swung like a cresset at the end of a wooden rod a fathom\nlong. The flame of the lamp was very brilliant, but the smoke thereof\nwas unpleasant to the smell because of some strange oil which burned in\nit. Such a lamp might not be lighted at a feast or in the dwellings of\nmen.\n\n\"Follow me, O jarl,\" he said. \"This is the underworld and thou and I\nare alone in this place. But not all the swords of C\u00e6sar could find\nthee if thou wert hidden here. It hath been a refuge for some who fled\nfrom a destroyer.\"\n\n\"O Jew,\" said Ulric, \"I will cover this thy secret. May I fail of\nValhalla, dying as a cow dieth, if I betray thee!\"\n\n\"Come!\" said Ben Ezra, and they went on down the stairway together.\n\nAt the foot of it was a low chamber, the air of which was heavy, but\nBen Ezra turned to the left, and as he lifted his lamp there might be\nseen a narrow cleft in the masonry. A little inside of this cleft there\nwas a barrier of iron-bound woodwork.\n\n\"Lift it away by its hand pieces,\" said Ben Ezra. \"Thou art stronger\nthan I.\"\n\nVery massive was the wooden barrier, but it might be dragged forth and\nlaid upon the floor, and at once a current of cold, damp air poured\nthrough the opening, bringing with it a smell as of earth.\n\n\"I will go in first,\" said Ben Ezra. \"Now will I show thee my crypt.\"\n\nIn a moment more they were stooping over an open coffer, and he said:\n\n\"Here are my treasures and thine, and somewhat which belongeth to thy\nmen. I would they might have it, for we need not any goods but our own.\nThou shalt take away at thy will whatever is thine own.\"\n\n\"I may not remove it now,\" said Ulric, \"save a bag of golden coins. But\nI would ask of thee, if thou wilt tell me, what is this place that we\nare in and how is there such a cavern, with masonwork and corridors and\npillars and cunning doors? Are we to go on into it?\"\n\n\"Thou wilt go no further lest thou lose thyself as in a wilderness,\"\nsaid the Jew, pointing down the passageway.\n\n\"It is like a cave,\" said Ulric. \"I never heard of caves under a city.\"\n\n\"Behold,\" said Ben Ezra, \"the secret of Jerusalem. It is from the\nearliest time. There was a fort here in the days of Adam and here the\ngiants had their dwelling. There are no writings of those ancient\ndays. But on these hills and in these valleys city after city hath\nbeen builded and destroyed. For those walls and buildings much masonry\nwas needed. There were vast halls and hollows made in quarrying stone\nduring ages. Afterward these openings were sealed and made of the\nsecrets of priests and kings. They will not be opened until Messiah\ncometh.\"\n\n\"He is to be thy great king,\" said Ulric. \"What need hath he of caves?\"\n\n\"Not any,\" said Ben Ezra, \"but he will know in what hidden depth he\nshall find the treasures of Adam and of the giants and of the old kings\nand of Solomon, for all are yonder, where none but he may lay a hand\nupon them. Let us go.\"\n\n\"I have seen a wonder,\" said Ulric following his guide. \"But if this\ngod from Nazareth is to be thy king, wilt thou not thyself inform him\nof the way through thy house into his hidden places?\"\n\n\"He will have no need,\" said Ben Ezra; \"but if I saw that he had\nthe right to know, I would tell him. Messiah knoweth all things. As\nfor this rabbi of Galilee, he cometh to Jerusalem even now, for the\nPassover feast draweth near. I would gladly hear him again. During\nyears that are gone there have been many sayings concerning him.\"\n\n\"I know that he hath healed my hurts,\" said Ulric. \"He hath also done\nin like manner by many another. I think that I shall yet be a captain\nof men under him, and the great battle cometh.\"\n\nThey were now in the upper room and the stone door had been closed\nbehind them, swinging upon its pivots.\n\n\"Am I to abide here this night?\" asked Ulric. \"I have an errand of mine\nown in the morning. After that is done I must go to my men. They will\nsurely need counsel and ordering.\"\n\n\"I will now show thee thy chamber wherein thou art to sleep,\" said Ben\nEzra. \"But, I pray thee, do not too many errands within the city walls,\nand neglect not to visit Caius of Thessalonica lest thou lose thy\nstrong friend. It is needful for thee to be seen much at his house.\"\n\n\"I will truly care for him,\" said Ulric. \"It is my duty. But I have a\ngreat concern as to my companions. O that they were even now upon the\nsea and utterly escaped from the circus!\"\n\n\"Else they will surely all be slain,\" said Ben Ezra; but he led the way\nto a place for sleeping and the night closed over all.\n\nWhen the next morning came the watchmen upon the walls of Joppa\ntook note that the swift galley of Herod, the tetrarch, had already\ndeparted. So sent they in their due report, but already had it been\ndiscovered that whoever might now be in her had left behind them\nstrange tokens. In the highway north of the tower came a company of\nlegionaries to change the sentries, and at the turning of the road they\nfound but a dead man, slain by a spear thrust through his head. Who\ncould have done this deed in a day of peace they guessed not at all,\nbut their officer spoke of the Jackal of Mach\u00e6rus. Not long afterward a\nhorseman in bright armor rode along the beach seeing empty boats that\nwere cast up by the waves, and also the empty place where the evening\nbefore the galley had been anchored.\n\n\"I am too late!\" he shouted, angrily. \"The traitor hath escaped to\nRome! What answer shall I give to Herod Antipas? His brother hath again\noutwitted him and I think he is in league with the procurator.\"\n\nFurther up the beach men led along many horses, saddled and bridled,\nwhich they had found astray and ownerless, and this thing also was a\nriddle.\n\nThe governor of Joppa was quickly informed of all, that he might make\nhis report to his commander; but at that hour Pontius the Spearman\nwas sitting in the seat of judgment thinking not of Joppa, and before\nhim came not only his own officers, but Jews, also, and people from\nthe towns and the provinces. Suddenly, however, he turned from aught\nelse to look into the face of one who came in haste, seeming to be\ngreatly disturbed in mind. It was the master of the games who now stood\nopposite the chair of judgment, and at a sign of the procurator's hand\nhe spoke rapidly until he had told his errand, speaking low that none\nelse might hear.\n\n\"O thou,\" said Pontius, calmly, \"go back to thy affairs. I care not\ngreatly what Caius hath done with his gladiators. If indeed they have\nrebelled and if they are in Judea or Samaria, I will retake them for\nhim in season for the games. The fault is not thine.\"\n\n\"O most noble Pontius,\" said the master of the games, \"what sayest thou\nof the Greek? He came unto them, as I testified.\"\n\n\"What is that to thee?\" responded the procurator haughtily. \"Care thou\nfor thy beasts and thy cages. See that thou speak not at all to him of\nthis matter when thou seest him. Go thy way!\"\n\nThe master of the games trembled somewhat as he went forth and Pontius\nfollowed him not with his eyes, but muttered to himself:\n\n\"The Greek hath made good his token of a man from the circus. I will\nnow wait for a word from Joppa, but I will not question him imprudently\nwhen he returneth from C\u00e6sarea.\"\n\nHeavy matters were now coming before him, and among them all was\nnone which seemed to trouble him more than did certain testimonies\nconcerning the evil deeds of robbers from the wilderness of Judea.\n\n\"O ye Jews!\" exclaimed the angry magistrate. \"How shall I execute\njustice when so many of you are in league with these evil-doers? In\nthis city is the refuge of these wicked men. Who will capture for me\nthis Bar Abbas that I may crucify him? He hath kindred among you and ye\nshelter him!\"\n\nLoud were the indignant protests which replied to him from scribes\nand rabbis and rulers, but far back, near the entrance of the hall of\njudgment, were twain who listened eagerly.\n\n\"Father Abraham!\" hoarsely whispered one of these. \"I may not upon any\naccount bring my matter before him. Even now is my son at my house and\nhe brought much profit with him. He is worth more to me than are all\nthe robbers of Gilboa or the tribes beyond Jordan. He must not fall\ninto the hands of these Roman heathen lest I also be destroyed. The God\nof Israel be my protector against the enemy!\"\n\nSearching eyes were upon him, but the thought in the mind of Ulric, the\nson of Brander, was: \"Well for me that I fell in with him as I left the\nhouse of Ben Ezra. Well that I followed him even here. Now will I not\ncease until I know his abiding place.\"\n\nCowering and hiding his face, did Abbas hasten away, hardly daring to\nlook behind him. Many were coming and going, however, and the guilty\ndealer in stolen goods might not take warning of the manner in which he\nwas followed vengefully from street to street.\n\n\"I may not smite him now,\" said the pursuer, \"but he and another will\nshortly be touched by a sharp edge. There entereth he a door and I\nwill leave him for this time. Now must I see Caius and then I go to my\ncompanions. Would that they were on their way to the Northland. Woe to\nme if I bring harm to them!\"\n\nNevertheless, even before going to the house of Caius, the jarl did one\nthing which relieved both his heart and his hands from a heavy weight.\nHe went to the door of a house and he was admitted, but he tarried not\nthere, and he came out again, going on in haste, but with less gloom\nupon his face.\n\n\"She will think well of me!\" he exclaimed. \"I might not have speech\nwith her, but she will look upon my token and she will bless me.\"\n\nIn the house from which he had departed, and in an inner chamber of it,\nstood the Hebrew maiden, and before her was Isaac, the aged, her near\nkinsman. He placed upon a table a heavy bag and he essayed to speak,\nbut his lips trembled and his voice failed him.\n\n\"O Isaac, what is this?\" she exclaimed. \"Where didst thou obtain money,\nseeing the manner in which we are hindered? Hast thou indeed betrayed\nme again by thy weakness?\"\n\n\"Nay! Nay! It is thine!\" shouted Isaac. \"Thy heathen prince came to the\ndoor. I saw him, but he lingered not and none other had speech with\nhim. 'This is for her,' he said. 'Tell her I watch and I return, but\nthat she may not go forth, not even to the temple.' So I brought the\nbag to thee, wondering. Count it, for I have not counted.\"\n\nHe himself untied the bag and poured out the coins upon the table,\ncounting, while Miriam watched as one who seeth dimly in a dream of the\nnight.\n\n\"Ulric, Ulric,\" she muttered, \"thou art more to me than are these. I\nthink of thee that thou art pure gold, but who may weigh thee in the\nbalances? Come to me, for great is my need of thy counsel!\"\n\n\"Of Rome and of Greece and of Judea are these coins,\" said Isaac. \"They\nare thrice our present requirement. Jehovah hath turned to thee the\nheart of this idolater and thou doest well to make him serve thee.\nThou hast the understanding which is given to women. We will pay our\noppressors. We will give a goodly gift to the judge and to the chief\npriests. We will offer a sacrifice of burnt offering of a sweet savor.\nAnd God, even our God, will yet deliver thee also from the hand of this\nheathen gladiator.\"\n\n\"Isaac,\" she exclaimed, \"peace! Speak not of him unduly! Would that a\nfalse judgment concerning money were our only peril.\"\n\n\"O Miriam,\" said the old man, putting the coins in again and tying\nthe bag, \"that also hath been provided for. In this house we may not\nsafely remain, but a sure refuge hath been offered and we shall be for\na season as if we were hidden in a well. One cometh shortly to be our\nguide, and it is needful that thy heathen prince, also, should have\ninformation, for he hath more gold than this and his hand is now open.\"\n\n\"Peace!\" she again exclaimed, but Isaac went out with the bag, saying:\n\n\"Great are the gifts of Jehovah of Hosts! Would that he might now send\nthe sword of this Philistine who loveth her upon the necks of our\nenemies!\"\n\n\"I will wait,\" she was whispering, \"until I see him.\"\n\nLong was the remaining of Ulric the Jarl at the house of Caius of\nThessalonica, but afterward he went out at the Damascus gate purposing\nto visit the amphitheater. He went on down into the valley of\nJehoshaphat, walking slowly, and he came to the bridge over the brook\nKidron, by which he was to pass.\n\n\"O jarl,\" said a youth who waited at the bridge, \"a token from Ben\nEzra!\"\n\n\"None heareth,\" replied Ulric. \"Say on.\"\n\n\"Thy men are not at the circus, he bade me tell thee, and no man\nknoweth whither they are gone. Go thou not thither now, but let the\nhouse of Caius be thy refuge, for there will be an inquiry for thee.\"\n\nStill as a stone stood the jarl while one might breathe three times.\n\n\"I thank thee and him, O youth,\" he said then. \"Go thou to him with his\nword only, that neither he nor I need any to tell us whereunto the sons\nof the Northland have departed. I will do as he hath said.\"\n\nThe youth went from him running, but Ulric did not reenter the city by\nthe Damascus gate.\n\n\"It will be safer to choose another,\" he said. \"I was seen by the\nguards when I came forth. They may by this time have some evil\ncommandment concerning me.\"\n\nSo therefore he made a great circuit of the walls, going far, and even\nafter he selected a gate by which he might prudently go in he seemed\nto have another matter upon his hands. The hours went by, one after\nanother, and it was long after the sunset before he was known to be in\nthe house of Caius. Then speedily he was sent for and he went in to\nwhat was now the sick chamber of the centurion.\n\n\"O jarl,\" said he, \"how is it with thee?\"\n\n\"O most noble Caius,\" replied the jarl, \"I am well, but I am alone in\nJerusalem. All of my companions have returned to their own land.\"\n\n\"Well for thee,\" said Caius. \"Of that I had been informed. A swift\nmessenger from the governor of Joppa brought strange news to the\nprocurator. What sayest thou if thy men have been hired to serve upon a\nship by Herod, the tetrarch? Would they not guard well?\"\n\n\"O Caius,\" said the jarl, \"thou knowest them and I need say no more,\nfor I am ignorant of all this matter save that they are gone.\"\n\n\"I find no fault with thee,\" said Caius. \"The messenger was sent to me\nand I have fully questioned him. Also word came from the procurator\nthat I trouble thee not, for Herod must be allowed to direct his own\naffairs. If he have hired good swordsmen, surely his galley is in safe\nkeeping.\"\n\nUlric looked at him darkly, for the voice of Caius was as of one who\nmocketh bitterly.\n\n\"O Caius,\" said the jarl, \"if thou wilt hear me, I have another affair\nupon my mind. I like not the appearance of thy sore.\"\n\n\"Jarl of the Saxons,\" exclaimed the centurion, \"I seem to myself to be\nrotting away. I am as one who hath the leprosy. But what knowest thou\nof any healing?\"\n\n\"Only this that I have heard this day,\" said Ulric. \"I would have thee\nlive until the arrival of this Jesus of Nazareth. He cometh now to the\nfeast of the Jews. He is of the sons of the gods. Did he not heal me?\nAnd may he not also do something for thee?\"\n\n\"O that he might come quickly!\" said Caius. \"But the gods can do little\nfor such a torment as mine. There are many things which are too much\nfor them. But I will see him when he cometh. I would make him rich with\ngifts if he would heal me.\"\n\n\"I will watch for him,\" said the jarl. \"I may not go again to the\ncircus----\"\n\n\"Go not!\" exclaimed Caius. \"Remain much with me. O Saxon, when this\nfire burneth within me I would gladly fall upon my sword but that it\nwould please my enemies. But if thou goest out now, return quickly. Of\nthis be thou sure in thy mind, that I will not permit thee to enter the\ncircus. Thy sword will have better business. I will speak of thee again\nto the procurator. A messenger from him hath arrived. Leave me with\nhim.\"\n\nMore words might not be spoken and the jarl went out, but it could be\nunderstood that with difficulty did the centurion restrain himself and\nconceal from all the extremity of his suffering from that deadly thing.\n\n\"I will go to the house of Ben Ezra,\" thought Ulric. \"Already have I\nmade sure that there are fewer enemies to bring peril upon Miriam and\nher people. I will see if the Jew hath well attended to his portion of\nher business. But unless help cometh to him speedily, Caius will surely\ndie.\"\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER XXXVIII.\n\n THE SON OF ABBAS.\n\n\nLong and thoughtfully and with many questionings did Ben Ezra listen\nto the jarl in an inner chamber of his house. \"Thou hast done well,\"\nhe said, at last, \"but trust thou not too much the favor of the great.\nNeither be thou too sure concerning their power. The leaves fall from\nall the trees in due season. Full of jealousy and of suspicion and of\nmurder are all they who prosper under C\u00e6sar. In the day and in the\nnight is there a weapon not far from any of them. So deal they with\nothers. A Roman friend is ever also a Roman enemy holding a knife, and\nby the hands of their friends do men die continually at Rome.\"\n\n\"That do I believe,\" said Ulric. \"I will be exceedingly prudent. But, O\nmy friend, what hast thou done concerning Miriam?\"\n\n\"I have done all thus far,\" said Ben Ezra. \"I did but need to buy the\ngood-will of the judge and one peril passed away. To him and to another\nI could both pay more and promise more than was in the will of Abbas.\nBut thou, O jarl, hast thou seen the face of this Roman dealer in\nslaves?\"\n\n\"That peril also hath departed,\" said Ulric. \"I am told that a man in\nhaste met him in the valley of Hinnom. The patrol found him there in\ntheir passing, and his head lay at six cubits' length from his body.\"\n\n\"He had many enemies,\" said Ben Ezra, thoughtfully. \"One may even have\nfollowed him from the city. I have now another word for thee concerning\nAbbas, now that thou hast heard the procurator upon the judgment seat\ngive authority to all such as thou art concerning the taking of his\nson. The robbers are a power in Jerusalem and the sword of Bar Abbas is\nagainst thee.\"\n\n\"I have never seen him,\" said Ulric.\n\n\"Then will I tell thee of his face,\" said Ben Ezra, and he minutely did\nso, line by line.\n\n\"Fear not,\" said Ulric. \"I would now know that man if but half his face\nwere shown.\"\n\n\"He is said to be cunning in disguises,\" replied Ben Ezra, \"but his\nbest keeper is the fear of men that by denouncing him they may bring\nupon themselves secret daggers and a vengeance which faileth not.\"\n\n\"No fear have I,\" muttered Ulric, \"but how am I to find him!\"\n\n\"I trust that thou wilt be prospered in that matter,\" said Ben Ezra,\n\"but I have this much more for thee. It behooved me to bring both\nMiriam and Isaac to this house, that I might cover them until this\nperil pass. Roman eyes that thou knowest not may have looked upon her.\nWe must wait. The slaying of one slave dealer may but make needful the\nhiring of another by some great one. The house in which Isaac dwelt was\nbut hired, and another taketh it, that he and his may be thrust out.\nThe net is a wide one.\"\n\n\"Evil! Evil! Evil!\" exclaimed Ulric. \"This city is full of injustice!\nNo such thing could be among the North peoples. I saw no thief ever,\nnor a purchased jarl or judge, until I came southward.\"\n\n\"So doth the whole land groan,\" said Ben Ezra. \"So doth the blood of\nthe innocent cry out unto Jehovah.\"\n\n\"Why, then, answereth he not?\" shouted Ulric, vehemently. \"Surely the\ngod of a people should come to their help in such a distress, else they\nwill surely say of him that he is no god at all.\"\n\n\"So have said many,\" groaned Ben Ezra, \"and I grow weary in heart\nwaiting for a Messiah who doth not come. O that our King were already\nhere. Peace, now, O jarl, concerning him. But I will tell thee of\nMiriam that thou mayest not have speech with her this night. Be thou\nnot also her enemy, to do her harm.\"\n\n\"Where is indeed thy god,\" said Ulric, \"if any hurt may come to such as\nshe is?\"\n\n\"O jarl,\" said Ben Ezra, \"all Jerusalem hath heretofore been heaped\nwith the slain, and the maidens of Zion were led away captive, because\nof the anger of Jehovah. Dost thou not understand? We do suffer for our\nsins and for the sins of our fathers.\"\n\n\"I think the gods do not well in such matters,\" said Ulric. \"They are\nnot just. Surely justice becometh well a brave god. He should not\nstrike down the innocent ones with those who are guilty of evil.\"\n\n\"I know not the counsel of the Most High,\" said Ben Ezra. \"His\njudgments are a great deep, but they are just and righteous altogether.\"\n\n\"No man,\" said the jarl, \"findeth fault with a stroke of a sword\nfairly given, since he who dieth in battle goeth to Valhalla and hath\nattained his inheritance from his brave ancestors. I myself wait for\nthe valkyrias, and I am often weary thinking of the gods and of Asgard.\nWho would avoid a sword if it were in the hand of a brave warrior in\nbattle? Not I, Ulric, the son of Brander.\"\n\n\"Thou art a mighty man of valor,\" said Ben Ezra. \"I have thought of\nthee that thou art almost as a son of Abraham. Go thou to thy sleeping,\nfor this house must be even more thy abiding place than is the house of\nCaius now thy companions are departed.\"\n\nSleep came as to one who is weary both in mind and body, but early upon\nthe morrow the two friends were together again taking counsel.\n\n\"O Jew,\" said the jarl, \"I am ill at ease concerning my men. Would that\nI might see them this day and make sure of their welfare.\"\n\n\"So often doth one think of those who are departed from him,\" said Ben\nEzra; \"but have thou a care that thou inquire not imprudently. All that\nI may learn I will tell thee when thou comest again. It is well for\nthee to go now.\"\n\nOut walked the jarl, going along a corridor which led toward the door\ninto the street.\n\n\"Very wonderful is all this,\" he thought. \"A strange place is this city\nof Jerusalem, with its many rulers and its secrets of the gods and of\nthe old time, and with these things which are done here. Of what good\nis it that it hath so great a temple and so many priests?\"\n\nAt that moment there came to his ears a beautiful, low music murmuring\nthrough the cool air of the corridor.\n\n\"Ulric, art thou here?\"\n\n\"Miriam!\" he exclaimed, turning to listen.\n\n\"O, I thank thee that thou hast come,\" she said. \"I have had such fear\nupon me! Much rather would I die. One moment I must see thee and speak\nto thee! Tarry a moment!\"\n\n\"More I may not do, O Miriam,\" he said, with a great light rising in\nhis eyes. \"But I have given my promise to Ben Ezra and to thy God\nconcerning thee that no harm shall come upon thee. I will but look upon\nthy face.\"\n\n\"Thou art wonderful!\" she said, and then they saw not aught of all the\nworld except each other for that breathing space.\n\n\"O thou,\" she whispered, \"I know not if thou art of the heathen or if I\nam of Abraham's seed. O what but death should part me and thee!\"\n\n\"I think not even death,\" he said, \"seeing that we go to one place\nafter the sword cometh. But if indeed thy Jehovah be a god and if he\nhave given me to thee, I will offer to him many sacrifices. I must go\nforth now, for I have many things to do for thee and for a friend. If\nthis Jesus of Nazareth arriveth, I must have speech with him. I have\ntold thee how he healed me.\"\n\n\"So must I see him,\" she said. \"I listened to him many times in\nGalilee. He is a very learned rabbi and I would hear him again.\"\n\n\"He is more than a rabbi,\" said Ulric. \"He is a god--and he knoweth\nthe other gods. I would ask him concerning Asgard and Valhalla and\nconcerning thee. Thy slave dealer is dead, O Miriam, and soon will I\ndeal justly with this Abbas and those who are with him.\"\n\n\"Thou art my warrior!\" she exclaimed. \"Thou art as one of the heroes of\nIsrael. I trust thee!\"\n\n\"Farewell!\" he said stepping quickly away from her, but no word escaped\nher lips. She did but seem to hold back her hand from its purpose of\ndetaining him, and her breath came and went rapidly as he passed out\nat the door. Then her voice came again and she said, looking upward:\n\n\"O thou Jehovah of Hosts, my God, hast thou not made him also? How am I\nbetter than he that I should be withheld from him? Do I not love him?\"\n\nThe feet of Ulric went but slowly from the house of Ben Ezra, and he\npaid little heed to their guiding, but they brought him to the house of\nCaius of Thessalonica and the warder of the portal stood before him.\n\n\"I have a word for thee, O swordsman,\" he said. \"Thou art well arrived.\"\n\n\"Say on,\" said Ulric.\n\n\"Even now, O Saxon, the procurator himself is with our master Caius\nand with them is the governor of Joppa. Thou mayest not go in. But\npass thou to the Damascus gate, for Caius would know of the arrival of\nthis Galilean healer. It is reported that he is near at hand. Also the\nprocurator would have speech with thee when Caius will send thee to\nhim. These are thy commands and thou wilt do them.\"\n\n\"Say thou, O warder,\" replied Ulric, \"that I go as I am bidden. Well\nfor thee and for us all if the centurion were cured of this evil. Thou\nwilt fall into no better hands than his if he dieth. I am his friend,\nand he suffereth.\"\n\n\"Go! Go!\" said the warder, earnestly. \"All the gods forbid that he\nshould die. If this same Jew rabbi will not heal Caius, it is thy duty\nto slay him with thy sword.\"\n\n\"Speak thou only good concerning him,\" said Ulric, sternly. \"What hast\nthou to do with a sword? I go.\"\n\nThe warder stepped backward a pace, for not many men willed to stand\nbefore the jarl when his hand seemed to be seeking for the hilt of his\nseax.\n\n\"A sudden man!\" he muttered, as he watched his going. \"And they say he\nhath cleft both a lion and a tiger in one combat and that he would wear\nno armor. A man's head might go from his shoulders as if it were but a\nflower from a stem. His eye is a fire!\"\n\n\"I would I better knew the streets,\" said the jarl, as he strode\nswiftly onward. \"I learn them but slowly, for they are very many and\nthey are crooked and the city is great. Whither, now, shall this one\nlead me?\"\n\nAs in an unknown path, therefore, he went on, thinking of many things.\nThe way led him over a hill and through a valley and to a gate in the\nouter wall that he knew well. Here were Roman guards standing at rest,\nhindering none, and Ulric halted near them. \"Many go out,\" he thought,\n\"but a multitude cometh yonder along the road across the Mount of\nOlives. I will wait and see.\"\n\nNearer and nearer along the broad highway poured a vast throng of\npeople, while through the gate passed on a tide which went to mingle\nwith them. Many of those who were coming bore in their hands branches\nof palm trees and they were shouting joyously.\n\n\"What is this which they sing?\" said Ulric. \"What is the meaning of\n'Hosanna in the highest,' and who is David, and what is his son? It is\na saga of the Jews. The whole city is stirred up behind me. This is a\nwonder!\"\n\nAcross the valley and then up toward the gate came on the multitude.\nAmong them were some who took off their outer robes and cast them upon\nthe road before an ass and before his rider, shouting and singing.\n\n\"I have heard them say 'a king,'\" said Ulric. \"But here is no king.\nNone of these men are armed. What saith the procurator to this\nbusiness?\"\n\n\"O gladiator of Caius of Thessalonica,\" suddenly responded a legionary\nof the guard of the gate, \"thou art but a sword. What careth Pontius\nthe Spearman for a mob of women and children? We know thee that thou\nart accounted trustworthy, and thou doest well to inquire concerning\nany tumult of the Jews, but this is no affair of either thine or ours.\"\n\n\"I meddle not,\" said the jarl. \"I am under orders from the centurion\nand from the procurator, but I may watch this matter.\"\n\n\"Watch,\" said the officer. \"Thou art in thy duty. We hinder thee not.\nBut who art thou?\"\n\nThe man whom he now addressed was plainly a Jew, in sordid raiment,\ntall and strong, but who was eyeing the jarl with an evil eye, and his\nmanner was insolent.\n\n\"I am a servant of the high priest and I am here by his command,\" said\nthe Jew. \"There is an order for the arrest of this gladiator.\"\n\n\"Let no accursed Jew take upon him that business,\" laughed the officer.\n\"Thy high priest hath enough to settle with the procurator. But whither\ngoest thou from hence?\"\n\n\"I go to the gate of the valley of Hinnom,\" replied the Jew, \"and thou\nmayest not detain me.\"\n\n\"O officer,\" said Ulric, who had been searching the Jew with keen\ninspection, \"I have an errand to that gate and know not the way\noverwell. I pray thee that thou command him to guide me after I have\nseen this present matter.\"\n\n\"I object not to that,\" said the Jew, with a fierce glitter in his\neyes, \"so that he touch me not to render me unclean against the\nPassover feast.\"\n\n\"Curse thy uncleanness!\" said the Roman, haughtily. \"Thou needest not\nto touch him; but I would he might have a commandment to touch thee.\nO gladiator, I am told that thou art a sure blade, the slayer of the\ngreat Numidian lion. I hope to see thee slay another yet in the circus,\nbut take not the head from this worthless one until thou art duly\nbidden to smite him.\"\n\n\"As thou doest so do I,\" said Ulric. \"Shall a soldier question his\ncaptain?\"\n\n\"Not if that commander be one Pontius the Spearman,\" replied the\nofficer, \"or even Caius of Thessalonica. Thou art right, O gladiator.\nNone will interfere with thee and thy sharp edge.\"\n\n\"Stand by, thou,\" said Ulric to the Jew. \"I will be with thee\npresently.\"\n\nBut now the man became seemingly cringing and friendly in his\ndeportment, bowing low and standing in silence awaiting direction.\n\nNearer and nearer came the multitude along the highway and toward the\ngate. Ulric heard many of them shouting:\n\n\"This is Jesus of Nazareth, the Prophet of Galilee! He is the son of\nDavid! He is the King of Israel. He is the one who was to come! This is\nthe Messiah, the deliverer!\"\n\nOthers there were who loudly gainsaid these acclamations, protesting\nindignantly; but Ulric's thoughts were full of astonishment.\n\n\"I see that the man upon the ass is Jesus. I know that he is of the\nsons of the gods. This is a wonderful affair. But why cometh he now\nwithout an army into a fortified city which hath a Roman garrison?\nOdin! There is no prudence in this coming! They will slay him before he\nhath opportunity to gather men for one good legion.\"\n\nSo pondering in his mind, he watched until the ass and his rider passed\nby him through the gate and into the city.\n\n\"I have again seen his face,\" he said. \"I may not have speech with him\nat this time. But I will take upon me this other errand and see unto\nwhat it will lead me. O thou, my guide, we will depart.\"\n\n\"Come, O gladiator,\" said the Jew. \"It is well for thee to have me with\nthee among so many crooked streets. Touch me not. But what are thy\ncommandments?\"\n\n\"Hold thou thy peace concerning them,\" replied the jarl. \"Lead on!\"\n\nHot wrath burned for a moment in the face of the tall Jew, but he\nobeyed, girding himself and striding forward, but the officer of the\ngate laughed derisively.\n\n\"The dog Jew,\" he said, \"will do well not to stir the temper of a\nSaxon. His head were loosened from his shoulders too quickly. I will\nnot fail to see that fellow in the circus. It mattereth not to me what\nwork there may be for his blade in Hinnom.\"\n\n\"Dost thou not bear in mind,\" said one of the legionaries, \"a certain\nslave dealer and the loosening of his head? This same gladiator was\nseen that day at the Hinnom gate, but the guards were bidden to forget\nhim.\"\n\n\"Thou thyself rememberest too much,\" said the officer, sternly. \"Forget\nthat thou hast seen him here this day. But it is good sport to slay\nJews. I would there might soon be another tumult. I have made the\nfloor of the temple red with the blood of Galileans. The procurator may\nhave a sharp teaching for more of them during this Passover gathering.\"\n\nSo talked the soldiers of Rome, but the jarl was silent and moody as he\nwalked until he and his guide were drawing near to the southerly wall\nof the city. Then he spoke quietly, as a man may speak to his friend,\none whom he hath known well aforetime.\n\n\"O thou,\" he said, \"when hast thou seen thy father, Abbas, and what did\nhe give unto thee concerning me?\"\n\nThe guide turned suddenly, scowling and trembling, but he responded:\n\n\"How knowest thou me? The guards knew me not, nor did any other, for I\nam changed for that reason. What hast thou to do with Abbas, and what\nis thy purpose?\"\n\n\"Thou art but a fool,\" said Ulric. \"I read thy name in thy face. Thou\nart Bar Abbas. I have known thy father many days. Did he not tell thee\nhow I rescued him in the tower in Esdraelon that he died not? But I\nhave thought him a prudent man. How is it that he hath permitted this\nfolly?\"\n\n\"O gladiator,\" said Bar Abbas with a deep, dark smile, \"it is no folly.\nThey who would slay me seek me in the wilderness, not in Jerusalem. A\nman who waiteth within the gate among the legionaries is hidden from\nthe hunters among the hills. I have seen my father and now I go to meet\nhim and his friend the master of the games in the valley of Hinnom, as\nI believe thou, also, art informed beforehand.\"\n\n\"Then thou hast delivered to him thy spoils?\" said Ulric. \"But canst\nthou give me a reason why I should go to meet him in Hinnom?\"\n\n\"That I know not,\" said Bar Abbas. \"But the master of the games is thy\nmaster also. He will give thee thy direction.\"\n\n\"Nevertheless, thou and he are unwise,\" said the jarl. \"I would thou\nwert armed.\"\n\n\"Save my dagger, I am not,\" replied the robber, \"and thou hast no\nweapon.\"\n\n\"A warrior is always armed,\" said Ulric. \"But now we are at the gate\nand here is the officer. Be thou silent.\"\n\n\"Whither goest thou, O gladiator?\" demanded the sentinel. \"This is\nforbidden thee. Thou art too far from the circus.\"\n\n\"Dost thou indeed not know me?\" responded the jarl. \"Or knowest thou\nnot this signet of Caius of Thessalonica?\"\n\n\"I do know thee, who thou art,\" said the officer, \"and I know the\nsignet.\"\n\n\"By commandment of Pontius the Spearman, the procurator,\" said Ulric.\n\n\"I hear,\" said the Roman.\n\n\"Bind thou this Bar Abbas, the robber, and take him to the prison\nand report to the procurator that I have done as he did give me\ninstruction. This thing is upon thy life!\"\n\nForward sprang Bar Abbas dagger in hand, but the strong blow of a\nsoldier smote him to the earth and he was bound with cords.\n\n\"O man,\" shouted the captain of the gate, coming hastily, \"do as he\nbiddeth thee. We also have full commands concerning Bar Abbas. Well do\nI know that this is of the procurator.\"\n\nThen turned he to the jarl.\n\n\"Thou hast more to do, O gladiator?\"\n\n\"I may not answer thee,\" said Ulric, respectfully. \"But now do I go out\ninto the valley to meet one who cometh, and my duty is in my hand. I\nwill return unto thee shortly.\"\n\n\"Thou hast no weapon,\" said the Roman; but upon his face was a look of\nunderstanding, for he was a man of experience and he had been scanning\ncarefully the raiment of Ulric. \"What if an evil person were to meet\nthee?\"\n\n\"O captain,\" said Ulric, \"he who obeyeth a command doeth well. But if I\nreturn not with due speed know thou that I am slain, and inquire into\nthat business.\"\n\n\"That will I do,\" said the officer; \"but they who slay thee may indeed\nneed an inquiry. I think it will not be entirely well with them.\"\n\nThe jarl answered not a word, but he had now upon his mind the things\nthat had been told to him by Bar Abbas on their way, and he went down\ninto the valley, walking rapidly.\n\n\"Before me is a trap,\" he said, \"although it was not set for me, but\nfor some other. I will now fall into it, and glad am I that I am so\nwell prepared. This heavy, sharp-edged gladius is better than my light\nseax.\"\n\nEven then the captain of the gate was replying to a question from the\nquaternion.\n\n\"The gladiator unarmed?\" he exclaimed. \"Do I not know how a sheath will\ncause a wrinkle of a robe to enlarge and stiffen? They who sent him are\nresponsible, not thou or I.\"\n\nThe jarl went on a mile, it might be, and around him was the smoke of\nthe everlasting burning of Hinnom and the smell from the untellable\npollution. Here and there, also, he saw heaps of half-consumed offal in\nwhich many worms were crawling. This place was to all Jews the picture\nand symbol of the punishment of the wicked after death. Not many\nwayfarers were at any time to be encountered here, for all men knew\nthat it was a favorite haunt of evil spirits, of demons, and of robbers.\n\nNevertheless, as the jarl looked forward through the unpleasant\nclouding of smoke he exclaimed, aloud:\n\n\"They come! Yonder is Abbas himself, and with him are four men. They\nride horses. I will wait until they dismount, but woe to me if so much\nas one of them shall escape.\"\n\nHe stood still, making sure of the hilt of his weapon, but the horsemen\ncame near and at once sprang to the ground, coming forward.\n\n\"Knowest thou me?\" said the foremost man. \"Thy fellows have escaped me,\nbut thou shalt not. I will feed thee to the wild beasts!\"\n\n\"O master of the games,\" replied the jarl, \"I am of the household of\nCaius.\"\n\n\"And I am from Pontius the Spearman!\" shouted the master of the games.\n\"O ye of Ethiopia, bind him fast!\"\n\nThe three with him were black slaves, armed with shields and short\nswords and jereeds, but they were naked to their waists.\n\n\"Yield thee, O Saxon,\" cried out Abbas, mockingly. \"I have thy Miriam\nsecurely and she will soon belong to my friend.\"\n\nNow the master of the games was in full armor, but he had turned a\nmoment for the ordering of his slaves. He stooped a little, also, to\nloosen a coil of cordage that was in his hand for the binding of the\njarl, supposing him to be unarmed and helpless against five armed men.\n\nThen swiftly flashed the bright gladius in the hand of Ulric and the\nhead of the master of the games fell to the earth.\n\n\"Thou hast sold Miriam?\" heard Abbas, a hoarse whisper, but he heard no\nmore, for the sword had flashed again.\n\nThe light shaft of a jereed snapped as its blade struck upon the hidden\nmail of the jarl and the black striker fell across the body of Abbas.\nHis next companion was as a defenseless man before the angry might of\nUlric, and hardly was he down before the slave to whom had been given\nthe holding of the horses lay among their hoofs.\n\n\"Sure am I that Abbas is dead,\" said Ulric, stooping over him. \"Not one\nof the others liveth. The horses must now go back at speed. I would not\nhave them seen from the gate.\"\n\nHe pricked them sharply so that they ran in fear. Then he wiped the\ngladius clean, concealed it well, and walked back to the Hinnom gate of\nJerusalem.\n\n\"Hast thou accomplished thy command?\" asked the officer. \"The time hath\nbeen but brief.\"\n\n\"Else were I not here,\" said Ulric. \"There were those who came by\nappointment and one of them was the father of Bar Abbas. The others\nwere but robbers like him.\"\n\n\"O gladiator,\" said the officer, \"so will I report well of thee. I\nthink thou art a sure messenger for an errand of blood.\"\n\nQuestions might not be pressed in such a case, but soldiers were at\nonce sent down the valley to make due inquest.\n\nOnward went Ulric through the streets of the city.\n\n\"O Miriam!\" he groaned. \"Would that I might live for thee! But for this\nday's deed I think that I may soon die. I will now go to the house of\nBen Ezra and I will tell him what hath thus been accomplished for him\nand for her.\"\n\nEven as he went his haste was hindered in a narrow street by a great\nprocession which seemed to be one of rejoicing. Maidens came first,\nwith clashing of cymbals and with singing. Behind them were other\nmusicians not a few and many men and women. Then walked lightly on a\nveiled one in bright robes that were adorned with jewels. Attending her\nand following joyfully was the remainder of the procession.\n\n\"Wilt thou inform me what this may be?\" asked Ulric of one who stepped\napart from the others for a moment.\n\n\"O gladiator,\" replied the Jew, \"this is the wedding of my kinsman,\nAnanias, the son of the money changer of the temple. He marrieth the\nGreek proselyte, Sapphira the beautiful, the freed woman and favorite\nof the wife of the procurator. She hath become a daughter of Abraham.\nShe now goeth to the house of the bridegroom to meet her husband. There\nalso is to be the wedding feast.\"\n\n\"I thank thee,\" said Ulric, but he walked on muttering doubtfully:\n\"Sapphira? Of the household of Pontius the Spearman? I remember well.\nThat was the name of the beloved of Lysias.\"\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER XXXIX.\n\n THE PASSOVER FEAST.\n\n\n\"O jarl,\" exclaimed Ben Ezra as they stood together in the house,\n\"would that thou also wert a son of Abraham! But thou hast done a deed\nfor which thou wilt be held to answer. O mighty man of valor, I fear\nthat thy life is forfeited to the law.\"\n\n\"Thinkest thou, O my friend,\" replied Ulric, \"that there is now any\nmore peril to Miriam?\"\n\n\"Not any,\" said Ben Ezra, \"save that all dwellers upon the earth are\never in peril from the evil. Every payment hath been made. Her enemies\nare slain with the sword. She may dwell in peace for a season. But if\nharm cometh to thee----\"\n\n\"Then,\" interrupted the jarl, \"thou knowest that whatever of mine thou\nhast in thy keeping belongeth to Miriam. See thou to that!\"\n\n\"Before Jehovah!\" said Ben Ezra, \"that will I do. The jewels and the\ngold are hers. But what doest thou now, seeing that the officer of the\nHinnom gate will report thee?\"\n\n\"I sleep this night,\" said Ulric. \"After that I purpose going to the\ntemple to hear the words of this son of the gods from Nazareth. I will\nspeak to him concerning Caius. As for this affair of the valley of\nHinnom, it is no secret, and I may not hide myself.\"\n\n\"I also will hear the rabbi from Galilee,\" said Ben Ezra. \"Yesterday\nhe did boldly cleanse the temple of such as were there contrary to the\nlaw.\"\n\nThe jarl listened in silence while the Jew told him many things\nrapidly, but then he said:\n\n\"He is brave. I would I had been with him. I will ask him if he needeth\nnow a good sword. I will do as he shall command me.\"\n\nBut now a servant of Isaac came to summon Ben Ezra, and Ulric was alone.\n\n\"Would that I might see Miriam!\" he murmured, slowly, and a delight\nspoke laughingly in the soft tone of his voice.\n\n\"Ulric, thy Miriam is here! Art thou in any peril? Wilt thou not save\nthyself?\"\n\nShe stood at his side touching him, and his strong arms opened and he\nuttered a great cry, for she glided into them and they were closed\naround her.\n\nWho shall hear or tell the words that are uttered at such a time,\nseeing that they are a thousandfold more than words? He who would\nstrive to repeat them is a foolish one, as if he would echo the\nfar-away music of a song in the night.\n\n\"Thou art safe!\" he said at last. \"That is enough for me. Trouble not\nthy heart overmuch. Only the gods may see that which cometh to us on\nthe morrow. Go thou to thy chamber and thank thy God for me, telling\nhim that I will offer him a great offering and that henceforth he shall\nbe my God also for this thing which he hath done for thee and me.\"\n\nSo she departed as one who must, but who willeth not to go, and the\nnight hours came upon all the city of Jerusalem.\n\nNow at an earlier hour of that day there had been standing in the\nprivate room of Pontius the Spearman a tall and stately matron attired\nin costly garments, and before her stood a youth whose face was full of\ngreat agony.\n\n\"Be thou silent!\" she commanded. \"This was my doing. Questionest thou\nme? What is my freed woman unto such as thou art? Thou hast naught\nto do with Sapphira! Speak not of the matter to the procurator! I do\ncounsel thee well. Thou art but a youth, O Lysias, and in youth there\nis folly!\"\n\nLow bent his head and his bosom heaved with pain, but he was silent.\nThe face of the matron was noble in shape, and not unkindly, but in it\nwas great haughtiness, for the wife of the procurator was as a queen\nand no man might question her will. She looked now at the young Greek,\npitying him for a moment, and then she went from the room, saying no\nmore, for the matter was ended, and he yet stood there alone.\n\n\"All the gods have forgotten me,\" murmured Lysias. \"I will but make my\nreport to the procurator and I will depart--I care not whither.\"\n\nEven as he spoke the ruler of Judea entered the room, striding as if in\nhaste.\n\n\"Thou art here?\" he said, and his face was red, as if in hot anger.\n\"Speak on, O Greek! Tell me of all thy doings, from the first to the\nlast, beginning with Cornelius at C\u00e6sarea.\"\n\n\"O most noble Pontius,\" said Lysias, \"from the centurion, this\nparchment, sealed. He gave me no words to utter.\"\n\n\"I will read,\" said Pontius, but the epistle may have been not only\nbrief but troublesome, for his face darkened yet more angrily.\n\n\"Speak on!\" he commanded, and his messenger told all, to the place\nwhere he had parted from Tostig and the Saxons upon the shore of the\nharbor of Joppa.\n\n\"More than this is already known to me,\" said Pontius. \"Hast thou\nspoken at all of this matter?\"\n\n\"Not to any ear but thine, my lord,\" said Lysias. \"I have been utterly\nprudent. Even the master of the games cannot know concerning thy\ndealing with the secret messenger of Herod.\"\n\n\"Thou knowest?\" almost gasped the procurator. \"Very great is thy\nknowledge. Thou hast done well in this affair. I will give thee now\nanother errand. Call unto me the sentinel in the outer corridor.\"\n\nQuickly Lysias went and returned, bringing with him one of the trusted\nlegionaries of the palace guard who had been on duty.\n\n\"Take thou this youth,\" said Pontius, \"and lead him to the fifth\nchamber of the lower corridor. Summon thou to that room one whom thou\nknowest. Say to him that I will see him again without delay. Then\nreturn thou to thy post.\"\n\n\"Follow!\" said the soldier to Lysias. \"I am bidden to show thee a\ncertain matter.\"\n\nLysias obeyed, but with a faintness coming coldly upon him, but as he\nwent there was a sad thought weighing upon his heart.\n\n\"O that I might but see her! Did she indeed wed him of her own free\nwill? My beloved! O my Sapphira! O my beautiful one! I found thee but\nto lose thee!\"\n\nThere was a stairway, and at the bottom of that there was a long\npassage. It was gloomy and dingy as of a prison, with closed cages\non either side. Here, also, one shortly came and walked with them, a\nshort, broad man in armor, who spoke not.\n\nLysias himself counted the doors.\n\n\"The fifth,\" he said. \"It is open.\"\n\n\"Enter!\" commanded the soldier, but he followed not, and the short,\ndark man went in behind Lysias.\n\nThe door closed clanging, and then there was a silence save for the\nfeet of the departing legionary and a sharp sound of a cry from that\nfifth chamber. A minute passed and then another, and the short, dark\nman came out alone.\n\n\"The Greek,\" he said, \"hath accomplished the errand upon which the\nprocurator sent him. But there is blood upon my hand, and I will wash\nwell before I report to the Spearman lest he inquire of me.\"\n\nAt that hour there was joyous feasting at the house of the father of\nthe Jew Ananias. The bridegroom welcomed his kindred and his friends\nand the red wine was plentiful. In the apartment of the women sat the\nbride arrayed in her jeweled robes. All the women who looked upon her\npraised her, wondering at her great beauty. They said that Ananias had\nwon the pearl, the pearl of pearls, the ruby of rubies, the rose of\nSharon and the lily of the valley. Very joyful, also, was Sapphira, for\nher triumph and her happiness had come to her; but there came a moment\nwhen she suddenly put her hand upon her bosom.\n\n\"Lysias!\" she whispered. \"Did I hear him speak to me? Again! It is\ngone! Thank Aphrodite and thank Juno. It is better to be a wedded\nwoman, a proselyte of the temple, than to be a bondwoman of the\nprocurator.\"\n\nThe days of the wedding feast were to be cut short by the coming of the\nPassover, for only by express permission of the rabbis had the command\nof the wife of Pontius been obeyed at such a time. It was well, they\nadmitted, to change a law to obtain a proselyte from the household of\nthe procurator. The next day, however, would not be altogether sacred,\nand the wedding feast might go on, but it might be extended no further\nlest there should be a grievous sin against the counting of days. When\nthe next day came, therefore, all things belonging to it followed in\ntheir order.\n\nThere was a great gathering in the court of the women in the temple,\nfor here had come the prophet from Galilee, and he was not only\npreaching, but healing also. In front of him where he stood there was\nseated upon the pavement a closely veiled one, whose head was bowed. It\nwas as if she might also be praying silently.\n\nThe sick and the maimed and the blind and many who were in tribulation\ncame and stood by her for a moment to be touched by the rabbi and to\nmake room for others to be healed in like manner. These fell away full\nof joy over that which had come to them, but the veiled one moved not,\nnor did several of the other women who were near. Once only did she\nlift her head, drawing aside her veil, and her voice was low and sweet.\n\n\"O Master, what shall I ask of thee concerning Ulric? Canst thou do\naught for him?\"\n\n\"Be thou contented,\" he said. \"He followeth me.\" He stooped and put\nhis hand upon her head and turned away, for he was departing from that\nplace to the court of the heathen. So she covered her face with her\nveil and left the temple.\n\nIn the court of the heathen was a gathering that was dense for\nmultitude, and here, also, were many who asked for healing. Near to a\npillar by the outer portico stood twain who had just arrived.\n\n\"O Caius,\" said one, \"hast thou strength to stand upon thy feet for a\nlittle?\"\n\n\"Hardly, O jarl,\" said the centurion. \"But I am a Roman. What part have\nI in this Jew rabbi and his god?\"\n\n\"Nay, but stand thou here,\" said Ulric, \"while I go and ask him.\"\n\nOn pressed he through the crowd until he stood before the prophet of\nGalilee.\n\n\"O thou of the sons of the gods,\" he said, \"wilt thou heal a Roman,\nstanding yonder, as thou hast healed me, who am a Saxon? I pray thee\nhave mercy upon him, for he is my friend.\"\n\nNow he had thus interrupted men of dignities and learning who were\nstanding there asking questions of Jesus and gainsaying him, and these\nrebuked the jarl angrily.\n\nThe reply of Jesus was to them in words, but Ulric fell back thinking\nwithin himself: \"His face hath answered me. I know not what this is. I\nwill have speech with him at another time. O that I may be with him in\nthe day of the great battle!\"\n\nSlowly through the throng he went back to Caius at the pillar against\nwhich he had been faintly leaning.\n\n\"O Caius,\" he said, \"I did ask him. Thou wilt yet speak to him for\nthyself.\"\n\n\"Jarl of the Saxons,\" exclaimed Caius, \"I go now to my chariot. Speak\nnot. Seest thou not that I am standing firmly? The pain of the hurt\nhath departed! But here came one with a commandment from the procurator\nbidding thee to his house with speed. Delay not thy going, and deal\nwith him as thou wouldst deal with me. I thank thee and I thank the\nrabbi. Go!\"\n\n\"O gladiator, come thou in haste!\" said one in the raiment of a\nbondservant who stood near. \"The thing is important!\"\n\n\"Tell him I come,\" said Ulric. \"Wait not. I go not in thy company. But\nglad am I, O Caius, my friend, if thou art healed of the poison.\"\n\n\"That I know not,\" said Caius; \"but the burning ceaseth. Return thou\nsoon to me.\"\n\n\"O most noble Caius,\" said Ulric, \"I think this matter of the\nprocurator is already known to me. If I see thee not again, may all be\nwell with thee!\"\n\nHis countenance was bright and his step was firm and he turned away\nfrom Caius, going toward the outer entrance of the court of the women.\nThe distance was but short, and here under the portico waited the\nveiled one.\n\n\"Art thou here?\" she said. \"Hast thou indeed seen him? I spoke to him\nconcerning thee and he told me thou wouldst surely follow him.\"\n\n\"I know not that,\" he said, \"but lift thy veil, O Miriam, that I may\nsee thee--this last seeing. I go hence to death, but O that to thee\nmight come life and joy forever!\"\n\nHer unveiled face before him was white with terror and with agony.\n\n\"O my beloved, what sayest thou?\" she exclaimed. \"To thy death?\"\n\n\"I will wait for thee in Valhalla,\" said the jarl. \"I will have a fair\nhouse for thee in the city of Asgard. There thou shalt live with me\namong the gods. I think this Jesus of Nazareth will also be there, for\nhe is a Son of God and he is my friend and thy friend. Go thou to thy\nhouse. Fare thee well!\"\n\nStrong and brave grew her face and her form was erect when she\nresponded: \"O my beloved, if thou art indeed going now to thy death,\nthen will I also wait and I will come unto thee in thy high place, as\nthou hast said. From the prophet of Galilee have I heard a new thing\nconcerning those who die, that they have a better country than this and\na better city to dwell in. I had not known----\"\n\n\"O Miriam,\" said Ulric, \"it is not new to me. So say all the old sagas\nof the Northland. This have I been taught by Hilda from my childhood.\nShe also will be there, and all my kindred, with thee and me.\"\n\nNone saw, but a swift kiss fell upon her lips and then her veil was\ndrawn, but Ulric went from the portico joyously, exclaiming:\n\n\"I care not now! She may bring me my ruby in the city of the gods, and\nI, the son of Odin, will keep tryst with her whom I love. O Pontius! O\nSpearman! O procurator! I will show thee how little a Saxon jarl careth\nfor the edge of a sword.\"\n\nNevertheless, from that hour onward none saw the jarl, and two days\nwent by. These were days of sorrow and of doubt for Miriam, waiting\nlonely in the house of Ben Ezra. She indeed went forth veiled to listen\nto the preaching of the prophet of Galilee, but ever her eyes were\nsearching among the throngs of hearers for one who came not. \"O that he\nmight have heard these things also,\" she said within her heart. \"Did\nnot Ulric himself say that this is the captain who is also his king?\nHow shall he now follow him into any battle? O that it might be!\"\n\nSo thought Miriam, praying and weeping, and around her were many other\nwomen. \"O weeping one,\" said one of these, \"knowest thou not? The\nMaster himself hath said to us that he is to be crucified!\"\n\n\"Crucified!\" exclaimed Miriam.\n\n\"Yea,\" said the other, \"but that in three days he will arise from the\ndead and that then he will take the kingdom. It is a hard saying.\"\n\n\"That the dead rise we do know,\" replied Miriam, \"but none hath ever\nseen them after their resurrection. I think this saying is like the\nwords of my beloved concerning the city of the gods where I am to\nlive with him. And he--O God of Israel! Where is he now and what hath\nbefallen him?\"\n\nThe evening of that day was set apart for the feast of the Passover.\nMany were gathered to eat of it at the house of Ben Ezra, for the\nkinsfolk of Isaac came also to partake of it. The Scriptures were\nread and hymns and psalms were sung, and they communed sorrowfully\nconcerning the present desolation of their people, the terrors of the\nHerods, the oppression of the Romans, and their fears of the things\nwhich were yet to come upon them. After this some of them slumbered,\nbut not all. There were those who waked and watched, for through\nall the city had gone a saying of Jesus of Nazareth that he was the\nMessiah, and that his kingdom was at hand.\n\nEven the Romans had heard of this saying, but Pontius the Spearman\nhad laughed, for he thought of his forts and his legionaries and\nhe troubled not his mind concerning some unarmed mob of Jewish\nenthusiasts.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER XL.\n\n \"A LITTLE WHILE.\"\n\n\nIt was toward the morning of a new day that one came knocking loudly at\nthe door of the house of Ben Ezra.\n\n\"What wilt thou?\" asked the porter, partly opening the door and looking\nforth.\n\n\"Tell thou to those who are within,\" was responded, \"that the Romans\nand the chief priests have taken the prophet of Galilee by force. He is\nnow at the palace of the procurator and a great multitude gathereth. I\nam a kinsman of Isaac, the aged.\"\n\nSeveral were within hearing and the message passed quickly throughout\nthe house. There was then hurried girding of robes and putting on of\nsandals.\n\n\"We will go forth,\" said Ben Ezra. \"I would see what this thing\nmeaneth. He hath done nothing for which he might be taken, either under\nthe law of the Jews or the law of the Romans.\"\n\nSome said one thing and some another, and so it was over the entire\ncity, for great was the tumult which was arising in Jerusalem. It\nwas said that Jesus had been arrested in the night upon the Mount of\nOlives, beyond the brook Kidron, after he had eaten the Passover in\nthe city with his disciples. Neither he nor they had fought save for a\nblow or two, and no man had been slain. Jesus had been taken before the\nhigh priest and before Herod, the tetrarch, and before the procurator,\nby whom he was now to be judged, the others not having due authority.\nThe tetrarch was in the city at this season by reason of the Passover,\nalthough it was known that he was at enmity with Pontius the Spearman.\n\nThere were many rumors, nor was it easy to determine what report to\nbelieve, but when Ben Ezra and Isaac and their company came to the\npalace of the procurator they saw a strange matter. Outside of the\npalace was a place which was called the Pavement, and to this, and\nnot into the house, the strictest Jews might advance and not become\nunclean, to be afterward unfitted for the Passover worship in the\ntemple. Out of this place had been brought a throne chair of the\nprocurator, and in it he now was seated for judgment, surrounded\nby armed legionaries and men of high degree, as if some matter of\nimportance called for his decision.\n\nBefore him, as one who is accused of some crime and is awaiting\ndecision, stood Jesus of Nazareth, but not as any had ever before seen\nhim. He had been both stripped and scourged, and the soldiers of the\nprocurator, besides beating and mocking him, had derisively arrayed him\nin a purple robe of royalty; but the crown which they had put upon his\nhead was a torture crown, plaited of thorn-tree twigs.\n\nThe procurator himself now spoke, not to the prisoner before him, but\nto the surging mob of Jews upon the Pavement and in the street.\n\n\"Behold the man!\" he said.\n\nThen arose an angry roar of many voices, among which the loudest words\nwere:\n\n\"Crucify! Crucify! Crucify!\"\n\n\"Take him yourselves and crucify him,\" said the procurator, \"for I find\nno crime in him.\"\n\nThen said one to Ben Ezra: \"Already he hath been tried and condemned\nbefore Herod, the king. Also he hath been well examined and scourged\nduly by the procurator. Let him die!\"\n\nThere were many who responded in divers forms of speech to the\nutterance of the procurator, but a ruler among the Jews shouted loudly:\n\n\"We have a law, and by our law he ought to die, because he made himself\nthe Son of God.\"\n\nWhen Pontius heard that he arose and went into the palace for a little\nspace, taking the prisoner with him. What further examination was made\nthus in private the multitude knew not, but when again the procurator\ncame forth, having Jesus brought also, he said to the Jews:\n\n\"Which of these twain shall I release unto you, Bar Abbas, the robber,\nor Jesus who is called the Christ, the King of the Jews?\"\n\nBut they all answered him with shouts of \"Bar Abbas!\" for among the\nrabble were many priests and scribes who were stirring them up to do\nthis thing. Other things were said, both by the procurator and the\naccusers, but it seemed that he would willingly have refrained from\ndoing any further violence to this man.\n\n\"Behold your king!\" he said, at last.\n\n\"Away with him! Crucify! Crucify!\" came back the tumult of fierce\nvoices.\n\n\"Shall I crucify your king?\" he asked.\n\n\"We have no king but C\u00e6sar,\" responded one, and another added: \"If thou\nspare him, thou art no friend of C\u00e6sar.\"\n\nThen a servant of the procurator brought out to him a basin of water,\nand in this he washed his hands, saying to them: \"I am innocent of the\nblood of this righteous person. See ye to it.\"\n\n\"His blood be upon us and upon our children!\" roared the mob.\n\nThen Pontius reentered the palace and the soldiers led away the\nprisoner, for his crucifixion had been commanded, and there is never\nany great delay in the performance of a Roman execution.\n\n\"Let us follow, O Isaac,\" said Ben Ezra.\n\nIn the shadow behind him stood Miriam. \"I also will follow with you,\"\nshe said, \"for Jesus of Nazareth is my King.\"\n\nWithin the palace shortly after this, and in the small chamber near the\nhall of judgment, stood twain who seemed to be having earnest words\nwith one another.\n\n\"O Caius, my friend,\" said the procurator, gloomily, \"am I not in a\nstrait place this day? I have heard thee. Gladly would I grant any\nrequest of thine, as thou knowest. I may not hear thee as to this King\nof the Jews. As to thy gladiator, I would give him back to thee if it\nwere possible, but his evil deeds are too many. Without warrant or\ncommand he slew my slave dealer in the valley of Hinnom. He slew the\nmaster of the games who was over him, and with him also three slaves\nand the Jew merchant Abbas. Moreover, I have word from the proconsul\nof Spain that Saxon pirates under this Ulric the Jarl destroyed two of\nC\u00e6sar's triremes in the British seas. More things than these are justly\ncharged to his account. What say est thou?\"\n\n\"Thou art justified,\" said Caius, reluctantly. \"I may urge thee no\nmore. But I would gladly have saved him. This matter of Jesus of\nNazareth would indeed be brought against thee before C\u00e6sar. It is well\nfor thee that thou art at peace with Herod, the fox.\"\n\n\"I did indeed strive to save the Galilean rabbi,\" said Pontius. \"I\nwill tell thee a thing. My own wife had a dream concerning him and she\nwarned me not to condemn him as of myself. To me, also, he declared\nhimself to be of the gods. I meddle not with them, for little do we\nknow of the gods. But I have this to ask of thee, that thou wilt be my\nwitness of this crucifixion, that I may truly know of whatever shall\nthere occur.\"\n\n\"That will I do!\" exclaimed Caius. \"I also would see how he dieth, for\nI have heard many strange things. It would be a rare thing to see a\ngod upon a cross. Where, now, will be his kingdom and who shall do him\nreverence? I know not, surely, that it was indeed through him that I\nam healed of my hurt. So say a great many others who are cured. Their\nevils have departed from them, they know not how. We do know that no\nman hath such power as this.\"\n\n\"How did he deal with thee?\" asked Pontius.\n\n\"Not at all,\" replied the centurion. \"I stood at a distance when he\nlooked upon me, and I felt the blood changing in my veins. He did not\ntouch me. How, then, was the healing?\"\n\n\"This is wonderful,\" said the procurator. \"I will hear thee again about\nthat matter. Go, now, I pray thee. With him and with thy Saxon there\nwill also be crucified a strong rebel from the Lebanon who was captured\nin Judea. Upon his hands is the blood of many. For this consent of\nthine I thank thee.\"\n\nDuring this time a long procession, accompanied and followed by a\nmixed and growing multitude, was passing slowly through the streets\nof Jerusalem. At its head, although many marched on in advance, were\na quaternion of legionaries and their officer. Close by these were\nfunctionaries of the high priest and rulers of the Jews, with zealous\nscribes and Pharisees and officers from the household of Herod, the\ntetrarch. Next in the procession walked three who bore upon their\nshoulders heavy beams of wood. All three were suffering from the\nlacerations of the Roman scourge, and one was so far weakened that he\nfell under his burden.\n\n\"Bring me hither that huge Jew!\" said the Roman officer in command.\n\n\"I bring him,\" quickly replied a soldier. \"He saith that he is one\nSimon of Cyrene.\"\n\n\"Let him carry the cross for Jesus of Nazareth,\" said the officer. \"We\nmay not be delayed. Scourge him forward!\"\n\nSo again the procession moved on toward the place of execution.\n\nUpon the bosom of each of the condemned ones, to be afterward affixed\nover his head upon his wood of torment, swung a wooden tablet inscribed\nwith his name and with his crime. Of these tablets the first was\nwritten in Latin only, and it told of the rebel of the Lebanon. Upon\nthe second was written:\n\n \"ULRIC, THE SAXON MURDERER.\"\n\nUpon the third, a larger tablet, was inscribed, in Latin and in Greek\nand in Hebrew:\n\n \"THIS IS JESUS OF NAZARETH, THE KING OF THE JEWS.\"\n\nOf this rather than of the others the rabble shouted mockeries as they\nread, for here, they said, was a king upon his way to die as a common\nmalefactor, and for him there was no salvation.\n\nSilent was Ulric the Jarl, even when his eyes met those of Caius of\nThessalonica, but the centurion drew near to him and said:\n\n\"O jarl of the Saxons, I did what I could, but it was beyond my\npower to rescue thee. Thy sword hath fallen upon too many and thy\ncondemnation is just.\"\n\nNo answer made Ulric, and the centurion turned away his horse.\n\nThe gate had been passed and now the low hill of Calvary, or Golgotha,\nwas at hand. The multitude grew as the rising tide of the sea, for all\nJerusalem was stirred by this affair and the prophet of Galilee had\nfriends as well as enemies, and many who came were weeping bitterly.\n\n\"In a strange manner,\" thought the jarl, \"have the valkyrias come for\nme and for him. Where, now, is his father, that he hath thus deserted\nhis son in such a place? Are the Romans more powerful than the gods?\nIt is but little that we must die. Shortly I shall be in Valhalla, and\nI think Hilda will come to meet me at some place that is appointed.\nThere, also, I will wait for Miriam until she shall come. I am glad\nthat I have smitten down her enemies, giving my life for hers, and that\nI have made provision for her welfare.\"\n\nThe summit of the hill was level, and here a space was kept clear that\nthe multitude might not hinder by pressing. Here were three holes in\nthe earth already dug to receive the long timbers after the crosspieces\nand the victims should be spiked upon them.\n\nThe raiment of the condemned was the execution fee of the Roman\nsoldiers, and there was a stripping done, but the tunic of Jesus was\ngambled for by them because it was of one piece, to be spoiled by\ndividing.\n\nThe three crosses now lay upon the sand and Ulric looked earnestly upon\nthem, for a strong and sudden memory came into his mind.\n\n\"The token of Hilda!\" he exclaimed, but in a whisper, hoarse with pain.\n\"These are but as the runes that she showed me upon the sandy beach\nof the North coast before I sailed thence in _The Sword_. Now know I\nthat my voyage is ended, and I die, as she said, by the hands of the\nsoldiers of C\u00e6sar. But I had not thought of such a death as this!\"\n\nFirst of all did the soldiers seize rudely upon Jesus, scoffing at\nhim, and terrible was the swiftly performed work of the driving of the\nspikes, but there was not heard by any a cry of pain.\n\n\"Brave is he!\" thought Ulric. \"I also will hold my peace.\"\n\nFirm, also, was the courage of the rebel Jew from the Lebanon, and the\nmultitude wondered greatly at the fortitude of these who suffered this\nhorror silently.\n\nOne by one did the soldiers and their helpers lift the crosses, fixing\nthem firmly in the earth, and a loud shouting of the rabble arose at\nthe lifting, but there was also weeping and wailing and beating of\nbreasts among the multitude.\n\nAt the foot of the cross of Jesus now knelt women and men to whom he\nspoke, and he also uttered words to some who were not so near.\n\nIn front of the cross whereon the jarl was nailed there came for a\nmoment a veiled one, putting aside her veil and gazing wistfully into\nhis face.\n\n\"O my beloved, thou!\" she exclaimed.\n\n\"Miriam! Loved one!\" he groaned, being in great agony, \"tarry not here!\nLook not upon me! Thine eyes are more than I may bear! Go to thy house!\"\n\nHer lips parted and she strove to speak, but a great tremor shook her,\nand no voice came from her lips except a low, hard cry, having in it\nwhat seemed the name of her god. Then turned she away and she had\nfallen but that the arm of Ben Ezra went quickly around her, and he\ncompelled her to go away a little space that she might kneel and wait.\n\nTime passeth slowly to one who hangeth upon a cross, desiring the\ncoming of the end. The sun beat down hotly. The multitude came and\nwent, and all the open space, to the highway and beyond, was a dense\nthrong.\n\n\"I heard him,\" thought Ulric. \"He hath spoken to his father more than\nonce. If I speak to the gods, are they now near enough to hear me? I\nthink not; but I shall see them shortly.\"\n\nThe man upon the third cross turned now in his writhing and he said to\nJesus:\n\n\"Art not thou the Christ? Save thyself and us!\"\n\nJesus answered not, but the jarl cried out:\n\n\"Dost not thou fear God, seeing thou art in the same condemnation? And\nwe, indeed, justly, for we receive the due reward of our deeds; but\nthis man hath done nothing amiss.\" Then he said to the Christ: \"Jesus,\nremember me when thou comest in thy kingdom!\"\n\nUnto him did Jesus make answer: \"Verily I say unto thee, This day shalt\nthou be with me in the Garden.\"\n\nThen followed a stillness, but the jarl thought of the word which was\ngiven him. \"I knew not of this garden. There it is that I am to be with\nhim and with the gods. There, also, I shall see Hilda, and Miriam will\ndwell with me in the garden. It is enough! I am content!\"\n\nGreat was the cruelty of the Jews and of the rabble, and the hatred of\nsome for Jesus was exhibited in mocking speeches. It was as if they\ntook pleasure in the tokens of his sufferings.\n\nIt was now afternoon, and for some time Jesus had been silent, but\nsuddenly and with a loud voice he cried out:\n\n\"My God! my God! Why hast thou forsaken me?\"\n\nTo that utterance the Jews replied in a manner which Ulric did not\nunderstand, but again Jesus cried out, saying:\n\n\"I thirst!\"\n\nA horrible thirst cometh upon those who are crucified, and a drink of\nvinegar and myrrh with other bitterness is always provided for them by\nsome who are merciful. One ran and took a sponge, soaking it with this\nprovision, and lifted it upon a reed to the lips which were burning.\n\nAt that moment Jesus uttered an exceedingly great voice of pain, and\ninstantly it was seen that his soul had departed from his body. He was\ndead.\n\n\"Would that I were as he!\" thought the jarl, \"that I might be free of\nthis agony and pass on to Valhalla and into this garden to which Jesus\nhath gone before me!\"\n\nThe multitude were not gazing as before upon these who were crucified,\nfor now the light of the sun was withdrawn and a great gloom was over\nall things. The earth quaked under their feet. Great rocks were rended.\nFear fell upon men and women, and with one accord they fled away\ntoward the city, beating their breasts and mourning.\n\nCaius of Thessalonica stood watching these things, and other Romans\nwith him. \"Certainly,\" he exclaimed, \"this was a righteous man. Truly\nthis was the Son of God!\"\n\nBut the Jews had taken thought beforehand for yet another matter. The\nnext day would be their Sabbath, a holy day, and by their law it was\nnot well for one to be left upon a cross over the Sabbath. Therefore\nthey had obtained from the procurator an order that the deaths of\nthese three might be hastened by the breaking of their bones. For this\nbusiness came soldiers with clubs, but they struck not any limb of\nJesus, who was already dead.\n\n\"I have no mark of a spear,\" thought Ulric. \"It is not well. I die\nwithout any wound except of these spikes.\"\n\nNear to him then were these soldiers, but he saw one of them thrust a\npilum blade into the side of Jesus, making a wound from which poured\nboth blood and water. Quickly, now, came merciful relief to the two\nothers, for the soldiers made an end.\n\nAfterward were all the bodies taken down from the crosses, as was\nrequired by the law of the religion of the Jews, and the friends of any\nman were permitted to do their will concerning him.\n\nThe sun had long since set, and the darkness was over the earth, when\na little company of men and women entered the door of the house of Ben\nEzra.\n\n\"O Miriam, my daughter,\" said Isaac, the aged, when they were within,\n\"thou mayest mourn, but be thou comforted. We have buried him in my\nown tomb. And didst thou not hear what was said to him by Jesus of\nNazareth? In him do I now believe. He is God!\"\n\n\"O my beloved!\" wailed Miriam, and she said no more for weeping.\n\n\"Miriam,\" continued Ben Ezra, \"I also believe; trust thou, concerning\nthy husband, that it is well with him!\"\n\n\"Ye are my friends,\" said Miriam. \"I heard the saying, faintly and far.\nThey are at this hour in the garden, do you say? But I am here and I\nam alone, for my love hath been taken from me. Nevertheless, I will be\npatient. It is but for a little while; a little while!\"\n\n\n THE END.\n\n\n\n\n BOOKS OF TRAVEL AND ADVENTURE.\n\n By EGERTON R. YOUNG.\n\n\n=WINTER ADVENTURES OF THREE BOYS IN THE GREAT LONE LAND.=\nCrown 8vo, gilt edges. Eighteen full page Illustrations, 3s. 6d.\n\n\n=SUMMER ADVENTURES OF THREE BOYS IN THE WILD NORTH LAND.=\nThird Thousand. Twenty-eight full page Illustrations. Crown 8vo gilt\nedges, 3s. 6d.\n\n\n=BY CANOE AND DOG TRAIN AMONG THE CREE AND SALTEAUX INDIANS.=\nTwentieth Thousand. With Photographic Portraits of the Rev. E. R.\nYOUNG and Mrs. YOUNG. 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Imperial 16mo,\n3_s._ 6_d._\n\n \"An unusually fine historical romance.\"--_The Christian Endeavour._\n\n \"The story is exceedingly well told, and is both interesting and\n instructive.\"--_Glasgow Herald._\n\n \"An interesting and instructive romance.\"--_Christian Leader._\n\n\n=A SOUTH AUSTRALIAN ROMANCE.= How a Colony was Founded and a Methodist\nChurch Formed. By Rev. JOHN BLACKETT, South Australia. Crown 8vo,\nIllustrated. 2_s._\n\n\n=KENOOSHAO.= A Red Indian Tragedy. By Rev. GEORGE BARNLEY, formerly\nMissionary in the Hudson Bay Territory. Crown 8vo, Illustrated, 1_s._\n\n\n=RAMBLES IN BIBLE LANDS.= By the Rev. RICHARD NEWTON, D.D. Seventy\nIllustrations. Imperial 16mo, 2_s._ 6_d._\n\n \"An admirable book.\"--_Methodist Recorder._\n\n \"From the juvenile standpoint we can speak in hearty commendation of\n it.\"--_Literary World._\n\n\n=OUR INDIAN EMPIRE: ITS RISE AND GROWTH.= By the Rev. J. S. 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Revised and Enlarged Edition.\nImperial 16mo, 3_s._ 6_d._\n\n \"A very pleasant companion.\"--_Daily Telegraph._\n\n \"Bright and pleasant, full of information and good\n feeling.\"--_Literary World._\n\n \"An unusually readable and attractive book.\"--_Christian Age._\n\n\n\n\n Pictures of Methodist Life.\n\n LANCASHIRE STORIES BY JOHN ACKWORTH.\n\n\n =DOXIE DENT.=\n A CLOG SHOP CHRONICLE.\nCrown 8vo, Illustrated, Art linen, gilt top, 3_s._ 6_d._ (_New Volume._)\n\n\n =BECKSIDE LIGHTS.=\n FIFTH THOUSAND. Crown 8vo, Art linen, gilt top, 3_s._ 6_d._\n\n \"His touch is almost as perfect as Mr. Barrie's, and he has to the\n full the art of presenting his characters in such wise as to leave us\n with the impression that we have been on intimate terms with living\n men and women.... We heartily commend this volume to lovers of real\n life as presented by an artistic temperament.\"--_Daily Chronicle._\n\n\n =CLOG SHOP CHRONICLES.=\n TENTH THOUSAND. Crown 8vo, Art linen, gilt top, 3_s._ 6_d._\n\n \"Mr. Ackworth has achieved here a distinct success.... The author\n knows his way to the common human heart. His humour, his pathos,\n and his at times broad comedy, steeped as they are in the ennobling\n element of religious faith and love, make us laugh and cry by turns,\n while they keep us voraciously reading to the end.... There is, in\n fact, not a story in the book which does not leave us hungering for\n more.\"--_Christian World._\n\n\n =THE SCOWCROFT CRITICS.=\n FIFTH THOUSAND. Crown 8vo, Art linen, gilt top, 3_s._ 6_d._\n\n\n CORNISH SKETCHES.\n\n =WHERE THE TAMARISK BLOOMS.=\n By REV. JAMES DUNK.\n Crown 8vo, Art linen, gilt top, 3_s._ 6_d._\n\n \"Drawn with a vividness and subtle charm that must appeal to all who\n love to study the poetry of human nature. Mr. Dunk is a master in the\n art of expression. Each tale is a poem in prose, and his knowledge of\n the heart and mind of the Cornish Methodist is profound, while his\n originality and grace of expression are of a high order.\"--_Birmingham\n Daily Gazette._\n\n\n SKETCHES OF LINCOLNSHIRE LIFE AND CHARACTER.\n\n =KITTIE LONSDALE,=\n =AND SOME RUMSBY FOLK.=\n By E. M. BRYANT.\n Crown 8vo, Art linen, gilt top, 3_s._ 6_d._\n\n \"Presented with a vividness and tender sympathy that appeal strongly\n to those who have any knowledge of the reality of the religious life\n of the village Methodists of the past generation. Homely, kindly,\n saturated with a belief in the vitality of religion, these simple\n folk live and move in a lifelike way. Humour and pathos alternate\n with strong religious feeling and simple narrative.\"--_Sheffield and\n Rotherham Independent._\n\n\n CHARLES H. KELLY,\n 2, CASTLE STREET, CITY ROAD, E.C.; AND 26, PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C.\n\n\n\n\n Transcriber's Note:\n\n\nItalics are indicated by _underscores_.\n\nBolds are indicated by =equal signs=.\n\nSmall capitals have been rendered in full capitals.\n\nA number of minor spelling errors have been corrected without note.\n\n\n\n\n\nEnd of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Ulric the Jarl, by William O. Stoddard\n\n*** ","meta":{"redpajama_set_name":"RedPajamaBook"}} +{"text":"\n\n\n\nProduced by Mark C. Orton, Paul Clark and the Online\nDistributed Proofreading Team at http:\/\/www.pgdp.net (This\nfile was produced from images generously made available\nby The Internet Archive)\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\n THE SCIENCE OF\n ANIMAL LOCOMOTION\n (ZOOPRAXOGRAPHY)\n\n AN ELECTRO-PHOTOGRAPHIC INVESTIGATION OF\n CONSECUTIVE PHASES OF ANIMAL MOVEMENTS\n\n BY\n\n EADWEARD MUYBRIDGE\n\n EXECUTED AND PUBLISHED UNDER THE AUSPICES OF THE\n UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA\n\n DESCRIPTION OF THE APPARATUS\n RESULTS OF THE INVESTIGATION\n DIAGRAMS\n PROSPECTUS\n LIST OF SUBSCRIBERS\n\n EADWEARD MUYBRIDGE\n\n UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA\n\n PHILADELPHIA\n\n OR\n 10 HENRIETTA STREET,\n COVENT GARDEN\n LONDON\n\n\n\n\nANIMAL LOCOMOTION.\n\n(ZOOPRAXOGRAPHY.)\n\n\n\n\nINTRODUCTORY.\n\n\nIn 1872, the author of the present work at Sacramento, California,\ncommenced an investigation with the object of illustrating by\nphotography some phases of animal movements. In that year his\nexperiments were made with a famous horse--Occident, owned by Senator\nStanford--and photographs were made, which illustrated several phases of\naction while the horse was trotting at full speed, laterally, in front\nof the camera.\n\nThe experiments were desultorily continued; but it was not until 1877\nthat the results of any of them were published.\n\nIn the meanwhile he devised an automatic electro-photographic apparatus,\nfor the purpose of making consecutive photographic exposures at\n_regulated_ intervals of time or of distance. Some of the results of his\nexperiments with this apparatus, which illustrated successive phases of\nthe action of horses while walking, trotting, galloping, &c., were\npublished in 1878, with the title of \"THE HORSE IN MOTION.\" Copies of\nthese photographs were deposited the same year in the Library of\nCongress at Washington, and some of them found their way to Berlin,\nLondon, Paris, Vienna, &c., where they were commented upon by the\njournals of the day.\n\nIn 1882, during a lecture on \"The Science of Animal Locomotion in its\nrelation to Design in Art,\" given at the Royal Institution (see\n_Proceedings_ of the Royal Institution of Great Britain, March 13,\n1882), he exhibited the results of some of his experiments made during a\nfew antecedent years at Palo Alto, California; when he, with the\nzoopraxiscope and an oxy-hydrogen lantern, projected on the wall a\nsynthesis of many of the actions he had analysed.\n\nIt may not be considered irrelevant if he repeats what he on that\noccasion said in his analysis of the quadrupedal walk:--\n\n\"So far as the camera has revealed, these successive foot fallings are\ninvariable, and are probably common to all quadrupeds....\n\n\"It is also highly probable that these photographic\ninvestigations--which were executed with wet collodion plates, with\nexposures not exceeding in some instances the one five-thousandth part\nof a second--will dispel many popular illusions as to the gait of a\nhorse, and that future and more exhaustive experiments, with the\nadvantages of recent chemical discoveries, will completely unveil to the\nartist all the visible muscular action of men and animals during their\nmost rapid movements....\n\n\"The employment of automatic apparatus for the purpose of obtaining a\nregulated succession of photographic exposures is too recent for its\nvalue to be properly understood, or to be generally used for scientific\nexperiment. At some future time the explorer for hidden truths will find\nit indispensable for his investigations.\"\n\nIn 1883, the University of Pennsylvania, with an enlightened exercise of\nits functions as a contributor to human knowledge, instructed the author\nto make, under its auspices, a comprehensive investigation of \"Animal\nLocomotion\" in the broadest significance of the words.\n\n\nA DIAGRAM OF THE STUDIO\n\nand the arrangement of the apparatus used for this purpose is here\ngiven.\n\n[Illustration]\n\nTT represents the track along which the model M was caused to move. B is\nthe background, divided into spaces of 5 centimetres square for the\npurpose of measurement.\n\nL, a horizontal battery of electro-photographic cameras, parallel to the\nline of motion (at a distance of 15 metres or about 48 feet therefrom),\nfor a series of 12 lateral exposures.\n\nR, a vertical battery of electro-photographic cameras, at right angles\nto the lateral battery, for a series of 12 _rear_ foreshortenings.\n\nF, a horizontal battery of electro-photographic cameras, at any suitable\nangle to the lateral battery for a series of _front_ foreshortenings.\n\nO, the position of the electric batteries, a chronograph for recording\nthe time intervals of exposures, and other apparatus used in the\ninvestigation.\n\nA clock-work apparatus, set in motion at the will of the operator,\ndistributed a series of electric currents, and synchronously effected\nconsecutive exposures in each of the three batteries of cameras.\n\nThe intervals of exposures were recorded by the chronograph, and divided\ninto thousandths of a second. These intervals could be varied at will\nfrom seventeen one-thousandth parts of a second to several seconds.\n\nThe task of making the original negatives was completed in 1885; the\nremaining years have been devoted to the preparation of the work for\npublication.\n\n[Illustration:\n\nLATERAL elevation of some consecutive phases of action by representative\nhorses.\n\nEach line illustrates the successive fallings of the feet during a\nsingle stride.\n\nAfter the last phase illustrated, the feet, during continuous motion,\nwill revert practically to their position in the first phase.\n\nThe comparative distances of the feet from each other or from the ground\nare not drawn to scale; and, in any event, would be merely approximate\nfor the succeeding stride.\n\nIn the conjectural stride No. 10, phase 3 is very doubtful, phases 5 and\n7 seem probable in a very long stride.]\n\n\n\n\nDESCRIPTION OF THE PLATES.\n\n\nThe results of this investigation are\n\n=Seven Hundred and Eighty-one Sheets of Illustrations=, containing more\nthan 20,000 figures of men, women, and children, animals and birds,\nactively engaged in walking, galloping, flying, working, jumping,\nfighting, dancing, playing at base-ball, cricket, and other athletic\ngames, or other actions incidental to every-day life, which illustrate\nmotion or the play of muscles.\n\nThese sheets of illustrations are conventionally called \"plates.\"\n\nEach plate illustrates the successive phases of a single action,\nphotographed with automatic electro-photographic apparatus at regulated\nand accurately recorded intervals of time, _consecutively_ from one\npoint of view; or, _consecutively_ AND _synchronously_ from _two_, or\nfrom _three_ points of view.\n\n\n=Each Plate is complete in itself without reference to any other Plate.=\n\nWhen the complete series of twelve consecutive exposures, from each of\nthe three points of view, are included in ONE Plate, the arrangement is\nusually thus:--\n\n +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+--+--+--+\n | | | | | | | | | | | | | Laterals.\n | | | | | | | | | | | | |\n |1|2|3|4|5|6|7|8|9|10|11|12|\n | | | | | | | | | | | | |\n +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+--+--+--+\n | | | | | | | | | | | | | Rear Foreshortenings from\n | | | | | | | | | | | | | points of view on the same\n |1|2|3|4|5|6|7|8|9|10|11|12| vertical line, at an angle\n | | | | | | | | | | | | | of 90 deg. from the Laterals.\n +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+--+--+--+\n | | | | | | | | | | | | | Front Foreshortenings from\n | | | | | | | | | | | | | points of view on the same\n |1|2|3|4|5|6|7|8|9|10|11|12| horizontal plane, at suitable\n | | | | | | | | | | | | | angles from the Laterals.\n +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+--+--+--+\n\nThe plates are not _photographs_ in the common acceptation of the word,\nbut are printed in PERMANENT INK, from gelatinised copper-plates, by the\nNew York Photo-Gravure Company, on thick linen plate-paper.\n\nThe size of the paper is 45 x 60 centimetres--19 x 24 inches, and the\nprinted surface varies from 15 x 45 to 20 x 30 centimetres--6 x 18 to 9\nx 12 inches.\n\nThe number of figures on each plate varies from 12 to 36.\n\nTo publish so great a number of plates as one undivided work was\nconsidered unnecessary, for each subject tells its own story; and\ninexpedient, for it would defeat the object which the University had in\nview, and limit its acquisition to large Libraries, wealthy individuals,\nor Institutions where it would be beyond the reach of many who might\ndesire to study it.\n\nIt has, therefore, been decided to issue a series of One Hundred Plates,\nwhich number, for the purposes of publication, will be considered as a\n\"COPY\" of the work. These one hundred plates will probably meet the\nrequirements of the greater number of the subscribers.\n\nIn accordance with this view is issued the following\n\n _PROSPECTUS_\n\n\n\n\n ANIMAL LOCOMOTION,\n\n AN ELECTRO-PHOTOGRAPHIC INVESTIGATION OF CONSECUTIVE PHASES\n OF ANIMAL MOVEMENTS,\n\n BY\n\n EADWEARD MUYBRIDGE.\n\n 1872-1885.\n\n PUBLISHED UNDER THE AUSPICES OF THE\n UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA.\n\n _Exclusively by Subscription._\n\n CONSISTING OF A SERIES OF\n\n ONE HUNDRED PLATES,\n\n AT A SUBSCRIPTION PRICE OF\n\n ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS\n For the United States, or\n\n TWENTY GUINEAS\n For Great Britain;\n\n Or the equivalent of Twenty Guineas in the gold currency\n of other countries in Europe.\n\n This will be for\n\n Austria,\n Two Hundred and Ten Florins;\n\n Belgium, France, Italy, and Switzerland,\n Five Hundred and Twenty-five Francs;\n\n Germany,\n Four Hundred and Twenty Marks;\n\n Holland,\n Two Hundred and Fifty Guilders.\n\nThe Plates are enclosed in a strong, canvas-lined, full AMERICAN-RUSSIA\nLEATHER PORTFOLIO.\n\nFor the purpose of placing all of the subscribers upon an equal footing\nin regard to cost, a copy of the work will be sent in the portfolio, and\npacked between boards, to any well-established Institution, or to any\nsubscriber, properly endorsed, to any city in Central or Western Europe,\nor in the United States.\n\n FREIGHT CHARGES PAID,\n\nif so requested, to the railway station, with the understanding that the\nsubscription price is remitted within one week of the day of the arrival\nof the work at the station.\n\nCustom duties, or any other expenses, if any, at the cost of the\nsubscriber.\n\nAdditional Plates in any required number will be supplied to the\nsubscriber at the same proportionate rate; these, however, must be\nordered at the same time as the subscription Plates.\n\nThe Plates will be supplied\n\n EXCLUSIVELY TO SUBSCRIBERS.\n\nIt was considered inadvisable to make an _arbitrary_ selection of the\none hundred Plates offered to subscribers, and with the object of\nmeeting, as far as possible, their diverse requirements, they are\ninvited to make their own selection, either from the subjoined list of\nsubjects, or from a detailed catalogue, which will be forwarded free of\nexpense to every subscriber.\n\nThe following are the numbers of Plates published of each class of\nsubjects, from which the subscriber's selection can be made:--\n\n Plates Published.\n\n Men, draped 6\n \" pelvis cloth 72\n \" nude 133\n Women, draped 60\n \" transparent drapery and semi-nude 63\n \" nude 180\n Children, draped 1\n \" nude 15\n Movements of a man's hand 5\n Abnormal movements, men and women, nude and\n semi-nude 27\n Horses walking, trotting, galloping, jumping, &c. 95\n Mules, oxen, dogs, cats, goats, and other domestic\n animals 40\n Lions, elephants, buffaloes, camels, deer, and other\n wild animals 57\n Pigeons, vultures, ostriches, eagles, cranes, and other\n birds 27\n ----\n Total number of Plates 781\n Containing more than 20,000 Figures.\n\n=Should the selection be made from the Catalogue, it will be advisable\nto give the Author permission to change any one of the selected Plates\nfor any other illustrating the same action, if, in his judgment, the\nsubstituted Plate illustrates that action with a better model, or in a\nmore perfect manner than the one selected.=\n\n=With regard to the selection of Plates, however, it has been found by\nexperience that unless any special subject or plate is required it will\nbe more satisfactory to the subscriber if he gives the Author GENERAL\nINSTRUCTIONS as to the CLASS of subjects desired and to leave the\nSPECIFIC selection to him.=\n\nMany of the large Libraries and Art or Science Institutions in America\nand in Europe have subscribed for, and have now in their possession, a\ncomplete series of the seven hundred and eighty-one Plates, the\nsubscription price for which is\n\n FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS\n\nin the United States,\n\n ONE HUNDRED GUINEAS\n\nin Great Britain for the complete series, in eight full AMERICAN-RUSSIA\nLEATHER PORTFOLIOS, or if bound in eleven volumes, each plate _hinged_,\nfull American-Russia leather,\n\n FIVE HUNDRED AND FIFTY DOLLARS\n\nin the United States,\n\n ONE HUNDRED AND TEN GUINEAS\n\nin Great Britain; or its equivalent for any city in Central or Western\nEurope.\n\nSubscribers who wish to make use of these Plates for the promotion or\ndiffusion of knowledge, or for artistic or scientific purposes, will be\nafforded facilities for acquiring working copies by special arrangement\nwith the Author.\n\n\n\n\nVALEDICTORY.\n\n\nThis is not exactly the place nor the time for the Author to express his\nobligations and thanks to those gentlemen who have assisted him in his\nlabours, but it affords a perhaps not inappropriate opportunity for him\nto pay a tribute of gratitude to his recently deceased friend M.\nMeissonier, without whose enthusiastic encouragement it is probable the\npresent work would never have been undertaken.\n\nIn 1882 he invited his friends to attend an illustrated Lecture given in\nhis studio by the Author, and then referring to a full knowledge of a\nsubject being necessary for it to be truthfully or satisfactorily\ntranslated by the artist, declared how much his own impression of a\nhorse's motion had been changed after having carefully studied its\nconsecutive phases. Attention need not be directed to the modifications\nin the expression of animal movements now progressing in the works of\nthe Painter and the Sculptor.\n\nThe investigations of the Author are so well known, and so generally\nrecognised as affording the only basis of truthful interpretation or\naccurate criticism of Animal Movement, that it is unnecessary to quote\nfrom the many elaborate reviews of \"Animal Locomotion,\" which have been\npublished in the American, English, French, and German Scientific,\nArtistic, and other Journals.\n\nFor the value of the present work to the general student of Nature and\nthe lover of Art, no less than to the Artist and the Archaeologist, the\nPhysiologist and the Anatomist, it is with much pride and gratitude that\nhe refers to the annexed list of some of his European subscribers.\n\n E. M.\n\n 10 HENRIETTA STREET,\n COVENT GARDEN,\n LONDON,\n _August 1891_.\n\n\n\n\nSUBSCRIBERS.\n\nThe general or departmental Libraries of the following\n\n\nUNIVERSITIES.\n\n Amsterdam\n Andrews, St.\n Basel\n Berlin\n Bern\n Bologna\n Bonn\n Breslau\n Bruxelles\n Edinburgh\n Erlangen\n Freiburg\n Geneve\n Genova\n Glasgow\n Goettingen\n Griefswald\n Halle\n Heidelberg\n Innsbrueck\n Jena\n Kiel\n Koenigsberg\n Leiden\n Leipzig\n Liege\n Louvain\n Muenchen\n Napoli\n Oxford\n Padova\n Pisa\n Prag\n Roma\n Rostock\n Strassburg\n Torino\n Tuebingen\n Utrecht\n Wien\n Wuerzburg\n Zuerich\n\n\nIMPERIAL, NATIONAL, OR ROYAL ACADEMIES OF FINE ARTS.\n\n Amsterdam\n Antwerpen\n Berlin\n Bern\n Birmingham\n Bologna\n Breslau\n Bruxelles\n Budapest\n Dresden\n Duesseldorf\n Firenzi\n Frankfurt\n Genova\n Gent\n Leipzig\n Liege\n London\n Manchester\n Milano\n Muenchen\n Napoli\n Paris\n Praha\n Roma (_de France_)\n Sheffield\n Torino\n Venezia\n Wien\n Zuerich\n Architectural Institute, Muenchen\n Herkomer School of Art, Bushey\n\n\nART MUSEUMS.\n\n Amsterdam\n Berlin\n Budapest\n\n\nARCHAEOLOGICAL INSTITUTES AND MUSEUMS.\n\n Dresden\n Griefswald\n Heidelberg\n Koenigsberg\n Leipzig\n Prag\n Rostock\n Strassburg\n Wien\n Wuerzburg\n Zuerich\n\n\nINDUSTRIAL ART AND SCIENCE MUSEUMS.\n\n Berlin\n Dublin\n Edinburgh\n Kensington\n Paris\n Wien\n\n\nINDUSTRIAL ART SCHOOLS.\n\n Amsterdam\n Breslau\n Budapest\n Frankfurt\n Nuernberg\n Zuerich\n\n\nLIBRARIES.\n\n The Royal Library, Windsor Castle\n Birmingham, Free Public\n Edinburgh, Advocates'\n Glasgow, Mitchell Free\n Liverpool, Free Public\n London, British Museum\n Manchester, Free Public\n Nottingham, Free Public\n Paris, National Library\n\n\nANATOMICAL INSTITUTES.\n\n Bern\n Breslau\n Freiburg\n Halle\n Innsbrueck\n Kiel\n Koenigsberg\n Leipzig\n Muenchen\n Pisa\n Prag\n Rostock\n Tuebingen\n Wuerzburg\n Zuerich\n\n\nROYAL COLLEGES OF SURGEONS.\n\n Edinburgh\n London\n\n\nPHYSIOLOGICAL INSTITUTES.\n\n Basel\n Berlin\n Bern\n Bologna\n Bonn\n Breslau\n Bruxelles\n Erlangen\n Freiburg\n Genova\n Goettingen\n Griefswald\n Halle\n Heidelberg\n Innsbrueck\n Jena\n Kiel\n Koenigsberg\n Leipzig\n Louvain\n Muenchen\n Napoli\n Prag\n Rostock\n Strassburg\n Torino\n Tuebingen\n Wien\n Wuerzburg\n Zuerich\n\n\nVETERINARY INSTITUTES.\n\n Alfort\n Bern\n Berlin\n Dresden\n\n\nANTHROPOLOGICAL MUSEUMS.\n\n Dresden\n Firenze\n\n\nETHNOLOGICAL, NATURAL HISTORY, AND ZOOLOGICAL INSTITUTES AND MUSEUMS.\n\n Amsterdam\n Bruxelles\n Freiburg\n Kiel\n Leiden\n Liege\n Napoli\n Paris\n Rostock\n\n\nPHYSICAL INSTITUTES.\n\n Basel\n Bologna\n Bruxelles\n Geneve\n Heidelberg\n Padova\n Prag\n Roma\n Rostock\n Utrecht\n\n\nPOLYTECHNIC HIGH SCHOOLS.\n\n Berlin\n Firenze\n Wien\n Zuerich\n\n\nCOLLEGES.\n\n Charterhouse\n Clifton\n Dublin (Trinity)\n Eton\n Owens\n Rossall\n Wellington\n\n\nROYAL PORCELAIN MANUFACTORIES.\n\n Berlin\n Dresden\n\n\nARTISTIC, LITERARY OR SCIENTIFIC CLUBS.\n\n Duesseldorf, _Malkesten_\n Glasgow, _Western_\n London, _Athenaeum_\n Rome, _Internazionale_\n\n * * * * *\n\n Agricultural High School of Berlin\n Faculty of Medicine of Paris\n Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow\n Psychological Institute of Leipzig\n Royal College of Physicians, Edinburgh\n Royal Institution, Edinburgh\n Royal Dublin Society\n Royal Society of London\n\nThe names and works of the following subscribers are so well known that\nthe Academical, University, and other honourable distinctions\nappertaining to them are omitted, they being entirely unnecessary:--\n\n\nARTISTS, _Architects, Painters, and Sculptors_.\n\n Albano, Salvatore\n l'Allemand, Sigmund\n Alma-Tadema, L.\n Armitage, E.\n Barabino, Nicolo\n Becker, Carl\n Begas, Reinhold\n Benczur, Gyula\n Berger, Julius\n Behrens, Peter\n Birch, Chas. B.\n Boehm, Sir J. Edgar\n Bonnat, Leon\n Boughton, Geo. H.\n Bouguereau, W. A.\n Braith, Anton\n Brandt, Josef von\n Brausewetter, Otto\n Bridgman, F. A.\n Brock, Thos.\n Canneel\n Carland, Onorato\n Carolus-Durand\n Cavallucci, C. Jacopo\n Cavelier, P. J.\n Charlton, John\n Clay, Sir Arthur\n Coleman, Chas. Caryl\n Coleman, Enrico\n Colin, Paul\n Conti, Tito\n Costa, Giovanni\n Crowe, Eyre\n Dalou, Jules\n Dannat, W. T.\n Davinet, E.\n Davis, H. W. B.\n Defregger, Franz von\n Detaille, Edouard\n Dicksee, Frank\n Diez, Rob.\n Diez, Wm.\n Drion, Prosper\n Dubois, Paul\n Ebner, L.\n Eisenmenger, August\n Ende, Herm\n Ewald, Ernst\n Faed, Thomas\n Falguiere\n Fildes, Luke\n Ford, E. Onslow\n Fremiet, M.\n Frith, W. P.\n Gallegos, Jose\n Garnier, Charles\n Gehrts, Joh.\n Gelli, Edouardo\n Gerome, Jean Leon\n Gilbert, Alfred\n Gilbert, Sir John\n Goodall, Fredk.\n Gordigiani, Michele\n Gow, Andrew C.\n Grosse, Th.\n Gruetzner, Eduard\n Guignard, Gaston\n Gysis, N.\n Haueser, O.\n Hebert, Ernesto\n Herkomer, Hubert\n Hess, Anton\n Higgins, A.\n Huebner, Eduard\n Hunt, Holman\n Janssen, Pet.\n Kampf, Arthur\n Kaulbach, F. A. von\n Kips, A.\n Kirchbach, Fr.\n Klein-Chevalier\n Knaus, Ludwig\n Knight, Ridgway\n Knille, Otto\n Koehler, Robert\n Kopf, Joseph\n Kowalski, A. von\n Kroner, Ch.\n Kruse, Max\n Kuehl, G.\n Kuehn, H.\n Leighton, Sir Frederick\n Lenbach, Franz R. von\n Linton, Sir James D.\n Loefftz, Ludwig R. von\n Long, Edwin\n Lotz, Carl\n Lucas, Seymour\n Luthmer, F.\n MacWhirter, John\n Marks, H. Stacy\n Marshall, W. Calder\n Maurier, George du\n Max, Gabriel\n Meeks, Eugene\n Meissonier\n Menzel\n Meyerheim, Paul\n Millais, Sir John E.\n Miller, Ferdinand R. von\n Molkenbaer, H. B. G.\n Moore, Henry\n Morelli, D.\n Morot, Aime\n Muller, Carl\n Munkacsy, Mich. de\n Murgatroyd, J.\n Muetzel, G.\n Nieper, Ludw.\n Orchardson, W. Q.\n Otto, Heinrich\n Ouless, W. W.\n Papperitz, Georg\n Parsons, Alfred\n Passini, Ludwig\n Piglhein, Bruno\n Portaels\n Powers, Longworth\n Poynter, E. J.\n Prell, H.\n Preyer, Ernest\n Puvis, de Chavennes\n Richmond, W. B.\n Rivalta, Augusto\n Riviere, Briton\n Robert-Fleury, Tony\n Rodin, A.\n Roll\n Roth, Ch.\n Ruemann, Wilh.\n Sant, James\n Sarti, Diego\n Schaper, F.\n Schill, Adolf\n Schilling, Johannes\n Severn, Arthur\n Siemering, R.\n Six, J.\n Sommer\n Stieler, Eugen von\n Story, W. W.\n Sturgess, John\n Sues, Wilh.\n Swan, John M.\n Taylor, Edw. R.\n Teschendorf, E.\n Thiersch, Fredk.\n Thoma, Hans\n Thornycroft, Hamo\n Uhde, F. von\n Vibert, J. G.\n Vinea, Francesco\n Vriendt, de Jules\n Vuillefroy, F. de\n Wagner, Alex.\n Watts, George F.\n Weeks, E. L.\n Weishaupt, Victor\n Wells, Hy. T.\n Werner, A. von\n Whistler, J. McNeil\n Woolner, Thos.\n Zimmermann, Ernst\n Zuegel, H.\n\n\nARCHAEOLOGISTS, MEN OF LETTERS, AUTHORS OF ART WORKS, ETC.\n\n Ball, Valentine\n Berndorf, Otto\n Berlepsch, H. E. von\n Bullen, George\n Coleman, Alexander\n Dickson, Wm. P.\n Donnelly, Genl.\n Duhn, F. von\n Duplessis, Georges\n Eaton, Fredk. A.\n Evans, John\n Falke, J.\n Graf, T. T.\n Hirschfeld, Gustav\n Holmes, Richard R.\n Kekule, Prof.\n Klein, Wilhelm\n Koerte, G.\n Michaelis, Ad.\n Muntz, Eugene\n Obreen, Fr. D. O.\n Overbeck, Johannes\n Pietsch, Ludwig\n Preuner, A.\n Pulszky, Karoli\n Ruskin, John\n Sambuy, Conte Ernesto di\n Schrieber, Th.\n Sittl, K.\n Smith, Genl. Sir R. M.\n Sutton, Chas. W.\n Tedder, Hy. R.\n Thode, H.\n Treu, Georg\n Webster, H. A.\n Wolff, Albert\n\n\nPHYSIOLOGISTS.\n\n Albertoni, Pietro\n Albini\n Aubert, H.\n Bernstein, J.\n Biedermann, W.\n du Bois-Reymond\n Brown-Sequard\n Ewald, R.\n Exner, Sigmund\n Fano, Giulio\n Fick, A.\n Gaule, J.\n Goltz, F.\n Gruetzner, P.\n Heidenhain, R.\n Hensen, V.\n Hering, Ewald\n Hermann, L.\n Kries, J.\n Kronecker, H.\n Kuehne, W.\n Landois, L.\n Luciani, Luigi\n Ludwig, C.\n Marey, E. J.\n Masoin, E.\n Meissner, G.\n Miescher, F.\n Moleschott, Senator J.\n Mosso, A.\n Munk, Hermann\n Pettigrew, J. Bell\n Pflueger, E.\n Rosenthal, I.\n Schiff, M.\n Slosse, A.\n Vintschgau, M. von\n Voit, C. von\n\n\nANATOMISTS.\n\n Braune, Wilh.\n Brunn, A. von\n Cleland, John\n Eisler, P.\n Flemming, W.\n Hasse, C.\n Henke, W. J.\n Humphry, G. M.\n Koelliker\n Marshall, John\n Rabl\n Romiti\n Roux, W.\n Rueckert, J.\n Schwalbe, G.\n Stieda, L.\n Stoehr, Ph.\n Strasser, H.\n Thanhoffer, L. von\n Van Beneden, Edouard\n Virchow, Hans\n Wiedersheim\n\n\nANTHROPOLOGISTS, BIOLOGISTS, PALEONTOLOGISTS, ZOOLOGISTS, ETC.\n\n Acland, Sir H. W.\n Barrier, Gustave\n Blochmann, F.\n Bowman, Sir Wm.\n Brandt, K. E.\n Carpenter, P. Herbert\n Darwin, Francis\n Flower, W. H.\n Galton, Francis\n Guenther, Albert\n Hartog, Marcus\n Haughton, Saml.\n Hollis, W. A.\n Huxley, T. H.\n Jensink, F. A.\n Kerbert, C.\n Lankester, E. Ray\n Lubbock, Sir John\n Mantegazza, Senator\n Meyer, A. B.\n Milne-Edwards\n Mivart, St. George\n Muellenhoff\n Mueller, Max\n Newton, Alfred\n Owen, Sir Richard\n Pasteur, L.\n Romanes, Geo. J.\n Schmidt, Emil\n Schuetz\n Sorby, H. C.\n Swinhoe, Chas.\n Van Wulverhorst\n Virchow, Rudolf\n Weismann, August\n Wundt, W.\n Yseux\n Zittell, C. A. von\n\n\nPHYSICISTS, ETC.\n\n Abney, Capt. W. de W.\n Bellati\n Blazerna, Pietro\n Bramwell, Sir Fredk.\n Bunsen, R.\n Ditscheiner, L.\n Glaisher, James\n Hagenbach-Bischoff\n Helmholtz, H. von\n Huggins, Wm.\n Julius, V. A.\n Mach, E.\n Matthiessen, L.\n Moss, Rich. J.\n Quincke, Georg\n Righi, Augusto\n Rousseau, E.\n Soret, C.\n Tissandier, Gaston\n Thomson, Sir Wm.\n Vogel, H. W.\n Weber, H. F.\n\n * * * * *\n\n Moltke, Count von\n Portland, The Duke of\n Wharncliffe, The Earl of\n\n..........\n\n Transcriber's Note:\n\n Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully as\n possible.\n\n The author spelled Greifswald as Griefswald, Innsbruck as\n Innsbrueck and Haeuser as Haueser in this text. These spellings have\n been retained.\n\n OE ligatures have been expanded.\n Italic text has been marked with _underscores_.\n Bold text has been marked with =equals signs=.\n\n\n\n\n\nEnd of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Science of Animal Locomotion\n(Zoopraxography), by Eadweard Muybridge\n\n*** ","meta":{"redpajama_set_name":"RedPajamaBook"}} +{"text":"\n\nPressure \nCooking\n\nby Tom Hirschfeld\n\nA member of Penguin Random House LLC\n\n**Publisher:** Mike Sanders\n\n**Associate Publisher:** Billy Fields\n\n**Managing Editor:** Lori Cates Hand\n\n**Cover and Book Designer:** Becky Batchelor\n\n**Compositor:** Ayanna Lacey\n\n**Proofreader:** Catherine Schwenk\n\n**Indexer:** Brad Herriman\n\n**PRODUCTION, LONDON**\n\n**Digital Producer:** Alex Valizadeh\n\n**Senior Digital Producer:** Miguel Cunha\n\n**DIGITAL OPERATIONS, DELHI**\n\n**Head of Digital Operations:** Manjari Hooda\n\n**Producer:** Rahul Kumar\n\n**Assistant Editor:** Etika Kapil\n\n**DTP Designer:** Manish Bhatt\n\n**Operations Assistant:** Tauhid Nasir\n\nFirst American Edition, 2015 \nPublished in the United States by DK Publishing \n6081 E. 82nd Street, Indianapolis, Indiana 46250\n\nCopyright \u00a9 2015 Dorling Kindersley Limited\n\nA Penguin Random House Company \n15 16 17 18 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 \n001\u2013289069\u2013April2016\n\nAll rights reserved.\n\nWithout limiting the rights under the copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the copyright owner.\n\nPublished in the United States by Dorling Kindersley Limited.\n\neISBN: 978-1-465-45044-9\n\nLibrary of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2015948633\n\n**Note** : This publication contains the opinions and ideas of its author(s). It is intended to provide helpful and informative material on the subject matter covered. It is sold with the understanding that the author(s) and publisher are not engaged in rendering professional services in the book. If the reader requires personal assistance or advice, a competent professional should be consulted. The author(s) and publisher specifically disclaim any responsibility for any liability, loss, or risk, personal or otherwise, which is incurred as a consequence, directly or indirectly, of the use and application of any of the contents of this book.\n\n**Trademarks** : All terms mentioned in this book that are known to be or are suspected of being trademarks or service marks have been appropriately capitalized. Alpha Books, DK, and Penguin Random House LLC cannot attest to the accuracy of this information. Use of a term in this book should not be regarded as affecting the validity of any trademark or service mark.\n\nDK books are available at special discounts when purchased in bulk for sales promotions, premiums, fund-raising, or educational use. For details, contact: DK Publishing Special Markets, 345 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014 or \nSpecialSales@dk.com.\n\nPrinted in the United States\n\nidiotsguides.com\n\n## **Contents**\n\nIntroduction\n\nPressure Cooker Basics\n\nHow Pressure Cooking Works\n\nWhat Your Pressure Cooker Can Do\n\nTypes of Pressure Cookers\n\nSafety and Maintenance\n\nRelease Methods\n\nUnderstanding PSI\n\nPressure Cooking Vegetables\n\nPressure Cooking Meat\n\nConverting Conventional Recipes\n\nStocking Your Kitchen\n\nPlanning Weeknight Meals\n\nPressure Cooker Recipes\n\nBasics\n\nRich Beef Stock\n\nChicken Stock\n\nVegetable Stock\n\nPressure Cooker Eggs\n\nPressure Cooker Rice\n\nEasy Dried Beans\n\nPressure Cooker Pasta Sauce\n\nBreakfasts\n\nEggs en Cocotte \u00e0 la Cr\u00e8me\n\nEgg Cups\n\nApple Cinnamon Breakfast Oats\n\nSavory Parmesan Steel-Cut Oats\n\nFive-Grain Oatmeal\n\nSausage, Onion, and Gruy\u00e8re Breakfast Casserole\n\nHoney, Raisin, and Quinoa Breakfast Risotto\n\nBacon Jam\n\nAppetizers\n\nClassic Deviled Eggs\n\nGarlicky White Bean and Parmesan Dip\n\nRed Beet Hummus\n\nMiddle Eastern Hummus\n\nLentil P\u00e2t\u00e9\n\nSavory Smoked Salmon Cheesecake\n\nSalads\n\nTuna Salad with Chickpeas\n\nChicken Salad Deluxe\n\nClassic Egg Salad\n\nWheat Berry Salad with Arugula Pesto\n\nFarro Tabbouleh\n\nPicnic-Style Potato Salad\n\nHot German Potato Salad\n\nSoups, Stews, and Chilies\n\nRoasted Corn and Butternut Squash Chili\n\nWhite Bean and Shiitake Soup\n\nSaturday Soup Beans\n\nSpicy Chickpea Stew with Sour Tomato Curry\n\nCuban Black Bean Soup with Sherry\n\nFarmhouse Corn Chowder\n\nFrench Potato and Leek Soup\n\nIndian Carrot and Lentil Soup\n\nRustic Split-Pea Soup\n\nCurried Butternut Squash Soup\n\nMushroom Barley Soup\n\nRoot Vegetable Stew\n\nBorscht with Italian Sausage\n\nRibolleta\n\nTexas-Style Chili Con Carne\n\nKorean Beef Stew\n\nVegetable Beef Soup\n\nIrish Stew\n\nPork Ramen\n\nHearty Turkey and Vegetable Soup\n\nNew England Fish Chowder\n\nVegetables\n\nRatatouille\n\nHoney-Glazed Carrots\n\nGlazed Carrots with Braised Lettuce\n\nSouthern-Style Green Beans\n\nButtered Green Beans with Nut Crunch Topping\n\nCaramelized Onion Mashed Potatoes\n\nMashed Maple Sweet Potatoes\n\nBrussels Sprouts with Almonds and Prosciutto\n\nBraised Kale\n\nAlsatian-Style Braised Red Cabbage\n\nOne-Pot Cabbage, Rice, and Lentils\n\nSouthern Collard Greens\n\nMeaty Main Dishes\n\nBarbecue Braised Short Ribs\n\nBeef Sugo\n\nCorned Beef\n\nCuban-Style Ropa Vieja\n\nClassic Beef Brisket\n\nPot Roast with Fennel and Carrots\n\nSwedish Meatballs\n\nBeef Bourguignon\n\nChuck Roast with Horseradish Cream and Carrots\n\nSwiss Steak\n\nOsso Buco\n\nBelgian Beef Stew Cooked in Beer\n\nPressure Cooker Tacos\n\nHungarian Stuffed Peppers\n\nHungarian Chicken Paprika\n\nCaribbean Chicken Curry\n\nOne-Pot Chicken and Sausage Perloo\n\nChicken and Dumplings\n\nChicken Cacciatore\n\nSmothered Chicken\n\nChicken with 40 Cloves of Garlic\n\nThai-Style Green Curry Chicken\n\nChinese Red Cooked Chicken\n\nHungarian Pork Goulash\n\nBelgian Ale\u2013Braised Pork Loin with Mustard\n\nPork Grillades\n\nSouthern-Style Pulled Pork\n\nPork Vindaloo\n\nPork Posole\n\nOne-Pot Sausage, Potatoes, and Greens\n\nAsian Steamed Fish\n\nSalmon en Papillote\n\nFish Curry\n\nThai Steamed Mussels\n\nBeer-Steamed Shrimp\n\nCajun-Style Shrimp Jambalaya\n\nRice, Grains, and Breads\n\nBasmati Rice Pilaf\n\nDirty Oats with Lentils\n\nWild Rice\n\nAsparagus and Sun-Dried Tomato Risotto\n\nRisotto Milanese\n\nJamaican-Style Rice and Peas\n\nSteamed Brown Bread with Raisins\n\nCrustless Sandwich Bread\n\nCornbread\n\nDesserts\n\nLemon Pots de Cr\u00e8me\n\nChocolate Pots de Cr\u00e8me\n\nMaple Cream Caramels\n\nCr\u00e8me Br\u00fbl\u00e9e\n\nCaribbean-Style Flan\n\nClassic Cheesecake\n\nChocolate Caramel Cheesecake\n\nRice Pudding\n\nBread Pudding with Whiskey Sauce\n\nCaramel Vanilla Tapioca Pudding\n\nChristmas Pudding\n\nDulce de Leche\n\nGingerbread Cake with Vanilla Glaze\n\nRum Raisin, Apple, and Prune Cake\n\nBoozy Dried Fruit Compote\n\nPears Poached in Red Wine\n\nAppendix\nIntroduction\n\nDuring the 6 months it took me to write this book, I cooked almost exclusively with pressure cookers. Previously, I had used my pressure cooker on a fairly regular basis, but far from daily. Now that the book is just about finished, I wonder if I can go back to \"traditional\" cooking. At the same time I have to ask myself, _Why would I?_\n\nA pressure cooker can cook almost anything. It handles some ingredients better than others, but the array of foods that cook better under pressure is amazing. I'll never again cook a pork loin in anything but a pressure cooker. Custards and cheesecake will be baked under pressure from here on out. Rice? Never again in a rice cooker, when the texture of pressure cooked grains is superior. And in the pressure cooker, old-fashioned southern cornbread develops a wonderful crumb and stays so moist. Pressure cookers also are efficient. They require less energy than traditional cooking methods, and they take about a third the time necessary for other methods. And despite the general fear of pressure cookers over the years, they're actually quite safe. Thanks to advances in safety, technology, and precision manufacturing, modern pressure cookers are virtually foolproof. With multiple valves to release pressure and the knowledge that the rubber gasket is meant to release steam if pressure becomes too high, you can set aside your worries.\n\nFull of fresh, whole food ingredients, the recipes in this book are a compilation of classic American comfort foods and international classics, from beef brisket to Caribbean curried chicken to French cr\u00e8me br\u00fbl\u00e9e. There's lots to choose from\u2014and to keep you from ever becoming bored with making dinner again. You can use either a traditional stovetop pressure cooker or a more modern electric pressure cooker, and instructions for both are given in each recipe. Cooking times, temperatures, and techniques can differ by type of cooker, so be sure to read and follow the recipe closely, understanding that times may vary. The user's manual for your specific cooker is a good reference, so familiarize yourself with it if you haven't already. And note that the cook time in all the recipes is the pressure cook time. Any other cooking called for is incorporated in the prep time. A pressure level is also called out so you can see at a glance what level you need to achieve.\n\n**Acknowledgments**\n\nI have to say thanks to all those who put up with my incessant talk about how amazing pressure cooking is, about my discoveries each day, and why they should buy a pressure cooker. But most importantly, I say thanks to my wife, Amy, and my daughters, Vivian and Lynnie, who were my taste-testers and had very strong opinions about which recipes were best and should be included in the book. To my father, thanks for watching the girls so I could work, and to my mother, thanks for being a good cook yourself. Lastly, thanks to all those in the food industry, chefs, line cooks, servers, and dishwashers, who do a thankless job day in and day out, so that when I don't feel like cooking, I don't have to.\n\n**Special thanks to the technical reviewer**\n\n_Idiot's Guides: Pressure Cooking_ was reviewed by an expert who double-checked the accuracy of what's presented here to help us ensure making mouthwatering meals in your pressure cooker is as easy as it gets. Special thanks are extended to Joseph Ewing, RD, LDN.\n\nHow Pressure Cooking Works\n\nVersatile, easy-to-use pressure cookers enable you to create fresh, whole-food dishes quickly. Pressure cooking isn't a shortcut but rather a time- and energy-efficient cooking method that produces nutritious, delicious dishes.\n\nFaster cooking\n\nIt doesn't matter whether you use a traditional stovetop pressure cooker or a more modern electric version\u2014the science is the same. Rather than boiling food, a pressure cooker uses pressurized heat to cook. Liquid under pressure becomes hotter than normal; as the pressure inside the cooker rises, the temperature of the liquid rises, too\u2014up to 250\u00b0F (120\u00b0C). A pressure cooker is similar to a steam oven, but because a cooker heats at the same temperature on all sides, it cooks foods very evenly\u2014and in about a third of the time of traditional cooking methods!\n\nSafer than ever\n\nScientifically, pressure cookers work the same as they always have, but technologically, today's cookers are safer than ever. Thanks to the creation of spring-loaded pressure valves and precision manufacturing methods, the days of lids screwed down with bolts and clogged steam valves are no more. At the end of the day, however, a pressure cooker still uses valves to regulate the pressure and temperature.\n\nBrowning food in a pressure cooker before adding liquids and locking on the lid creates deeper, richer flavor in your finished dish. This is thanks to the Maillard reaction, a chemical reaction between amino acids and sugars that creates intensified flavors. The Maillard reaction really takes off at 250\u00b0F (120\u00b0C) and higher, so it occurs when a pressure cooker is at a pressure of 15 pounds per square inch (PSI), which is level 2 for traditional pressure cookers and high for electric cookers.\nWhat Your Pressure Cooker Can Do\n\nPressure cookers can do more than just one-pot meals. These multifunctional cookers are really quite versatile. Want a pot of tender beans, fluffy steamed rice, or a succulent roast? A pressure cooker does all these things efficiently and in about a third less time than conventional cooking methods.\n\nPrimary Uses\n\nPressure cookers excel at making hot, delicious dishes:\n\nCooking with Liquids Soups and stocks are ideal in pressure cookers, but cooking in liquids is more than just these dishes. Anything cooked in wine, milk, beer, or water falls into this category, too\u2014think sauerbraten, pork cooked in milk, and coq au vin. Flavored liquids add more flavor to the dish and also tenderize meats.\n\nSteaming In conjunction with a steamer basket or trivet, steaming foods in a pressure cooker is one of the tastiest ways to cook vegetables and retain many of their essential vitamins and minerals. But because the cooker cooks so quickly, not all vegetables should be cooked this way. Some more delicate vegetables quickly turn to mush in the pressure cooker.\n\nBraising and Pot Roasting In traditional cooking, braising and cooking with liquids are in the same category. But because you can use less liquid in a pressure cooker, braising is a category on its own, and the sauce that's generally served with the dish becomes so intense inside the pressure cooker, you don't have to reduce it on the stovetop. Pot roasting can be done in a pressure cooker, too, using even less liquid than required for braising.\n\nCanning Canning is another primary use for the pressure cooker. In fact, it's the only way the U.S. Department of Agriculture recommends canning low-acid foods at home. Not all pressure cookers are pressure canners, though. It has to have a 15 PSI setting, and it must be able to maintain such a setting for the entire cook time in order to can. Combo cooker\/canners are available that can do both.\n\n**Foods to Pressure Cook**\n\nMEAT\n\nAnimal proteins of all kinds become tender and stay moist in a pressure cooker.\n\nLEGUMES\n\nDried beans cook faster, retain their shape, and become perfectly tender with very little hassle.\n\nWHOLE GRAINS\n\nFrom whole grains to ground, from farro to oats, cooking grains under pressure is quicker and easier than via conventional methods.\n\nSecondary Uses\n\nYour pressure cooker also can tackle these tasks:\n\nJuice Extraction Outfitting your pressure cooker with a trivet and adding some strawberries and a small amount of water is a quick and easy way to extract juice, especially from berries.\n\nDistilling Anytime you create steam from a liquid, you can distill. You'd have to use a traditional rather than electric cooker and modify it a bit, but you can use your pressure cooker to distill flowers and other aromatics to make infused waters, such as orange water or rose water.\n\nSterilizing Your pressure cooker also can sterilize glass jars, glass baby bottles, and anything else that might need to be sanitized, as long as it fits into the cooker with the lid on and won't melt under heat.\n\n**Foods Not to Pressure Cook**\n\nPASTA\n\nCooking pasta under pressure isn't really any quicker than traditional methods, and many times the results are less than spectacular.\n\nTENDER VEGETABLES\n\nSmall, young, tender asparagus, baby green beans, baby spinach, fresh peas, and similar foods overcook in the pressure cooker.\n\nFRIED FOOD\n\nYou can use your pressure cooker to fry foods as long as you have the lid off. Never fry foods under pressure.\n\nElectric stoves take time to cool, so when cooking with a traditional pressure cooker on an electric stove, use two burners\u2014one set to the higher heat called for in the recipe, and the other set to low. Then slide your cooker from the high-heat burner to the low-heat one as necessary.\nTypes of Pressure Cookers\n\nPressure cookers come in three primary types but with many variations among them. Maybe you've inherited an old cooker, or maybe you're shopping for a new cooker, either stovetop or electric. Let's look at what you need to know to make the right choice, or make the best use of the cooker you have.\n\nOld Stovetop Cookers\n\nTraditional first-generation stovetop pressure cookers did everything from canning winter stores to cooking perfectly tender roasts. Many were made of aluminum, with lids that screwed down tight, and were large enough to hold \u00bd-gallon (2l) canning jars.\n\nThese cookers contained just one pressure valve, which was really more of a vent you placed different weights on top of to set the pressure, so they hissed steam and the valves jiggled as you cooked. Because they used a single valve, the old cookers weren't especially safe and were prone to failure. Mostly the lids popped off and food splattered everywhere. Many older models were preset at 15 PSI; new models sometimes allow you to set any pressure with a valve.\n\nStill, if you keep the valve openings clear of debris and the gaskets supple, and when used properly and with requisite caution, these cookers are safe.\n\nNew Stovetop Cookers\n\nSecond-generation traditional cookers look similar to their predecessors, but they're quite different. With more safety features, modern stovetop pressure cookers are nearly foolproof.\n\nToday's cookers work silently, are nonventing, and hiss only when the internal pressure becomes too high. The spring-loaded valves are used for safety only, as is the rubber seal housed in the lid. Many cookers have a heat-conducting bottom plate that disperses heat evenly. This allows you to bring the cooker to pressure and reduce the heat to low while still maintaining pressure. They often allow two pressure settings, 8 PSI (level 1 for traditional cookers and low for electric cookers) or 15 PSI (level 2 for traditional cookers and high for electric cookers).\n\nSecond-generation stovetop cookers are highly versatile and come in sizes to fit most home cooks' needs: 3.5 quart (3.5l), 4 quart (4l), 5 quart (5l), 6 quart (5.5l), and 8 quart (8l). Usually, you can use a larger-size cooker than the recipe calls for.\n\nElectric Cookers\n\nThe newest type of pressure cooker, many electric pressure cookers serve as multifunctional cookers: slow cookers, steamers, rice cookers, and pressure cookers all in one appliance. They work in a similar way to the new stovetop varieties, with a nonstick insert that's sealed under pressure. You set the temperature (either low or high) and pressure on a control panel on the side of the cooker.\n\nThe appeal of electric cookers is their ease and convenience. You program the cooker for stew, and it sets the time and pressure for you. Many of these cookers also have automatic on\/off, warming functions, as well as other control panel settings.\n\nSome of these cookers have drawbacks, however. There's no cold water release capability, some don't offer a saut\u00e9 mode, and the pressure settings vary from one brand to another. If you plan to do any low-acid canning, this is not the right cooker to purchase.\n\nPRESSURE COOKER ACCESSORIES\n\nWhen considering a pressure cooker to purchase, think about how you'll use it. This helps you choose the best size for your needs and also identify necessary accessories, such as perforated steamer baskets, trivets, canning equipment, and baking pans. Each one of these items has multiple uses, and you can probably discover many more as you gain pressure cooking experience.\n\nSTEAMER BASKET\n\nTRIVET\n\nCANNING RACK\nSafety and Maintenance\n\nStories abound about pressure cookers \"blowing up,\" and surely there were many cookers whose lids came off and the contents spattered all over. But with modern technology, precision manufacturing, and multiple safety valves, modern pressure cookers are as safe as any other kitchen appliance.\n\nSafety Checklist\n\nKeep the following safety points in mind when using your pressure cooker:\n\n\u25a1 Always remove the rubber gasket, check for cracks, and be sure it isn't overly brittle from use. Replace the gasket if needed.\n\n\u25a1 Check valves for any obstructions like grit or sticky residue left behind by food, and clean as necessary.\n\n\u25a1 If you hear a hiss, that means too much pressure has built up inside the cooker, usually because the heat wasn't reduced in time or to a low-enough temperature. Reduce the heat, and the hiss should stop as soon as the pressure drops.\n\n\u25a1 If you're having difficulty getting to pressure, check to be sure the lid is on properly, there's water in the pan, and the gasket is properly sealing.\n\n\u25a1 Do not leave your pressure cooker unattended.\n\nMaintenance and Cleaning\n\nAlways clean your pressure cooker thoroughly after each use. Remove the gasket, clean it with a soft sponge and a mild detergent, and let it air-dry. Clean under the rim of the lid, and rinse well to remove any grit or food grime. Hand-wash the rest of the lid, and dry the lid completely.\n\nClean the pot by hand, too, using a sponge and a soft-bristled brush if needed. Take special care to ensure the bayonet mounts for the lid (the tabs that lock the lid in place) are free of debris. Dry the pot completely.\n\nIf there's tough debris or burnt-on grime in your pressure cooker, soak it before cleaning to loosen the dirt. To deal with really tough problems, fill the pot, bring the water to a boil, and clean the pot as directed.\n\nAvoid using harsh detergents and scratch pads on your pressure cooker, and don't clean any parts of it in the dishwasher.\n\nCautions\n\nWith some care and common sense, you'll have years of successful pressure cooking. Here are some cautions to keep in mind:\n\n * DON'T OVERFILL WITH WATER. Filling your pressure cooker more than two thirds full risks clogging the valves.\n * DON'T OVERPACK WITH FOOD. An overly full pressure cooker won't cook the food inside evenly or efficiently. Never fill your pressure cooker more than two thirds full, and take into consideration the liquid content of your dish and the density of the ingredients.\n * BEWARE OF THE STEAM. Steam is always present with pressure cooking, and it can burn your skin quickly. If you take a few precautions, however, you shouldn't have any problems.\n\nMost pressure cookers are designed to usher steam away from you. The quick-release valve moves the steam in the opposite direction of the handle, or anywhere your hand might reasonably be while handling a pot. However, never remove the lid while the pot is under pressure, and don't force the lid open. When you do open the lid, always use it as a shield for your hands and body by tilting up the far side of the lid as you open the pan, leaving the edge closest to you in contact with the edge of the pot. This pushes the steam away from you rather than allowing it to billow up in your face.\n\nRelease Methods\n\nReleasing the pressure in your pressure cooker correctly and safely is essential for safety and to keep the food inside from overcooking. There are three basic methods to release pressure: cold water, quick, and natural. (Be sure to read the manual for your specific pressure cooker for more information.)\n\nCold Water Release\n\nAt about 15 seconds, this is the fastest way to cool your traditional pressure cooker to a temperature low enough to safely open the lid. (This method is not suitable for electric pressure cookers because they should not be doused with water.) It's most often used with quick-cooking foods so you can get them out of the pot before they overcook.\n\nTo release pressure using the cold water method, transfer your traditional pressure cooker to the sink and position it so water runs only over the edge of the lid. Turn on the cold water, and carefully rotate the cooker in the sink, avoiding running water over the valve.\n\nQuick Release\n\nOne of the nice things about the quick release method, which takes about 1 or 2 minutes, is that there's no need to carry the cooker to the sink. If you're cooking tender vegetables such as broccoli and need to get them out of the pot immediately so they don't overcook, it's best to use the cold water release method because it's almost instant. But for most other foods, the quick release method is fine and enables you to get food to the table while it's still hot.\n\nTo release pressure using the quick release method, first remove the pressure cooker from heat or turn off the burner. Then, depending on the type of cooker you have, either turn the pressure knob so the cooker can release the steam at its own pace, or place a long-handled wooden spoon on the spring-loaded valve to release the steam. The spoon enables you to keep your hands a safe distance away from the escaping steam\u2014and a possible burn.\n\nNatural Release\n\nThe natural release method is by far the simplest, but it's also the least used in because it can take 25 to 30 minutes or longer for the pot to cool, and some foods can overcook in the process. (This method is widely used for canning, however.)\n\nTo release pressure using the natural release method, simply remove the pot from heat and let it cool on its own.\n\nNever run water directly over the valve, or you could compromise its integrity and reliability. Never submerge any pressure cooker in water. Never run water over an electric cooker. And no matter which type of cooker you have, mind the steam and stay out of harm's way.\n\nUnderstanding PSI\n\nPSI stands for _pounds per square inch_ , and it's a measure of the pressure within a pressure cooker. Higher pressure makes food cook faster and more evenly. Take a minute to learn about PSI, and in the future, all you'll need to think about is whether to set the pressure cooker to level 1 for traditional cookers\/low for electric cookers or level 2 for traditional cookers\/high for electric cookers.\n\nWhat is PSI?\n\nThe science of pressure cooking isn't complicated: when boiling water and steam are put under pressure, they become the same temperature. Apply additional heat, the pressure builds, and you get higher temperatures. What this means for you and your pressure cooker is that your food cooks evenly and from all sides. That's what makes pressure cooking different from almost all other methods of cooking. It's also what makes it very efficient.\n\nWater boils at 212\u00b0F (100\u00b0C). Steam, because it's water in gas form, is even hotter. But under pressure, water becomes superheated. At 8 PSI, water reaches 235\u00b0F (115\u00b0C) before it boils, and the resulting steam is the same temperature. At 15 PSI, water boils at 250\u00b0F (120\u00b0C).\n\nTemperature and Pressure\n\nLeft uncontrolled and under pressure, the water and steam will continue to rise in temperature. But a valve set to a specified release pressure allows steam to escape, maintaining a given PSI and, therefore, a given temperature, inside the pressure cooker.\n\nThink of PSI as your temperature knob on the stove: low, medium, and high. Different pressures control the heat inside the pot.\n\nThe Importance of Time\n\nTime plays a key role in pressure cooking, and it's crucial that you adhere to the times specified in the recipes. A pressure cooker left to its own devices can obliterate foods into a mushy mess very quickly.\n\nPressure cooking times begin when the PSI in the recipe is reached. That's why it's important to bring liquids to a boil first, lock on the lid, and wait until the pressure gauge reaches the desired PSI. Only then should you start the timer.\n\nAdjusting for Altitude\n\nIf, due to where you live, you often make altitude adjustments to recipes when cooking, you'll need to make some modifications when pressure cooking, too.\n\nIf you live above 2,000 feet (610m) elevation above sea level, you'll need to change your pressure cooker cook times. The rule is a 5 percent increase in cooking time for every 1,000-foot (305m) increase in altitude over 2,000 feet (610m). So at 3,000 feet (915m), an increase of 5 percent is needed. At 4,000 feet (1,220m), it jumps to 10 percent, and so on, as shown in the accompanying table.\n\nAltitude also affects how much cooking liquid you need. If the altitude requires a 5 percent cook time increase, the liquid requirements increase by 2.5 percent, or half the altitude increase. So if a recipe calls for \u00bd cup water, you'll need \u00be cup. There are no hard-and-fast rules on how much more liquid you need when adjusting for altitude because it somewhat depends on how much liquid will be released by the ingredients being cooked. The table here offers good starting points.\n\n**ALTITUDE ADJUSTMENTS** \n--- \nALTITUDE | INCREASE IN COOK TIME | INCREASE IN LIQUID \n3,000 feet (915m) | 5% | 2.5% \n4,000 feet (1,220m) | 10% | 5% \n5,000 feet (1,525m) | 15% | 7.5% \n6,000 feet (1,830m) | 20% | 10% \n7,000 feet (2,135m) | 25% | 12.5% \n8,000 feet (2,440m) | 30% | n\/a \n9,000 feet (2,745m) | 35% | n\/a \n10,000 feet (3,050m) | 40% | n\/a\nPressure Cooking Vegetables\n\nA steaming bowl of vegetables cooked perfectly in a pressure cooker always arrives at the table looking vibrant and nutritious. A pressure cooker is a superstar when it comes to cooking vegetables fast while retaining vitamins and flavor.\n\nSize Matters\n\nTry to cut vegetables the same size so they finish cooking at the same time. Also keep in mind what else you might be cooking with the vegetables, like stew meat for example, and overall cooking times. You might want to cut the vegetables larger or even leave them whole so they finish cooking at the same time as the stew meat. And remember, you can always cook in stages so the vegetables aren't overcooked and the meats still become tender.\n\nQUICK-COOKING VEGGIES\n\nSome more delicate vegetables require less cook time. When a recipe calls for broccoli, asparagus, or spinach, for example, you can stop the cooking process near the end of the time specified, release the pressure, remove the lid, add the quick-cooking vegetables, and continue with the recipe.\n\nPRESSURE COOKING POTATOES\n\nPotatoes fare well when pressure cooked. The cook time depends on many variables: will the potatoes be cut, halved, cooked whole, peeled or not, mashed, used in potato salad, etc. Be sure to follow your recipe carefully when pressure cooking potatoes.\n\nCarrots cut into 1-inch (2.5cm) cylinders are best for quick-cooking stews. Try to cut any meat in the dish into pieces that will cook in the same amount of time.\n\nFingerling potatoes are great for pressure cooking. Just Cut in half lengthwise\u2014no peeling necessary.\n\nTRIVETS AND STEAMER BASKETS\n\nWhen steaming vegetables, use a trivet or steamer basket, and always add as little water as your cooker allows to still operate safely. This is often \u00bd to \u00be cup.\n\nIt might take a bit of practice until you can produce properly cooked vegetables. Be patient, and pay attention to the cooking process. Make mental notes as you work, and above all else, keep trying.\n\nDO NOT OVERFILL\n\nTo ensure even cooking, do not overfill the steamer basket with vegetables. The key is to leave enough space around the food so the steam can get into all the nooks and crannies. Flat cuts such as potato rounds are especially prone to undercooking because they can stick together.\n\nPressure Cooking Meat\n\nSave the expensive, tender cuts of meat for the grill. Your pressure cooker transforms lesser, inexpensive cuts of meat into great-tasting stews, succulent braises, and tender pot roasts.\n\nBut just because a pressure cooker does wonders with inexpensive cuts of meat doesn't mean you can use cheap meat. If a cut has a lot of sinew (or silverskin), remove it with a knife before cooking. Also remove any bruised or discolored areas you see. Let pressure cooked meat rest for 10 minutes before slicing or shredding it to allow the collagen in the meat to relax, making the meat more tender. And always slice meat against the grain.\n\nChoosing and Prepping Meat\n\nPerhaps the most important thing to look for when buying red meat for the pressure cooker is marbling, or fat content. Choose pieces that contain lots of white veins throughout. Fat is what flavors meat, and even in a pressure cooker, meat without the right fat content can become dry.\n\nIt's also a good idea to season meat with salt up to 24 hours before pressure cooking it. This gives the salt time to penetrate the meat's protein, which enhances the flavor and helps the meat retain moisture.\n\nMeat browns better if the surface is dry. At the very least, pat meat dry with a paper towel before searing.\n\nCHICKEN Whole chickens do very well in the pressure cooker. A 3-pound (1.5kg) chicken cooks to tender quickly and easily. Bone-in thighs and legs are fantastic as well.\n\nBEEF Chuck roasts are great for the pressure cooker. Left whole, cut into stew meat, or ground for meatballs, the fat-to-protein ratio is ideal, and they become tender and juicy in no time.\n\nPORK Pork, cured and fresh, is perfect for the pressure cooker. Be aware that bacon cooked under pressure for long periods of time develops an odd texture. To overcome this, remove the bacon after rendering it crispy and put it back at the end of the cook time to warm.\n\nSEAFOOD Seafood cooks very fast under pressure, which makes it ideal for busy weeknight meals. Opt for firmer fish like tuna, salmon, and mackerel that can be cut into 1-inch (2.5cm) cubes for curries and Asian-style dishes. Your pressure cooker also makes short work of shellfish.\n\nPressure Cooker Frying\n\nYou can use your pressure cooker for saut\u00e9ing, to sear meats before adding the liquids and other ingredients and locking on the lid. However, you should never put large amounts of hot oil under pressure by locking on the lid, as you would for fried chicken. This is dangerous because the heat builds up quickly, the valves become clogged with oil, and the rubber seals can become compromised, all of which can cause failure and the possibility of an explosion.\n\nConverting Conventional Recipes\n\nAdapting your favorite recipes for pressure cooking isn't complicated. In fact, as you realize how much time pressure cooking saves you over conventional methods, and as you become comfortable and familiar with operating a pressure cooker, you'll be able to make these conversions pretty easily.\n\nConversion Tips\n\nUse these tips to help you adapt traditional recipes to the pressure cooker:\n\nADD DAIRY LATER With the exception of baked dishes such as cakes and custards, it's often best to add dairy at the end of the cook time to keep it from curdling or scorching.\n\nCOOK IN PHASES Cook the meat first, release the pressure and open the cooker, add the vegetables, replace the lid, and finish cooking.\n\nTIER INGREDIENTS Stack multiple steamer baskets inside your pressure cooker to cook your main dish and sides simultaneously and keep the flavors separate.\n\nUSE PANS Pour cake batter into a baking pan, cover it with aluminum foil, and bake it in your pressure cooker.\n\nADJUST THE WATER Foods give off a lot of liquid under pressure, and it can't evaporate inside the sealed cooker. So when converting, use far less liquid than in the original recipe\u2014often 1 cup total is sufficient.\n\nREDUCE FOAMING Some foods like rice, beans, and other starches foam when cooked. Add 1 teaspoon oil or fat to reduce the amount of foam and avoid clogging the valve.\n\nBURN OFF ALCOHOL If you're cooking with wine, burn off the alcohol before locking on the lid. Otherwise, the vapors stay trapped inside the cooker, and the wine remains raw.\n\nAVOID OVERFILLING Never fill a pressure cooker more than two thirds full. Overfilling yields an unevenly and incompletely cooked final dish.\n\nREDUCE THE COOK TIME Under pressure at 15 PSI, food often cooks in a third of the time of traditional methods. If it takes an hour conventionally, it'll take 20 minutes under pressure. Still, look for a recipe that's similar to the one you're converting to check the recommended time.\n\nUSE YOUR MANUAL Make use of your owner's manual cook time and other charts. By looking at the different PSI and cook times of individual ingredients, you can figure out the best way to cook a traditional recipe in your pressure cooker.\n\nPreparation Tips\n\nHere are some helpful hints to keep in mind while preparing a dish:\n\nVEGETABLES Grated and small-cut vegetables don't fare well under pressure. The appropriate-size cut is key to pressure cooking success. When preparing vegetables, look at the cook time and cut sizes and try to match them so everything cooks evenly and in the same amount of time. Or cook food in stages if need be.\n\nMEATS Bone-in meats are more flavorful, and it's a good idea to use them whenever you can. When that's not possible and the meat needs to be cubed (not all does), a 1-inch (2.5cm) square piece is the minimum size.\n\nAlso, brown meat first before adding any other ingredients. You can remove it from the cooker after browning and before saut\u00e9ing any vegetables and return it later when you're ready to lock on the lid.\n\nCHICKEN Chicken is hard to cut off the bone, but often it's best to cook the chicken first, remove it from the pot, pick off the meat, and return the meat to the pot. Chicken can be cooked with skin on or off for almost all recipes. Skin adds lots of flavor, but not everyone likes it.\n\nStocking Your Kitchen\n\nStocking your kitchen for pressure cooking makes preparing weekday meals quicker and easier. In addition to the meats mentioned earlier, whole grains, beans, and other long-cooking ingredients often reserved for weekends, when time constraints are fewer, can now become midweek meals.\n\nGrains\n\nWhole grains, ancient grains, and gluten-free grains are widely available. Oat groats, farro, wheat berries, spelt, buckwheat, millet, and quinoa (which is actually a seed but is cooked like a grain) are all well suited to pressure cooking. Brown rice, farro, and spelt are best stored in the freezer, but others are just fine on the pantry shelf.\n\nWhole grains contain more nutrients than processed versions, have a lower glycemic index, and are absorbed at a slower rate in your body. With your pressure cooker, you can easily add these good-for-you ingredients to more meals.\n\nBeans\n\nCooking dried beans in your pressure cooker is faster, easier, and less expensive; requires less hands-on work than traditional cooking; and yields a better-tasting result. Try a variety of heirloom and standard varieties such as black turtle beans, pinto beans, cannellini beans, lentils (especially du Puy), and chickpeas.\n\nDon't fret if you forget to soak beans overnight. You can quick soak dried beans by covering them in 4 cups water for every 1 cup dried beans and pressure cook for 2 minutes at level 2 for traditional cookers or on high for electric cookers. Use the cold water release method for traditional cookers and the quick release method for electric cookers, drain the beans, and continue as directed in your recipe.\n\nSpices and Herbs\n\nPressure cooking produces flavorful foods, but you'll still want to season with spices and herbs.\n\nStock up on bay leaves, chili powder, cloves, cocoa powder, cumin, curry powder, ginger, kosher salt, paprika, vanilla extract (vanilla paste is really wonderful), and whole black peppercorns (a grinder, too) as well as fresh and dried herbs like oregano, rosemary, and thyme. Spice blends like Old Bay or a Cajun blend are also nice to have.\n\nProduce\n\nStorage vegetables stay fresh for weeks in the refrigerator or root cellar and can be pressure cooked for fast, hearty dishes. Carrots, celery, garlic, onions, and potatoes are excellent to have on hand. Also consider bell peppers, chiles, and green onions.\n\nFor fruit, stock dried apples, apricots, blueberries, cherries, cranberries, prunes, raisins, and about anything else you like. These cook quick in compotes, can be made into spreads, and are a great addition to puddings.\n\nSalt is by far the most powerful flavoring tool in the kitchen and can do so many things, from flavoring to curing. Many types are available, and to decide which is best, you can do a tasting. Table salt with iodine is often very bitter, kosher salt has a mild taste and is clear when it dissolves, and sea salt comes in many flavors and prices. The recipes in this book use kosher salt. If you use iodized table salt instead, use half as much as what's called for. And before adding more salt to a dish, do a quick taste test. If a recipe calls for a pinch of salt, use your thumb and index finger to measure. For a two-finger pinch, use your thumb, index finger, and middle finger.\nPlanning Weeknight Meals\n\nCreating a menu plan makes cooking nutritious meals throughout the week easy, helps you maximize your time, and uses up leftovers. Your pressure cooker can make quick and easy work of cooking your week's meals.\n\nChicken\n\nChicken is so versatile, and cooking whole chickens in your pressure cooker is very quick: a 3-pound (1.5kg) bird cooks in as little as 15 to 20 minutes. If your pressure cooker is big enough (8 quarts; 7.5l or larger), you can cook two birds at once.\n\nCHICKEN AND DUMPLINGS _Chicken and Dumplings_ is a comfort food classic, and cooking two chickens yields an intense broth, with plenty of extra broth you can use throughout the week. If you don't use it all right away, freeze it for later.\n\nCHICKEN SALAD After you've pulled the chicken from the bones, you have a stockpile of meat you can use in many dishes. Try _Chicken Salad Deluxe_. It's good as a lunch or light dinner.\n\nCHICKEN TACOS Leftover chicken is perfect for chicken tacos. Try it in _Pressure Cooker Tacos_. Refer to the recipe for toppings, or create your own.\n\nBeef\n\nCuts of beef that shred well (think chuck, flank, and brisket) make versatile weeknight meal options.\n\nBRISKET _Classic Beef Brisket_ is a dinnertime staple. Tender and coated with au jus and melted onions, brisket is perfect in the pressure cooker. Double the amount to get more meals out of this cut.\n\nSOUP Make _Mushroom Barley Soup_ more of a meal by adding shredded beef. Serve with a salad and some good bread.\n\nBARBECUE Warm up leftover shredded beef in leftover _au jus_ and add your favorite barbecue sauce. Toast some buns, make some fresh and tangy coleslaw, and you have a great weeknight meal.\n\nPork\n\nYou have many options when it comes to pork. Use a butt roast, or two, and you have the basis of many fast and flavorful weeknight dishes.\n\nPULLED PORK Cook a double batch of _Southern-Style Pulled Pork_ , add sauce to only what you're going to eat that night, and save the rest for other meals.\n\nPORK RAMEN Having pulled pork on hand makes it easy to prepare quick and easy pressure cooked _Pork Ramen_.\n\nTHAI-STYLE GREEN CURRY PORK Of course, you could do something completely different and make the _Thai-Style Green Curry Chicken_ and substitute pork for the chicken. Simply make the broth and add the pork at the end to warm it through.\n\nGrains and Vegetables\n\nPressure cooked grains and vegetables are so much more colorful and vibrant, and they retain much of their flavor and vitamins. Beans, too. It's so easy to pressure cook a big batch once and use them in various healthy, filling salads or side dishes all week long.\n\nRICE PILAF Cook a double pot of _Basmati Rice Pilaf_ , and use it as a side dish for several weeknight dinners.\n\nVEGETABLE BURRITOS OR MEXICAN BOWLS Having rice on hand enables you to make burritos, either vegetarian or with meat. Simply warm tortillas, spread on some warm rice, and top with your favorite burrito ingredients. Or make a Mexican bowl and skip the tortilla altogether.\n\nCABBAGE, RICE, AND LENTILS Make _One-Pot Cabbage, Rice, and Lentils_ by adding the rice at the end, warming it through, and not allowing it to overcook. You also can add some shredded brisket with the rice for the meat lovers in your family.\n\nRich Beef Stock\n\nHomemade beef stock is rich and flavorful. Use it as a base for soups, reduce it for rich sauces, or drink a hot cup to warm you on chilly days.\n\nIngredients\n\n4 lb. (2kg) meaty beef bones\n\n1 large white onion, cut into quarters (1\u00bd cups)\n\n2 large carrots, peeled and cut into 1-in. (2.5cm) chunks (\u00be cup)\n\n4 medium stalks celery, chopped (\u00be cup)\n\n2 tsp. whole black peppercorns\n\n1 bay leaf\n\n2 TB. fresh flat-leaf parsley\n\n16 cups cold water\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 In an 8-quart (7.5l) pressure cooker, combine meaty beef bones, white onion, carrots, celery, black peppercorns, bay leaf, and flat-leaf parsley. Carefully pour in cold water, set heat to medium (traditional)\/high (electric), and bring to a boil.\n\n2 Lock on the lid, and bring pressure to level 2 (traditional)\/high (electric). Reduce heat to low, and cook at 2\/high for 55 minutes. Turn off heat, let cool, perform a natural release, and remove the lid.\n\n3 Strain stock with a fine mesh strainer. Use within 3 to 5 days, can in jars, or freeze.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 72\n\nCarbohydrates: 5g\n\nSugars: 4g\n\nDietary fiber: 2g\n\nProtein: 5g\n\nFat: 2g\n\nCholesterol: 18mg\n\nSodium: 90mg\n\nChicken Stock\n\nHomemade chicken stock is rich, flavorful, and filling. Leave on the onion skin when making this version; it helps produce a nice, golden-colored stock.\n\nIngredients\n\n4 lb. (2kg) chicken carcasses (about 3 carcasses)\n\n1 large yellow onion, skin on and cut into quarters (1 cup)\n\n2 large carrots, peeled and cut into chunks (1 cup)\n\n4 small stalks celery, chopped (1 cup)\n\n2 tsp. whole black peppercorns\n\n1 bay leaf\n\n2 TB. fresh flat-leaf parsley\n\n16 cups cold water\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 In an 8-quart (7.5l) pressure cooker, combine chicken, yellow onion, carrots, celery, black peppercorns, bay leaf, and flat-leaf parsley. Add cold water, set heat to medium (traditional)\/high (electric), and bring to a boil.\n\n2 Lock on the lid, and bring pressure to level 2 (traditional)\/high (electric). Reduce heat to low, and cook at 2\/high for 55 minutes. Turn off heat, let cool, perform a natural release, and remove the lid.\n\n3 Strain stock with a fine mesh strainer. Use within 3 to 5 days, can in jars, or freeze.\n\nFor a rich, brown stock, roast the chicken bones in a 400\u00b0F (200\u00b0C) oven for 40 minutes or until very brown. Transfer to the pressure cooker, and continue as directed.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 12\n\nCarbohydrates: 2g\n\nSugars: 0g\n\nDietary fiber: 0g\n\nProtein: 1g\n\nFat: .3g\n\nCholesterol: 0mg\n\nSodium: 130mg\nVegetable Stock\n\nMaking a vegetable stock that doesn't turn out sweet and oniony can be tricky. For best results, use tomatoes and dried mushrooms such as shiitakes.\n\nIngredients\n\n2 large green onions, trimmed\n\n3 medium fresh tomatoes, halved\n\n2 small white onions, halved (1\u00bd cups)\n\n6 dried shiitake mushrooms (1 cup)\n\n4 cloves garlic, halved\n\n3 medium carrots, peeled and cut into chunks (1 cup)\n\n2 medium stalks celery, peeled and cut into chunks (\u00be cup)\n\n3 sprigs fresh flat-leaf parsley\n\n1 tsp. whole black peppercorns\n\n1 bay leaf\n\n\u00bd tsp. dried thyme\n\n16 cups water\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 In an 8-quart (7.5l) pressure cooker, combine green onions, tomatoes, white onions, shiitake mushrooms, garlic, carrots, celery, flat-leaf parsley, black peppercorns, bay leaf, and thyme. Add water, set heat to medium-high (traditional)\/high (electric), and bring to a boil.\n\n2 Lock on the lid, and bring pressure to level 2 (traditional)\/high (electric). Reduce heat to low, and cook at 2\/high for 30 minutes. Turn off heat, let cool, perform a natural release, and remove the lid.\n\n3 Strain stock with a fine mesh strainer. Use immediately or refrigerate in glass containers for up to 3 days.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 15\n\nCarbohydrates: 3g\n\nSugars: 2g\n\nDietary fiber: 1g\n\nProtein: 0g\n\nFat: 0g\n\nCholesterol: 0mg\n\nSodium: 140mg\nPressure Cooker Eggs\n\nPressure cooked eggs peel perfectly, the cooking times are more exact, and you don't get a sulfur ring around the yolk.\n\nIngredients\n\nLarge eggs, cool (34\u00b0F; 1\u00b0C)\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 Add a trivet or steamer basket to any size pressure cooker, and add the minimum amount of water allowed for your cooker. Set heat to medium-high (traditional)\/high (electric), add eggs to trivet or basket, and bring to a boil.\n\n2 Lock on the lid, bring pressure to level 2 (traditional)\/high (electric), and cook as directed for egg doneness (see accompanying table). Remove from (traditional)\/turn off (electric) heat, perform a cold water (traditional)\/quick (electric) release, and remove the lid.\n\n3 Serve soft- and medium-boiled eggs immediately.\n\n4 For hard-boiled, remove eggs from the cooker and immediately plunge in an ice-water bath. Cool eggs completely, drain, dry, and peel as needed.\n\nEgg Doneness | Cook Time\n\n---|---\n\nSoft yolk | 3 minutes\n\nMedium yolk | 4 minutes\n\nHard boiled | 6 minutes\n\nI keep six bottle caps in my kitchen to use for egg stands when pressure cooking. Standing the eggs fat end down on the upturned bottle caps gives them the perfect finished shape, which is great for making deviled eggs.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 72\n\nCarbohydrates: .5g\n\nSugars: 0g\n\nDietary fiber: 0g\n\nProtein: 6g\n\nFat: 5g\n\nCholesterol: 186mg\n\nSodium: 71mg\n\nPressure Cooker Rice\n\nYour pressure cooker cooks rice to tender and fluffy perfection. For best results, find a brand and type of rice you like and stick with it.\n\nIngredients\n\n2 cups jasmine rice\n\n3 cups water\n\n1\u00bd tsp. vegetable oil or unsalted butter\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 In a 4-quart (4l) pressure cooker, combine jasmine rice, water, and vegetable oil. Set heat to medium-high (traditional)\/high (electric), and bring to a boil.\n\n2 Lock on the lid, bring pressure to level 2 (traditional)\/high (electric), and cook for 5 minutes. Remove from (traditional)\/turn off (electric) heat, perform a cold water (traditional)\/quick (electric) release, and remove the lid.\n\n3 Serve hot. Refrigerate leftovers for up to 3 days, or freeze.\n\nFor brown rice, use 2 cups brown jasmine rice, and cook it for 20 to 22 minutes at level 2\/high.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 170\n\nCarbohydrates: 36g\n\nSugars: 0g\n\nDietary fiber: 1g\n\nProtein: 3g\n\nFat: 1g\n\nCholesterol: 0mg\n\nSodium: 0mg\nEasy Dried Beans\n\nCooking a simple pot of dried beans isn't difficult. Soak the beans overnight for a faster cook, and add salt before cooking for a more flavorful finished dish.\n\nIngredients\n\n8 oz. (225g) dried pinto beans, washed, picked over, soaked overnight, and drained\n\n1 small yellow onion, halved (\u00bd cup)\n\n1 tsp. kosher salt\n\n1 TB. olive oil, lard, bacon grease, or unsalted butter\n\n\u00bc tsp. freshly ground black pepper\n\nWater\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 In a 4-quart (4l) pressure cooker, combine pinto beans, yellow onion, kosher salt, olive oil, and black pepper. Add enough water to cover beans by 1 inch (2.5cm). Set heat to medium-high (traditional)\/high (electric), and bring to a boil.\n\n2 Lock on the lid, bring pressure to level 2 (traditional)\/high (electric), and cook for 12 minutes. Remove from (traditional)\/turn off (electric) heat, perform a natural release, and remove the lid.\n\n3 Serve hot.\n\nInstead of soaking overnight, a quick soak speeds up the process: combine 1 cup dried beans and 4 cups water in the pressure cooker, and set heat to medium-high (traditional)\/high (electric). Lock on the lid, bring to pressure level 2 (traditional)\/high (electric), and cook for 2 minutes. Remove from (traditional)\/turn off (electric) heat, perform a natural release, and proceed as directed.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 230\n\nCarbohydrates: 34g\n\nSugars: 2g\n\nDietary fiber: 9g\n\nProtein: 14g\n\nFat: 3.5g\n\nCholesterol: 0mg\n\nSodium: 490mg\nPressure Cooker Pasta Sauce\n\nThis all-purpose tomato sauce is ideal for pasta. The vegetables provide plenty of flavor and substance, but feel free to add shredded beef or pork if you like.\n\nIngredients\n\n\u00bc cup extra-virgin olive oil\n\n2 medium leeks, white and a little green parts, diced small (1\u00bc cups)\n\n3 medium stalks celery, halved lengthwise and diced small (\u00be cup)\n\n2 medium carrots, peeled and diced small (\u00be cup)\n\n2 TB. minced garlic\n\n\u00bd tsp. kosher salt\n\n\u00bc tsp. freshly ground white pepper\n\n3 cups tomato sauce\n\n1 (6-oz.; 175ml) can tomato paste\n\n1 tsp. dried oregano\n\n1 tsp. dried basil\n\n\u00bd tsp. dried thyme\n\nWater\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 In a 6-quart (5.5l) pressure cooker set to medium-high (traditional)\/high (electric) heat, heat extra-virgin olive oil. When hot, add leeks, celery, carrots, and garlic. Stir, season with kosher salt and white pepper, and cook for 4 minutes or until vegetables become soft but garlic doesn't brown.\n\n2 Stir in tomato sauce, tomato paste, oregano, basil, and thyme, and bring sauce to a boil.\n\n3 Lock on the lid, and bring pressure to level 2 (traditional)\/high (electric). Reduce heat to low, and cook at 2\/high for 14 minutes. Remove from (traditional)\/turn off (electric) heat, perform a cold water (traditional)\/quick (electric) release, and remove the lid.\n\n4 Taste, and add more salt as necessary. If sauce is thicker than you like, add water 1 tablespoon at a time, stirring between each addition.\n\n5 Serve hot. Refrigerate any leftovers in a jar for up to 1 week.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 120\n\nCarbohydrates: 13g\n\nSugars: 8g\n\nDietary fiber: 3g\n\nProtein: 3g\n\nFat: 7g\n\nCholesterol: 0mg\n\nSodium: 790mg\n\nEggs en Cocotte \u00e0 la Cr\u00e8me\n\nHeavy cream makes these eggs very rich. Best reserved for special occasions rather than every day, they're ideal for holiday brunches.\n\nIngredients\n\n8 tsp. heavy cream\n\n4 large eggs, cool\n\n\u00bd tsp. kosher salt\n\n8 medium asparagus spears, trimmed and root end peeled\n\n4 slices prosciutto, halved lengthwise for 8 pieces\n\n1 tsp. unsalted butter\n\n1 medium green onion, minced (optional)\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 Add a steamer basket to a 4-quart (4l) pressure cooker, and fill with the minimum amount of water allowed for your cooker.\n\n2 Using \u00bc teaspoon unsalted butter each, lightly grease 4 (4-ounce; 120ml) ramekins, espresso cups, or other heat-proof vessels. Pour 1 teaspoon heavy cream in each dish.\n\n3 One at a time, crack 1 egg into each dish, season it with 1 pinch kosher salt, and pour another 1 teaspoon heavy cream on top of each egg. Cover each cup tightly with aluminum foil, and place cups in the steamer basket. Set heat to medium-high (traditional)\/high (electric), and bring to a boil.\n\n4 Lock on the lid, bring pressure to level 2 (traditional)\/high (electric), and cook for 2 minutes. Remove from (traditional)\/turn off (electric) heat, perform a cold water (traditional)\/quick (electric) release, remove the lid, and carefully remove egg cups.\n\n5 Meanwhile, spiral wrap each asparagus spear with 1 piece of prosciutto, and rub with \u215b teaspoon unsalted butter each.\n\n6 In a saut\u00e9 pan over medium-high heat, sear prosciutto-asparagus spears for 3 minutes.\n\n7 Place 1 egg cup on a plate with 2 spears asparagus to dip in yolks, garnish with green onion (if using), and serve.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 150\n\nCarbohydrates: 3g\n\nSugars: 1g\n\nDietary fiber: 1g\n\nProtein: 10g\n\nFat: 12g\n\nCholesterol: 235mg\n\nSodium: 560mg\n\nEgg Cups\n\nWith their shrimp and andouille sausage, these egg cups are reminiscent of New Orleans and a good jazz brunch.\n\nIngredients\n\n1 TB. vegetable oil\n\n6 shrimp (size 26 to 30), shelled, deveined, and diced small\n\n\u00bd small green bell pepper, ribs and seeds removed, and diced small (\u00bc cup)\n\n1 small stalk celery, diced small (\u00bc cup)\n\n1 small shallot, minced (\u00bc cup)\n\n2 tsp. minced garlic\n\n3 oz. (75g) cooked andouille sausage, diced small\n\n\u00bd cup whole milk\n\n6 large eggs\n\n\u00bd tsp. kosher salt\n\n\u00bc tsp. freshly ground black pepper\n\n1 TB. fresh chives, chopped\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 In a medium saut\u00e9 pan over medium-high heat, heat vegetable oil. When hot, add shrimp, green bell pepper, celery, shallot, garlic, and andouille sausage, and saut\u00e9 for about 4 minutes or until softened. Remove from heat.\n\n2 In a large bowl, combine whole milk, eggs, kosher salt, and black pepper until eggs are smooth and blended.\n\n3 Grease the bottoms and sides of 6 (4-ounce; 110g) ramekins with about 1 tablespoon unsalted butter. Divide shrimp and andouille filling among ramekins, cover each tightly with aluminum foil, and place in a steamer basket.\n\n4 Add the basket to a 6-quart (5.5l) pressure cooker, and fill with the minimum amount of water allowed for your cooker. Do not allow water to touch bottom of ramekins. Set heat to high (traditional)\/high (electric), and bring to a boil.\n\n5 Lock on the lid, bring pressure to level 2 (traditional)\/high (electric), and cook for 12 minutes. Remove from (traditional)\/turn off (electric) heat, and set aside for 5 minutes. Perform a quick release, remove the lid, and lift out the steamer basket.\n\n6 Uncover ramekins, top with chives, and serve.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 140\n\nCarbohydrates: 5g\n\nSugars: 2g\n\nDietary fiber: 0g\n\nProtein: 8g\n\nFat: 10g\n\nCholesterol: 235mg\n\nSodium: 250mg\nApple Cinnamon Breakfast Oats\n\nThis sweet and hearty oatmeal is more like a dessert than breakfast. Pressure cooking steel-cut oats takes a fraction of the time conventional methods require.\n\nIngredients\n\n1 large pink lady apple, cut in \u00bc-in. (.5cm) pieces (1 cup)\n\n\u2153 cup raisins\n\n\u00bd cup apple juice\n\n1 TB. brown sugar\n\n1 cup steel-cut oats\n\n2 cups water\n\n\u00bc tsp. cinnamon\n\n1 pinch cardamom\n\n1 pinch kosher salt\n\n2 tsp. unsalted butter\n\n2 TB. heavy cream\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 In a small saucepan over medium-high heat, combine pink lady apple, raisins, and apple juice. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to medium-low, and simmer for 3 minutes.\n\n2 In a 4-quart (4l) pressure cooker, combine apple mixture, brown sugar, steel-cut oats, water, cinnamon, cardamom, kosher salt, and 1 teaspoon unsalted butter. Set heat to medium-high (traditional)\/high (electric), and bring to a boil.\n\n3 Lock on the lid, and bring pressure to level 2 (traditional)\/high (electric). Reduce heat to low, and cook at 2\/high for 10 minutes. Remove from (traditional)\/turn off (electric) heat, perform a cold water (traditional)\/natural (electric) release, and remove the lid.\n\n4 Stir oats until smooth and well combined. Divide between 2 bowls, top each with remaining \u00bd teaspoon unsalted butter and 1 tablespoon heavy cream, and serve.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 280\n\nCarbohydrates: 52g\n\nSugars: 22g\n\nDietary fiber: 6g\n\nProtein: 7g\n\nFat: 7g\n\nCholesterol: 15mg\n\nSodium: 45mg\nSavory Parmesan Steel-Cut Oats\n\nIf sweet breakfasts aren't your thing, this savory oatmeal is a nice alternative. Black pepper and Parmesan cheese are a natural pairing with oats.\n\nIngredients\n\n1 cup steel-cut oats\n\n2 cups water\n\n\u00bc tsp. kosher salt\n\n1 TB. unsalted butter\n\n4 TB. cup grated Parmesan cheese\n\n1 TB. chopped fresh chives\n\n\u00bc tsp. freshly ground black pepper\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 Place steel-cut oats in a strainer, and rinse with cold running water.\n\n2 Transfer oats to a 4-quart (4l) pressure cooker, and add water, kosher salt, and 1 teaspoon unsalted butter. Set heat to medium-high (traditional)\/high (electric), and bring to a boil.\n\n3 Lock on the lid, and bring pressure to level 2 (traditional)\/high (electric). Reduce heat to low, and cook at 2\/high for 15 minutes. Remove from (traditional)\/turn off (electric) heat, perform a cold water (traditional)\/quick (electric) release, and remove the lid.\n\n4 Divide oats between 2 bowls. Evenly divide remaining unsalted butter, Parmesan cheese, chives, and black pepper over top, and serve.\n\nFor protein-powered oats, pour 1 tablespoon hot beef broth over the top, cover with 1 fried egg, and serve.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 370\n\nCarbohydrates: 54g\n\nSugars: 0g\n\nDietary fiber: 8g\n\nProtein: 16g\n\nFat: 14g\n\nCholesterol: 25mg\n\nSodium: 400mg\n\nFive-Grain Oatmeal\n\nThis hot, multigrain cereal is a warm and comforting start on cold mornings. It also makes a great side dish alongside braised meats.\n\nIngredients\n\n\u00bc cup steel-cut oats\n\n\u00bc cup coarse-ground cornmeal\n\n\u00bc cup buckwheat groats\n\n\u00bc cup white-rice grits or short-grain white rice\n\n\u00bc cup whole millet\n\n2\u00bd cups water\n\n\u00bd tsp. kosher salt\n\n\u00bd TB. unsalted butter\n\n\u00bd cup heavy cream\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 In a 4-quart (4l) pressure cooker, combine steel-cut oats, coarse-ground cornmeal, buckwheat groats, white-rice grits, millet, water, and kosher salt. Set heat to medium (traditional)\/high (electric), and bring to a boil.\n\n2 Lock on the lid, and bring pressure to level 1 (traditional)\/low (electric). Reduce heat to low, and cook at 1\/low for 15 minutes. Remove from (traditional)\/turn off (electric) heat, perform a cold water (traditional)\/quick (electric) release, and remove the lid.\n\n3 Serve hot with unsalted butter and heavy cream on the side.\n\nCoarse-ground cornmeal is sometimes called corn grits. Don't confuse it with plain grits, though. They're not the same.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 320\n\nCarbohydrates: 44g\n\nSugars: 0g\n\nDietary fiber: 5g\n\nProtein: 7g\n\nFat: 14g\n\nCholesterol: 45mg\n\nSodium: 250mg\nSausage, Onion, and Gruy\u00e8re Breakfast Casserole\n\nEggs cooked in a pressure cooker have a tender, custardlike texture. Here, they provide a lovely foundation for the Gruy\u00e8re cheese, onion, and sausage.\n\nIngredients\n\n4 slices white bread, cut into 1-in. (2.5cm) cubes (2 cups)\n\n1\u00bd cups breakfast sausage, cooked and crumbled\n\n2 cups grated Gruy\u00e8re cheese\n\n2 medium green onions, chopped (\u00bc cup)\n\n1 tsp. unsalted butter\n\n1 small yellow onion, diced small (\u00bd cup)\n\n6 large eggs, beaten\n\n1 cup whole milk\n\n1 TB. Dijon mustard\n\n1 tsp. kosher salt\n\n\u00bc tsp. freshly ground black pepper\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 Add a trivet to a 6-quart (5.5l) pressure cooker, and fill with the minimum amount of water allowed for your cooker. Grease an 8- or 9-inch (20 or 23cm) cake pan (whatever fits in your cooker with space at the edges).\n\n2 In a large bowl, combine white bread, breakfast sausage, Gruy\u00e8re cheese, and green onions.\n\n3 In a small saut\u00e9 pan over medium heat, melt unsalted butter. Add yellow onion, and cook for about 5 minutes or until onion is soft. Transfer onion to the bowl, toss to combine, and spread mixture in the cake pan.\n\n4 In the same bowl, whisk together eggs, whole milk, Dijon mustard, kosher salt, and black pepper. Pour eggs over bread, and set aside for 10 minutes.\n\n5 Cover the pan tightly with aluminum foil, and place in the pressure cooker. Set heat to medium (traditional)\/high (electric), and bring to a boil.\n\n6 Lock on the lid, bring pressure to level 2 (traditional)\/high (electric), and cook for 35 minutes. Remove from (traditional)\/turn off (electric) heat, perform a natural release, and remove the lid.\n\n7 Lift casserole out of the cooker, uncover, and serve.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 310\n\nCarbohydrates: 8g\n\nSugars: 2g\n\nDietary fiber: 0g\n\nProtein: 21g\n\nFat: 22g\n\nCholesterol: 225mg\n\nSodium: 710mg\n\nHoney, Raisin, and Quinoa Breakfast Risotto\n\nQuinoa is surprisingly nice and nutty, and the addition of honey and raisins makes this a lovely breakfast treat.\n\nIngredients\n\n1 cup quinoa, rinsed\n\n2 cups water\n\n\u00bd tsp. kosher salt\n\n2 TB. unsalted butter\n\n\u00bd cup raisins\n\n2 tsp. honey\n\n\u00bd cup whole milk\n\n2 TB. heavy cream (optional)\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 In a 4-quart (4l) pressure cooker set to medium-high (traditional)\/high (electric) heat, combine quinoa, water, and kosher salt. Bring to a boil.\n\n2 Lock on the lid, and bring pressure to level 2 (traditional)\/high (electric). Reduce heat to low, and cook at 2\/high for 8 minutes. Remove from (traditional)\/turn off (electric) heat, perform a cold water (traditional)\/quick (electric) release, and remove the lid.\n\n3 Stir in unsalted butter and raisins. Add honey, whole milk, and heavy cream (if using), and stir. If risotto is too thick, add more milk 2 tablespoons at a time. Taste and season with salt as necessary, and serve.\n\nInstead of raisins, you can use dried blueberries.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 240\n\nCarbohydrates: 32g\n\nSugars: 7g\n\nDietary fiber: 3g\n\nProtein: 7g\n\nFat: 9g\n\nCholesterol: 20mg\n\nSodium: 260mg\nBacon Jam\n\nThis smoky spread is rich, satisfying, and great for brunch. Although the recipe isn't hard, it is a bit time-consuming, so be patient and don't rush it.\n\nIngredients\n\n1 TB. vegetable oil\n\n2 medium yellow onions, diced (1\u00bd cups)\n\n\u00bc tsp. kosher salt\n\n\u215b tsp. freshly ground black pepper\n\n1 lb. (450g) hickory-smoked bacon, minced\n\n\u00bd cup water\n\n1 TB. brown sugar\n\n2 TB. cider vinegar\n\n2 TB. pure maple syrup\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 In a 4-quart (4l) pressure cooker set to medium-high (traditional)\/high (electric) heat, heat vegetable oil. When hot, add yellow onions, and saut\u00e9 for 10 minutes or until onions wilt. Reduce heat to medium-low (traditional)\/low (electric), season with kosher salt and black pepper, and cook for about 30 minutes or until onions are very brown.\n\n2 Add bacon, and slowly render fat, allowing it to become crisp.\n\n3 Add water, and bring to a boil.\n\n4 Lock on the lid, bring pressure to level 2 (traditional)\/high (electric), and cook for 12 minutes. Remove from (traditional)\/turn off (electric) heat, perform a cold water (traditional)\/quick (electric) release, and remove the lid.\n\n5 Drain off \u00bd of liquid. Return jam to medium-low\/low heat, and simmer for 10 minutes or until liquid has evaporated.\n\n6 Cook, stirring constantly, for 30 minutes or until jam all falls apart and turns brown.\n\n7 Add brown sugar, cider vinegar, and maple syrup, and cook for 10 minutes or until liquid is absorbed.\n\n8 Serve hot. Refrigerate leftovers in an airtight jar for up to 2 weeks, and warm before serving.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 100\n\nCarbohydrates: 2g\n\nSugars: 2g\n\nDietary fiber: 0g\n\nProtein: 2g\n\nFat: 9g\n\nCholesterol: 15mg\n\nSodium: 180mg\n\nClassic Deviled Eggs\n\nThe piquant flavor of deviled eggs is always a party pleaser. Pressure cooked eggs peel easily and perfectly every time, ensuring a lovely finished dish.\n\nIngredients\n\n8 large eggs, at room temperature\n\n\u00be TB. bread-and-butter pickle juice, or apple cider vinegar\n\n\u00bc cup mayonnaise\n\n2 tsp. Dijon mustard\n\n\u00bd tsp. kosher salt\n\n2 red or green serrano chiles, sliced into thin rings\n\n1 TB. fresh chives, sliced thin\n\n10 small celery leaves\n\nFreshly ground black pepper\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 Add a trivet to the bottom of a 4-quart (4l) pressure cooker. Equally space 8 bottle caps on the trivet, flared side up, and stand 1 egg in each cup, fat end down. Add enough water to the pressure cooker to reach the bottom of the trivet, set heat to medium-high (traditional)\/high (electric), and bring to a hard boil.\n\n2 Lock on the lid, bring pressure to level 2 (traditional)\/high (electric), and cook for 6 minutes. Remove from (traditional)\/turn off (electric) heat, perform a cold water (traditional)\/quick (electric) release, and remove the lid.\n\n3 Run cold water over eggs until they're cool enough to handle, and remove from the pressure cooker. Peel eggs, rinse, and cut in half.\n\n4 Transfer yolks to a medium bowl, and mash with a fork. Add bread-and-butter pickle juice, mayonnaise, Dijon mustard, and kosher salt, and blend to a smooth paste.\n\n5 Spoon yolk mixture back into 10 egg white halves (you'll have a few halves left over). To serve, garnish with serrano chiles, chives, and celery leaves, and season with black pepper. Refrigerate leftovers for up to 3 days.\n\nIf you have a pastry bag, you can pipe the yolk mixture back into the whites. Use a small bag fitted with a star tip.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 190\n\nCarbohydrates: 2g\n\nSugars: 0g\n\nDietary fiber: 0g\n\nProtein: 10g\n\nFat: 16g\n\nCholesterol: 350mg\n\nSodium: 420mg\n\nGarlicky White Bean and Parmesan Dip\n\nGarlic, rosemary, and Parmesan cheese star in this dip. Cooking the beans in your pressure cooker yields a creamier texture and a shorter cook time.\n\nIngredients\n\n1 cup dried cannellini beans, washed, picked over, soaked overnight, and drained\n\nWater\n\n1 tsp. kosher salt\n\n6 cloves garlic\n\n1\u00bd tsp. dried rosemary\n\n\u00bc tsp. freshly ground black pepper\n\n\u00bc cup grated Parmesan cheese\n\n1 TB. extra-virgin olive oil\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 In a 4-quart (4l) pressure cooker, place cannellini beans. Add enough water to cover by \u00bd inch (1.25cm), and stir in kosher salt, garlic, rosemary, and black pepper. Set heat to medium-high (traditional)\/high (electric), and bring to a boil.\n\n2 Lock on the lid, and bring pressure to level 2 (traditional)\/high (electric). Reduce heat to low, and cook at 2\/high for 8 minutes. Remove from (traditional)\/turn off (electric) heat, perform a cold water (traditional)\/quick (electric) release, and remove the lid.\n\n3 Drain beans, and transfer to a food processor fitted with a metal chopping blade. Add Parmesan cheese, and pulse for 20 seconds or until dip is smooth and creamy. If dip seems too thick, add extra-virgin olive oil and pulse again until blended.\n\n4 Transfer dip to a bowl, and serve warm with pita bread or tortilla chips or as a side dish with roasted meats.\n\nIf you're eating Paleo, this recipe fits that diet's requirements.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 80\n\nCarbohydrates: 11g\n\nSugars: 0g\n\nDietary fiber: 3g\n\nProtein: 5g\n\nFat: 2g\n\nCholesterol: 0mg\n\nSodium: 230mg\nRed Beet Hummus\n\nThis hummus is a lovely change in color and flavor from chickpea versions. The beet adds a sweetness, and the cashews yield a nutty creaminess.\n\nIngredients\n\n1 large beet\n\n\u00be cup raw cashews\n\n1\u00bd TB. water\n\n\u00bd tsp. crushed cumin\n\n1 TB. freshly squeezed lemon juice\n\n\u00bd tsp. kosher salt\n\n2 tsp. extra-virgin olive oil\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 Add a steamer basket to a 4-quart (4l) pressure cooker, add the minimum amount of water allowed for your cooker. Add beet to the basket, set heat to medium-high (traditional)\/high (electric), and bring to a boil.\n\n2 Lock on the lid, and bring pressure to level 2 (traditional)\/high (electric). Reduce heat to low, and cook at 2\/high for 12 minutes. Remove from (traditional)\/turn off (electric) heat, and let beet sit for 10 minutes. Perform a natural release, and remove the lid.\n\n3 Meanwhile, in a food processor fitted with a metal chopping blade, pulse together cashews and water to a semismooth paste.\n\n4 Test beet for doneness by inserting a paring knife into middle of beet. The knife should easily glide into center of beet. If not, lock on the lid again, and let beet sit in the closed cooker for 10 more minutes.\n\n5 Remove beet from the pressure cooker, peel it, and cut it into quarters. Add to cashew paste along with cumin, lemon juice, kosher salt, and extra-virgin olive oil. Process for 30 seconds or until hummus becomes smooth and creamy.\n\n6 Transfer hummus to a bowl, and serve with your favorite vegetables, chips, or flatbreads.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 157\n\nCarbohydrates: 9g\n\nSugars: 3g\n\nDietary fiber: 2g\n\nProtein: 4g\n\nFat: 13g\n\nCholesterol: 0mg\n\nSodium: 212mg\n\nMiddle Eastern Hummus\n\nUsing hot, fresh-cooked chickpeas instead of canned gives your hummus a smoother flavor that's so worth the effort.\n\nIngredients\n\n1 cup dried chickpeas, washed, picked over, soaked overnight, and drained\n\nWater\n\n1 tsp. kosher salt\n\n2 TB. tahini\n\n3 TB. freshly squeezed lemon juice\n\n1 clove garlic, minced\n\n\u2153 cup extra-virgin olive oil\n\n\u00bc tsp. dried sumac or paprika\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 In a 4-quart (4l) pressure cooker, place chickpeas. Add just enough water to cover by 1 inch (2.5cm), and season with \u00bd teaspoon kosher salt. Set heat to medium-high (traditional)\/high (electric), and bring to a boil.\n\n2 Lock on the lid, bring pressure to level 2 (traditional)\/high (electric), and cook for 11 minutes. Remove from (traditional)\/turn off (electric) heat, perform a cold water (traditional)\/quick (electric) release, and remove the lid.\n\n3 Reserve \u00bd cup cooking liquid, and pour chickpeas into a strainer to drain. Transfer chickpeas to a food processor fitted with a metal chopping blade, and add tahini, lemon juice, garlic, and remaining \u00bd teaspoon kosher salt. Pulse for 30 seconds or until chickpeas start to break up.\n\n4 Add 2 tablespoons cooking liquid, pulse again, and with the machine running, drizzle in extra-virgin olive oil through the feed tube until hummus reaches a smooth consistency. If it's too thick, add water 1 tablespoon at a time. If it seems dry, add more olive oil 1 tablespoon at a time. Taste, add more salt if necessary, and pulse again for 30 seconds or until smooth.\n\n5 Transfer hummus to a bowl, and serve topped with a drizzle of olive oil and sprinkled with sumac alongside your favorite vegetables, crackers, or chips.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 160\n\nCarbohydrates: 18g\n\nSugars: 2g\n\nDietary fiber: 7g\n\nProtein: 6g\n\nFat: 12g\n\nCholesterol: 0mg\n\nSodium: 250mg\nLentil P\u00e2t\u00e9\n\nThis is a lovely appetizer. It also makes a wonderful sandwich spread and is a perfect sausage substitute for meatless breakfasts.\n\nIngredients\n\n1 cup Umbrian or du Puy lentils, washed and picked over\n\n1 cup heavy cream\n\n1 cup water\n\n1 tsp. crushed cumin\n\n1 tsp. curry powder\n\n3 cloves garlic\n\n1 tsp. kosher salt\n\n1 TB. freshly squeezed lemon juice\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 In a 4-quart (4l) pressure cooker, combine Umbrian lentils, heavy cream, water, cumin, curry powder, garlic, and kosher salt. Set heat to medium-high (traditional)\/high (electric), and bring to a boil.\n\n2 Lock on the lid, and bring pressure to level 2 (traditional)\/high (electric). Reduce heat to low, and cook at 2\/high for 15 minutes. Remove from (traditional)\/turn off (electric) heat, perform your preferred release method, and remove the lid.\n\n3 Transfer lentils and any remaining liquid to a food processor fitted with a metal chopping blade, add lemon juice, and pur\u00e9e for 30 seconds or until smooth.\n\n4 Transfer p\u00e2t\u00e9 to 2 (6-ounce; 170g) ramekins or into a mini-loaf pan, cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate for 3 hours or overnight before serving.\n\nServe this pat\u00e9 with toast points, pickles, mustard, and any other condiments you like. Or try it alongside a mixed-greens salad with a sharp vinaigrette.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 180\n\nCarbohydrates: 15g\n\nSugars: 1g\n\nDietary fiber: 4g\n\nProtein: 6g\n\nFat: 12g\n\nCholesterol: 40mg\n\nSodium: 250mg\nSavory Smoked Salmon Cheesecake\n\nThis sophisticated appetizer comes together easily and cooks fast. To really take it over the top, give it a heavy sprinkle of caviar before serving.\n\nIngredients\n\n20 saltine crackers\n\n\u00be cup grated Parmesan cheese\n\n2 TB. unsalted butter, softened\n\n1 lb. (450g) cream cheese\n\n2 large eggs\n\n1 tsp. grated garlic\n\n1 tsp. grated shallot\n\n\u00be tsp. Old Bay seasoning\n\n8 oz. (225g) cured smoked salmon, minced\n\n1 TB. fresh flat-leaf parsley\n\n1 small cucumber, thinly sliced (\u2153 cup)\n\n1 TB. minced shallot\n\n1 TB. nonpareil capers, minced\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 Butter an 8-inch (20cm) springform pan.\n\n2 In a food processor fitted with a metal chopping blade, pulse saltine crackers, Parmesan cheese, and unsalted butter to a fine crumb. Transfer crust to the pan, and press in an even layer across the bottom and halfway up the sides.\n\n3 In a large bowl, and using an electric mixer on low, blend cream cheese, eggs, garlic, grated shallot, and Old Bay seasoning. Add salmon and flat-leaf parsley, and mix well. Spread filling over crust, smooth the top, and cover with aluminum foil.\n\n4 Add a trivet to the bottom of a 8-quart (7.5l) pressure cooker, and add 1 inch (2.5cm) water. Add the springform pan to the cooker, set heat to medium-high (traditional)\/high (electric), and bring to a boil.\n\n5 Lock on the lid, and bring pressure to level 2 (traditional)\/high (electric). Reduce heat to low, and cook at 2\/high for 35 minutes. Turn off heat, let cake sit for 20 minutes, and remove the lid.\n\n6 Lift out the pan from the cooker, and remove the foil. Give cake a gentle shake; if it jiggles a lot, re-cover, return to the cooker, cook at level 2\/high for 10 minutes, and let sit in the cooker for 20 minutes.\n\n7 Refrigerate for 3 hours or until cool. Cover the pan tightly with plastic wrap so it doesn't touch cake, and refrigerate overnight.\n\n8 Remove cake from the pan. Garnish with cucumbers, minced shallot, and capers, and serve with crackers and breads.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 270\n\nCarbohydrates: 6g\n\nSugars: 2g\n\nDietary fiber: 0g\n\nProtein: 17g\n\nFat: 20g\n\nCholesterol: 115mg\n\nSodium: 310mg\n\nTuna Salad with Chickpeas\n\nThis salad is creamy, meaty, and filling. The dressing adds the right amount of tartness to keep the other ingredients from being cloying.\n\nIngredients\n\n1 cup dried chickpeas, washed, picked over, soaked overnight or quick soaked, and drained\n\n1 tsp. kosher salt\n\nWater\n\n1 medium shallot, peeled and minced (2 TB.)\n\n1\u00bd TB. fresh flat-leaf parsley, minced\n\n1 TB. red wine vinegar\n\n\u00bc tsp. freshly ground black pepper\n\n2 (5-oz.; 140g) cans tuna packed in olive oil\n\n2 TB. extra-virgin olive oil, plus more to taste\n\n8 leaves romaine or Bibb lettuce\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 In a 4-quart (4l) pressure cooker, combine chickpeas, kosher salt, and enough water to cover chickpeas by \u00bd inch (1.25cm). Set heat to medium-high (traditional)\/high (electric), and bring to a boil.\n\n2 Lock on the lid, bring pressure to level 2 (traditional)\/high (electric), and cook for 12 minutes. Remove from (traditional)\/turn off (electric) heat, perform a natural release, and remove the lid.\n\n3 Drain chickpeas into a large bowl, and cool for 5 minutes.\n\n4 Add shallot, flat-leaf parsley, and red wine vinegar, and stir to combine. Taste, season with more kosher salt and black pepper as necessary, and stir.\n\n5 Pour tuna and packing olive oil into the bowl, and gently break up tuna but leave it chunky. Drizzle with extra-virgin olive oil, and gently turn tuna into mixture until distributed. Taste, and adjust seasonings as necessary.\n\n6 Place 2 romaine leaves on each plate, spoon tuna and chickpeas over top, and serve.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 330\n\nCarbohydrates: 35g\n\nSugars: 4g\n\nDietary fiber: 14g\n\nProtein: 30g\n\nFat: 17g\n\nCholesterol: 45mg\n\nSodium: 920mg\n\nChicken Salad Deluxe\n\nFor this delightful luncheon salad, I like to use a whole chicken and take advantage of the combination of light and dark meat.\n\nIngredients\n\n1 cup water\n\n1\u00bd tsp. kosher salt\n\n1 (2\u00bd-lb.; 1.25kg) whole chicken\n\n1\u00bd cups fresh green beans, trimmed\n\n\u2154 cup mayonnaise\n\n1\u00bd tsp. Dijon mustard\n\n1 tsp. freshly squeezed lemon juice\n\n3 medium radishes, thinly sliced (\u00bd cup)\n\n1 large carrot, peeled and coarsely grated (\u00be cup)\n\n1 TB. fresh chives, minced\n\n\u215b tsp. freshly ground black pepper\n\n8 Bibb lettuce leaves\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 In a 6-quart (5.5l) pressure cooker, combine water and \u00bd teaspoon kosher salt. Add chicken, set heat to medium-high (traditional)\/high (electric), and bring to a boil.\n\n2 Lock on the lid, bring pressure to level 2 (traditional)\/high (electric), and cook for 15 minutes. Remove from (traditional)\/turn off (electric) heat, perform a cold water (traditional)\/quick (electric) release, and remove the lid.\n\n3 Add green beans, lock on the lid, and steam green beans for about 5 minutes or until tender.\n\n4 Transfer chicken to a rimmed baking sheet to cool. Remove green beans from the pot, and drain. (Save broth for another use.)\n\n5 Remove skin from chicken, and strip meat from the bones in large, bite-size chunks. Take care to remove all the bones.\n\n6 In a large bowl, combine mayonnaise, Dijon mustard, and lemon juice. Add chicken, radishes, carrot, chives, green beans, remaining 1 teaspoon kosher salt, and black pepper. Stir to combine, and serve.\n\n7 Serve spooned over Bibb lettuce leaves.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 450\n\nCarbohydrates: 5g\n\nSugars: 2g\n\nDietary fiber: 2g\n\nProtein: 30g\n\nFat: 34g\n\nCholesterol: 110mg\n\nSodium: 880mg\nClassic Egg Salad\n\nThis cool egg salad combines creamy, yolky goodness with a celery crunch and a mustardy tang.\n\nIngredients\n\n12 large eggs, at room temperature\n\n\u00bd tsp. kosher salt\n\n\u00bc tsp. freshly ground black pepper\n\n1 medium stalk celery, minced (\u00bc cup)\n\n1 medium green onion, white parts only, minced (1 TB.)\n\n1\u00bd TB. Dijon mustard\n\n\u00bd cup mayonnaise\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 Add a trivet to a 4-quart (4l) pressure cooker, and add enough water to reach the bottom of the trivet.\n\n2 Place eggs in a steamer basket, and add to the pressure cooker. Set heat to medium-high (traditional)\/high (electric), and bring to a hard boil.\n\n3 Lock on the lid, bring pressure to level 2 (traditional)\/high (electric), and cook for 6 minutes. Remove from (traditional)\/turn off (electric) heat, perform a cold water (traditional)\/quick (electric) release, and remove the lid.\n\n4 Lift out the steamer basket, and immediately place eggs under cold running water to shock them and make them easier to peel.\n\n5 Peel eggs, place in a large bowl, and mash using a potato masher or the back of a fork.\n\n6 Add kosher salt, black pepper, celery, green onion, Dijon mustard, and mayonnaise. Stir to combine, and serve.\n\nFor a more piquant flavor, add some minced bread-and-butter pickles. Or try a little curry powder for a more exotic flavor. For a summer-at-the-beach theme, sprinkle a bit of Old Bay seasoning and some capers over the top before serving.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 350\n\nCarbohydrates: 2g\n\nSugars: 1g\n\nDietary fiber: 0g\n\nProtein: 15g\n\nFat: 30g\n\nCholesterol: 515mg\n\nSodium: 600mg\nWheat Berry Salad with Arugula Pesto\n\nWheat berries are a nutritious ingredient in your diet, and with the addition of arugula pesto, they become a flavorful base for all types of grain salads.\n\nIngredients\n\n1 cup hard winter wheat berries\n\n3 cups water\n\n\u00be tsp. kosher salt\n\n2\u00bd cups arugula leaves\n\n\u2153 cup walnuts, coarsely chopped\n\n\u00bc cup grated Parmesan cheese\n\n\u00bc tsp. freshly ground black pepper\n\n\u00bc cup extra-virgin olive oil, plus more as needed\n\n1 cup mixed cherry, plum, and grape tomatoes\n\n4 oz. (110g) fresh mozzarella cheese, shredded\n\n1 TB. fresh chives, minced\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 Place wheat berries in a strainer, and rinse well under cold water.\n\n2 Transfer wheat to a 4-quart (4l) pressure cooker, and add water and \u00bd teaspoon kosher salt. Set heat to medium-high (traditional)\/high (electric), and bring to a boil.\n\n3 Lock on the lid, and bring pressure to level 2 (traditional)\/high (electric). Reduce heat to low, and cook at 2\/high for 27 minutes. Remove from (traditional)\/turn off (electric) heat, perform a cold water (traditional)\/quick (electric) release, and remove the lid. Set aside to cool.\n\n4 In a food processor fitted with a metal chopping blade, pulse arugula, walnuts, Parmesan cheese, black pepper, and remaining \u00bc teaspoon kosher salt. With the food processor running, drizzle extra-virgin olive oil through the feed tube until pesto reaches the consistency of salad dressing.\n\n5 Drain wheat berries, and place in a large bowl. Add \u00bd of pesto, and stir to combine. Taste, and add more pesto as necessary.\n\n6 Add tomatoes, mozzarella cheese, and chives. Stir gently, and serve.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 300\n\nCarbohydrates: 39g\n\nSugars: 2g\n\nDietary fiber: 7g\n\nProtein: 18g\n\nFat: 10g\n\nCholesterol: 10mg\n\nSodium: 670mg\n\nFarro Tabbouleh\n\nTabbouleh is traditionally made with cracked bulgur wheat. In this version, farro, a distant relative of bulgur, makes a nutty and nutritious alternative.\n\nIngredients\n\n1 cup farro\n\n5 cups water\n\n1 tsp. kosher salt\n\n\u00bd cup fresh flat-leaf parsley, minced\n\n2 TB. fresh mint, minced\n\n2 TB. fresh chives, minced\n\n\u00bd cup sun-dried tomatoes in oil, drained and chopped\n\n1 cup grape tomatoes, quartered\n\n2\u00bd TB. freshly squeezed lemon juice\n\n2 or 3 TB. extra-virgin olive oil\n\nFreshly ground black pepper\n\n1 cup arugula leaves, rinsed and dried\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 Place farro in a strainer, and rinse well under cold water.\n\n2 Transfer farro to a 4-quart (4l) pressure cooker, and add water and kosher salt. Set heat to medium-high (traditional)\/high (electric), and bring to a boil.\n\n3 Lock on the lid, and bring pressure to level 1 (traditional)\/high (electric). Reduce heat to low, and cook at 1\/low for 12 minutes. Remove from (traditional)\/turn off (electric) heat, perform a cold water (traditional)\/quick (electric) release, and remove the lid.\n\n4 Return farro to the strainer, and cool.\n\n5 In a large bowl, combine cooled farro, flat-leaf parsley, mint, chives, sun-dried tomatoes, grape tomatoes, lemon juice, and extra-virgin olive oil.\n\n6 Taste, and season with more kosher salt and black pepper as necessary. Add arugula, stir, and serve.\n\nFarro contains more protein, fiber, vitamins, and minerals than bulgur. It also has more fat.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 70\n\nCarbohydrates: 5g\n\nSugars: 1g\n\nDietary fiber: 1g\n\nProtein: 1g\n\nFat: 6g\n\nCholesterol: 0mg\n\nSodium: 350mg\n\nPicnic-Style Potato Salad\n\nTart from the buttermilk and herby from the dill, this is homemade potato salad at its finest. It's ideal for family gatherings, potlucks, pitch-ins\u2014and picnics.\n\nIngredients\n\n10 medium Yukon Gold potatoes, cut in half and then into \u00bd moons\n\n\u00be cup mayonnaise\n\n\u00bc cup buttermilk\n\n1 TB. Dijon mustard\n\n\u00bd tsp. kosher salt\n\n\u00bc tsp. freshly ground white pepper\n\n1 medium green onion, minced (1 TB.)\n\n1 TB. fresh flat-leaf parsley\n\n2 tsp. fresh dill, minced\n\n3 large hard-boiled eggs, peeled and sliced thin\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 Add a steamer basket to a 4-quart (4l) pressure cooker, and fill with the minimum amount of water allowed for your cooker. Set heat to medium-high (traditional)\/high (electric), and bring to a boil.\n\n2 Add Yukon Gold potatoes to the basket.\n\n3 Lock on the lid, and bring pressure to level 2 (traditional)\/high (electric). Reduce heat to low, and cook at 2\/high for 5 minutes. Remove from (traditional)\/turn off (electric) heat, perform a quick release, and remove the lid.\n\n4 Let potatoes steam dry in the cooker for 30 seconds.\n\n5 In a large bowl, whisk together mayonnaise, buttermilk, Dijon mustard, kosher salt, white pepper, green onion, flat-leaf parsley, and dill until smooth.\n\n6 Add potatoes, and stir to coat. Refrigerate for 1 hour or until cool.\n\n7 Stir well, top with hard-boiled egg slices, and serve.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 270\n\nCarbohydrates: 25g\n\nSugars: 3g\n\nDietary fiber: 3g\n\nProtein: 6g\n\nFat: 18g\n\nCholesterol: 60mg\n\nSodium: 320mg\nHot German Potato Salad\n\nThis hot German-style potato salad\u2014the perfect side to sausage and Wiener schnitzel\u2014uses rich beef stock as a thickener for a lighter finished dish.\n\nIngredients\n\n2 slices smoky bacon, sliced into \u00bc-in. (.5cm) pieces\n\n1 medium yellow onion, thinly sliced (about 1 cup)\n\n1 cup homemade or sodium-free beef stock\n\n2 lb. (1kg) red potatoes, cut into \u00bd-in. (1.25cm) slices\n\n\u00bd tsp. kosher salt\n\n\u00bc tsp. freshly ground black pepper\n\n2 TB. fresh flat-leaf parsley, minced\n\n3 TB. cider vinegar or to taste\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 In a 4-quart (4l) pressure cooker, add bacon. Set heat to medium (traditional)\/high (electric), and slowly render fat from bacon, allowing it to become crisp. Transfer bacon to a paper towel\u2013lined plate.\n\n2 Add yellow onion to the cooker, and saut\u00e9 for about 3 minutes or until wilted. Transfer onion to a bowl, and set aside.\n\n3 Add beef stock to the cooker, add a layer of red potatoes, dot with onions, and season with a pinch of kosher salt and a grind of black pepper. Repeat layering, ending with potatoes. Bring to a boil.\n\n4 Lock on the lid, bring pressure to level 2 (traditional)\/high (electric), and cook for 5 minutes. Remove from (traditional)\/turn off (electric) heat, perform a cold water (traditional)\/quick (electric) release, and remove the lid.\n\n5 Gently transfer potatoes to a large bowl. Add \u2154 of bacon, \u00bd of flat-leaf parsley, and cider vinegar, and toss to combine.\n\n6 Transfer to a serving bowl, and wet with \u00bd cup hot broth. Top with remaining bacon and parsley, sprinkle with a little more vinegar, and serve.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 120\n\nCarbohydrates: 20g\n\nSugars: 2g\n\nDietary fiber: 2g\n\nProtein: 4g\n\nFat: 3g\n\nCholesterol: 5mg\n\nSodium: 180mg\n\nRoasted Corn and Butternut Squash Chili\n\nAll-bean chili is hearty and filling, but add some roasted corn, butternut squash, yellow corn chips, and southwestern spices, and it's so much better.\n\nIngredients\n\n1\u00bd TB. vegetable oil\n\n1 large yellow onion, diced small (1 cup)\n\n1 small butternut squash, peeled, seeded, and cut into \u00bd-in. (1.25cm) cubes (2 cups)\n\n1 cup fresh or frozen yellow corn\n\n1 lb. (450g) dried mixed chili beans (pintos, kidney, black, and red), washed, picked over, soaked overnight or quick soaked, and drained\n\n1 tsp. kosher salt\n\n2 TB. dark chili powder\n\n1 TB. ground cumin\n\n1 TB. dried oregano\n\n1 TB. garlic powder\n\n2\u00bc cups tomato sauce\n\n1 cup water\n\n\u00bc cup crushed yellow corn tortilla chips\n\n3 medium Fresno chiles, sliced (\u00bd cup)\n\n\u00bd cup fresh cilantro, coarsely chopped\n\n1 cup sour cream\n\n2 cups corn chips\n\n2 cups shredded cheddar cheese\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 In a 6-quart (5.5l) pressure cooker set to medium-high (traditional)\/high (electric) heat, heat vegetable oil, swirling the cooker to coat.\n\n2 Add yellow onion, and saut\u00e9 for 5 minutes or until onion begins to soften.\n\n3 Add butternut squash, corn, chili beans, kosher salt, dark chili powder, cumin, oregano, and garlic powder. Cook, stirring, for 1 minute or until spices become fragrant.\n\n4 Add tomato sauce, water, and yellow corn tortilla chips, and bring to a boil.\n\n5 Lock on the lid, bring pressure to level 2 (traditional)\/high (electric), and cook for 12 minutes. Remove from (traditional)\/turn off (electric) heat, and let chili sit for 5 minutes. Perform a cold water (traditional)\/quick (electric) release, and remove the lid.\n\n6 Taste, and adjust kosher salt as necessary. Spoon chili into bowls, and serve with Fresno chiles, cilantro, sour cream, corn chips, and cheddar cheese for topping.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 360\n\nCarbohydrates: 53g\n\nSugars: 7g\n\nDietary fiber: 14g\n\nProtein: 25g\n\nFat: 7g\n\nCholesterol: 5mg\n\nSodium: 850mg\n\nWhite Bean and Shiitake Soup\n\nEither vegetable or mushroom broth works well in this easy soup and marries with the shiitakes and cannellini beans to yield deep, wonderful flavors.\n\nIngredients\n\n3 TB. olive oil\n\n1 large yellow onion, diced small (1\u00bd cups)\n\n1 tsp. kosher salt\n\n\u00bc tsp. freshly ground black pepper\n\n2 cups shiitake mushrooms, sliced\n\n6 cloves garlic, minced\n\n1 TB. dried rosemary, crushed\n\n1 cup dried cannellini beans, washed, picked over, soaked overnight, and drained\n\n4 cups homemade or sodium-free vegetable or mushroom broth\n\n1 (14.5-oz.; 410g) can chopped tomatoes, with juice\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 In a 4-quart (4l) pressure cooker, add olive oil. Set heat to medium (traditional)\/high (electric), and heat oil for 20 seconds. Add yellow onion, and saut\u00e9 for 3 or 4 minutes or until softened.\n\n2 Season with kosher salt and black pepper, add shiitake mushrooms, stir, and saut\u00e9 for 3 to 5 minutes or until softened.\n\n3 Add garlic and rosemary, and stir. When garlic is fragrant, add cannellini beans and vegetable broth, and bring to a boil.\n\n4 Lock on the lid, and bring pressure to level 2 (traditional)\/high (electric). Reduce heat to low, and cook at 2\/high for 12 minutes. Remove from (traditional)\/turn off (electric) heat, perform a cold water (traditional)\/quick (electric) release, and remove the lid.\n\n5 Taste, and season with additional salt and pepper as necessary. Add tomatoes with juice, set heat to low, and cook for 5 minutes.\n\n6 Serve hot.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 160\n\nCarbohydrates: 21g\n\nSugars: 4g\n\nDietary fiber: 5g\n\nProtein: 7g\n\nFat: 5g\n\nCholesterol: 0mg\n\nSodium: 120mg\nSaturday Soup Beans\n\nHam and beans is a favorite for many, especially when served with cornbread. With your pressure cooker, you can make these filling beans in no time.\n\nIngredients\n\n2 (8-oz.; 225g) meaty smoked ham hocks\n\nWater\n\n1\u00bd cups dried pinto beans, washed, picked over, soaked overnight, and drained\n\n2 tsp. kosher salt\n\n1 tsp. freshly ground black pepper\n\n1 small red onion, diced small (\u00bd cup)\n\n3 medium green onions, chopped (\u00bd cup)\n\nHot sauce\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 In a 6-quart (5.5l) pressure cooker, place ham hocks. Add enough water to come halfway up hocks, set heat to high (traditional)\/high (electric), and bring to a boil.\n\n2 Lock on the lid, and bring pressure to level 2 (traditional)\/high (electric). Reduce heat to low, and cook at 2\/high for 30 minutes. Remove from (traditional)\/turn off (electric) heat, perform a cold water (traditional)\/quick (electric) release, and remove the lid.\n\n3 Add pinto beans, and ensure broth covers beans by 1 inch (2.5cm). If it's too low, add water; if it's too high, use a ladle to remove some liquid. Add kosher salt and black pepper, set heat to medium-high (traditional)\/high (electric), and bring to a boil.\n\n4 Lock on the lid, and bring pressure to level 2\/high. Reduce heat to low, and cook at 2\/high for 11 minutes. Remove from\/turn off heat, perform a cold water\/quick release, and remove the lid.\n\n5 Transfer hocks to a cutting board, and remove and set aside outer skin. Pull or cut meat from hocks, leaving sinew, bones, and fat behind. Chop meat.\n\n6 Using a potato masher, mash some beans to make soup creamy.\n\n7 Return meat to the cooker, stir, taste, and season with kosher salt or black pepper as necessary. Serve hot, with red onion, green onions, and hot sauce for topping.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 270\n\nCarbohydrates: 23g\n\nSugars: 1g\n\nDietary fiber: 8g\n\nProtein: 24g\n\nFat: 9g\n\nCholesterol: 55mg\n\nSodium: 520mg\nSpicy Chickpea Stew with Sour Tomato Curry\n\nThis zesty stew is the perfect balance of hot and sour. Be aware that the more tamarind you add, the sourer the dish will be.\n\nIngredients\n\n3 TB. olive oil\n\n2 medium yellow onions, julienned (2 cups)\n\n\u00be tsp. kosher salt\n\n1 TB. minced garlic\n\n1 (1-in; 2.5cm) piece fresh ginger, peeled and minced (1 TB.)\n\n1 tsp. turmeric\n\n\u00bc tsp. cayenne (optional)\n\n2 tsp. Madras curry powder\n\n1 tsp. coarsely ground cumin\n\n\u00bc tsp. freshly ground black pepper\n\n1\u00bd cups dried chickpeas, washed, picked over, soaked overnight, and drained\n\n2 cups tomato sauce\n\n1\u00bd TB. tamarind concentrate mixed with \u00bd cup water, or 1 TB. brown sugar mixed with 1 TB. freshly squeezed lime juice\n\n1 lb. (450g) cooked spaghetti, hot\n\n\u2153 cup fresh cilantro, chopped\n\n2 large green onions, chopped (\u2153 cup)\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 In a 4-quart (4l) pressure cooker set to medium-high (traditional)\/high (electric) heat, heat olive oil. Add yellow onions and \u00bc teaspoon kosher salt, and cook for 5 minutes or until onions begin to sizzle. Reduce to medium (traditional)\/high (electric) heat, and cook, stirring occasionally, for 10 minutes or until onions turn dark brown.\n\n2 Stir in garlic, ginger, turmeric, cayenne (if using), Madras curry powder, cumin, and black pepper, and saut\u00e9 for about 30 seconds.\n\n3 Stir in chickpeas, tomato sauce, remaining \u00bd teaspoon kosher salt, and tamarind-water mixture, and bring to a boil.\n\n4 Lock on the lid, and bring pressure to level 2 (traditional)\/high (electric). Reduce heat to low, and cook at 2\/high for 12 minutes. Remove from (traditional)\/turn off (electric) heat, and let sit for 5 minutes. Perform a natural release, and remove the lid.\n\n5 Spoon chickpeas over spaghetti, garnish with cilantro and green onions, and serve.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 330\n\nCarbohydrates: 66g\n\nSugars: 9g\n\nDietary fiber: 17g\n\nProtein: 17g\n\nFat: 10g\n\nCholesterol: 0mg\n\nSodium: 700mg\n\nCuban Black Bean Soup with Sherry\n\nThe addition of sherry brings a touch of elegance to this otherwise homey soup that's inspired by the influence of Spanish cuisine on Cuban food.\n\nIngredients\n\n3 TB. olive oil\n\n2 to 4 slices bacon, diced small\n\n1 large yellow onion, diced small (1\u00bd cups)\n\n4 medium stalks celery, chopped (\u00be cup)\n\n2 ancho chiles, diced small (\u00be cup)\n\n2 TB. minced garlic\n\n1 TB. dried oregano\n\n1 TB. crushed cumin\n\n3 bay leaves\n\n2 TB. dry sherry\n\n8 oz. (225g) dried black beans, washed, picked over, soaked overnight, and drained\n\n1 cup tomato sauce\n\n\u00bc cup fresh cilantro, chopped\n\nWater\n\n1 small red onion, minced (\u00bd cup)\n\n\u00be cup sour cream\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 In a 4-quart (4l) pressure cooker set to medium (traditional)\/high (electric) heat, heat olive oil. Add bacon, yellow onion, celery, and ancho chiles, and saut\u00e9 for about 4 minutes or until softened.\n\n2 Stir in garlic, oregano, cumin, and bay leaves, and cook for 20 seconds or until garlic becomes fragrant.\n\n3 Add sherry, and cook for 15 seconds to burn off alcohol.\n\n4 Add black beans, tomato sauce, and \u00bd of cilantro. Add water to cover beans by 1 inch (2.5cm), stir to combine, and bring to a boil.\n\n5 Lock on the lid, bring pressure to level 2 (traditional)\/high (electric), and cook for 11 minutes. Remove from (traditional)\/turn off (electric) heat, perform a cold water (traditional)\/quick (electric) release, and remove the lid.\n\n6 Remove bay leaves. Spoon soup into bowls, and serve with red onion, sour cream, and remaining cilantro for topping.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 440\n\nCarbohydrates: 40g\n\nSugars: 5g\n\nDietary fiber: 8g\n\nProtein: 14g\n\nFat: 21g\n\nCholesterol: 35mg\n\nSodium: 840mg\nFarmhouse Corn Chowder\n\nThis rustic chowder is unbelievable in the summertime, when sweet corn is in season. In the off season, you can use frozen corn for an equally lovely result.\n\nIngredients\n\n3 thick slices smoky bacon, cut into \u00bc-in. (.5cm) pieces\n\n1 TB. unsalted butter\n\n1 large yellow onion, diced medium (1 cup)\n\n3 medium stalks celery, diced medium (\u00bd cup)\n\n1 medium green bell pepper, ribs and seeds removed, and diced medium (\u00bd cup)\n\n1 TB. minced garlic\n\n1 tsp. kosher salt\n\n\u00bc tsp. freshly ground black pepper\n\n4 medium russet potatoes, peeled and diced medium (2 cups)\n\n2 ears sweet corn, husked and kernels cut from cob (1 cup), or 1 cup frozen corn\n\n5 cups homemade or sodium-free chicken stock\n\n2 tsp. fresh chives, minced\n\n2 tsp. fresh flat-leaf parsley, minced\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 In a 4-quart (4l) pressure cooker, add bacon. Set heat to medium (traditional)\/high (electric), and slowly render fat from bacon, allowing it to become crisp. Transfer bacon to a paper towel\u2013lined plate. Pour off all but 1 tablespoon grease.\n\n2 Add unsalted butter to the cooker, and melt. Add yellow onion, celery, green bell pepper, garlic, \u00bd teaspoon kosher salt, and black pepper, and saut\u00e9 for about 3 or 4 minutes or until soft.\n\n3 Add russet potatoes, sweet corn, chicken stock, and remaining \u00bd teaspoon kosher salt, and bring liquid to a boil.\n\n4 Lock on the lid, bring pressure to level 2 (traditional)\/high (electric), and cook for 4 minutes. Remove from (traditional)\/turn off (electric) heat, perform a cold water (traditional)\/quick (electric) release, and remove the lid.\n\n5 Stir in chives, flat-leaf parsley, and \u00bd of bacon. Taste, and add more salt as necessary. Serve garnished with remaining bacon.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 280\n\nCarbohydrates: 33g\n\nSugars: 4g\n\nDietary fiber: 3g\n\nProtein: 11g\n\nFat: 12g\n\nCholesterol: 40mg\n\nSodium: 610mg\nFrench Potato and Leek Soup\n\nThis classic French bistro soup is smooth, creamy, and comforting. Make it a bit more elegant by pur\u00e9eing it after it's cooked and has cooled a bit.\n\nIngredients\n\n2\u00bd TB. unsalted butter\n\n2 medium leeks, white parts only, cut into thin half-moons (2 cups)\n\n1 medium carrot, peeled and diced small (\u2153 cup)\n\n4 medium yellow onions, julienned (2\u00bd cups)\n\n1 tsp. kosher salt\n\n\u00bc tsp. freshly ground black pepper\n\n4 large Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled and diced medium (1\u00bd cups)\n\n5 cups homemade or sodium-free chicken broth\n\n\u00bd cup half-and-half\n\nChopped fresh chives\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 In a 4-quart (4l) pressure cooker set to medium (traditional)\/high (electric) heat, melt unsalted butter. Add leeks, carrot, and yellow onions, and stir to coat. Season with kosher salt and black pepper, and cook for 8 minutes or until vegetables have wilted but not browned.\n\n2 Add Yukon Gold potatoes and chicken broth, and bring to a boil.\n\n3 Lock on the lid, bring pressure to level 1 (traditional)\/low (electric), and cook for 8 minutes. Remove from (traditional)\/turn off (electric) heat, perform a quick release, and remove the lid.\n\n4 Add half-and-half, garnish with chives, and serve.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 270\n\nCarbohydrates: 34g\n\nSugars: 6g\n\nDietary fiber: 4g\n\nProtein: 11g\n\nFat: 11g\n\nCholesterol: 55mg\n\nSodium: 670mg\n\nIndian Carrot and Lentil Soup\n\nSlightly exotic and spicy but not hot, this soup is influenced mostly by the flavors of Indian cuisine but mixes in a little bit of everything.\n\nIngredients\n\n1 TB. olive oil\n\n6 medium carrots, peeled and chopped (1\u00bd cups)\n\n1 medium yellow onion, halved and thinly sliced (1 cup)\n\n1 tsp. kosher salt\n\n\u00bd cup red (pink) lentils\n\n\u00bc cup jasmine rice\n\n1 (1-in; 2.5cm) piece fresh ginger, peeled and minced (1 TB.)\n\n1\u00bd tsp. Thai red curry paste\n\n1 tsp. curry powder\n\n4 cups homemade or sodium-free chicken stock\n\n\u00bd cup coconut milk\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 In a 4-quart (4l) pressure cooker set to medium-high (traditional)\/high (electric) heat, heat olive oil. Add carrots, yellow onion, and kosher salt, and saut\u00e9 for about 8 minutes or until golden.\n\n2 Add red lentils, jasmine rice, ginger, Thai red curry paste, and curry powder, and stir to combine. When spices sizzle and pop and become fragrant, add chicken stock and bring to a boil.\n\n3 Lock on the lid, and bring pressure to level 1 (traditional)\/low (electric). Reduce heat to low, and cook at 1\/low for 12 minutes. Remove from (traditional)\/turn off (electric) heat, perform a cold water (traditional)\/quick (electric) release, and remove the lid.\n\n4 Add coconut milk, stir to blend, and serve hot.\n\nFor a smoother soup, pur\u00e9e it in a blender after cooling it for a while first. Never pur\u00e9e a hot soup in a blender. Cool it first, blend it, return it to the pot, and reheat before serving.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 280\n\nCarbohydrates: 33g\n\nSugars: 5g\n\nDietary fiber: 6g\n\nProtein: 12g\n\nFat: 12g\n\nCholesterol: 25mg\n\nSodium: 670mg\nRustic Split-Pea Soup\n\nTraditionally, this soup is pur\u00e9ed to a smooth finish. This version is rustic and hearty, and the ham added at the end brings a new flavor to the final soup.\n\nIngredients\n\n1 TB. unsalted butter\n\n1 medium yellow onion, diced (1 cup)\n\n2 medium carrots, peeled and diced (\u00bd cup)\n\n2 medium stalks celery, diced (\u00bd cup)\n\n3 medium yellow potatoes, peeled and diced medium (1 cup)\n\n3 cloves garlic, minced (\u00bd TB.)\n\n1 cup split peas, picked over and washed\n\n5 cups homemade or sodium-free vegetable broth, water, or water with 2 sodium-free vegetable bouillon cubes\n\n1 tsp. kosher salt\n\n\u00be tsp. freshly ground white pepper\n\n\u00bd cup country-style ham, diced small (optional)\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 In a 6-quart (5.5l) pressure cooker set to medium-high (traditional)\/high (electric) heat, melt unsalted butter. Add yellow onion, carrots, celery, yellow potatoes, and garlic. Stir and saut\u00e9 for 5 minutes or until vegetables begin to soften.\n\n2 Add split peas and vegetable broth, season with kosher salt and white pepper, and bring to a boil.\n\n3 Lock on the lid, bring pressure to level 1 (traditional)\/low (electric), and cook for 15 minutes. Remove from (traditional)\/turn off (electric) heat, perform a quick release, and remove the lid.\n\n4 Add ham (if using), set heat to medium (traditional)\/high (electric), and warm for 3 minutes. Serve hot.\n\nServe this soup topped with tasty homemade croutons. In a 10-inch (25cm) skillet over medium heat, melt 2 tablespoons unsalted butter. When it begins to foam, add 1 cup (\u00bd-inch; 1.25cm) bread cubes and toss to coat. Season with kosher salt and black pepper, and cook, stirring occasionally, for 3 minutes.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 260\n\nCarbohydrates: 35g\n\nSugars: 6g\n\nDietary fiber: 14g\n\nProtein: 19g\n\nFat: 5g\n\nCholesterol: 40mg\n\nSodium: 660mg\nCurried Butternut Squash Soup\n\nEasy-to-pur\u00e9e butternut squash is an ideal, adaptable base for all kinds of flavor additions.\n\nIngredients\n\n1 TB. vegetable oil\n\n1 medium yellow onion, thinly sliced (1 cup)\n\n3 cloves garlic\n\n1\u00bd TB. curry powder\n\n1 TB. Thai red curry paste\n\n2 cups homemade or sodium-free vegetable stock, or 2 cups water with 2 cubes sodium-free vegetable bouillon\n\n\u00bd tsp. kosher salt\n\n2 medium butternut squash, peeled, seeded, and cut into 1-in. (2.5cm) cubes (2\u00bd cups)\n\n1 medium carrot, peeled and diced large (\u2154 cup)\n\n1 medium roma tomato, cored and diced medium\n\n1 serrano chile, thinly sliced\n\n1 TB. fresh cilantro, minced\n\n2 TB. plain yogurt\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 In a 4-quart (4l) pressure cooker set to medium (traditional)\/high (electric) heat, heat vegetable oil. Add yellow onion, and saut\u00e9 for about 10 minutes or until onion is golden.\n\n2 Add garlic, curry powder, and Thai red curry paste, and cook, stirring, for 30 seconds minutes or until fragrant.\n\n3 Add vegetable stock, kosher salt, butternut squash, and carrot, and bring to a boil.\n\n4 Lock on the lid, and bring pressure to level 2 (traditional)\/high (electric). Reduce heat to low, and cook at 2\/high for 8 minutes. Remove from (traditional)\/turn off (electric) heat, perform a cold water (traditional)\/quick (electric) release, and remove the lid.\n\n5 Let soup cool, transfer to a blender or a food processor fitted with a metal chopping blade, and pur\u00e9e until smooth. Return soup to the pressure cooker, set heat to medium\/high, and warm.\n\n6 Meanwhile, in a small bowl, combine roma tomato, serrano chile, cilantro, and yogurt.\n\n7 Divide warmed soup among 4 bowls, top each with 1 dollop tomato raita, and serve.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 120\n\nCarbohydrates: 22g\n\nSugars: 7g\n\nDietary fiber: 4g\n\nProtein: 2g\n\nFat: 4g\n\nCholesterol: 0mg\n\nSodium: 340mg\n\nMushroom Barley Soup\n\nThis hearty soup delivers warmth and comfort in every bowl. The deep, earthy flavor of mushrooms combines nicely with the nutty barley.\n\nIngredients\n\n3 TB. unsalted butter\n\n8 oz. (225g) cremini or white mushrooms, brushed clean and thinly sliced (3 cups)\n\n1 tsp. kosher salt\n\n\u00bc tsp. freshly ground black pepper\n\n1 large yellow onion, diced medium (1\u00bd cups)\n\n3 medium carrots, peeled and sliced into rounds (\u00be cup)\n\n4 medium stalks celery, sliced into thin half-moons (\u00be cup)\n\n1 TB. minced garlic\n\n\u00bd cup pearl barley\n\n\u00bd tsp. dried thyme\n\n4 cups homemade or sodium-free beef, chicken, or vegetable stock\n\n1 TB. fresh flat-leaf parsley, minced\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 In a 4-quart (4l) pressure cooker set to medium-high (traditional)\/high (electric) heat, melt unsalted butter. Add cremini mushrooms, kosher salt, and black pepper, and saut\u00e9 for about 4 minutes or until soft.\n\n2 Add yellow onion, carrots, celery, and garlic, and saut\u00e9 for 30 seconds or until aromatic.\n\n3 Add pearl barley, and stir to coat with butter. Add thyme and beef stock, and bring to a boil.\n\n4 Lock on the lid, bring pressure to level 2 (traditional)\/high (electric), and cook for 10 minutes. Remove from (traditional)\/turn off (electric) heat, perform a cold water (traditional)\/quick (electric) release, and remove the lid.\n\n5 Stir in flat-leaf parsley, and serve.\n\nFor a gluten-free soup, use brown rice or whole-grain white sorghum instead of the barley. For a heartier soup, add some cooked shredded beef.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 160\n\nCarbohydrates: 22g\n\nSugars: 5g\n\nDietary fiber: 5g\n\nProtein: 4g\n\nFat: 6g\n\nCholesterol: 20mg\n\nSodium: 770mg\nRoot Vegetable Stew\n\nThis healthy soup is full of hearty root vegetables. Your pressure cooker quickly cooks these vegetables that usually take longer via traditional methods.\n\nIngredients\n\n\u00bc cup olive oil\n\n1 tsp. fresh rosemary, minced\n\n1 large yellow onion, diced large (1 cup)\n\n1 (3-in.; 7.5cm) celery root, peeled and diced large (1\u00bd cups)\n\n1 medium bulb fennel, trimmed and sliced (\u00be cup)\n\n2 large russet potatoes, peeled and diced large (2 cups)\n\n3 medium carrots, peeled and diced large (1 cup)\n\n1 large turnip, peeled and diced large (1 cup)\n\n2 medium parsnips, peeled and diced large (1 cup)\n\n3 cups homemade or sodium-free chicken stock\n\n\u00be tsp. kosher salt\n\n\u00bc tsp. freshly ground black pepper\n\n1 TB. fresh chives, minced\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 In a 6-quart (5.5l) pressure cooker set to medium-high (traditional)\/high (electric) heat, heat olive oil. Add rosemary, and when it begins to sizzle, immediately add yellow onion and stir. Do not let rosemary burn.\n\n2 Add celery root, fennel, russet potatoes, carrots, turnip, parsnips, chicken stock, kosher salt, and black pepper, and bring to a boil.\n\n3 Lock on the lid, bring pressure to level 2 (traditional)\/high (electric), and cook for 6 minutes. Remove from (traditional)\/turn off (electric) heat, perform a cold water (traditional)\/quick (electric) release, and remove the lid.\n\n4 Garnish with chives, and serve.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 340\n\nCarbohydrates: 46g\n\nSugars: 9g\n\nDietary fiber: 9g\n\nProtein: 7g\n\nFat: 15g\n\nCholesterol: 5mg\n\nSodium: 970mg\nBorscht with Italian Sausage\n\nThis lovely purple soup is nice any time of year. The fennel seed in the soup and in the sausage pairs well with the vegetables, sour cream, and lemon.\n\nIngredients\n\n1\u00bd TB. unsalted butter\n\n8 oz. (225g) Italian sausage\n\n2 medium beets, peeled and cut into \u00bd-in. (1.25cm) cubes (1 cup)\n\n2 medium carrots, peeled and diced small (\u00bd cup)\n\n\u00bd medium head red or green cabbage, cored and thinly shredded (2 cups)\n\n2 tsp. minced garlic\n\n\u00bd tsp. kosher salt\n\n\u00bc tsp. freshly ground black pepper\n\n1 bay leaf\n\n\u00bd tsp. fennel seed\n\n4 cups homemade or sodium-free beef broth\n\n1 TB. red wine vinegar\n\n1 medium lemon, quartered\n\n\u00bd cup sour cream\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 In a 6-quart (5.5l) pressure cooker set to medium-high (traditional)\/high (electric) heat, melt unsalted butter. Add Italian sausage, brown for 3 minutes on both sides, and transfer sausage to a plate.\n\n2 Add beets, carrots, red cabbage, and garlic to the pressure cooker, and stir. Season with kosher salt and black pepper, and stir again. Add bay leaf, fennel seed, beef broth, and red wine vinegar, and stir again. Return sausage to the pan, and bring to a boil.\n\n3 Lock on the lid, bring pressure to level 1 (traditional)\/low (electric), and cook for 7 minutes. Remove from (traditional)\/turn off (electric) heat, perform a cold water (traditional)\/quick (electric) release, and remove the lid.\n\n4 Remove bay leaf. Transfer sausage to a cutting board, cut into 1-inch (2.5cm) rounds, and return to the cooker. Taste, and add more kosher salt as necessary, and stir.\n\n5 Divide soup among 4 bowls, and serve with lemon quarters and sour cream on the side.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 200\n\nCarbohydrates: 16g\n\nSugars: 10g\n\nDietary fiber: 4g\n\nProtein: 8g\n\nFat: 11g\n\nCholesterol: 30mg\n\nSodium: 390mg\n\nRibolleta\n\nThis Italian soup is based on Italian bread soups that use leftover bread as a thickener to make the soup more filling.\n\nIngredients\n\n4 TB. olive oil, plus more for garnish\n\n\u00bc lb. (115g) pancetta, diced\n\n1 cup dried cannellini beans, washed, picked over, soaked overnight, and drained\n\n1 medium zucchini, diced large (1 cup)\n\n1 medium yellow onion, diced large (1 cup)\n\n2 medium stalks celery, diced large (\u2154 cup)\n\n2 medium carrots, peeled and diced large (\u2154 cup)\n\n2 TB. minced garlic\n\n\u00bc medium head green cabbage, chopped (2 cups)\n\n1 cup canned crushed tomatoes, with juice\n\n\u00bd cup fresh basil, torn\n\n\u00be tsp. kosher salt\n\n4 cups homemade or sodium-free chicken stock\n\n4 pieces day-old sourdough bread, cut into \u00bd-in. (1.25cm) cubes (2 cups)\n\n2 cups spinach\n\n\u00bd cup grated Parmesan cheese\n\n\u00bc tsp. freshly ground black pepper\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 In a 6-quart (5.5l) pressure cooker set to medium-high (traditional)\/high (electric) heat, heat olive oil. Add pancetta, and slowly render fat from pancetta, allowing it to become crisp.\n\n2 Add cannellini beans, zucchini, yellow onion, celery, carrots, garlic, green cabbage, tomatoes with juice, basil, kosher salt, and chicken stock, and bring to a boil.\n\n3 Lock on the lid, and bring pressure to level 2 (traditional)\/high (electric). Reduce heat to low, and cook at 2\/high for 8 minutes. Remove from (traditional)\/turn off (electric) heat, perform a cold water (traditional)\/quick (electric) release, and remove the lid.\n\n4 Return the pressure cooker to medium (traditional)\/high (electric) heat, stir in sourdough bread cubes and spinach, and cook for 10 minutes or until bread has dissolved into broth and spinach has wilted.\n\n5 Serve sprinkled with Parmesan cheese, a drizzle of olive oil, and freshly ground black pepper.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 390\n\nCarbohydrates: 35g\n\nSugars: 6g\n\nDietary fiber: 8g\n\nProtein: 16g\n\nFat: 20g\n\nCholesterol: 20mg\n\nSodium: 1,130mg\nTexas-Style Chili Con Carne\n\nThis is traditional Tex-Mex chili features masa harina, a corn flour whose unique flavor comes from being soaked in culinary lime.\n\nIngredients\n\n1 TB. olive oil\n\n1 slice smoky bacon, cut into \u00bd-in. (1.25cm) pieces\n\n1\u00bd lb. (680g) flank steak, cut into \u00bd-in. (1.25cm) cubes\n\n1 small yellow onion, diced small (\u00bd cup)\n\n2 TB. minced garlic\n\n3 TB. dark chili powder\n\n1\u00bd tsp. crushed cumin seed\n\n1\u00bd tsp. dried Mexican oregano\n\n4 large roma tomatoes, halved\n\n3 TB. tomato paste\n\n\u00bd tsp. kosher salt\n\n\u00bc tsp. freshly ground black pepper\n\n\u00bd cup water\n\n\u00bc cup yellow masa harina, or 1 cup crumbled corn tortillas\n\n1 cup shredded cheddar cheese\n\n1 small red onion, diced small (\u00bd cup)\n\n\u00bd cup sour cream\n\n3 serrano chiles, thinly sliced (\u00bc cup)\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 In a 6-quart (5.5l) pressure cooker set to medium-high (traditional)\/high (electric) heat, add olive oil. Add bacon, and slowly render some fat from bacon, allowing it to become crisp-tender.\n\n2 Add flank steak without crowding it (cook in batches, if necessary), and brown on all sides for 7 minutes.\n\n3 Add yellow onion, stir, and cook for about 3 minutes or for 3 to 5 minutes.\n\n4 Add garlic, dark chili powder, cumin seed, and Mexican oregano, and stir until fragrant.\n\n5 Add roma tomatoes, tomato paste, kosher salt, black pepper, and water, and bring to a boil.\n\n6 Lock on the lid, and bring pressure to level 2 (traditional)\/high (electric). Reduce heat to low, and cook at 2\/high for 12 minutes. Remove from (traditional)\/turn off (electric) heat, perform a cold water (traditional)\/quick (electric) release, and remove the lid.\n\n7 If there's too much liquid, whisk in \u00bc cup masa harina; otherwise, use \u215b cup. Be sure to whisk well to avoid lumps. Taste, add more salt as necessary, and stir. Set heat to medium (traditional)\/high (electric), and bring to a boil.\n\n8 Serve with cheddar cheese, red onion, sour cream, and serrano chiles for topping.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 590\n\nCarbohydrates: 20g\n\nSugars: 6g\n\nDietary fiber: 5g\n\nProtein: 60g\n\nFat: 30g\n\nCholesterol: 115mg\n\nSodium: 1,080mg\nKorean Beef Stew\n\nThe tofu in this lively stew is a nice addition, and you'll be impressed with the amount of flavor it absorbs from the beef broth.\n\nIngredients\n\n1 (1\u00bd lb.; 680g) chuck roast, cut into 1-in. (2.5cm) cubes\n\n1\u00bd tsp. kosher salt\n\n2 tsp. dark sesame oil\n\n1 TB. vegetable oil\n\n2 large russet potatoes, cut into \u00bd-in. (1.25cm) pieces\n\n3 medium carrots, peeled and cut into 1-in. (2.5cm) pieces\n\n1 large yellow onion, cut into \u00bd-in. (1.25cm) chunks\n\n1 (1-in; 2.5cm) piece ginger, peeled and minced (1 TB.)\n\n3 TB. minced garlic\n\n1 large Fuji apple, peeled, cored, and grated (\u00bd cup)\n\n\u00bd cup low-sodium soy sauce\n\n2 cups water\n\n\u00bd cup chopped kimchi (optional)\n\n2 serrano chiles, chopped\n\n2 medium green onions, minced (\u00bc cup)\n\n2 TB. red miso\n\n12 oz. (340g) firm tofu, cut in 1-in. (2.5cm) cubes\n\nCooked rice noodles, hot\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 Season chuck roast all over with 1 teaspoon kosher salt.\n\n2 In a 4-quart (4l) pressure cooker set to medium-high (traditional)\/high (electric) heat, heat dark sesame oil and vegetable oil. When hot, add chuck roast, and brown on all sides for 5 minutes.\n\n3 Add russet potatoes, carrots, yellow onion, ginger, and garlic. Stir and saut\u00e9 for 4 minutes or until garlic and ginger become fragrant.\n\n4 Add Fuji apple, soy sauce, water, and remaining \u00bd teaspoon kosher salt, and bring to a boil.\n\n5 Lock on the lid, and bring pressure to level 2 (traditional)\/high (electric). Reduce heat to low, and cook at 2\/high for 15 minutes. Remove from (traditional)\/turn off (electric) heat, perform a cold water (traditional)\/quick (electric) release, and remove the lid.\n\n6 In a medium bowl, combine kimchi (if using), serrano chiles, and green onions.\n\n7 Remove \u00bd cup broth from the cooker, add red miso, and stir until dissolved. Pour miso broth back into the cooker, and stir.\n\n8 Add tofu, set heat to low, and warm for 4 minutes.\n\n9 Serve stew over rice noodles, topped with a healthy dollop of kimchi relish.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 420\n\nCarbohydrates: 25g\n\nSugars: 4g\n\nDietary fiber: 3g\n\nProtein: 31g\n\nFat: 21g\n\nCholesterol: 70mg\n\nSodium: 1,280mg\n\nVegetable Beef Soup\n\nThis simple but sensational vegetable beef soup is full of fresh vegetables and tender beef. It comes together and cooks quickly.\n\nIngredients\n\n2 tsp. vegetable oil\n\n1 (12 oz.; 340g) beef chuck, cut into \u00bd-in. (1.25cm) cubes\n\n1 medium yellow onion, diced medium (1 cup)\n\n3 medium stalks celery, diced medium (\u00be cup)\n\n1 TB. minced garlic\n\n3 medium carrots, peeled and cut into thin rounds (1 cup)\n\n2 russet potatoes, skin on, scrubbed, and cut into \u00bd-in. (1.25cm) cubes\n\n1 (14.5-oz.; 410g) can crushed tomatoes, with juice\n\n1 bay leaf\n\n3 cups homemade or sodium-free beef broth\n\n1 jalape\u00f1o chile (optional)\n\n\u00be tsp. kosher salt\n\n\u00bc tsp. freshly ground black pepper\n\n\u00bd cup frozen corn kernels\n\n\u00bd cup frozen peas\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 In a 6-quart (5.5l) pressure cooker set to medium-high (traditional)\/high (electric) heat, heat vegetable oil. Add beef chuck, and brown on all sides for 5 minutes.\n\n2 Add yellow onion, celery, garlic, carrots, and russet potatoes, and stir. When vegetables are fragrant, add tomatoes with juice, bay leaf, beef broth, and jalape\u00f1o (if using). Season with kosher salt and black pepper, and bring to a boil.\n\n3 Lock on the lid, bring pressure to level 2 (traditional)\/high (electric), and cook for 12 minutes. Remove from (traditional)\/turn off (electric) heat, perform a cold water (traditional)\/quick (electric) release, and remove the lid.\n\n4 Remove and discard jalape\u00f1o and bay leaf.\n\n5 Add corn and peas, set heat to medium-high (traditional)\/high (electric), and warm for 5 minutes. Serve hot.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 270\n\nCarbohydrates: 28g\n\nSugars: 7g\n\nDietary fiber: 5g\n\nProtein: 17g\n\nFat: 10g\n\nCholesterol: 35mg\n\nSodium: 520mg\nIrish Stew\n\nServed alongside a nice Irish soda bread to soak up all the broth, this hearty stew is simple yet satisfying.\n\nIngredients\n\n1 (2 lb.; 1kg) boneless leg of lamb, trimmed of sinew and excess fat and cut into 1-in. (2.5cm) cubes\n\n1\u00bd tsp. kosher salt\n\n2 TB. unsalted butter\n\n5 medium carrots, peeled and cut into 1-in. (2.5cm) chunks (2 cups)\n\n1 medium yellow onion, diced large (1 cup)\n\n5 medium Yukon Gold potatoes, halved (2 cups)\n\n\u00bc freshly ground black pepper\n\n2 tsp. fresh thyme\n\n\u00be cup water\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 In a large bowl, season lamb with 1 teaspoon kosher salt, and set aside for 20 minutes.\n\n2 In a 4-quart (4l) pressure cooker set to medium-high (traditional)\/high (electric) heat, melt unsalted butter until it's sizzling and bubbling. Add \u00bd of lamb, and brown cubes on all sides for 8 minutes. Transfer browned lamb to a plate, and brown remaining lamb, and transfer remaining browned lamb to the plate.\n\n3 Add carrots, yellow onion, and Yukon Gold potatoes to the cooker, and season with remaining \u00bd teaspoon kosher salt. Return browned lamb to the pressure cooker, season with black pepper and 1 teaspoon thyme, and stir. Add water, and bring to a boil.\n\n4 Lock on the lid, and bring pressure to level 2 (traditional)\/high (electric). Reduce heat to low, and cook at 2\/high for 12 minutes. Remove from (traditional)\/turn off (electric) heat, perform a cold water (traditional)\/quick (electric) release, and remove the lid.\n\n5 Stir gently (potatoes will be very tender), divide into 4 bowls, and sprinkle remaining 1 teaspoon thyme over top. Serve with lots of crusty bread for dipping.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 590\n\nCarbohydrates: 57g\n\nSugars: 8g\n\nDietary fiber: 8g\n\nProtein: 49g\n\nFat: 18g\n\nCholesterol: 150mg\n\nSodium: 910mg\nPork Ramen\n\nRamen dishes are made of many separately cooked ingredients. With your pressure cooker, you can serve hot, tasty ramen, even on busy weeknights.\n\nIngredients\n\n2 lb. (1kg) boneless country-style pork ribs\n\n1\u00bd tsp. kosher salt\n\n1\u00bd tsp. brown sugar\n\n1 TB. vegetable oil\n\n1 slice smoky bacon\n\n1 cup water\n\n1 (12-oz.; 340g) can low-sodium spice ham, cut into X-in. slices\n\n4 cups homemade or sodium-free pork or chicken stock\n\n\u00bd cup low-sodium soy sauce\n\n12 oz. (340g) Chinese noodles, chuka soba, or spaghetti, cooked and rinsed under cold water\n\n4 large soft-boiled eggs\n\n2 medium carrots, peeled and shredded (1 cup)\n\n1 medium zucchini, shredded (1 cup)\n\n1 Fresno or serrano chile, thinly sliced\n\n3 medium green onions, thinly sliced\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 Place pork ribs on a rimmed plate, season on all sides with kosher salt and brown sugar, and refrigerate for at least 2 hours or overnight to cure.\n\n2 In a 4-quart (4l) pressure cooker set to medium-high (traditional)\/high (electric) heat, heat vegetable oil. When hot, add pork ribs and brown for 5 minutes on all sides (the deeper brown, the better), being careful not to let sugar burn.\n\n3 Add bacon and water, and bring to a boil.\n\n4 Lock on the lid, bring pressure to level 2 (traditional)\/high (electric), and cook for 15 minutes. Remove from (traditional)\/turn off (electric) heat, and let pork rest for 15 minutes. Remove the lid.\n\n5 Discard bacon. Transfer pork ribs to a cutting board, and shred using 2 forks.\n\n6 In a medium saut\u00e9 pan over high heat, fry ham for 5 minutes or until crispy. Remove from heat, and keep warm.\n\n7 Add pork stock and soy sauce to the cooker, set heat to medium-high (traditional)\/high (electric), and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low, and keep very warm.\n\n8 To serve, divide Chinese noodles among 4 bowls. Evenly divide soft-boiled eggs, ham, carrots, zucchini, pork, Fresno chile, and green onions over top.\n\n9 Bring stock back to a very hard boil, ladle over soup, and serve.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 1,020\n\nCarbohydrates: 71g\n\nSugars: 8g\n\nDietary fiber: 3g\n\nProtein: 75g\n\nFat: 47g\n\nCholesterol: 440mg\n\nSodium: 2,730mg\n\nHearty Turkey and Vegetable Soup\n\nThis homey soup is made comforting with the addition of simple herbs, a bit of rice, and half-and-half. It's a great choice for cool-weather meals.\n\nIngredients\n\n2 tsp. vegetable oil\n\n12 oz. (340g) turkey breast, cut into \u00bd-in. (1.25cm) cubes\n\n1 medium yellow onion, diced medium (1 cup)\n\n3 medium stalks celery, diced medium (\u00be cup)\n\n1 TB. minced garlic\n\n3 medium carrots, peeled and cut into thin rounds (1 cup)\n\n2 medium russet potatoes, skin on, scrubbed, and cut into \u00bd-in. (1.25cm) cubes\n\n\u00bc cup long-grain rice\n\n1 bay leaf\n\n\u00bd tsp. dried thyme\n\n4 cups homemade or sodium-free chicken or turkey broth\n\n\u00be tsp. kosher salt\n\n\u00bc tsp. freshly ground black pepper\n\n\u00bc cup half-and-half\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 In a 6-quart (5.5l) pressure cooker set to medium-high (traditional)\/high (electric) heat, heat vegetable oil. Add turkey, and brown on all sides for 5 minutes.\n\n2 Add yellow onion, celery, garlic, carrots, and russet potatoes, and stir. When vegetables become fragrant, add long-grain rice, bay leaf, thyme, and chicken broth. Season with kosher salt and black pepper, and bring to a boil.\n\n3 Lock on the lid, bring pressure to level 2 (traditional)\/high (electric), and cook for 8 minutes. Remove from (traditional)\/turn off (electric) heat, perform a cold water (traditional)\/quick (electric) release, and remove the lid.\n\n4 Remove and discard bay leaf.\n\n5 Add half-and-half, stir, set heat to medium (traditional)\/high (electric), and cook for 8 minutes. Serve hot.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 190\n\nCarbohydrates: 22g\n\nSugars: 2g\n\nDietary fiber: 2g\n\nProtein: 18g\n\nFat: 3.5g\n\nCholesterol: 40mg\n\nSodium: 690mg\nNew England Fish Chowder\n\nFish chowder is a bit mellower than traditional clam chowder, but it's equally delicious. And in your pressure cooker, it cooks in minutes.\n\nIngredients\n\n2 thick slices smoky bacon, cut into \u00bd-in. (1.25cm) pieces\n\n2 TB. unsalted butter\n\n1 large yellow onion, diced medium (1 cup)\n\n2 large stalks celery, diced medium (1 cup)\n\n2 tsp. minced garlic\n\n4 medium Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled and diced medium (1\u00bd cups)\n\n\u00bd tsp. kosher salt\n\n\u00bc tsp. freshly ground black pepper\n\n\u00bc tsp. fennel seed, crushed\n\n1 bay leaf\n\n\u00bd tsp. dried thyme\n\n12 oz. (340g) cod, tilapia, halibut, or other whitefish, cut into \u00bd-in. (1.25cm) pieces\n\n2 cups clam juice\n\n2 cups water\n\n1 TB. fresh flat-leaf parsley, minced\n\n1 TB. fresh chives, minced\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 In a 4-quart (4l) pressure cooker set to medium-high (traditional)\/high (electric) heat, add bacon and slowly render fat, allowing bacon to become crisp without burning grease. Pour off all but 1 tablespoon grease.\n\n2 Add unsalted butter, and melt. Add yellow onion, celery, and garlic, and cook for about 3 minutes or until vegetables begin to wilt.\n\n3 Add Yukon Gold potatoes, season with kosher salt and black pepper, and stir until garlic is fragrant.\n\n4 Add fennel seed, bay leaf, thyme, cod, clam juice, and water, and bring to a boil.\n\n5 Lock on the lid, and bring pressure to level 1 (traditional)\/low (electric). Reduce heat to low, and cook at 1\/low for 7 minutes. Remove from (traditional)\/turn off (electric) heat, perform a cold water (traditional)\/quick (electric) release, and remove the lid.\n\n6 Divide soup among bowls, top with flat-leaf parsley and chives, and serve.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 310\n\nCarbohydrates: 28g\n\nSugars: 3g\n\nDietary fiber: 3g\n\nProtein: 19g\n\nFat: 13g\n\nCholesterol: 65mg\n\nSodium: 330mg\n\nRatatouille\n\nStewed gently, the fresh vegetables in this perfect summer side dish release their juices to make a sublime broth.\n\nIngredients\n\n1 medium eggplant, peeled and cut into 1-in. (2.5cm) chunks (2 cups)\n\n\u00be tsp. kosher salt\n\n2 TB. olive oil\n\n1 large red onion, cut into wedges (1 cup)\n\n2 medium zucchini, cut into \u00be-in. (2cm) rounds (2 cups)\n\n1 medium yellow squash, cut into \u00be-in. (2cm) chunks (1 cup)\n\n1 medium red bell pepper, roasted, peeled, ribs and seeds removed, and cut into \u00bd-in. (1.25cm) strips (\u2154 cup)\n\n1 TB. minced garlic\n\n6 large plum tomatoes, halved lengthwise and cored (2 cups)\n\n\u00bd cup water\n\n\u00bc tsp. freshly ground white pepper\n\n\u00bc cup loosely packed fresh basil leaves, torn\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 Place eggplant in a colander, season with \u00bd teaspoon kosher salt, and toss to distribute salt. Set the colander in the sink, and let eggplant release its bitter water for 20 minutes to 1 hour.\n\n2 In a 6-quart (5.5l) pressure cooker set to medium-high (traditional)\/high (electric) heat, heat olive oil. Add eggplant and red onion, stir, and cook for about 3 minutes or until vegetables begin to wilt.\n\n3 Add zucchini, yellow squash, red bell pepper, garlic, plum tomatoes, water, remaining \u00bc teaspoon kosher salt, and white pepper. Gently stir, and bring to a boil.\n\n4 Lock on the lid, and bring pressure to level 1 (traditional)\/low (electric). Reduce heat to low, and cook at 1\/low for 4 minutes. Remove from (traditional)\/turn off (electric) heat, perform a cold water (traditional)\/quick (electric) release, and remove the lid.\n\n5 Stir in \u00bd of basil, gently ladle into bowls, top with remaining basil, and serve.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 70\n\nCarbohydrates: 15g\n\nSugars: 7g\n\nDietary fiber: 6g\n\nProtein: 3g\n\nFat: 0.5g\n\nCholesterol: 0mg\n\nSodium: 250mg\n\nHoney-Glazed Carrots\n\nHoney, vinegar, and salt are all in balance in this versatile side dish, making the carrots sweet and flavorful.\n\nIngredients\n\n4 large carrots, peeled and cut into \u00bd-in. (1.25cm) rounds\n\n2 tsp. honey\n\n1 tsp. red wine vinegar\n\n2 TB. unsalted butter\n\n\u00bc tsp. kosher salt\n\n\u00bc tsp. freshly ground white pepper\n\n1 tsp. fresh thyme leaves\n\n1 cup water\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 In a 4-quart (4l) pressure cooker, combine carrots, honey, red wine vinegar, unsalted butter, kosher salt, white pepper, thyme, and water. Set heat to medium-high (traditional)\/high (electric), and bring to a boil.\n\n2 Lock on the lid, and bring pressure to level 1 (traditional)\/low (electric). Reduce heat to low, and cook at 1\/low for 4 minutes. Remove from (traditional)\/turn off (electric) heat, perform a cold water (traditional)\/quick (electric) release, and remove the lid.\n\n3 Transfer carrots to a serving bowl, and cover lightly with aluminum foil.\n\n4 Set the pressure cooker to high (traditional)\/high (electric) heat, and return to a boil. Cook for about 4 minutes or until liquid is reduced to a syrupy glaze.\n\n5 Spoon hot glaze over carrots, and serve.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 60\n\nCarbohydrates: 6g\n\nSugars: 4g\n\nDietary fiber: 1g\n\nProtein: 1g\n\nFat: 4g\n\nCholesterol: 10mg\n\nSodium: 115mg\nGlazed Carrots with Braised Lettuce\n\nGlazed carrots are a classic fine dining dish. The addition of braised lettuce gives it a very European flair.\n\nIngredients\n\n10 medium carrots, peeled and cut into 1-in. (2.5cm) barrels (3 cups)\n\n1 cup homemade or sodium-free vegetable broth or water, or 1 cup water and \u00bd sodium-free bouillon cube\n\n\u00bd tsp. kosher salt\n\n6 to 8 small Bibb lettuce leaves from heart of head\n\n\u00bd tsp. honey\n\n1 TB. unsalted butter\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 In a 4-quart (4l) pressure cooker, combine carrots, vegetable broth, and kosher salt. Set heat to medium-high (traditional)\/high (electric), and bring to a boil.\n\n2 Lock on the lid, bring pressure to level 2 (traditional)\/high (electric), and cook for 2 minutes. Remove from (traditional)\/turn off (electric) heat, perform a cold water (traditional)\/quick (electric) release, and remove the lid.\n\n3 Return the cooker to medium (traditional)\/high (electric) heat. Add Bibb lettuce leaves, honey, and unsalted butter, and stir until leaves are wilted.\n\n4 Taste, add more salt as needed, and serve.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 70\n\nCarbohydrates: 10g\n\nSugars: 7g\n\nDietary fiber: 3g\n\nProtein: 1g\n\nFat: 3g\n\nCholesterol: 10mg\n\nSodium: 390mg\nSouthern-Style Green Beans\n\nThe smoky flavor of the ham (or smoked turkey) infuses the cooking broth in this country-style green bean dish.\n\nIngredients\n\n1 TB. vegetable oil\n\n1 medium yellow onion, thinly sliced (1 cup)\n\n1\u00bd cups country ham or smoked turkey thigh, diced large\n\n1 cup water\n\n3 medium russet potatoes, halved and cut into \u00be-in. (2cm) half moons (2 cups)\n\n1\u00bd lb. (680g) green beans, trimmed and cut into 1-in. (2.5cm) lengths\n\n\u00bd tsp. kosher salt\n\n\u00bc tsp. freshly ground black pepper\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 In a 6-quart (5.5l) pressure cooker set to medium (traditional)\/high (electric) heat, heat vegetable oil. Add yellow onion, and saut\u00e9 for 5 minutes or until onion begins to soften.\n\n2 Add ham and water, and bring to a boil.\n\n3 Add russet potatoes and green beans, season with kosher salt and black pepper, and return to a boil.\n\n4 Lock on the lid, and bring pressure to level 2 (traditional)\/high (electric). Reduce heat to medium-low, and cook at 2\/high for 7 minutes. Remove from (traditional)\/turn off (electric) heat, perform a cold water (traditional)\/quick (electric) release, and remove the lid.\n\n5 Taste, adjust kosher salt or black pepper as needed, and gently mix with a large spoon, being careful not to break potatoes. Serve hot.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 290\n\nCarbohydrates: 42g\n\nSugars: 6g\n\nDietary fiber: 9g\n\nProtein: 18g\n\nFat: 7g\n\nCholesterol: 30mg\n\nSodium: 1,520mg\n\nButtered Green Beans with Nut Crunch Topping\n\nThe simple addition of a nut crunch topping transforms these perfectly tender green beans to something elegant.\n\nIngredients\n\n3 TB. unsalted butter\n\n\u00bd cup walnuts, hazelnuts, or pecans\n\n\u00bd cup panko breadcrumbs\n\n\u00be tsp. kosher salt\n\n\u00bc tsp. freshly ground black pepper\n\n1 lb. (450g) green beans, trimmed\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 In a small saut\u00e9 pan over medium heat, melt 1\u00bd tablespoons unsalted butter.\n\n2 Add walnuts, panko breadcrumbs, \u00bd teaspoon kosher salt, and black pepper, and saut\u00e9 for 2 or 3 minutes or until golden. Transfer mixture to a small bowl.\n\n3 Add a steamer basket to a 4-quart (4l) pressure cooker, fill with the minimum amount of water allowed for your cooker, and add green beans to the basket. Set heat to medium-high (traditional)\/high (electric), and bring to a boil.\n\n4 Lock on the lid, bring pressure to level 1 (traditional)\/low (electric), and cook for 4 minutes. Remove from (traditional)\/turn off (electric) heat, perform a cold water (traditional)\/quick (electric) release, and remove the lid.\n\n5 In a small microwave-safe dish, melt remaining 1\u00bd tablespoons butter in the microwave on high for 20 seconds.\n\n6 Transfer green beans to a bowl, toss with melted butter and remaining \u00bc teaspoon kosher salt, sprinkle with nut crunch topping, and serve.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 230\n\nCarbohydrates: 17g\n\nSugars: 4g\n\nDietary fiber: 4g\n\nProtein: 5g\n\nFat: 17g\n\nCholesterol: 25mg\n\nSodium: 380mg\nCaramelized Onion Mashed Potatoes\n\nPressure cooking quickly and evenly steams potatoes for a smooth, buttery mash. The caramelized onions add a nice flavor to the finished dish.\n\nIngredients\n\n1 TB. plus \u00bc cup unsalted butter\n\n1 large yellow onion, very thinly sliced (1\u00bc cups)\n\n1 tsp. kosher salt\n\n10 medium russet potatoes, peeled and cut into 1-in. (2.5cm) half moons (4 cups)\n\n\u2153 cup heavy cream, hot\n\n\u00bd cup whole milk, hot\n\n\u215b tsp. freshly ground white pepper\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 In a medium skillet over medium heat, melt 1 tablespoon unsalted butter.\n\n2 Add yellow onion and \u00bd teaspoon kosher salt, and stir once to break apart onion layers. Reduce heat to medium-low, and cook for 5 minutes. Stir once, and cook for 10 minutes. Repeat until onions are gooey and brown, and set aside.\n\n3 Add a steamer basket to a 4-quart (4l) pressure cooker, pour in 1 cup water, and set heat to medium-high (traditional)\/high (electric). Add russet potatoes to the basket, and bring to a boil.\n\n4 Lock on the lid, and bring pressure to level 2 (traditional)\/high (electric). Reduce heat to low, and cook at 2\/high for 8 minutes. Remove from (traditional)\/turn off (electric) heat, perform a cold water (traditional)\/quick (electric) release, and remove the lid.\n\n5 Test potatoes for doneness by inserting a knife into a large piece. It should easily pierce potato. If potatoes aren't done, lock on the lid and cook for 2 more minutes. Transfer potatoes to a large bowl, and let them steam dry for 30 seconds.\n\n6 Using a potato masher or an electric mixer on low, mash potatoes.\n\n7 Add remaining \u00bc cup unsalted butter, and stir gently while it melts. Add caramelized onions, hot heavy cream, hot whole milk, remaining \u00bd teaspoon kosher salt, and white pepper, and stir. If potatoes are too thick, add more milk a little at a time and stir between additions until you reach your desired consistency. Serve hot.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 270\n\nCarbohydrates: 31g\n\nSugars: 3g\n\nDietary fiber: 2g\n\nProtein: 5g\n\nFat: 15g\n\nCholesterol: 45mg\n\nSodium: 340mg\nMashed Maple Sweet Potatoes\n\nThe butter, syrup, and vanilla extract complement the sweet potatoes in this light and lovely dish.\n\nIngredients\n\n3 large sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into \u00bd-in. (1.25cm) rounds (2\u00bd cups)\n\n3 TB. unsalted butter\n\n3 TB. pure maple syrup\n\n1 tsp. vanilla extract\n\n\u00bd tsp. kosher salt\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 Add a steamer basket to a 6-quart (5.5l) pressure cooker, and fill with the minimum amount of water allowed for your cooker. Set heat to medium-high (traditional)\/high (electric), and bring to a boil.\n\n2 Add sweet potatoes to the steamer basket, and return to a boil.\n\n3 Lock on the lid, bring pressure to level 2 (traditional)\/high (electric), and cook for 5 minutes. Remove from (traditional)\/turn off (electric) heat, perform a cold water (traditional)\/quick (electric) release, remove the lid, and let sweet potatoes sit for 1 minute to steam dry.\n\n4 Transfer sweet potatoes to a large bowl, and using an electric mixer on medium, blend potatoes for a few seconds.\n\n5 Add unsalted butter, and blend until combined. Stir in maple syrup, vanilla extract, and kosher salt, and serve hot.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 110\n\nCarbohydrates: 14g\n\nSugars: 8g\n\nDietary fiber: 1g\n\nProtein: 1g\n\nFat: 6g\n\nCholesterol: 15mg\n\nSodium: 180mg\n\nBrussels Sprouts with Almonds and Prosciutto\n\nBrussels sprouts are a nutritious vegetable, and they're delicious paired with prosciutto and almonds.\n\nIngredients\n\n4 tsp. unsalted butter\n\n1 oz. (25g) prosciutto, minced\n\n1 lb. (450g) medium brussels sprouts, stalk ends trimmed and halved lengthwise\n\n\u00bc tsp. kosher salt\n\n\u00bd cup water\n\n\u00bd cup almonds, toasted and chopped\n\n\u00bc tsp. freshly ground black pepper\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 In a 4-quart (4l) pressure cooker set to medium-high (traditional)\/high (electric) heat, melt 3 teaspoons unsalted butter. Add prosciutto, and cook for 2 minutes or until crisp.\n\n2 Add brussels sprouts, and saut\u00e9 for about 3 minutes or until they begin to brown.\n\n3 Season with kosher salt, add water, and bring to a boil.\n\n4 Lock on the lid, and bring pressure to level 1 (traditional)\/low (electric). Reduce heat to low, and cook at 1\/low for 3 minutes (add 30 more seconds for large sprouts). Remove from (traditional)\/turn off (electric) heat, perform a cold water (traditional)\/quick (electric) release, and remove the lid.\n\n5 Drain sprouts, and transfer to a serving bowl. Toss with almonds, black pepper, and remaining 1 teaspoon unsalted butter, and serve.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 140\n\nCarbohydrates: 8g\n\nSugars: 2g\n\nDietary fiber: 4g\n\nProtein: 5g\n\nFat: 11g\n\nCholesterol: 10mg\n\nSodium: 135mg\nBraised Kale\n\nKale makes great salads and one-pot meals, but it's especially good braised with a little chicken broth and a pinch of cloves until just tender.\n\nIngredients\n\n2 TB. vegetable oil\n\n2 bunches curly leaf kale, stems removed and leaves chopped (6 to 8 cups)\n\n1\u00bd cups homemade or sodium-free chicken broth\n\n1 pinch ground cloves\n\n\u00bd tsp. kosher salt\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 In a 4-quart (4l) pressure cooker set to medium-high (traditional)\/high (electric) heat, heat vegetable oil.\n\n2 Add kale, and turn leaves over on themselves to coat with oil.\n\n3 Add chicken broth, cloves, and kosher salt, and turn kale again to distribute seasonings. Bring to a boil.\n\n4 Lock on the lid, bring pressure to level 2 (traditional)\/high (electric), and cook for 10 minutes. Remove from (traditional)\/turn off (electric) heat, perform a cold water (traditional)\/quick (electric) release, and remove the lid.\n\n5 Taste, season with more salt as necessary, stir, and serve.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 120\n\nCarbohydrates: 10g\n\nSugars: 0g\n\nDietary fiber: 2g\n\nProtein: 5g\n\nFat: 8g\n\nCholesterol: 10mg\n\nSodium: 330mg\nAlsatian-Style Braised Red Cabbage\n\nThe sweetness of the apples alongside the braised red cabbage marries well with pork of all kinds (especially pork loin braised in Belgian beer).\n\nIngredients\n\n2 TB. unsalted butter or bacon grease\n\n1 large yellow onion, minced (1 cup)\n\n1 TB. sugar\n\n1 medium head red cabbage, chopped (6 cups)\n\n2 medium green apples, peeled, cored, and diced small (1 cup)\n\n1 large russet potato, peeled and grated (\u00be cup)\n\n\u00be cup water\n\n2 TB. red wine vinegar\n\n2 TB. red or black currant jam\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 In a 6-quart (5.5l) pressure cooker set to medium (traditional)\/high (electric) heat, melt unsalted butter.\n\n2 Add yellow onion and sugar, stir, and cook for 6 minutes or until onions begin to brown and sugar begins to caramelize.\n\n3 Add red cabbage, green apples, and russet potato, and stir. Add water, red wine vinegar, and red currant jam, and stir again.\n\n4 Lock on the lid, and bring pressure to level 2 (traditional)\/high (electric). Reduce heat to low, and cook at 2\/high for 15 minutes. Remove from (traditional)\/turn off (electric) heat, perform a cold water (traditional)\/quick (electric) release, and remove the lid.\n\n5 Stir, taste, adjust seasoning or add a touch more red wine vinegar if desired, and serve.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 290\n\nCarbohydrates: 59g\n\nSugars: 30g\n\nDietary fiber: 9g\n\nProtein: 6g\n\nFat: 6g\n\nCholesterol: 15mg\n\nSodium: 110mg\n\nOne-Pot Cabbage, Rice, and Lentils\n\nThis hearty side dish goes well with sausages, pork chops, and roasted meats. It's also good as a light dinner served on its own.\n\nIngredients\n\n2 slices smoky bacon\n\n2 TB. unsalted butter\n\n1 medium yellow onion, diced small (\u2154 cup)\n\n\u00bd small head green cabbage, cored and diced (2 cups)\n\n\u00bd cup jasmine rice\n\n\u00bd cup du Puy lentils\n\n1 cup homemade or sodium-free beef stock\n\n\u00be tsp. kosher salt\n\n\u00bc tsp. freshly ground black pepper\n\n2 medium carrots, peeled and diced small (\u00bd cup)\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 In a 4-quart (4l) pressure cooker, add bacon. Set heat to medium-high (traditional)\/high (electric), and slowly render fat from bacon, allowing it to become crisp.\n\n2 Add unsalted butter, and let it bubble and foam. Add yellow onion and green cabbage, stir, and cook for about 3 minutes to allow vegetables to wilt a bit.\n\n3 Add jasmine rice, du Puy lentils, beef stock, kosher salt, and black pepper. Stir, and bring to a boil.\n\n4 Lock on the lid, bring pressure to level 2 (traditional)\/high (electric), and cook for 5 minutes. Remove from (traditional)\/turn off (electric) heat, perform a cold water (traditional)\/quick (electric) release, and remove the lid.\n\n5 Stir in carrots.\n\n6 Taste, and add more kosher salt or black pepper as necessary, and serve.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 220\n\nCarbohydrates: 31g\n\nSugars: 6g\n\nDietary fiber: 6g\n\nProtein: 8g\n\nFat: 8g\n\nCholesterol: 15mg\n\nSodium: 360mg\nSouthern Collard Greens\n\nFew dishes are more satisfying than collard greens. In your pressure cooker, collards become tender and meaty.\n\nIngredients\n\n2 cups water\n\n1 (8-oz.; 225g) smoked ham hock\n\n\u00bd tsp. kosher salt\n\n\u00bc tsp. freshly ground black pepper\n\n1 tsp. crushed red pepper flakes\n\n2 small bunches collard greens, stems removed and chopped (8 cups)\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 In a 6-quart (5.5l) pressure cooker, combine water and ham hock. Set heat to medium (traditional)\/high (electric), and bring to a boil.\n\n2 Lock on the lid, bring pressure to level 2 (traditional)\/high (electric), and cook for 30 minutes. Remove from (traditional)\/turn off (electric) heat, perform a cold water (traditional)\/quick (electric) release, and remove the lid.\n\n3 Add kosher salt, black pepper, crushed red pepper flakes, and collard greens. Using tongs, turn collards to coat with broth.\n\n4 Lock on the lid, return pressure to level 2\/high, and cook for 12 minutes. Remove from heat, perform a quick release, and remove the lid.\n\n5 Transfer ham hock to a cutting board. Place the lid loosely back on the pressure cooker.\n\n6 Slice off pork skin, pull meat from the bone, and chop meat finely. Return meat to the pressure cooker, and stir.\n\n7 Taste, adjust seasoning as necessary, and serve.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 150\n\nCarbohydrates: 4g\n\nSugars: 0g\n\nDietary fiber: 3g\n\nProtein: 5g\n\nFat: 13g\n\nCholesterol: 20mg\n\nSodium: 500mg\n\nBarbecue Braised Short Ribs\n\nThese short ribs are a perfect match for your pressure cooker. They come out juicy, tender, and succulent in under an hour.\n\nIngredients\n\n3 lb. (1.5kg) beef short ribs\n\n2 tsp. kosher salt\n\n1 TB. vegetable oil\n\n1 large yellow onion, thinly sliced (1 cup)\n\n1 cup water\n\n\u00bd cup barbecue sauce\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 Season beef short ribs on all sides with 1\u00bd teaspoons kosher salt, and set aside until salt is absorbed.\n\n2 In a 6-quart (5.5l) pressure cooker set to medium-high (traditional)\/high (electric) heat, heat vegetable oil. When hot and nearly smoking, add ribs, leaving space between them so they brown nicely and don't steam. (You might need to do this in batches.) Transfer browned ribs to a baking sheet, and set aside.\n\n3 Add yellow onion to the cooker, and cook for about 3 minutes or until it begins to wilt.\n\n4 Season onion with remaining \u00bd teaspoon kosher salt, and add ribs and water.\n\n5 Lock on the lid, and bring pressure to level 2 (traditional)\/high (electric). Reduce heat to low, and cook at 2\/high for 40 minutes. Remove from (traditional)\/turn off (electric) heat, perform a quick release, and remove the lid.\n\n6 Gently transfer ribs to a large plate, and drain off all but 3 tablespoons liquid from onions.\n\n7 Add barbecue sauce to onions, and stir. Return ribs to the pressure cooker, turn ribs to coat in sauce, and heat for about 5 minutes. Serve hot.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 470\n\nCarbohydrates: 4g\n\nSugars: 1g\n\nDietary fiber: 0g\n\nProtein: 48g\n\nFat: 28g\n\nCholesterol: 150mg\n\nSodium: 1,030mg\n\nBeef Sugo\n\nBasil, oregano, rosemary, spices, and yellow onion flavor a simple yet rich and satisfying sauce that's served over spaghetti.\n\nIngredients\n\n1 (3-lb.; 2.5kg) chuck roast\n\n2 tsp. kosher salt\n\n1 TB. unsalted butter\n\n1 medium yellow onion, cut into thick wedges\n\n3\u00bd cups strained tomatoes\n\n2 tsp. dried rosemary, coarsely ground\n\n1\u00bd tsp. dried oregano\n\n1 tsp. dried basil\n\n\u00bc tsp. freshly ground black pepper\n\n1 lb. (450g) cooked spaghetti, hot\n\n\u00bd cup grated Parmesan cheese\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 Season chuck roast on both sides with 1 teaspoon kosher salt, and set aside until salt is absorbed.\n\n2 In a 6-quart (5.5l) pressure cooker set to medium-high (traditional)\/high (electric) heat, heat unsalted butter until it starts to bubble. Add chuck roast, and brown on both sides for about 4 minutes.\n\n3 Add yellow onion, and cook for 3 to 5 minutes or until it wilts.\n\n4 Add strained tomatoes, rosemary, oregano, basil, remaining 1 teaspoon kosher salt, and black pepper, and bring to a boil.\n\n5 Lock on the lid, and bring pressure to level 2 (traditional)\/high (electric). Reduce heat to low, and cook at 2\/high for 45 minutes. Remove from (traditional)\/turn off (electric) heat, perform a natural release, and remove the lid.\n\n6 Transfer beef to a baking sheet, and shred using 2 forks. Return shredded beef to sauce, and stir.\n\n7 Divide spaghetti among 6 plates, top with sauce, and serve with Parmesan cheese on the side.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 780\n\nCarbohydrates: 57g\n\nSugars: 4g\n\nDietary fiber: 2g\n\nProtein: 57g\n\nFat: 34g\n\nCholesterol: 125mg\n\nSodium: 820mg\nCorned Beef\n\nThis New England boiled dinner, with corned beef, cabbage, and vegetables, makes a very filling meal.\n\nIngredients\n\n1 (3-lb.; 1.5kg) corned beef brisket\n\n2 cups water\n\n1 TB. pickling spice\n\n2 medium yellow onions, quartered (2 cups)\n\n8 medium Yukon Gold potatoes, halved\n\n8 medium carrots, peeled and cut into 2-in. (5cm) pieces (2\u00bd cups)\n\n1 small head green cabbage, quartered\n\nKosher salt\n\nDijon mustard\n\nUnsalted butter\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 In a 6-quart (5.5l) pressure cooker, combine corned beef brisket, water, pickling spice, and 2 yellow onion quarters. Set heat to medium-high (traditional)\/high (electric), and bring to a boil.\n\n2 Lock on the lid, and bring pressure to level 2 (traditional)\/high (electric). Reduce heat to low, and cook at 2\/high for 35 minutes. Remove from (traditional)\/turn off (electric) heat, perform a cold water (traditional)\/quick (electric) release, and remove the lid.\n\n3 Add remaining yellow onion quarters, Yukon Gold potatoes, carrots, and green cabbage, in that order, and season with kosher salt. Return the pressure cooker to medium-high\/high heat, and bring to a boil.\n\n4 Lock on the lid, and bring pressure to level 2\/high. Reduce heat to low, and cook at 2\/high for 12 minutes. Remove from\/turn off heat, perform a cold water\/quick release, and remove the lid.\n\n5 Transfer corned beef to a cutting board, slice thinly, and place on a platter. Surround meat with vegetables, and ladle some juice from the cooker over top. Serve with Dijon mustard, unsalted butter, and kosher salt on the side.\n\nTo prepare the corned beef brisket without additional vegetables, cook it straight through for 45 minutes.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 1,110\n\nCarbohydrates: 100g\n\nSugars: 14g\n\nDietary fiber: 12g\n\nProtein: 62g\n\nFat: 51g\n\nCholesterol: 185mg\n\nSodium: 4,260mg\nCuban-Style Ropa Vieja\n\nRopa vieja encompasses all the flavors associated with Cuban cuisine and is commonly served with **rice and peas, bread,** and **red wine**.\n\nIngredients\n\n1 (1\u00bd-lb.; 680g) top round steak, well marbled\n\n\u00bd tsp. kosher salt\n\n3 TB. olive oil\n\n2 small yellow onions, diced small (1 cup)\n\n1 medium carrot, peeled and diced small (\u2153 cup)\n\n1 bay leaf\n\n\u00bd tsp. crushed cumin\n\n1 (6-oz.; 170g) can tomato paste\n\n1 tsp. dried oregano\n\n\u00bd tsp. dried thyme\n\n1 TB. minced garlic\n\n\u00be cup homemade or sodium-free beef stock, or water\n\n\u00bd cup green olives, pitted and halved\n\n1 Fresno or jalape\u00f1o chile, chopped\n\n1 TB. capers, rinsed and coarsely chopped\n\n2 TB. fresh cilantro, minced\n\n1 TB. red wine vinegar\n\n1 small red onion, diced fine (\u00bc cup)\n\n1 large lime, quartered\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 Season top round steak with kosher salt, and set aside until salt is absorbed.\n\n2 In a 6-quart (5.5l) pressure cooker set to medium-high (traditional)\/high (electric) heat, heat 1 tablespoon olive oil. When hot, add top round steak, and sear on both sides for 4 minutes or until very brown.\n\n3 Add yellow onions and carrot, and cook for about 3 minutes or until vegetables begin to soften.\n\n4 Add bay leaf, cumin, tomato paste, oregano, thyme, and garlic, and stir until fragrant. Add beef stock, and bring to a boil.\n\n5 Lock on the lid, and bring pressure to level 2 (traditional)\/high (electric). Reduce heat to low, and cook at 2\/high for 45 minutes. Remove from (traditional)\/turn off (electric) heat, perform a cold water (traditional)\/quick (electric) release, and remove the lid.\n\n6 In a small bowl, combine green olives, Fresno chile, capers, cilantro, red wine vinegar, red onion, and remaining 2 tablespoons olive oil. Set aside for 10 minutes.\n\n7 Transfer beef to a cutting board, and shred using 2 forks. Return beef to the cooker, and stir to coat in broth. Remove bay leaf.\n\n8 Garnish with green olive salsa, and serve hot with lime quarters on the side.\n\nTraditionally, ropa vieja uses flank steak, but less-expensive top round steak works well in your pressure cooker.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 460\n\nCarbohydrates: 17g\n\nSugars: 9g\n\nDietary fiber: 3g\n\nProtein: 42g\n\nFat: 25g\n\nCholesterol: 85mg\n\nSodium: 870mg\n\nClassic Beef Brisket\n\nFor a tender, juicy brisket you'll be proud to serve at family or holiday dinners, opt for a second cut, which contains more pressure cooker\u2013friendly fat.\n\nIngredients\n\n1 (3\u00bd-lb.; 1.75kg) beef brisket\n\n2\u00bd tsp. kosher salt\n\n1\u00bd TB. canola oil\n\n2 large yellow onions, sliced (3 cups)\n\n\u00bd tsp. dried thyme\n\n\u00bc tsp. freshly ground black pepper\n\n1\u00bd cups water\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 Season beef brisket with 2 teaspoons kosher salt, and set aside until salt is absorbed.\n\n2 Set a 4-quart (4l) pressure cooker to medium-high (traditional)\/high (electric) heat. When hot, add canola oil. Carefully add brisket, fat side down, and sear for 4 minutes or until fat is very brown. (Reduce heat if necessary to avoid burning oil.) Turn over brisket, and brown meat side for 4 minutes. Transfer browned brisket to a tray.\n\n3 Drain off most of oil from the pressure cooker.\n\n4 Set heat to medium-low (traditional)\/low (electric), and add yellow onions. Season with thyme, remaining \u00bd teaspoon kosher salt, and black pepper, and cook for 10 minutes or until onions begin to brown and become soft.\n\n5 Place brisket on top of onions, add water, and bring to a boil.\n\n6 Lock on the lid, and bring pressure to level 2 (traditional)\/high (electric). Reduce heat to low, and cook at 2\/high for 40 minutes for sliced brisket or 50 minutes for shredded beef. Remove from (traditional)\/turn off (electric) heat, perform a cold water (traditional)\/quick (electric) release, and remove the lid.\n\n7 Transfer brisket to a platter, slice or shred, and serve hot.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 320\n\nCarbohydrates: 7g\n\nSugars: 3g\n\nDietary fiber: 1g\n\nProtein: 50g\n\nFat: 9g\n\nCholesterol: 100mg\n\nSodium: 970mg\nPot Roast with Fennel and Carrots\n\nBeef and fennel are naturals together. This pot roast is perfect for chilly evenings when you want to warm your family from the inside out.\n\nIngredients\n\n1 (3\u00bd-lb.; 1.75kg) boneless chuck roast\n\n1 tsp. kosher salt\n\n1 TB. olive oil\n\n1 medium bulb fennel, cored and diced small (\u00be cup)\n\n1 large yellow onion, diced small (1 cup)\n\n1 tsp. dried rosemary\n\n1\u00bd tsp. crushed fennel seed\n\n1 TB. red wine vinegar\n\n1 TB. tomato paste\n\n1 cup homemade or sodium-free beef stock\n\n\u00bc tsp. freshly ground black pepper\n\n6 medium carrots, peeled and cut into 1-in. (2.5cm) cylinders (2 cups)\n\nFennel fronds\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 Season chuck roast on both sides with \u00bd teaspoon kosher salt, and set aside until salt is absorbed.\n\n2 In a 6-quart (5.5l) pressure cooker set to medium-high (traditional)\/high (electric) heat, heat olive oil. Add chuck roast, and brown very deeply on both sides for 5 minutes.\n\n3 Add fennel and yellow onion, stir, and cook for 4 minutes or until vegetables are soft.\n\n4 Add rosemary, fennel seed, red wine vinegar, and tomato paste, and cook for 30 seconds or until seasonings are fragrant.\n\n5 Add beef stock, remaining \u00bd teaspoon kosher salt, and black pepper, and bring to a boil.\n\n6 Lock on the lid, and bring pressure to level 2 (traditional)\/high (electric). Reduce heat to low, and cook for 30 minutes. Remove from (traditional)\/turn off (electric) heat, perform a cold water (traditional)\/quick (electric) release, and remove the lid.\n\n7 Add carrots.\n\n8 Lock on the lid, and bring pressure to level 2\/high. Reduce heat to low, and cook at 2\/high for 15 minutes. Remove from\/turn off heat, perform a quick release, and remove the lid.\n\n9 Transfer roast to a cutting board, slice thinly, and place on a platter. Surround with carrots, ladle jus over top, garnish with fennel, and serve.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 870\n\nCarbohydrates: 16g\n\nSugars: 6g\n\nDietary fiber: 5g\n\nProtein: 78g\n\nFat: 54g\n\nCholesterol: 245mg\n\nSodium: 730mg\nSwedish Meatballs\n\nThis Scandinavian fare is often served as an hors d'oeuvre, but it's even better for dinner. These meatballs are full of flavor but not overly spicy.\n\nIngredients\n\n1 lb. lean (85% lean) ground chuck\n\n\u00bd lb. lean ground pork\n\n\u2153 cup unseasoned breadcrumbs\n\n2 TB. heavy cream\n\n1 tsp. kosher salt\n\n1 small yellow onion, diced fine (\u2153 cup)\n\n\u00bd tsp. freshly ground black pepper\n\n\u00bd tsp. allspice\n\n\u215b tsp. nutmeg\n\n1 TB. canola oil\n\n1 cup homemade or sodium-free beef broth\n\n\u00bd cup sour cream\n\n1 TB. fresh dill, minced\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 In a large bowl, combine ground chuck, ground pork, unseasoned breadcrumbs, heavy cream, kosher salt, yellow onion, black pepper, allspice, and nutmeg.\n\n2 With clean, wet hands, scoop out a golf ball\u2013size piece of meat mixture, roll it in the palms of your hands until it's a smooth ball, and set aside. Repeat with remaining meat mixture until you have 12 equal-size meatballs.\n\n3 Set a 4-quart (4l) pressure cooker to medium-high (traditional)\/high (electric) heat. When hot, add canola oil. Add meatballs, and brown on all sides for 5 minutes. (Reduce heat if necessary to avoid oil smoking.)\n\n4 Add beef broth, and bring to a boil.\n\n5 Lock on the lid, and bring pressure to level 2 (traditional)\/high (electric). Reduce heat to low, and cook at 2\/high for 5 minutes. Remove from (traditional)\/turn off (electric) heat, perform a quick release, and remove the lid.\n\n6 Transfer meatballs to a plate.\n\n7 Whisk sour cream into broth until smooth. Add dill, return meatballs to sauce, and stir to coat and warm. (Do not let sauce come to a boil or it might separate.) Serve hot over rice.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 390\n\nCarbohydrates: 9g\n\nSugars: 2g\n\nDietary fiber: 1g\n\nProtein: 27g\n\nFat: 26g\n\nCholesterol: 110mg\n\nSodium: 660mg\n\nBeef Bourguignon\n\nYour pressure cooker makes quick work of this classic beef, red wine, onion, and mushroom dish.\n\nIngredients\n\n1 (2\u00bd-lb.; 1.25kg) beef chuck, cut into 2-in. (5cm) cubes\n\n1\u00bd tsp. kosher salt\n\n\u00bd tsp. freshly ground black pepper\n\n3 TB. unsalted butter\n\n8 oz. (225g) small white mushrooms, brushed clean\n\n24 small pearl onions, peeled\n\n1\u00bd TB. all-purpose flour\n\n1 TB. tomato paste\n\n1 cup dry red wine\n\n1 cup homemade or sodium-free beef stock\n\n15 sprigs thyme\n\n1 bay leaf\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 Season beef chuck with 1 teaspoon kosher salt and black pepper, and set aside until salt is absorbed.\n\n2 In a 6-quart (5.5l) pressure cooker set to medium-high (traditional)\/high (electric) heat, melt 2 tablespoons unsalted butter. Add \u00bd of beef chuck, and brown on all sides for 4 minutes. Transfer browned beef to a plate, repeat with remaining beef, and transfer rest of browned beef to the plate.\n\n3 Add remaining 1 tablespoon unsalted butter, white mushrooms, pearl onions, and remaining \u00bd teaspoon kosher salt to the cooker, and cook for 5 minutes or until vegetables brown slightly.\n\n4 Add all-purpose flour, and stir to coat vegetables in flour. Add tomato paste, and stir again. Add red wine, bring to a boil, and burn off alcohol for 2 minutes.\n\n5 Add beef stock, browned beef, \u00bd of thyme sprigs, and bay leaf, and bring to a boil.\n\n6 Lock on the lid, and bring pressure to level 2 (traditional)\/high (electric). Reduce heat to low, and cook at 2\/high for 30 minutes. Remove from (traditional)\/turn off (electric) heat, perform a cold water (traditional)\/quick (electric) release, and remove the lid.\n\n7 Remove bay leaf. Divide beef, mushrooms, and onions evenly among 4 bowls, and ladle broth over top. Remove thyme leaves from stems, sprinkle leaves over top of each bowl, and serve.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 740\n\nCarbohydrates: 15g\n\nSugars: 5g\n\nDietary fiber: 0g\n\nProtein: 56g\n\nFat: 44g\n\nCholesterol: 200mg\n\nSodium: 890mg\nChuck Roast with Horseradish Cream and Carrots\n\nAn ideal Sunday supper dish, this eastern European\u2013inspired recipe combines tender beef and carrots with garlic, marjoram, and horseradish.\n\nIngredients\n\n1 (2\u00bd-lb.; 1.75kg) chuck roast\n\n\u00bd tsp. kosher salt\n\n1 TB. vegetable oil\n\n2 tsp. minced garlic\n\n1 cup homemade or sodium-free beef stock\n\n\u00bd tsp. dried marjoram\n\n2 tsp. prepared horseradish\n\n4 large carrots, peeled and cut into 3-in. (7.5cm) sticks\n\n\u00bd cup heavy cream (optional)\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 Season chuck roast with kosher salt, and set aside until salt is absorbed.\n\n2 In a 6-quart (5.5l) pressure cooker set to medium-high (traditional)\/high (electric) heat, heat vegetable oil. When hot, add chuck roast, and brown deeply for 3 minutes. Turn over roast, and brown other side for 3 minutes.\n\n3 Add garlic, and cook for 10 seconds or until fragrant.\n\n4 Add beef stock, marjoram, and horseradish. Stir, and bring to a boil.\n\n5 Lock on the lid, and bring pressure to level 2 (traditional)\/high (electric). Reduce heat to low, and cook at 2\/high for 15 minutes. Remove from (traditional)\/turn off (electric) heat, perform a cold water (traditional)\/quick (electric) release, and remove the lid.\n\n6 Add carrots.\n\n7 Lock on the lid, and return pressure to level 2\/high. Reduce heat to low, and cook at 2\/high for 4 minutes. Remove from\/turn off heat, perform a cold water\/quick release, and remove the lid.\n\n8 Transfer roast to a platter, and surround with carrots. Cover with aluminum foil to keep warm, and set aside.\n\n9 Add heavy cream (if using) to the pressure cooker, set heat to high (traditional)\/high (electric), and cook for 5 minutes or until sauce is reduced by half. Taste, and add kosher salt as necessary.\n\n10Slice roast, ladle sauce over top, and serve.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 610\n\nCarbohydrates: 7g\n\nSugars: 3g\n\nDietary fiber: 2g\n\nProtein: 55g\n\nFat: 39g\n\nCholesterol: 175mg\n\nSodium: 650mg\nSwiss Steak\n\nTop sirloin and vegetables transform to succulent Swiss steak in your pressure cooker. If you like, add 1 cup sliced button mushrooms with the vegetables.\n\nIngredients\n\n1 (2-lb.; 1kg) top sirloin, 1 in. (2.5cm) thick\n\n1 tsp. kosher salt\n\n1 TB. vegetable oil\n\n2 medium yellow onions, sliced thin (1\u00bd cups)\n\n1 large red bell pepper, ribs and seeds removed, and thinly sliced (\u00be cup)\n\n2 medium stalks celery, thinly sliced (\u00bd cup)\n\n3 cloves garlic, minced\n\n\u00bc tsp. freshly ground black pepper\n\n1 cup homemade or sodium-free beef broth\n\n1 TB. cornstarch\n\n2 TB. cold water\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 Season top sirloin on both sides with \u00bd teaspoon kosher salt, and set aside until salt is absorbed.\n\n2 In a 6-quart (5.5l) pressure cooker set to medium-high (traditional)\/high (electric) heat, heat vegetable oil. When hot, add sirloin, and sear on both sides for 4 minutes or until very brown. Transfer sirloin to a tray.\n\n3 Pour off fat from the pressure cooker. Add yellow onions, red bell pepper, celery, garlic, black pepper, and remaining \u00bd teaspoon kosher salt. Saut\u00e9 for about 3 minutes or until vegetables are wilted.\n\n4 Set sirloin on vegetables, add beef broth, and bring to a boil.\n\n5 Lock on the lid, bring pressure to level 2 (traditional)\/high (electric), and cook for 10 minutes. Remove from (traditional)\/turn off (electric) heat, perform a cold water (traditional)\/quick (electric) release, and remove the lid.\n\n6 Transfer sirloin to a cutting board, and cover with aluminum foil to keep warm.\n\n7 In a small bowl, combine cornstarch and cold water.\n\n8 Return the pressure cooker to medium-high\/high heat, and bring to a boil. Stir in cornstarch mixture, and return to a boil. Reduce heat to a simmer, and cook for 1 minute to thicken.\n\n9 Slice steak, arrange on a platter, ladle sauce over top, and serve.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 500\n\nCarbohydrates: 11g\n\nSugars: 4g\n\nDietary fiber: 2g\n\nProtein: 68g\n\nFat: 21g\n\nCholesterol: 185mg\n\nSodium: 1,300mg\n\nOsso Buco\n\nThis Italian braised veal and vegetable dish is rich with flavorful broth. It's especially good served with Risotto Milanese on the side.\n\nIngredients\n\n4 (12-oz.; 340g) meaty veal shanks (osso buco cut)\n\n1\u00bd tsp. kosher salt\n\n1 TB. vegetable oil\n\n1 large yellow onion, diced medium (1\u00bd cups)\n\n2 medium carrots, peeled and cut into rounds (\u00be cup)\n\n2 medium stalks celery, cut into thin half-moons (\u00be cup)\n\n2 cloves garlic, minced\n\n1\u00bd tsp. dried rosemary, ground\n\n\u00bd tsp. dried sage, ground\n\n2 TB. tomato paste\n\n\u00be cup homemade or sodium-free beef broth\n\n\u00bc tsp. freshly ground black pepper\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 Season veal shanks with \u00be teaspoon kosher salt, and set aside until salt is absorbed.\n\n2 In a 6-quart (5.5l) pressure cooker set to medium-high (traditional)\/high (electric) heat, heat vegetable oil. When hot, carefully add shanks, and brown on all sides for 4 minutes. (You might need to do this in batches.) Transfer browned veal to a tray.\n\n3 Add yellow onion, carrots, celery, and garlic to the cooker, and cook for about 4 minutes or until wilted.\n\n4 Add rosemary and sage, and cook for about 30 seconds or until fragrant.\n\n5 Add tomato paste, and stir. Add beef broth, remaining \u00be teaspoon kosher salt, and black pepper, and place veal on top of vegetables. Bring to a boil.\n\n6 Lock on the lid, bring pressure to level 2 (traditional)\/high (electric), and cook for 30 minutes. Remove from (traditional)\/turn off (electric) heat, perform a cold water (traditional)\/quick (electric) release, and remove the lid.\n\n7 Check veal tenderness by inserting a knife; it should pierce meat easily. If necessary, lock on lid, bring to high\/2 pressure, and cook for 10 more minutes.\n\n8 Taste broth, and season with salt as necessary. Serve veal with broth over top.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 350\n\nCarbohydrates: 10g\n\nSugars: 5g\n\nDietary fiber: 2g\n\nProtein: 48g\n\nFat: 12g\n\nCholesterol: 180mg\n\nSodium: 1,140mg\nBelgian Beef Stew Cooked in Beer\n\nThis traditional Belgian dish, also known as _carbonnade_ , relies on the deep flavors of the Belgian beer to differentiate it from beef bourguignon.\n\nIngredients\n\n1 (2\u00bd-lb.; 1.25kg) beef chuck, cut into 2-in. (5cm) cubes\n\n1\u00bd tsp. kosher salt\n\n\u00bc tsp. freshly ground black pepper\n\n3 TB. unsalted butter\n\n2 large yellow onions, sliced (3 cups)\n\n1\u00bd TB. all-purpose flour\n\n1 tsp. brown sugar\n\n1 TB. Dijon mustard\n\n1\u00bd cups Belgian farmhouse ale\n\n1 cup homemade or sodium-free beef stock\n\n1 bay leaf\n\n15 sprigs thyme\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 Season beef chuck with 1 teaspoon kosher salt and black pepper, and set aside until salt is absorbed.\n\n2 In a 6-quart (5.5l) pressure cooker set to medium-high (traditional)\/high (electric) heat, melt 2 tablespoons unsalted butter. Add \u00bd of beef, and brown on all sides for 4 minutes. Transfer browned beef to a plate, repeat with remaining beef, and transfer rest of browned beef to the plate.\n\n3 Add remaining 1 tablespoon unsalted butter, yellow onions, and remaining \u00bd teaspoon salt to the cooker, and cook for 5 minutes or until onions are slightly brown.\n\n4 Add all-purpose flour, and stir to coat. Stir in brown sugar, Dijon mustard, and Belgian farmhouse ale. Bring to a boil, and burn off alcohol for 1 minute.\n\n5 Add beef stock, beef, bay leaf, and \u00bd of thyme, and bring to a boil.\n\n6 Lock on the lid, and bring pressure to level 2 (traditional)\/high (electric). Reduce heat to low, and cook at 2\/high for 30 minutes. Remove from (traditional)\/turn off (electric) heat, perform a cold water (traditional)\/quick (electric) release, and remove the lid.\n\n7 Remove bay leaf. Divide beef and onions evenly among 4 bowls, and ladle broth over top. Remove thyme leaves from remaining stems, sprinkle leaves over each serving, and serve.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 720\n\nCarbohydrates: 14g\n\nSugars: 5g\n\nDietary fiber: 1g\n\nProtein: 56g\n\nFat: 44g\n\nCholesterol: 200mg\n\nSodium: 300mg\nPressure Cooker Tacos\n\nBy using pork ribs instead of ground beef, this taco meat is much closer to traditional Mexican fare. This kid-friendly recipe is very mild, heat-wise.\n\nIngredients\n\n3 (1\u00bc-lb.; 565g) boneless country-style pork shoulder ribs\n\n1 TB. kosher salt\n\n1 TB. ground cumin\n\n1 TB. dried oregano, coarsely ground\n\n1\u00bd TB. mild chili powder\n\n1 TB. vegetable oil\n\n1 cup water\n\n16 (6-in.; 16.25cm) corn or (8-in.; 20cm) flour tortillas\n\n2 medium limes, quartered\n\nToppings and condiments: sour cream, thinly sliced cabbage, salsa, shredded cheese, thinly sliced radishes, sliced chile peppers\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 Season pork shoulder ribs on all sides with kosher salt, and set aside until salt is absorbed.\n\n2 In a small bowl, combine cumin, oregano, and chili powder. Season ribs on all sides with spice mix, and refrigerate for 2 hours or overnight.\n\n3 In a 6-quart (5.5l) pressure cooker set to medium-high (traditional)\/high (electric) heat, heat vegetable oil, swirling the cooker gently to coat. Add ribs, and brown on all sides for 4 minutes. Add water.\n\n4 Lock on the lid, bring pressure to level 2 (traditional)\/high (electric), and cook for 40 minutes. Remove from (traditional)\/turn off (electric) heat, perform a cold water (traditional)\/quick (electric) or natural release, and remove the lid.\n\n5 Wrap corn tortillas in aluminum foil and warm in a 200\u00b0F (90\u00b0C) oven for 10 minutes.\n\n6 Transfer ribs to a plate, and shred meat into small pieces using 2 forks. Place meat in a bowl, and stir in \u00bd cup or more juice from the cooker.\n\n7 Serve meat alongside lime quarters and your choice of toppings and condiments, allowing everyone to make their own tacos.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 450\n\nCarbohydrates: 28g\n\nSugars: 0g\n\nDietary fiber: 2g\n\nProtein: 44g\n\nFat: 17g\n\nCholesterol: 140mg\n\nSodium: 960mg\n\nHungarian Stuffed Peppers\n\nThese elegant stuffed peppers are incredibly delicious and very eastern European in flavor.\n\nIngredients\n\n4 medium red bell peppers\n\n2 slices white bread, torn into small pieces (1 cup)\n\n\u00bc cup plus 2 TB. heavy cream (2 TB. optional)\n\n1 medium green onion, sliced into thin rings (3 TB.)\n\n\u00bc cup grated Parmesan cheese\n\n\u00bc tsp. dried rosemary\n\n\u215b tsp. caraway seed, ground\n\n\u2153 cup raisins\n\n2 TB. minced fresh flat-leaf parsley\n\n\u00be cup walnuts, chopped\n\n1\u00bc tsp. kosher salt\n\n\u215b tsp. plus \u00bc tsp. freshly ground black pepper\n\n1\u00bc lb. (565g) lean (10% fat) ground beef\n\n2 cups tomato sauce\n\n1\u00bd TB. unsalted butter\n\n\u00bd cup panko breadcrumbs\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 Add a trivet and steamer basket to a 6-quart (5.5l) pressure cooker, and fill with the minimum amount of water allowed for your cooker.\n\n2 Cut around stem of red bell peppers, keeping the knife parallel to outside edge of pepper as you cut. Remove core, seeds, and ribs.\n\n3 In a large bowl, combine white bread, \u00bc cup heavy cream, green onion, Parmesan cheese, rosemary, caraway seed, raisins, flat-leaf parsley, \u00bc cup walnuts, \u00be teaspoon kosher salt, and \u215b teaspoon black pepper. Add ground beef, and combine.\n\n4 Evenly divide filling among peppers, and add peppers to the steamer basket. Be sure water does not touch bottom of peppers. Set heat to medium-high (traditional)\/high (electric), and bring to a boil.\n\n5 Lock on the lid, bring pressure to level 2 (traditional)\/high (electric), reduce heat to low, and cook at 2\/high for 15 minutes. Remove from (traditional)\/turn off (electric) heat, perform a cold water (traditional)\/quick (electric) release, and set aside for 5 minutes. Remove the lid.\n\n6 In a small saucepan over medium heat, warm tomato sauce and remaining 2 tablespoons heavy cream (if using).\n\n7 In a small saut\u00e9 pan over medium heat, melt unsalted butter. Add remaining \u00bd cup walnuts, panko breadcrumbs, remaining \u00bd teaspoon kosher salt, and remaining \u00bc teaspoon black pepper, and saut\u00e9 for 2 or 3 minutes or until golden.\n\n8 Transfer peppers to a plate, spoon tomato sauce over top, sprinkle with nut crunch topping, and serve.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 330\n\nCarbohydrates: 20g\n\nSugars: 9g\n\nDietary fiber: 3g\n\nProtein: 20g\n\nFat: 19g\n\nCholesterol: 60mg\n\nSodium: 730mg\nHungarian Chicken Paprika\n\nThis simple, hearty chicken stew made with sweet, not hot, paprika is comforting rather than spicy. Kids will like it as much as adults will.\n\nIngredients\n\n3 (6-oz.; 170g) chicken breasts, cut into 1-in. (2.5cm) lengthwise strips\n\n\u00be tsp. kosher salt\n\n1\u00bd TB. vegetable oil\n\n1 medium red bell pepper, ribs and seeds removed, and finely chopped (\u00bd cup)\n\n1 large yellow onion, finely chopped (1 cup)\n\n3 TB. all-purpose flour\n\n\u215b tsp. freshly ground white pepper\n\n2 TB. sweet paprika\n\n3 TB. tomato paste\n\n\u00bd cup homemade or sodium-free chicken broth\n\n\u00bd cup sour cream\n\n2 TB. fresh flat-leaf parsley, minced\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 Season chicken breasts with \u00bd teaspoon kosher salt, and set aside until salt is absorbed.\n\n2 In a 4-quart (4l) pressure cooker set to medium-high (traditional)\/high (electric) heat, heat vegetable oil. Add chicken, and brown for 3 minutes. Transfer browned chicken to a tray.\n\n3 Add red bell pepper and yellow onion to the cooker, and cook for about 4 minutes or until soft and just beginning to brown at edges.\n\n4 Add all-purpose flour, remaining \u00bc teaspoon kosher salt, white pepper, sweet paprika, and tomato paste, and cook for 1 minute or until flour becomes pasty and tomato paste browns on the bottom of the cooker.\n\n5 Add chicken broth. Using a wooden spoon, scrape up all bits from the bottom of the cooker. Bring to a boil, add chicken, and return to a boil.\n\n6 Lock on the lid, bring pressure to level 2 (traditional)\/high (electric), and cook for 5 minutes. Remove from (traditional)\/turn off (electric) heat, perform a cold water (traditional)\/quick (electric) release, and remove the lid.\n\n7 Add sour cream and \u00bd of flat-leaf parsley, and stir to blend.\n\n8 Serve hot over rice, garnished with remaining flat-leaf parsley.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 210\n\nCarbohydrates: 12g\n\nSugars: 5g\n\nDietary fiber: 2g\n\nProtein: 12g\n\nFat: 11g\n\nCholesterol: 50mg\n\nSodium: 590mg\nCaribbean Chicken Curry\n\nThis curry is simple, slightly spicy, and not heavy, thanks to the coconut milk. Make it spicier by adding more curry powder and a diced habanero.\n\nIngredients\n\n1 TB. peanut or canola oil\n\n8 skinless chicken thigh and leg quarters\n\n3 large yellow onions, halved and thinly sliced (3\u00bd cups)\n\n1 (2-in; 5cm) piece fresh ginger, peeled and minced (1\u00bd TB.)\n\n\u00bc cup thinly sliced fresh garlic\n\n6 to 8 sprigs thyme\n\n3 TB. curry powder\n\n8 medium Yukon Gold potatoes, halved\n\n3 cups homemade or sodium-free chicken stock\n\n1 tsp. kosher salt\n\n\u00bc tsp. freshly ground black pepper\n\n1 TB. fresh chives, minced\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 In a 6-quart (5.5l) pressure cooker set to medium-high (traditional)\/high (electric) heat, heat peanut oil. When hot, add chicken and saut\u00e9 for 5 minutes or until brown on both sides. Transfer chicken to a rimmed baking sheet.\n\n2 Add yellow onions, ginger, garlic, and \u00bd of thyme to the cooker, and cook for 3 minutes or until onions soften.\n\n3 Add curry powder, and stir until fragrant.\n\n4 Return chicken to the cooker, and top with Yukon Gold potatoes. Add chicken stock, kosher salt, and black pepper, and bring to a boil.\n\n5 Lock on the lid, bring pressure to level 2 (traditional)\/high (electric), and cook for 15 minutes. Remove from (traditional)\/turn off (electric) heat, perform a cold water (traditional)\/quick (electric) release, and remove the lid.\n\n6 Serve hot, garnished with chives and remaining thyme.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 200\n\nCarbohydrates: 15g\n\nSugars: 5g\n\nDietary fiber: 3g\n\nProtein: 21g\n\nFat: 6g\n\nCholesterol: 80mg\n\nSodium: 710mg\n\nOne-Pot Chicken and Sausage Perloo\n\nOne-pot recipes produce a satisfying meal in a single dish, saving cleanup time. One-pot pressure cooker meals require less cook time, too.\n\nIngredients\n\n8 (5-oz.; 140g) chicken thighs, skin removed\n\n2 tsp. kosher salt\n\n1\u00bd TB. vegetable oil\n\n1 cup diced Andouille sausage or ham\n\n1 small yellow onion, diced fine (\u2153 cup)\n\n3 medium cloves garlic, chopped (1 TB.)\n\n1\u00bd cups short-grain rice\n\n\u00be cup frozen lima beans\n\n\u00be cup frozen corn\n\n2\u00bd cups water\n\n1 bay leaf\n\n\u00bd tsp. dried thyme\n\n\u00bc tsp. freshly ground black pepper\n\n1 large green onion, sliced (\u00bc cup)\n\n1 TB. fresh flat-leaf parsley, minced\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 Season chicken thighs with 1\u00bd teaspoons kosher salt, and set aside until salt is absorbed.\n\n2 In a 6-quart (5.5l) pressure cooker set to medium-high (traditional)\/high (electric) heat, heat vegetable oil, swirling pan to coat. Add chicken, skin side down, and brown for 3 minutes or until dark. Turn over chicken, and brown other side for 3 minutes. Transfer chicken to a tray.\n\n3 Pour off all but 3 tablespoons greese from the cooker. Add Andouille sausage, yellow onion, and garlic. Stir, and saut\u00e9 vegetables for about 2 minutes or until they begin to soften.\n\n4 Add short-grain rice, lima beans, and corn, and stir. Stir in water, bay leaf, thyme, black pepper, and remaining \u00bd teaspoon kosher salt. Add chicken on top of rice, and bring to a boil.\n\n5 Lock on the lid, and bring pressure to level 2 (traditional)\/high (electric). Reduce heat to low, and cook at 2\/high for 10 minutes. Remove from (traditional)\/turn off (electric) heat, perform a cold water (traditional)\/quick (electric) release, and remove the lid.\n\n6 Remove bay leaf. Stir rice, transfer perloo to a platter, garnish with green onion and flat-leaf parsley, and serve.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 370\n\nCarbohydrates: 37g\n\nSugars: 1g\n\nDietary fiber: 2g\n\nProtein: 22g\n\nFat: 14g\n\nCholesterol: 75mg\n\nSodium: 830mg\nChicken and Dumplings\n\nChicken and dumplings is one of the homiest comfort-food meals around. Your pressure cooker cooks the dumplings to perfect tenderness.\n\nIngredients\n\n1 (3-lb.; 1.5kg) fryer chicken\n\n1 medium leek, white part only, sliced in to \u00bd moons (1 cup)\n\n4 medium carrots, peeled and cut into 1-in. (2.5cm) diagonals (1 cup)\n\n2 medium stalks celery, cut into 1-in. (2.5cm) pieces (\u00bd cup)\n\n2 medium yellow onions, diced large (1\u00bd cups)\n\n1 bay leaf\n\n5 cups homemade or sodium-free chicken stock\n\n2\u00be tsp. kosher salt\n\n\u00be tsp. freshly ground black pepper\n\n1\u00bd cups all-purpose flour\n\n1 tsp. baking powder\n\n3 TB. shortening\n\n2 large eggs\n\n\u00be cup whole milk\n\n1 TB. fresh flat-leaf parsley, minced\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 In a 6-quart (5.5l) pressure cooker, combine chicken, leek, carrots, celery, yellow onions, bay leaf, chicken stock, 2 teaspoons kosher salt, and \u00bd teaspoon black pepper. Set heat to medium-high (traditional)\/high (electric), and bring to a boil.\n\n2 Lock on the lid, and bring pressure to level 2 (traditional)\/high (electric). Reduce heat to low, and cook at 2\/high for 5 minutes per 1 pound (.5kg) chicken. Remove from (traditional)\/turn off (electric) heat, perform a natural release, and remove the lid.\n\n3 In a large bowl, combine all-purpose flour, remaining \u00be teaspoon kosher salt, baking powder, and shortening until mixture resembles crumbly cornmeal.\n\n4 Add eggs, whole milk, flat-leaf parsley, and remaining \u00bd teaspoon black pepper, and stir.\n\n5 Transfer chicken to a baking sheet. When cool, remove skin, pull meat off bones, and return meat to the cooker.\n\n6 Set heat to medium-high\/high, bring to a boil, and reduce heat to a simmer.\n\n7 Scoop out 1 dumpling, lower to broth level, and gently drop in broth. Repeat with remaining dough, not overlapping dumplings.\n\n8 Set heat to low (traditional)\/low (electric). When broth just begins to boil, reduce heat to the lowest possible setting, add the lid but don't lock on, and simmer for 15 minutes. Remove the lid, and push on dumplings. If they're still soft, cover and cook for 5 minutes or until firm.\n\n9 Remove bay leaf. Spoon dumplings into bowls with chicken, vegetables, and broth on top, and serve.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 480\n\nCarbohydrates: 32g\n\nSugars: 6g\n\nDietary fiber: 2g\n\nProtein: 60g\n\nFat: 11g\n\nCholesterol: 255mg\n\nSodium: 680mg\nChicken Cacciatore\n\nThis is the Italian version of chicken cacciatore, made with mushrooms plus tomatoes, red wine, and rosemary.\n\nIngredients\n\n2\u00bd lb. (1.25kg) bone-in chicken thighs, breasts, and legs (breasts halved crosswise if large)\n\n\u00bd tsp. kosher salt\n\n3 TB. olive oil\n\n8 oz. (225g) cremini or baby bella mushrooms, brushed clean and halved\n\n4 shallots, peeled and halved lengthwise (\u00be cup)\n\n3 cloves garlic, chopped (1 TB.)\n\n1 cup dry red wine\n\n1 cup tomato sauce\n\n3 TB. tomato paste\n\n1 tsp. dried rosemary, ground\n\n\u00bc tsp. freshly ground black pepper\n\n12 oz. (340g) cooked penne pasta, hot\n\n\u00bd cup grated Parmesan cheese\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 Season chicken with kosher salt, and set aside for 20 minutes or until salt is absorbed.\n\n2 In a 6-quart (5.5l) pressure cooker set to medium-high (traditional)\/high (electric) heat, heat olive oil. When hot, add chicken, skin side down, and brown for 4 minutes. Turn over chicken and brown meat side for 4 minutes. Transfer browned chicken to a plate.\n\n3 Add cremini mushrooms and shallots, and cook for 5 minutes or until they begin to brown.\n\n4 Add garlic, and when it becomes fragrant, add red wine. Reduce wine by half.\n\n5 Return chicken to the cooker along with tomato sauce, tomato paste, rosemary, and black pepper. Bring to a boil, taste, and add more kosher salt as necessary.\n\n6 Lock on the lid, and bring pressure to level 2 (traditional)\/high (electric). Reduce heat to low, and cook at 2\/high for 10 minutes. Remove from (traditional)\/turn off (electric) heat, perform a cold water (traditional)\/quick (electric) release, and remove the lid.\n\n7 Stir, taste and adjust seasoning as necessary, and serve over penne pasta with Parmesan cheese on the side.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 620\n\nCarbohydrates: 53g\n\nSugars: 6g\n\nDietary fiber: 2g\n\nProtein: 36g\n\nFat: 29g\n\nCholesterol: 100mg\n\nSodium: 630mg\n\nSmothered Chicken\n\nChicken thighs are ideal in braised recipes. They stay tender and can stand up to the heavy flavors of garlic, peppers, and onions in this dish.\n\nIngredients\n\n2 TB. Spanish paprika\n\n1 tsp. garlic powder\n\n\u00bd tsp. freshly ground black pepper\n\n8 (5-oz.; 140g) bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs\n\n2 tsp. kosher salt\n\n1\u00bd TB. vegetable oil\n\n2 medium yellow onions, thinly sliced (2 cups)\n\n1 large green bell pepper, ribs and seeds removed, and thinly sliced (\u00be cup)\n\n3 medium stalks celery (\u00be cup)\n\n2 cloves garlic, minced (2 tsp.)\n\n2 TB. all-purpose flour\n\n1\u00bc cups water\n\n2 medium green onions, chopped (\u00bc cup)\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 In a small bowl, combine Spanish paprika, garlic powder, and black pepper.\n\n2 Season chicken with kosher salt, and sprinkle with spice mix.\n\n3 In a 6-quart (5.5l) pressure cooker set to medium-high (traditional)\/high (electric) heat, heat vegetable oil. Add chicken, skin side down, and brown deeply for 4 minutes. Turn over chicken, and brown on other side for 4 minutes. Transfer browned chicken to a tray.\n\n4 Add yellow onions, green bell pepper, and celery to the pressure cooker, and saut\u00e9 for about 4 minutes or until vegetables wilt.\n\n5 Add garlic and all-purpose flour, stir, and cook for 1 minute.\n\n6 Add water, and bring to a boil.\n\n7 Return chicken to the cooker, and bring to a boil again.\n\n8 Lock on the lid, and bring pressure to level 2 (traditional)\/high (electric). Reduce heat to low, and cook at 2\/high for 12 minutes. Remove from (traditional)\/turn off (electric) heat, perform a cold water (traditional)\/quick (electric) release, and remove the lid.\n\n9 Taste, and add more kosher salt as necessary. Transfer chicken to a platter, smother with sauce, top with green onions, and serve.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 290\n\nCarbohydrates: 11g\n\nSugars: 4g\n\nDietary fiber: 2g\n\nProtein: 33g\n\nFat: 12g\n\nCholesterol: 135mg\n\nSodium: 170mg\nChicken with 40 Cloves of Garlic\n\n40 cloves might seem like a lot of garlic, but it really mellows as it cooks under pressure with the chicken, thyme, and seasonings.\n\nIngredients\n\n1 (4-lb.; 2kg) whole chicken, cut into 8 pieces (breasts halved crosswise if large)\n\n2 tsp. kosher salt\n\n2 TB. unsalted butter\n\n40 cloves garlic (about 4 heads)\n\n15 sprigs fresh thyme\n\n\u00bc tsp. freshly ground black pepper\n\n1 cup water\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 Season chicken with 1\u00bd teaspoons kosher salt, and set aside until salt is absorbed.\n\n2 In a 4-quart (4l) pressure cooker set to medium-high (traditional)\/high (electric) heat, melt unsalted butter. When it foams, add \u00bd of chicken, skin side down, and brown generously for 4 minutes. Turn over chicken, and brown meat side for 4 minutes. Transfer chicken to a tray, repeat with remaining chicken, and transfer rest of browned chicken to the tray. (Reduce heat if necessary to keep butter from burning.)\n\n3 Add garlic to the cooker, and shake so cloves sink into chicken fat. Add chicken, \u00bd of thyme sprigs, remaining \u00bd teaspoon kosher salt, and black pepper. Pour in water, and bring to a boil.\n\n4 Lock on the lid, and bring pressure to level 2 (traditional)\/high (electric). Reduce heat to low, and cook at 2\/high for 15 minutes. Remove from (traditional)\/turn off (electric) heat, perform a cold water (traditional)\/quick (electric) release, and remove the lid.\n\n5 Transfer chicken to a platter, and top with garlic cloves and jus. Remove thyme leaves from remaining stems, sprinkle leaves over chicken, and serve.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 430\n\nCarbohydrates: 10g\n\nSugars: 0g\n\nDietary fiber: 1g\n\nProtein: 52g\n\nFat: 19g\n\nCholesterol: 170mg\n\nSodium: 1,120mg\nThai-Style Green Curry Chicken\n\nRich with coconut milk and exotic from the green curry paste, this green curry chicken is far better than any take-out version.\n\nIngredients\n\n1 TB. vegetable oil\n\n2\u00bd lb. (1.25kg) skinless chicken thighs, legs, and breasts (breasts halved crosswise if large)\n\n1 (1-in; 2.5cm) piece fresh ginger, peeled and minced (1 TB.)\n\n1 TB. minced garlic\n\n3 TB. green curry paste\n\n\u00bd cup homemade or sodium-free chicken stock\n\n3 TB. fish sauce\n\n2 medium carrots, peeled and cut into \u00be-in. (2cm) pieces (\u00be cup)\n\n1 small red onion, cut into wedges (\u00be cup)\n\n4 medium red potatoes, halved (2 cups)\n\n1 (14.5-oz.; 410g) can coconut milk\n\n1 medium zucchini, cut into \u00be-in. (1.25cm) rounds\n\n1 medium yellow crookneck squash, cut into \u00be-in. (1.25cm) rounds\n\n2 large limes, quartered\n\nCooked rice noodles or rice, hot\n\n2 serrano chiles, thinly sliced\n\n\u00bc cup fresh mint leaves, torn\n\n\u00bc cup fresh Thai basil leaves, torn\n\n\u00bc cup fresh cilantro leaves\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 In a 6-quart (5.5l) pressure cooker set to medium-high (traditional)\/high (electric) heat, heat vegetable oil. When hot, add chicken without crowding, and brown on both sides for 4 minutes. (You might need to do this in batches.)\n\n2 Add ginger, garlic, and green curry paste, and stir until spices become aromatic.\n\n3 Add chicken stock, fish sauce, carrots, red onion, and red potatoes. Gently stir, and bring to a boil.\n\n4 Lock on the lid, and bring pressure to level 2 (traditional)\/high (electric). Reduce heat to low, and cook at 2\/high for 10 minutes. Remove from (traditional)\/turn off (electric) heat, perform a cold water (traditional)\/quick (electric) release, and remove the lid.\n\n5 Transfer chicken to a platter.\n\n6 Add coconut milk, zucchini, and yellow crookneck squash to the cooker. Set heat to medium (traditional)\/high (electric), and simmer for about 5 minutes or until squashes are tender.\n\n7 Pull chicken meat off bones, return chicken to the cooker along with juice of \u00bd of lime, and stir. Taste, and adjust seasoning as necessary by adding fish sauce and lime juice a little at a time.\n\n8 Serve over hot rice noodles topped with serrano chiles, mint, Thai basil, and cilantro.\n\nFor a hotter curry, add another chopped serrano chile along with the chicken.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 510\n\nCarbohydrates: 30g\n\nSugars: 3g\n\nDietary fiber: 4g\n\nProtein: 46g\n\nFat: 23g\n\nCholesterol: 135mg\n\nSodium: 920mg\n\nChinese Red Cooked Chicken\n\nRed cooked dishes such as this are simple and satisfying, and they exemplify the flavors of Chinese food.\n\nIngredients\n\n2 whole star anise\n\n1 (3-in.; 7.5cm) cinnamon stick\n\n4 cups homemade or sodium-free vegetable stock\n\n\u00bc cup soy sauce\n\n1 medium yellow onion, cut into 6 wedges (1 cup)\n\n1 (1-in; 2.5cm) piece fresh ginger, peeled and minced (1 TB.)\n\n1 TB. minced garlic\n\n1 TB. brown sugar\n\n2 TB. Chinese rice wine, dry sherry, or sake\n\n1 (3\u00bd-lb.; 1.75kg) whole chicken, cut into 10 pieces (breasts halved crosswise if large)\n\n12 oz. (340g) extra-firm tofu, cut into \u00bd\u00d72\u00d72-in. (1.25\u00d75\u00d75cm) slabs\n\n2 medium carrots, peeled and sliced in ribbons (1\u00bd cups)\n\n1 large green onions, cut into thin rings (\u00bc cup)\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 In a 6-quart (5.5l) pressure cooker, combine star anise, cinnamon stick, vegetable stock, soy sauce, yellow onion, ginger, garlic, brown sugar, and Chinese rice wine. Set heat to medium-high (traditional)\/high (electric), and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to a simmer, and cook for 15 minutes.\n\n2 Add chicken, increase heat to medium-high\/high, and return to a boil.\n\n3 Lock on the lid, bring pressure to level 2 (traditional)\/high (electric), and cook for 13 minutes. Remove from (traditional)\/turn off (electric) heat, perform a cold water (traditional)\/quick (electric) release, and remove the lid.\n\n4 Add tofu, gently stir into broth, and warm for 5 minutes.\n\n5 Remove cinnamon stick and star anise. Place a piece of chicken and a couple slabs tofu on a plate, ladle hot broth over chicken, and top with carrot ribbons and green onions. Serve with a scoop of hot rice if desired.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 610\n\nCarbohydrates: 17g\n\nSugars: 8g\n\nDietary fiber: 4g\n\nProtein: 94g\n\nFat: 15g\n\nCholesterol: 255mg\n\nSodium: 1,020mg\nHungarian Pork Goulash\n\nOriginally a herdsman's meal, this popular comfort food dish can be made with beef, pork, or lamb.\n\nIngredients\n\n2\u00bd lb. (1.25kg) boneless country-style pork ribs, cubed\n\n2\u00bd tsp. kosher salt\n\n1 large red bell pepper, ribs and seeds removed, and thinly sliced (1 cup)\n\n1 medium yellow onion, thinly sliced (1 cup)\n\n3 medium russet potatoes, peeled and cut into 1-in. (2.5cm) chunks (1\u00bd cups)\n\n4 cloves garlic, chopped\n\n2 heaping tsp. paprika\n\n1\u00bd tsp. caraway seeds, crushed\n\n1 tsp. dried marjoram\n\n\u00bc tsp. freshly ground black pepper\n\n2 TB. red wine vinegar\n\n1\u00bd cups tomato pur\u00e9e\n\n1 cup water\n\n1 TB. fresh flat-leaf parsley, minced\n\n1 cup sour cream\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 Season pork ribs with 1\u00bd teaspoons kosher salt, and set aside until salt is absorbed.\n\n2 In a 6-quart (5.5l) pressure cooker set heat to medium-high (traditional)\/high (electric), brown \u00bd of pork cubes on all sides for 4 minutes. Transfer browned pork to a plate, repeat with remaining pork, and transfer rest of browned pork to the plate.\n\n3 Add red bell pepper, yellow onion, russet potatoes, and garlic to the cooker. Stir, and cook for 5 minutes or until vegetables begin to soften.\n\n4 Add browned pork, paprika, caraway seeds, marjoram, black pepper, remaining 1 teaspoon salt, and red wine vinegar, and stir.\n\n5 Stir in tomato pur\u00e9e and water, and bring to a boil.\n\n6 Lock on the lid, bring pressure to level 2 (traditional)\/high (electric), and cook for 18 minutes. Remove from (traditional)\/turn off (electric) heat, perform your preferred release, and remove the lid.\n\n7 Stir in \u00bd of flat-leaf parsley.\n\n8 Ladle goulash into bowls, top with a dollop of sour cream and a sprinkle of remaining parsley, and serve.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 310\n\nCarbohydrates: 14g\n\nSugars: 5g\n\nDietary fiber: 2g\n\nProtein: 31g\n\nFat: 14g\n\nCholesterol: 110mg\n\nSodium: 920mg\nBelgian Ale\u2013Braised Pork Loin with Mustard\n\nThis pork loin cooks up juicy and tender, the Belgian beer brings another layer of flavor, and the mustard sauce is the perfect complement.\n\nIngredients\n\n1 TB. vegetable oil\n\n1 (2\u00bd-lb.; 1.75kg) pork loin\n\n\u00bd small yellow onion, minced (\u2153 cup)\n\n1 TB. minced garlic\n\n1 pinch kosher salt\n\n\u00bd tsp. freshly ground white pepper\n\n1 cup Belgian farmhouse ale or dry white wine\n\n1 TB. Dusseldorf or Dijon mustard\n\n\u00bc cup heavy cream (optional)\n\n1 TB. fresh parsley, minced\n\n1 TB. fresh chives, minced\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 In a 6-quart (5.5l) pressure cooker set to medium-high (traditional)\/high (electric) heat, heat vegetable oil, gently swirling the pan to coat. When hot, add pork loin and brown on all sides for 5 minutes. (Reduce heat if necessary to keep oil from burning.)\n\n2 Add yellow onion, garlic, kosher salt, and white pepper, and cook for 1 minute or until vegetables begin to soften.\n\n3 Add Belgian farmhouse ale and Dusseldorf mustard, and cook for 2 minutes or until foam subsides and liquid comes to a boil.\n\n4 Lock on the lid, bring pressure to level 2 (traditional)\/high (electric), and cook for 30 minutes. Remove from (traditional)\/turn off (electric) heat, perform a cold water (traditional)\/quick (electric) release, and remove the lid.\n\n5 Transfer pork to a cutting board, and cover with aluminum foil.\n\n6 Return the cooker to medium-high\/high heat, bring sauce to a boil, and cook for 5 minutes or until thickened and reduced by \u2153. Taste, and adjust seasoning as necessary.\n\n7 Add heavy cream (if using), and cook for 2 minutes or until sauce reaches your desired consistency.\n\n8 Slice pork into thin slices, and arrange on a platter. Drizzle sauce over top, garnish with parsley and chives, and serve.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 300\n\nCarbohydrates: 3g\n\nSugars: 0g\n\nDietary fiber: 0g\n\nProtein: 40g\n\nFat: 10g\n\nCholesterol: 135mg\n\nSodium: 480mg\n\nPork Grillades\n\nThis Cajun comfort food dish features bell peppers, celery, and onions, the classic trinity flavor popular in Louisiana.\n\nIngredients\n\n4 (12-oz.; 340g) bone-in pork butt steaks, cut about \u00be in. (2cm) thick\n\n1 tsp. kosher salt\n\n1 TB. Cajun seasoning or to taste\n\n1 TB. vegetable oil\n\n1 large yellow onion, diced small (1 cup)\n\n\u00bd cup red bell pepper, diced small\n\n\u00bd cup green bell pepper, diced small\n\n2 medium stalks celery, diced small (\u00bd cup)\n\n1\u00bc cups water or homemade or sodium-free chicken broth\n\n\u00bc cup tomato sauce\n\n1 TB. Worcestershire sauce\n\nHot sauce\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 Season pork butt steaks on both sides with kosher salt followed by Cajun seasoning, and set aside until seasonings are absorbed.\n\n2 In a 6-quart (5.5l) pressure cooker set to medium-high (traditional)\/high (electric) heat, heat vegetable oil. When hot, add pork, in batches or one at a time, and sear for 4 minutes or until seasoning begins to blacken. Transfer seared pork to a plate, and repeat with remaining pork, transferring rest of browned pork to the plate. (Reduce heat if necessary to keep oil from burning.)\n\n3 Add yellow onion, red bell pepper, green bell pepper, and celery to the cooker, and saut\u00e9 for 3 minutes or until vegetables begin to soften.\n\n4 Return pork to the cooker. Add water, tomato sauce, and Worcestershire sauce, and bring to a boil.\n\n5 Lock on the lid, bring pressure to level 2 (traditional)\/high (electric), and cook for 12 minutes. Remove from (traditional)\/turn off (electric) heat, perform a quick release, and remove the lid.\n\n6 Serve with hot sauce on the side.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 290\n\nCarbohydrates: 4g\n\nSugars: 3g\n\nDietary fiber: 1g\n\nProtein: 38g\n\nFat: 12g\n\nCholesterol: 125mg\n\nSodium: 1,180mg\nSouthern-Style Pulled Pork\n\nThis pulled pork is tender, succulent, and juicy and cooks quickly, thanks to your pressure cooker.\n\nIngredients\n\n1 TB. brown sugar\n\n1\u00bd TB. kosher salt\n\n1 (3-lb.; 1.5kg) bone-in pork butt roast\n\n2 tsp. canola oil\n\n1 cup homemade or sodium-free chicken stock\n\n1 tsp. hickory-flavored liquid smoke\n\n1 cup barbecue sauce\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 In a small bowl, combine brown sugar and kosher salt.\n\n2 Rub pork butt roast all over with brown sugar and salt mixture, and refrigerate overnight to cure.\n\n3 In a 6-quart (5.5l) pressure cooker set to medium-high (traditional)\/high (electric) heat, heat canola oil, gently swirling the cooker to coat. Add pork, and brown on all sides for 5 minutes.\n\n4 Add chicken stock and liquid smoke, and bring to a boil.\n\n5 Lock on the lid, and bring pressure to level 2 (traditional)\/high (electric). Reduce heat to low, and cook at 2\/high for 45 minutes. Remove from (traditional)\/turn off (electric) heat, perform a natural release, and remove the lid.\n\n6 Transfer pork to a plate, and shred using 2 forks. Add to a bowl, season with _jus_ from the cooker, and add barbecue sauce.\n\n7 Serve as is, on a bun, or stuffed into taco shells.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 310\n\nCarbohydrates: 17g\n\nSugars: 14g\n\nDietary fiber: 0g\n\nProtein: 31g\n\nFat: 12g\n\nCholesterol: 100mg\n\nSodium: 1,920mg\nPork Vindaloo\n\nThis wonderful Indian stew blends sweet and sour flavors. Increase the spice if you like by adding a dried hot chile or two while the stew cooks.\n\nIngredients\n\n2 lb. (1kg) country-style pork ribs, cut into 1-in. (2.5cm) cubes\n\n\u00bd tsp ground coriander\n\n\u00bd tsp. ground cumin\n\n\u00bd tsp. ground mustard seeds\n\n\u00bc tsp. ground cloves\n\n\u00bd tsp. turmeric\n\n1 tsp. kosher salt\n\n\u2153 cup white vinegar\n\n\u00bc cup vegetable oil\n\n2 medium yellow onions, chopped (1\u00bd cups)\n\n3 TB. minced garlic\n\n1 cup tomato sauce\n\n1 TB. brown sugar\n\n1 small red onion, thinly sliced (\u00bd cup)\n\n2 large limes, 1 quartered and 1 halved\n\n2 medium green onions, sliced into thin rings (\u2153 cup)\n\n\u2153 cup fresh cilantro, coarsely chopped\n\n1 Fresno or jalape\u00f1o chile, sliced\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 In a large bowl, combine pork, coriander, cumin, mustard seeds, cloves, turmeric, and kosher salt. Add white vinegar, and stir to combine. Set aside for 1 hour, or refrigerate for up to 6 hours.\n\n2 Drain pork, and reserve marinade.\n\n3 In a 6-quart (5.5l) pressure cooker set to medium-high (traditional)\/high (electric) heat, heat vegetable oil. Add pork, and brown generously on all sides for 5 minutes. Transfer browned pork to the large bowl.\n\n4 Add yellow onions to the cooker, and cook for 3 or 4 minutes to soften.\n\n5 Add garlic, and cook for 30 seconds or until fragrant.\n\n6 Add tomato sauce, pork, reserved marinade, and brown sugar. Stir to combine, and bring to a boil.\n\n7 Lock on the lid, and bring pressure to level 2 (traditional)\/high (electric). Reduce heat to low, and cook at 2\/high for 25 minutes. Remove from (traditional)\/turn off (electric) heat, perform a quick release, and remove the lid.\n\n8 In a small bowl, place red onion. Squeeze juice from halved lime over top, and toss to combine.\n\n9 Stir stew, taste, and add more kosher salt as necessary. Serve topped with 1 lime wedge, pickled red onions, green onions, cilantro, and Fresno chile.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 330\n\nCarbohydrates: 10g\n\nSugars: 6g\n\nDietary fiber: 2g\n\nProtein: 31g\n\nFat: 19g\n\nCholesterol: 100mg\n\nSodium: 730mg\n\nPork Posole\n\nThis traditional Mexican stew features yellow hominy, a corn-based ingredient. If you can find Mexican oregano, use it for a more authentic flavor.\n\nIngredients\n\n1 lb. (450g) tomatillos, outer paper skins removed\n\n2 TB. lard or olive oil\n\n1 (2\u00bd-lb.; 1.25kg) pork shoulder, cut into 1-in. (2.5cm) cubes\n\n1 medium yellow onion, diced small (1 cup)\n\n\u00bc cup coarsely chopped garlic\n\n2 tsp. dried oregano\n\n1 TB. dark chili powder\n\n1 TB. tomato paste\n\n1 tsp. kosher salt\n\n\u00bc tsp. freshly ground black pepper\n\nWater\n\n1 (14.5-oz.; 410g) can yellow hominy\n\n\u00bc cup fresh cilantro, chopped\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 Preheat the broiler.\n\n2 Place tomatillos on a baking sheet, and broil for 4 minutes or until blackened. Turn over, and blacken other side. (Tomatillos will wilt and collapse on themselves.)\n\n3 In a 4-quart (4l) pressure cooker set to medium-high (traditional)\/high (electric) heat, heat lard. When hot, add \u00bd of pork. Brown on all sides for 4 minutes, transfer browned pork to a plate, repeat with remaining pork, and transfer rest of browned pork to the plate. (Reduce heat if necessary to avoid burning.)\n\n4 Add yellow onion to the cooker, stir, and cook for about 5 minutes or until it wilts.\n\n5 Add tomatillos and their juice, garlic, oregano, dark chili powder, and tomato paste, and stir.\n\n6 Return pork and its juice to the cooker, and add kosher salt and black pepper. Add enough water to come up to top edge of meat, and bring to a boil.\n\n7 Lock on the lid, bring pressure to level 2 (traditional)\/high (electric), and cook for 15 minutes. Turn off heat, let pork sit for 5 minutes, perform a quick release, and remove the lid.\n\n8 Add yellow hominy and cilantro, set heat to medium (traditional)\/high (electric), and cook for 4 minutes or until hominy is warm. Taste, and adjust kosher salt and pepper as necessary.\n\n9 Serve in bowls alongside fresh cilantro and your favorite toppings (like shredded cabbage, lime wedges, thinly sliced red onion, sour cream, and shredded Monterey jack cheese).\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 610\n\nCarbohydrates: 63g\n\nSugars: 5g\n\nDietary fiber: 6g\n\nProtein: 48g\n\nFat: 20g\n\nCholesterol: 135mg\n\nSodium: 530mg\nOne-Pot Sausage, Potatoes, and Greens\n\nThis one-dish meal is hearty and filling. The recipe comes together surprisingly fast in your pressure cooker and doesn't require a lot of cleanup.\n\nIngredients\n\n1\u00bd cups homemade or sodium-free vegetable or chicken broth\n\n\u00bd tsp. crushed red pepper flakes (optional)\n\n\u00be tsp. kosher salt\n\n8 cups mixed collard, turnip, kale, and mustard greens, stems removed and chopped\n\n8 medium red potatoes, skin on and scrubbed\n\n2 (8-oz.; 225g) smoked sausages or kielbasa\n\nFreshly ground black pepper\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 In a 6-quart (5.5l) pressure cooker, combine vegetable broth, crushed red pepper flakes (if using), and \u00bd teaspoon kosher salt. Set heat to medium-high (traditional)\/high (electric), and bring to a boil.\n\n2 Add mixed greens, and using a pair of tongs, turn greens to coat with broth.\n\n3 Place red potatoes on top of greens, and add sausage on top of potatoes. Season with remaining \u00bc teaspoon kosher salt, and bring to a boil.\n\n4 Lock on the lid, and bring pressure to level 2 (traditional)\/high (electric). Reduce heat to low, and cook at 2\/high for 10 minutes. Remove from (traditional)\/turn off (electric) heat, perform a cold water (traditional)\/quick (electric) release, and remove the lid.\n\n5 Spoon greens and some broth onto a platter, and top with potatoes.\n\n6 Cut sausages into serving-size pieces, and arrange among potatoes. Season with a few grinds of black pepper, and serve.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 570\n\nCarbohydrates: 53g\n\nSugars: 6g\n\nDietary fiber: 7g\n\nProtein: 20g\n\nFat: 31g\n\nCholesterol: 75mg\n\nSodium: 1,530mg\nAsian Steamed Fish\n\nThis delicious, deeply flavored fish dish is light and comes together quickly and easily.\n\nIngredients\n\n1 small shallot, minced (1 TB.)\n\n1 (1-in; 2.5cm) piece fresh ginger, peeled and minced (1 TB.)\n\n1 TB. minced garlic\n\n2 tsp. sugar\n\n2 TB. soy sauce\n\n2 TB. sake, rice wine, or dry sherry\n\n\u00be cup water\n\n2 (1-lb.; 450g) fillet tilapia, cut into 1-in. (2.5cm) cubes\n\n1 cup napa cabbage, shredded thinly\n\n1 medium carrot, peeled and cut into thin ribbons (1 cup)\n\n2 TB. chopped fresh chives\n\n\u00bc cup fresh snow peas, chopped\n\n\u00bc cup frozen edamame, thawed\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 In a 4-quart (4l) pressure cooker, combine shallot, ginger, garlic, sugar, soy sauce, sake, and water. Set heat to medium-high (traditional)\/high (electric), bring to a boil, and immediately add tilapia in a single layer to ensure even cooking.\n\n2 Lock on the lid, and bring pressure to level 1 (traditional)\/low (electric). Turn off heat, and let fish sit for 30 seconds. Perform a cold water (traditional)\/quick (electric) release, and remove the lid.\n\n3 Using a slotted spoon, gently transfer fish to a bowl.\n\n4 To serve, pour broth over fish, and top with napa cabbage, carrot ribbons, chives, snow peas, and edamame.\n\nAny fish works for this dish, but mahimahi, cod, sea bass, or even shrimp would be delicious. Remember, larger pieces might require a slightly longer cook time.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 270\n\nCarbohydrates: 7g\n\nSugars: 4g\n\nDietary fiber: 1g\n\nProtein: 48g\n\nFat: 4.5g\n\nCholesterol: 115mg\n\nSodium: 790mg\n\nSalmon en Papillote\n\nThis recipe is very simple to prepare, thanks to your pressure cooker. Use fresh, good-quality ingredients to produce a delicious final dish.\n\nIngredients\n\n2 (7-oz.; 200g) fillets salmon\n\n\u00bd tsp. kosher salt\n\n\u215b tsp. freshly ground black pepper\n\n1 small stalk celery, diced small (\u00bc cup)\n\n5 thin slices yellow onion (\u00bc cup)\n\n1 medium carrot, peeled and cut into paper-thin rounds (\u00bd cup)\n\n2 slices lemon\n\n2 tsp. fresh flat-leaf parsley, minced\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 Add a steamer basket to a 4-quart (4l) pressure cooker, and fill with the minimum amount of water allowed for your cooker.\n\n2 Place a 10\u00d710-inch (25\u00d725cm) piece of aluminum foil on your counter, and drizzle 1 teaspoon olive oil over top. Place salmon on the foil with a bit of space between fillets.\n\n3 Season salmon on both sides with kosher salt and black pepper. Scatter celery, yellow onion, and carrot over salmon, and top each piece with 1 lemon slice.\n\n4 Place another 10\u00d710-inch (25\u00d725cm) piece of foil on top of the first, and crimp tightly at the edges. Add foil packet to the steamer basket, set heat to medium-high (traditional)\/high (electric), and bring to a boil.\n\n5 Lock on the lid, bring pressure to level 2 (traditional)\/high (electric), and cook for 7 minutes. Remove from (traditional)\/turn off (electric) heat, perform a cold water (traditional)\/quick (electric) release, and remove the lid.\n\n6 Transfer foil packet to a plate, carry to the table, and open the packet tableside for a bit of flourish. Serve topped with vegetables and garnished with flat-leaf parsley.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 510\n\nCarbohydrates: 6g\n\nSugars: 3g\n\nDietary fiber: 2g\n\nProtein: 40g\n\nFat: 35g\n\nCholesterol: 100mg\n\nSodium: 610mg\nFish Curry\n\nThe spicy Indian sauce in this quick and easy fish dish is incredible and complements the tilapia quite nicely.\n\nIngredients\n\n2 TB. unsalted butter\n\n1 large yellow onion, thinly sliced (1\u00bc cups)\n\n1 TB. minced garlic\n\n1 (1-in; 2.5cm) piece fresh ginger, peeled and minced (1 TB.)\n\n3 TB. tomato paste\n\n2 tsp. curry powder\n\n\u00bd cup tomato sauce\n\n\u00bd cup water\n\n1 (1\u00bd-lb.; 680g) fillet tilapia, cut into 1-in. (2.5cm) cubes\n\n\u2153 cup plain yogurt\n\n4 cherry tomatoes, quartered\n\n\u00bc small head cauliflower florets, shaved (\u2154 cup)\n\n\u00bc cup fresh cilantro, chopped\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 In a 4-quart (4l) pressure cooker set to medium-high (traditional)\/high (electric) heat, melt unsalted butter. Add yellow onion, and saut\u00e9 for about 5 minutes or until golden brown.\n\n2 Add garlic, ginger, tomato paste, and curry powder. Stir, and cook for 30 seconds or until fragrant.\n\n3 Add tomato sauce and water, bring to a boil, and reduce heat to low. Simmer sauce for 5 minutes.\n\n4 Bring sauce back to a boil, and layer in tilapia in a single layer.\n\n5 Lock on the lid, and bring pressure to level 1 (traditional)\/low (electric). Immediately turn off heat, and let fish sit for 30 seconds. Perform a cold water (traditional)\/quick (electric) release, and remove the lid.\n\n6 Using a slotted spoon, transfer fish to a platter. Cover with foil to keep warm.\n\n7 Add yogurt to the cooker, stir, and warm at medium (traditional)\/low (electric) heat for 4 minutes.\n\n8 To serve, pour sauce over fish, and garnish with cherry tomatoes, cauliflower, and cilantro.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 270\n\nCarbohydrates: 11g\n\nSugars: 5g\n\nDietary fiber: 3g\n\nProtein: 37g\n\nFat: 9g\n\nCholesterol: 100mg\n\nSodium: 220mg\nThai Steamed Mussels\n\nThis recipe is a fantastic blend of spice and seafood. Serve with rice to soak up all the delicious sauce.\n\nIngredients\n\n4 lb. (2kg) mussels, rinsed\n\n3 cloves garlic, minced (1 TB.)\n\n1 tsp. cumin seed, crushed\n\n3 TB. red curry paste\n\n1\u00bd TB. Madras curry powder\n\n1 (10-oz.; 400ml) can coconut milk\n\n1 (8-oz.; 262.5ml) bottle clam juice\n\n1 TB. sugar\n\n\u00bd tsp. turmeric\n\n3 TB. fish sauce\n\n1 TB. freshly squeezed lime juice\n\n1 TB. tomato paste\n\n\u00bd medium yellow onion, diced fine (\u00bc cup)\n\n\u00bd cup fresh cilantro\n\n2 serrano chiles, thinly sliced\n\n2 medium green onions, white and green parts, sliced into thin rings (\u00bc cup)\n\n1 medium lime, quartered\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 Squeeze mussels, and discard any that don't close. Set aside.\n\n2 In a 6-quart (5.5l) pressure cooker, combine garlic, cumin, red curry paste, Madras curry powder, coconut milk, clam juice, sugar, turmeric, fish sauce, lime juice, tomato paste, and yellow onion. Set heat to medium-high (traditional)\/high (electric), and bring to a boil, whisking to break up any curry paste clumps.\n\n3 Add mussels, and return to a boil.\n\n4 Lock on the lid, bring pressure to level 1 (traditional)\/low (electric), and cook for 1 minute. Remove from (traditional)\/turn off (electric) heat, perform a cold water (traditional)\/quick (electric) release, and remove the lid.\n\n5 Stir mussels to coat in broth.\n\n6 Using a slotted spoon, transfer mussels to a deep platter. Pour broth over top, and garnish with cilantro, serrano chiles, and green onions. Serve with lime wedges on the side.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 560\n\nCarbohydrates: 26g\n\nSugars: 5g\n\nDietary fiber: 1g\n\nProtein: 57g\n\nFat: 25g\n\nCholesterol: 130mg\n\nSodium: 2,500mg\n\nBeer-Steamed Shrimp\n\nThis recipe produces seasoned, beer-steamed shrimp with East Coast flavors plus a little heat for good measure.\n\nIngredients\n\n1\u00bd cups American lager\n\n1 TB. pickling spice\n\n3 TB. minced garlic\n\n1 tsp. hot sauce\n\n2 lb. (1kg.) shell-on shrimp (size 26 to 30), thawed\n\n1 TB. fresh flat-leaf parsley, minced\n\n1 TB. Old Bay seasoning\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 In a 6-quart (5.5l) pressure cooker, combine American lager, pickling spice, garlic, and hot sauce. Set heat to medium-high (traditional)\/high (electric), and bring to a boil.\n\n2 Add shrimp, and return to a boil.\n\n3 Lock on the lid, bring pressure to level 2 (traditional)\/high (electric), and cook for 2 minutes. Remove from (traditional)\/turn off (electric) heat, perform a cold water (traditional)\/quick (electric) release, and remove the lid.\n\n4 Transfer shrimp to a bowl, and ladle some broth over top. Sprinkle flat-leaf parsley and Old Bay seasoning over top, and serve immediately with lots of cocktail sauce or remoulade.\n\nIf you can't find Old Bay seasoning, you can substitute any Cajun-style seasoning you like.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 290\n\nCarbohydrates: 7g\n\nSugars: 0g\n\nDietary fiber: 0g\n\nProtein: 47g\n\nFat: 4g\n\nCholesterol: 350mg\n\nSodium: 410mg\nCajun-Style Shrimp Jambalaya\n\nThis homey, one-pot dish full of shrimp, chicken, vegetables, and rice makes a quick, comforting meal.\n\nIngredients\n\n6 (5-oz.; 140g) chicken thighs\n\n1 tsp. kosher salt\n\n1 TB. vegetable oil\n\n1 medium yellow onion, diced small (1 cup)\n\n2 large stalks celery, diced small (\u00bd cup)\n\n1 small green bell pepper, ribs and seeds removed, and diced small (\u00bd cup)\n\n1 TB. minced garlic\n\n1\u00bd cups long-grain rice\n\n1 bay leaf\n\n\u00bd tsp. dried thyme\n\n2 cups homemade or sodium-free chicken or vegetable broth\n\n1 cup crushed tomatoes, with juice\n\n1 lb. (450g) raw shrimp (size 31 to 35), thawed if frozen, peeled, deveined, and drained\n\n1 TB. fresh flat-leaf parsley, minced\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 Season chicken thighs with \u00bd teaspoon kosher salt on all sides, and set aside until salt is absorbed.\n\n2 In a 6-quart (5.5l) pressure cooker set to medium-high (traditional)\/high (electric) heat, heat vegetable oil. When hot, add chicken, skin side down, and brown deeply on both sides for 4 minutes. Transfer to a plate.\n\n3 Add yellow onion, celery, and green bell pepper to the cooker. Stir, and cook for about 3 minutes or until vegetables soften.\n\n4 Add garlic, and cook for 30 seconds or until fragrant.\n\n5 Add long-grain rice, bay leaf, and thyme, and stir to coat. Add chicken broth, crushed tomatoes with juice, and remaining \u00bd teaspoon kosher salt. Swirl the cooker to distribute rice, and nestle chicken on top. Bring to a boil.\n\n6 Lock on the lid, bring pressure to level 2 (traditional)\/high (electric), and cook for 5 minutes. Remove from (traditional)\/turn off (electric) heat, perform a cold water (traditional)\/quick (electric) release, and remove the lid.\n\n7 Layer shrimp on top of rice, put lid back on, and cook for 6 minutes.\n\n8 Remove bay leaf. Stir in flat-leaf parsley, and serve hot.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 380\n\nCarbohydrates: 42g\n\nSugars: 3g\n\nDietary fiber: 3g\n\nProtein: 37g\n\nFat: 6g\n\nCholesterol: 185mg\n\nSodium: 490mg\n\nBasmati Rice Pilaf\n\nThe natural, nutty flavor of basmati rice becomes sweet when paired with yellow onion in this recipe, and the peas add color and texture.\n\nIngredients\n\n1 TB. unsalted butter\n\n1 medium yellow onion, diced small (\u00bd cup)\n\n1 cup basmati rice\n\n2 cups water\n\n\u00be cup frozen peas\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 In a 4-quart (4l) pressure cooker set to medium (traditional)\/high (electric) heat, melt unsalted butter.\n\n2 Add yellow onion, and cook for 8 minutes or until caramelized and brown.\n\n3 Add basmati rice and water, stir gently, and bring to a boil.\n\n4 Lock on the lid, and bring pressure to level 2 (traditional)\/high (electric). Reduce heat to low, and cook at 2\/high for 5 minutes. Remove from (traditional)\/turn off (electric) heat, perform a quick release, and remove the lid.\n\n5 Add peas, and stir with a fork to fluff rice and mix in peas. Place the lid back on the cooker, and let pilaf sit for at least 8 minutes to cook peas. Serve hot.\n\nFor an authentic Spanish side dish, add some saffron. Or stir in a pinch of cardamom and some almonds and serve alongside an Indian curry.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 210\n\nCarbohydrates: 41g\n\nSugars: 4g\n\nDietary fiber: 3g\n\nProtein: 5g\n\nFat: 3.5g\n\nCholesterol: 10mg\n\nSodium:480mg\n\nDirty Oats with Lentils\n\nReminiscent of Cajun dirty rice, this hearty lentils and oats dish is wonderful served alongside chicken or any braised or roasted meat entr\u00e9e.\n\nIngredients\n\n1\u00bd TB. vegetable oil\n\n1 large yellow onion, diced small (1\u00bc cups)\n\n1 TB. minced garlic\n\n\u00bd tsp. kosher salt\n\n\u00be cup whole or steel-cut oats\n\n\u00be cup du Puy lentils\n\n1 TB. dried sage\n\n\u00be tsp. freshly ground black pepper\n\n\u00bc tsp. allspice\n\n\u215b tsp. ground nutmeg\n\n3 cups homemade or sodium-free vegetable broth\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 In a 4-quart (4l) pressure cooker set to medium-high (traditional)\/high (electric) heat, heat vegetable oil. Add yellow onion, and saut\u00e9 for about 3 minutes or until soft.\n\n2 Add garlic, and cook for 30 seconds or until fragrant.\n\n3 Add kosher salt, whole oats, du Puy lentils, sage, black pepper, allspice, and nutmeg, and stir to coat. Add vegetable broth, and bring to a boil.\n\n4 Lock on the lid, and bring pressure to level 2 (traditional)\/high (electric). Reduce heat to low, and cook at 2\/high for 12 minutes. Remove from (traditional)\/turn off (electric) heat, perform a cold water (traditional)\/quick (electric) release, and remove the lid.\n\n5 Stir, taste and add seasoning as necessary, and serve.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 250\n\nCarbohydrates: 38g\n\nSugars: 4g\n\nDietary fiber: 8g\n\nProtein: 10g\n\nFat: 7g\n\nCholesterol: 0mg\n\nSodium: 350mg\nWild Rice\n\nThe nuttiness of wild rice is enhanced by the flavors of shallots and parsley in this quick and easy dish.\n\nIngredients\n\n4 cups water\n\n1 cup wild rice\n\n2 tsp. unsalted butter\n\n1 medium shallot, minced (2 TB.)\n\n1 TB. fresh flat-leaf parsley, minced\n\n\u00bd tsp. kosher salt\n\n\u215b tsp. freshly ground black pepper\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 In a 4-quart (4l) pressure cooker, combine water and wild rice. Set heat to medium-high (traditional)\/high (electric), and bring to a boil.\n\n2 Lock on the lid, bring pressure to level 2 (traditional)\/high (electric), and cook for 20 minutes. Remove from (traditional)\/turn off (electric) heat, perform a cold water (traditional)\/quick (electric) release, and remove the lid.\n\n3 Stir in unsalted butter, shallot, flat-leaf parsley, kosher salt, and black pepper. Taste, add more kosher salt as necessary, and serve.\n\nFor additional texture and flavor, add some toasted pecans before serving.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 160\n\nCarbohydrates: 31g\n\nSugars: 1g\n\nDietary fiber: 3g\n\nProtein: 6g\n\nFat: 2.5g\n\nCholesterol: 5mg\n\nSodium: 240mg\nAsparagus and Sun-Dried Tomato Risotto\n\nIn this risotto, crisp asparagus and sun-dried tomatoes pair perfectly with creamy rice.\n\nIngredients\n\n2 TB. olive oil\n\n2 thin slices prosciutto\n\n1 TB. minced garlic\n\n1 cup arborio rice\n\n\u00bc cup dry white wine\n\n3 cups homemade or sodium-free vegetable stock\n\n12 spears asparagus, tips left whole and stems cut into thin rounds (\u00be cup)\n\n\u2153 cup sun-dried tomatoes in oil, drained and chopped\n\n2 TB. unsalted butter\n\n\u00bd cup grated Parmesan cheese\n\n1 TB. fresh chives, minced\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 In a 4-quart (4l) pressure cooker set to medium-high (traditional)\/high (electric) heat, heat olive oil. Lay prosciutto in oil as if you were frying bacon, and cook on both sides for 3 minutes or until brown and crispy. Transfer prosciutto to a paper towel\u2013lined plate.\n\n2 Add garlic to the pressure cooker, and saut\u00e9 for about 15 seconds or until aromatic. Add arborio rice, and stir to coat.\n\n3 Add dry white wine, and burn off alcohol for about 30 seconds. Add vegetable stock, and bring to a boil.\n\n4 Lock on the lid, bring pressure to level 1 (traditional)\/low (electric), and cook for 7 minutes. Remove from (traditional)\/turn off (electric) heat, perform a cold water (traditional)\/quick (electric) release, and remove the lid.\n\n5 Meanwhile, chop prosciutto into crumbles.\n\n6 Add asparagus, sun-dried tomatoes, unsalted butter, and Parmesan cheese to the cooker, and stir. Taste, and add more kosher salt as necessary.\n\n7 Serve topped with prosciutto crumbles and chives.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 400\n\nCarbohydrates: 45g\n\nSugars: 5g\n\nDietary fiber: 4g\n\nProtein: 13g\n\nFat: 18g\n\nCholesterol: 30mg\n\nSodium: 610mg\n\nRisotto Milanese\n\nIn this recipe, your pressure cooker produces a creamy, brothy, flavorful risotto quickly and without fuss.\n\nIngredients\n\n2 tsp. unsalted butter\n\n1 small yellow onion, diced fine (\u00bd cup)\n\n\u00bc cup dry white wine\n\n1 cup arborio rice\n\n\u00bc tsp. kosher salt\n\n2\u00be cups homemade or sodium-free chicken or vegetable stock, hot\n\n\u00bd tsp. saffron threads\n\n2 TB. unsalted butter, chilled\n\n\u00bd cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese\n\n1 TB. fresh chives, chopped\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 In a 4-quart (4l) pressure cooker set to medium-high (traditional)\/high (electric) heat, melt unsalted butter. When it begins to bubble, add yellow onion, and saut\u00e9 for about 3 minutes or until soft.\n\n2 Add white wine, and cook until reduced by half.\n\n3 Add arborio rice, and stir to coat. Add kosher salt, chicken stock, and saffron threads, and bring to a boil.\n\n4 Lock on the lid, bring pressure to level 2 (traditional)\/high (electric), and cook for 7 minutes. Remove from (traditional)\/turn off (electric) heat, perform a cold water (traditional)\/quick (electric) release, and remove the lid.\n\n5 Stir in chilled unsalted butter followed by Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese. If risotto is stiff, add more hot broth 1 tablespoon at a time. Garnish with chives, and serve.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 320\n\nCarbohydrates: 39g\n\nSugars: 1g\n\nDietary fiber: 1g\n\nProtein: 11g\n\nFat: 12g\n\nCholesterol: 40mg\n\nSodium: 660mg\nJamaican-Style Rice and Peas\n\nCoconut milk gives this gluten-free rice dish an exotic flavor, and black-eyed peas keep it earthy.\n\nIngredients\n\n1 cup medium-grain rice\n\n1 cup water\n\n1 cup coconut milk\n\n\u00bc tsp. kosher salt\n\n\u00bd cup black-eyed or pigeon peas, washed, picked over, soaked overnight, and drained\n\n\u00bc cup fresh cilantro, minced\n\n2 medium green onions, chopped (\u00bc cup)\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 In a 4-quart (4l) pressure cooker, combine medium-grain rice, water, coconut milk, kosher salt, and black-eyed peas. Set heat to medium-high (traditional)\/high (electric), and bring to a boil.\n\n2 Lock on the lid, bring pressure to level 2 (traditional)\/high (electric), and cook for 5 minutes. Remove from (traditional)\/turn off (electric) heat, perform a cold water (traditional)\/quick (electric) release, and remove the lid.\n\n3 Fluff rice with a fork, add cilantro and green onions, fluff again, and serve.\n\nFor a Cuban-style one-pot meal, use black beans instead of the black-eyed peas and add some ham, sausage, or both.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 340\n\nCarbohydrates: 49g\n\nSugars: 0g\n\nDietary fiber: 5g\n\nProtein: 8g\n\nFat: 13g\n\nCholesterol: 0mg\n\nSodium: 220mg\nSteamed Brown Bread with Raisins\n\nThis slightly sweet brown bread is great at breakfast with a bit of butter and fruit jam, especially Swedish lingonberry jam.\n\nIngredients\n\n1 cup whole-wheat flour\n\n\u00bd cup cornmeal\n\n\u00bd tsp. baking powder\n\n\u00bd tsp. baking soda\n\n\u00bd tsp. kosher salt\n\n1 cup buttermilk\n\n\u00bd cup molasses\n\n\u2153 cup raisins\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 In a large bowl, combine whole-wheat flour, cornmeal, baking powder, baking soda, and kosher salt. Add buttermilk and molasses, and stir gently to combine. Stir in raisins.\n\n2 Butter the inside of an asparagus can with one open end, and add dough to the can, tapping it on the counter as you go to avoid any large air bubbles in dough. When all dough is in the can, gently push down on dough with a spoon and jiggle the can to remove more bubbles. Place a piece of aluminum foil over the top of the can, and secure it tightly with a rubber band.\n\n3 Add a trivet to the bottom of a 8-quart (7.5l) pressure cooker (be sure the can will fit inside with the lid on), and fill with the minimum amount of water allowed for your cooker. Set heat to medium-high (traditional)\/high (electric), and bring to a boil.\n\n4 Lock on the lid, and bring pressure to level 2 (traditional)\/high (electric), and cook for 40 minutes. Remove from (traditional)\/turn off (electric) heat, let bread sit for 5 minutes, perform a quick release, and remove the lid.\n\n5 Transfer the can to a cooling rack, and cool completely before removing bread from the can.\n\n6 Slice, and serve.\n\nI use an empty asparagus can as my bread pan; two buttered soup cans would work, too. Just be sure one end is open and the other is closed.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 150\n\nCarbohydrates: 33g\n\nSugars: 14g\n\nDietary fiber: 2g\n\nProtein: 3g\n\nFat: 0g\n\nCholesterol: 0mg\n\nSodium: 220mg\n\nCrustless Sandwich Bread\n\nIf you don't like crusty bread, this recipe is for you. This crust-free bread is buttery, soft, and yeasty, perfect for grilled cheese sandwiches.\n\nIngredients\n\n7 fl. oz. (205ml) warm (90\u00b0F; 32\u00b0C) water\n\n\u00bd tsp. instant yeast\n\n\u00bd tsp. sugar\n\n\u00bd tsp. nonfat dry milk powder\n\n\u00bc tsp. kosher salt\n\n1\u00bd cups bread flour, plus more for dusting\n\n1 tsp. unsalted butter, softened\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 Add a trivet to a 6-quart (5.5l) pressure cooker, and fill with the minimum amount of water allowed for your cooker. Butter a 6-cup heatproof container.\n\n2 In a large bowl, whisk together warm water, instant yeast, sugar, dry milk powder, and kosher salt. Let mixture sit for 5 minutes or until milk powder dissolves.\n\n3 Add bread flour and softened unsalted butter, and using a wooden spoon, mix dough by moving the spoon in a circle until dough comes together and rolls around the bowl.\n\n4 Turn out dough onto the counter, and knead for 5 minutes or until soft and elastic. If it sticks to your hands, dust with flour.\n\n5 Place dough back in the bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and let rise in a warm, draft-free place for 1 hour or until doubled in size.\n\n6 Punch down dough, knead, shape into a ball, place in the prepared container, and cover tightly with plastic wrap. Allow bread to rise for 35 minutes or until doubled in size.\n\n7 Set the pressure cooker to medium (traditional)\/high (electric) heat, and bring to a boil. Add bread in container to the cooker.\n\n8 Lock on the lid, and bring pressure to level 2 (traditional)\/high (electric). Reduce heat to low, and cook at 2\/high for 20 minutes. Remove from (traditional)\/turn off (electric) heat, perform a natural release, and remove the lid.\n\n9 Lift bread out of the cooker, uncover, and shake bread out of the can onto a cooling rack. Cool completely before slicing and serving.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 130\n\nCarbohydrates: 25g\n\nSugars: 0g\n\nDietary fiber: 1g\n\nProtein: 4g\n\nFat: 1g\n\nCholesterol: 0mg\n\nSodium: 0mg\nCornbread\n\nThis tender and moist cornbread goes great with ham and beans, soups, and chilies and makes amazing ham sandwiches.\n\nIngredients\n\n2 cups yellow cornmeal\n\n\u2153 cup all-purpose flour\n\n1 tsp. kosher salt\n\n\u00bd tsp. baking soda\n\n\u00bd tsp. baking powder\n\n1 TB. sugar\n\n1\u00bd cups buttermilk\n\n2 large eggs\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 Add a trivet to a 6-quart (5.5l) pressure cooker, and fill with the minimum amount of water allowed for your cooker. Butter an 8-inch (20cm) cake pan with 2-inch (5cm) sides and a piece of aluminum foil large enough to cover the pan.\n\n2 In a large bowl, and using a wooden spoon, combine yellow cornmeal, all-purpose flour, kosher salt, baking soda, baking powder, and sugar. Add buttermilk and eggs, and mix until smooth. Pour batter into the prepared cake pan, cover with buttered foil (butter side down), and crimp edges tightly.\n\n3 Fold a long piece of foil lengthwise into a 2-inch (5cm) belt, tuck under the pan, and use the loose ends to lower the pan into the cooker. Set heat to medium (traditional)\/high (electric), and bring to a boil.\n\n4 Lock on the lid, bring pressure to level 2 (traditional)\/high (electric), and cook for 23 minutes. Remove from (traditional)\/turn off (electric) heat, perform a natural release, and remove the lid.\n\n5 Lift cake pan out of the cooker, cut bread cut into 8 pieces, and serve with lots of butter.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 220\n\nCarbohydrates: 39g\n\nSugars: 4g\n\nDietary fiber: 1g\n\nProtein: 6g\n\nFat: 3g\n\nCholesterol: 60mg\n\nSodium: 310mg\n\nLemon Pots de Cr\u00e8me\n\nThese lovely lemon pots, like crust-free lemon bars but creamier, are tart and refreshing.\n\nIngredients\n\n1\u00bd cups heavy cream\n\n\u2153 cup sugar\n\n1 tsp. lemon zest\n\n4 large egg yolks\n\nJuice of 2 large lemons (\u00bc cup)\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 Add a trivet and steamer basket to a 6-quart (5.5l) pressure cooker, and fill with the minimum amount of water allowed for your cooker.\n\n2 In a small saucepan over medium heat, combine heavy cream, sugar, and lemon zest. Bring to a simmer, stir for 2 minutes or until sugar is dissolved, and remove from heat.\n\n3 In a medium bowl, whisk egg yolks until smooth.\n\n4 While whisking, drizzle 1 cup hot cream into yolks. Keep whisking so heat of cream tempers but doesn't cook eggs. Continue to drizzle in rest of cream, and add lemon juice.\n\n5 Strain mixture into a 3-cup or larger measuring cup to remove lemon zest.\n\n6 Pour 4 ounces (120ml) mixture each into 5 (6-ounce; 175ml) ramekins. Cover ramekins tightly with aluminum foil, and place in the steamer basket, stacking in a pyramid if necessary to fit. Set heat to medium (traditional)\/high (electric), and bring to a boil.\n\n7 Lock on the lid, bring pressure to level 2 (traditional)\/high (electric), and cook for 10 minutes. Turn off heat, and let the ramekins sit for 10 minutes. Remove the lid.\n\n8 Lift out one ramekin, and remove the foil, being careful not to let any water fall on surface of cr\u00e8me. Gently shake ramekin. Cr\u00e8me should be firm; if it jiggles, re-cover, return to the cooker, lock on the lid, and cook at level 2\/high for 5 minutes.\n\n9 Transfer ramekins to a baking sheet, remove the foil, and refrigerate for 1 hour. Cover cr\u00e8me with plastic wrap or foil so it doesn't form a skin, and chill for at least 2 hours or overnight. Serve cold.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 340\n\nCarbohydrates: 13g\n\nSugars: 10g\n\nDietary fiber: 0g\n\nProtein: 4g\n\nFat: 31g\n\nCholesterol: 310mg\n\nSodium: 35mg\n\nChocolate Pots de Cr\u00e8me\n\nThis luscious custardlike dessert is reminiscent of a creamy, smooth brownie. It's rich and decadent.\n\nIngredients\n\n3 large egg yolks\n\n\u00be cup heavy cream\n\n\u00be cup whole milk\n\n1\u00bd TB. sugar\n\n4 oz. (110g) 72 percent dark chocolate\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 Add a trivet and steamer basket to a 6-quart (5.5l) pressure cooker, and fill with the minimum amount of water allowed for your cooker.\n\n2 In a medium bowl, whisk egg yolks until smooth.\n\n3 In a small saucepan over medium heat, combine heavy cream, whole milk, sugar, and dark chocolate. Bring to a simmer, and stir for 2 minutes or until sugar is dissolved, chocolate is melted, and liquid begins to bubble at the edges of the pan. Remove from heat.\n\n4 While whisking, add \u00bd cup hot chocolate to eggs. Keep whisking so heat of chocolate tempers but doesn't cook eggs. Continue to add rest of chocolate.\n\n5 Divide mixture among 4 (6-ounce; 175ml) ramekins. Cover each ramekin tightly with aluminum foil, and place in the steamer basket, stacking in a pyramid if necessary to fit. Set heat to medium (traditional)\/high (electric), and bring to a boil.\n\n6 Lock on the lid, bring pressure to level 2 (traditional)\/high (electric), and cook for 10 minutes. Turn off heat, and let the ramekins sit for 10 minutes. Remove the lid.\n\n7 Lift out one ramekin, and remove the foil, being careful not to let any water fall on surface of cr\u00e8me. Gently shake ramekin. Cr\u00e8me should be firm; if it jiggles, re-cover, return to the cooker, lock on the lid, and cook at level 2\/high for 5 minutes.\n\n8 Transfer ramekins to a baking sheet, remove the foil, and refrigerate for 1 hour. Cover cr\u00e8me with plastic wrap or foil so it doesn't form a skin, and chill for at least 2 hours or overnight. Serve cold, plain, with whipped cream, or with raspberries.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 390\n\nCarbohydrates: 26g\n\nSugars: 15g\n\nDietary fiber: 2g\n\nProtein: 6g\n\nFat: 31g\n\nCholesterol: 330mg\n\nSodium: 50mg\nMaple Cream Caramels\n\nThis sweet, maple syrup custard dessert is topped with a decadent brown sugar caramel sauce.\n\nIngredients\n\n4 large egg yolks\n\n\u2153 cup granulated sugar\n\n\u2153 cup brown sugar, firmly packed\n\n\u00bc cup water\n\n2 cups heavy cream\n\n\u00bd cup pure maple syrup\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 Add a trivet and steamer basket to a 6-quart (5.5l) pressure cooker, and add 2 cups water.\n\n2 In a medium bowl, whisk egg yolks until smooth.\n\n3 In a small saucepan over medium heat, combine granulated sugar, brown sugar, and water, and cook, without stirring, until amber at edges. Gently swirl or stir with a clean wooden spoon, and cook until caramel is dark amber. Immediately divide into 5 (4-ounce; 110g) ramekins, and let harden for at least 10 minutes.\n\n4 Carefully wash out hot saucepan. Add heavy cream and maple syrup, return to medium heat, and bring to a hard simmer. Remove from heat.\n\n5 While whisking, slowly drizzle \u00bd cup hot cream into yolks. Keep whisking so heat of cream tempers but doesn't cook eggs. Continue to drizzle in rest of cream.\n\n6 Divide custard mixture among ramekins, cover each ramekin tightly with aluminum foil, and place in the steamer basket, stacking ramekins in a pyramid if necessary to fit. Set heat to high (traditional)\/high (electric), and bring to a boil.\n\n7 Lock on the lid, and bring pressure to level 2 (traditional)\/high (electric). Reduce heat to low, and cook at 2\/high for 20 minutes. Turn off heat, and let caramels sit for 20 minutes. Remove the lid.\n\n8 Transfer ramekins to a cooling rack, and gently remove the foil, being careful not to let any water fall on surface of caramels. Refrigerate overnight.\n\n9 Run a thin-blade knife around the edge of ramekins, and invert onto a plate. Spread a kitchen towel on the counter, and sharply tap plate onto the towel to release custard from the ramekin. Serve cold.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 560\n\nCarbohydrates: 44g\n\nSugars: 40g\n\nDietary fiber: 0g\n\nProtein: 6g\n\nFat: 42g\n\nCholesterol: 410mg\n\nSodium: 50mg\nCr\u00e8me Br\u00fbl\u00e9e\n\nCracking a spoon through the burnt sugar topping of a good cr\u00e8me br\u00fbl\u00e9e, exposing the rich vanilla cream underneath, is a treat in itself.\n\nIngredients\n\n1 qt. (1l) heavy cream\n\n1 tsp. vanilla paste, vanilla extract, or seeds from 1 vanilla pod\n\n4 large egg yolks\n\n\u00be cup sugar\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 Add a trivet and steamer basket to a 6-quart (5.5l) pressure cooker, and fill with the minimum amount of water allowed for your cooker.\n\n2 In a medium saucepan over medium-high heat, bring heavy cream to a simmer.\n\n3 In a large bowl, whisk together vanilla paste, egg yolks, and \u00bd cup sugar.\n\n4 While whisking, drizzle 1 cup hot cream into egg mixture. Keep whisking so heat of cream tempers but doesn't cook eggs. Continue to drizzle in rest of cream. Skim off any foam on top of cr\u00e8me br\u00fbl\u00e9e.\n\n5 Pour 4 ounces (120ml) mixture each into 8 (6-ounce; 175ml) ramekins. Cover each ramekin tightly with aluminum foil, and place in the steamer basket, stacking ramekins in a pyramid if necessary to fit. Set heat to medium-high (traditional)\/high (electric), and bring to a boil.\n\n6 Lock on the lid, and bring pressure to level 2 (traditional)\/high (electric). Reduce heat to low, and cook at 2\/high for 15 minutes. Turn off heat, and let cr\u00e8me br\u00fbl\u00e9es sit for 10 minutes. Remove the lid.\n\n7 Lift out a ramekin, and remove the foil, being careful not to let any water fall on cr\u00e8me br\u00fbl\u00e9e. Gently shake ramekin. Cr\u00e8me br\u00fbl\u00e9e should be firm; if it jiggles, re-cover, return to the cooker, lock on the lid, and cook at level 2\/high for 10 minutes.\n\n8 Transfer ramekins to a baking sheet, remove the foil, and refrigerate for at least 3 hours. If refrigerating overnight, cover cr\u00e8me br\u00fbl\u00e9e with plastic wrap or foil so it doesn't form a skin.\n\n9 To serve, spoon 2 teaspoons sugar on top of each cr\u00e8me br\u00fbl\u00e9e, and gently shake to distribute. Using a kitchen torch or oven broiler, brown sugar. Serve immediately.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 500\n\nCarbohydrates: 17g\n\nSugars: 14g\n\nDietary fiber: 0g\n\nProtein: 5g\n\nFat: 48g\n\nCholesterol: 340mg\n\nSodium: 50mg\n\nCaribbean-Style Flan\n\nYour pressure cooker excels at making flan. The custard finishes with a smooth texture, a lovely vanilla note, and a deep caramel-coffee flavor.\n\nIngredients\n\n1\u00bc cups sugar\n\n\u00bc cup water\n\n1 (14-oz.; 400g) can sweetened, condensed milk\n\n2 cups whole milk\n\n3 large eggs\n\n2 tsp. vanilla paste, vanilla extract, or seeds from 1 vanilla pod\n\n\u215b tsp. kosher salt\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 Add a trivet to the bottom of a 6-quart (5.5l) pressure cooker. Add 2 cups water.\n\n2 In a medium saucepan over medium-high heat, combine sugar and water, and cook, without stirring, until amber at edges. Gently swirl, and cook until caramel is dark amber.\n\n3 Immediately pour caramel into an 8-inch (20cm) cake pan, and quickly but gently swirl pan to coat bottom with caramel. Set aside for at least 10 minutes.\n\n4 In a large bowl, whisk together condensed milk, whole milk, eggs, vanilla paste, and kosher salt. Using a fine mesh strainer, strain custard into cake pan to remove any undissolved egg whites. Cover the pan tightly with aluminum foil.\n\n5 Fold a long piece of foil lengthwise into a 2-inch (5cm) belt, tuck under the pan, and use the loose ends to lower the pan into the cooker. Set heat to medium-high (traditional)\/high (electric), and bring to a boil.\n\n6 Lock on the lid, and bring pressure to level 2 (traditional)\/high (electric). Reduce heat to low, and cook at 2\/high for 20 minutes. Turn off heat, and let flan sit for 20 minutes. Remove the lid.\n\n7 Lift out cake pan, and remove the foil, being careful not to let any water fall on surface of flan. Gently shake pan. Flan should be firm; if it jiggles, re-cover, return to the cooker, lock on the lid, and cook at level 2\/high for 10 minutes.\n\n8 Refrigerate for 1 hour. Cover flan with plastic wrap or foil so it doesn't form a skin, and chill for at least 2 hours or overnight.\n\n9 Run a thin-blade knife around the edge of the cake pan. Place a large plate with a lip (at least 2 inches; 5cm larger than flan to catch caramel) top down on the pan, invert the pan and plate to release flan, gently tapping the bottom of the pan if necessary, and lift off pan. Cut into 8 pieces, and serve.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 300\n\nCarbohydrates: 55g\n\nSugars: 55g\n\nDietary fiber: 0g\n\nProtein: 8g\n\nFat: 7g\n\nCholesterol: 100mg\n\nSodium: 140mg\nClassic Cheesecake\n\nThis cheesecake is so versatile. Serve it topped with blueberries, cherries, or raspberries\u2014or all three. It's also delicious plain.\n\nIngredients\n\n6 (3\u00d75-in.; 7.5\u00d712.5cm) graham crackers\n\n2\u00bd TB. unsalted butter\n\n1 lb. (450g) cream cheese, at room temperature\n\n1 tsp. vanilla paste, or 1\u00bd tsp. vanilla extract\n\n\u00bd cup sugar\n\n\u00bc tsp. kosher salt\n\n2 large eggs, at room temperature\n\n\u00bd cup sour cream, at room temperature\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 Add a trivet to the bottom of a 6-quart (5.5l) pressure cooker. Be sure an 8-inch (20cm) springform pan will fit inside with at least \u00be inch (2cm) space at the edges. Add enough water to reach the bottom of the trivet. Butter an 8-inch (20cm) springform pan with 1 teaspoon unsalted butter.\n\n2 In a food processor fitted with a metal chopping blade, pulse graham crackers and unsalted butter to a crumb consistency. Transfer to the pan, and press into an even layer.\n\n3 In a large bowl, and using an electric mixer on medium, beat cream cheese for 2 minutes or until smooth. Scrape down the sides of the bowl, and beat again. Add vanilla paste, sugar, kosher salt, eggs, and sour cream, and beat until smooth. Pour filling into crust, and smooth to an even layer. Cover the pan tightly with aluminum foil, and secure with string or a rubber band.\n\n4 Fold a long piece of foil lengthwise into a 2-inch (5cm) belt, tuck under the pan, and use the loose ends to lower the pan into the cooker. Set heat to high (traditional)\/high (electric), and bring to a boil.\n\n5 Lock on the lid, bring pressure to level 2 (traditional)\/high (electric), and cook for 35 minutes. Turn off heat, and let cheesecake sit for 20 minutes. Remove the lid.\n\n6 Lift out the pan to a cooling rack, and remove the foil, being careful not to let any water fall on surface of cheesecake. Let cheesecake cool for 30 minutes, and refrigerate overnight.\n\n7 Run a thin-blade knife around the edge of the pan, and remove the springform ring. Cut cheesecake into 6 pieces, and serve.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 420\n\nCarbohydrates: 19g\n\nSugars: 16g\n\nDietary fiber: 0g\n\nProtein: 7g\n\nFat: 36g\n\nCholesterol: 180mg\n\nSodium: 390mg\nChocolate Caramel Cheesecake\n\nThis delectable dessert is for chocolate lovers. And cheesecake lovers. And caramel lovers.\n\nIngredients\n\n12 (3\u00d75-in.; 7.5\u00d712.5cm) chocolate graham crackers\n\n2 tsp. plus 1 TB. cocoa powder\n\n\u00bc cup plus \u2153 cup unsalted butter\n\n1\u00be cups sugar\n\n\u2153 cup water\n\n\u00be cup heavy cream\n\n\u00bd tsp. vanilla extract\n\n4 oz. (110g) dark chocolate, plus more for garnish\n\n2 (8-oz.; 225g) pkg. cream cheese, at room temperature\n\n2 large eggs, at room temperature\n\n\u00bc cup sour cream, at room temperature\n\n\u00bd cup pecans, chopped\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 Add a trivet to the bottom of a 6-quart (5.5l) pressure cooker. Add enough water to reach the bottom of the trivet.\n\n2 In a food processor fitted with a metal chopping blade, pulse chocolate graham crackers, 2 teaspoons cocoa powder, and \u00bc cup unsalted butter to a crumb consistency. Transfer to a 9-inch (23cm) springform pan, and press into an even layer.\n\n3 In a medium saucepan over medium-high heat, combine 1\u00bc cups sugar and water, and cook, without stirring, until amber at edges. Gently swirl, and cook until caramel is dark amber.\n\n4 Drizzle in heavy cream while stirring, and stir in remaining \u2153 cup unsalted butter and vanilla extract. Remove from heat.\n\n5 In a small saucepan over very low heat, melt dark chocolate.\n\n6 In a medium bowl, and using an electric mixer on medium, beat cream cheese for 2 minutes or until it follows the beaters in ribbons. Add eggs, sour cream, melted chocolate, remaining \u00bd cup sugar, and remaining 1 tablespoon cocoa powder, and beat until smooth. Pour into crust, and smooth to the edges of the pan. Cover the pan tightly with aluminum foil, and secure foil with string or a rubber band.\n\n7 Fold a long piece of foil lengthwise into a 2-inch (5cm) belt, tuck under the pan, and use the loose ends to lower the pan into the cooker. Set heat to medium-high (traditional)\/high (electric), and bring to a boil.\n\n8 Lock on the lid, bring pressure to level 2 (traditional)\/high (electric), and cook for 40 minutes. Remove from (traditional)\/turn off (electric) heat, and let cake sit for 20 minutes. Remove the lid.\n\n9 Lift out cake pan, uncover, and gently shake. Cake should be firm; if it jiggles, re-cover, return to the cooker, lock on the lid, and cook at level 2\/high for 10 minutes.\n\n10Refrigerate cake for at least 3 hours.\n\n11Pour caramel over cake to form an \u215b-inch (3mm) thick circle that stops just short of the edges, and sprinkle with pecans. Cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate for 4 hours or overnight.\n\n12Run a thin-blade knife around edges of the pan, and remove the springform ring. Grate dark chocolate over top of cheesecake, cut into 8 pieces, and serve.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 880\n\nCarbohydrates: 67g\n\nSugars: 55g\n\nDietary fiber: 3g\n\nProtein: 9g\n\nFat: 70g\n\nCholesterol: 250mg\n\nSodium: 320mg\n\nRice Pudding\n\nRice pudding is a homey dessert. This version is prepared with traditional flavors, but you can omit these spices and customize as you like.\n\nIngredients\n\n2\u00bd cups whole milk\n\n1 cup arborio rice (not instant)\n\n2 tsp. vanilla extract\n\n\u00bd cup sugar\n\n\u00bd tsp. cinnamon\n\n\u215b tsp. ground cardamom\n\n\u00bd tsp. kosher salt\n\n\u00bd cup half-and-half\n\n\u00bc tsp. ground nutmeg\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 In a 4-quart (4l) pressure cooker, combine whole milk, arborio rice, vanilla extract, sugar, \u00bc teaspoon cinnamon, cardamom, and kosher salt. Set heat to medium-high (traditional)\/high (electric), and bring to a boil.\n\n2 Lock on the lid, bring pressure to level 2 (traditional)\/high (electric), and cook for 13 minutes. Remove from (traditional)\/turn off (electric) heat, perform a cold water (traditional)\/quick (electric) release, and remove the lid.\n\n3 Stir in half-and-half.\n\n4 Spoon pudding into 4 parfait cups, and refrigerate for at least 3 hours or overnight.\n\n5 When ready to serve, sprinkle each pudding with 1 dash remaining cinnamon and 1 dash nutmeg.\n\nYou can vary this recipe by adding 1 teaspoon lemon or orange zest, 1 teaspoon raisins or cranberries, or even 1 teaspoon liquor such as Grand Marnier. If you want to store the pudding for later, cool, cover the surface with plastic wrap so it won't form a skin, and refrigerate for up to 3 days.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 370\n\nCarbohydrates: 66g\n\nSugars: 26g\n\nDietary fiber: 1g\n\nProtein: 9g\n\nFat: 9g\n\nCholesterol: 25mg\n\nSodium: 320mg\nBread Pudding with Whiskey Sauce\n\nRich with warm spices and a tender, melt-in-your-mouth pudding, this creamy dessert is a welcome addition to family and holiday dinners.\n\nIngredients\n\n6 large egg yolks\n\n\u00bd cup plus \u2153 cup sugar\n\n3 cups whole milk\n\n1 tsp. orange zest\n\n1 tsp. vanilla extract\n\n\u00bd tsp. cinnamon\n\n\u00bc tsp. ground nutmeg\n\n6 slices white bread, cut into \u00bd-in. (2.5cm) cubes (2 cups)\n\n\u2153 cup raisins\n\n\u2153 cup whiskey\n\n3 tsp. unsalted butter\n\n2 TB. heavy cream\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 Add a trivet to the bottom of a 6-quart (5.5l) pressure cooker. Add 2 cups water. Butter an 8-inch (20cm) cake pan and a piece of aluminum foil large enough to cover it.\n\n2 In a large bowl, whisk together 3 egg yolks and \u00bd cup sugar. Whisk in whole milk, orange zest, vanilla extract, cinnamon, and nutmeg.\n\n3 Add bread to the cake pan, and spread evenly. Sprinkle on raisins, pour in pudding, and push down any floating bread. Cover the pan with buttered foil (butter side down), and tightly crimp on the pan. Place the cake pan in the cooker, and let sit for 20 minutes.\n\n4 Set heat to medium-high (traditional)\/high (electric), and bring to a boil.\n\n5 Lock on the lid, and bring pressure to level 2 (traditional)\/high (electric). Reduce heat to low, and cook at 2\/high for 25 minutes. Turn off heat, and let pudding sit for 20 minutes. Remove the lid.\n\n6 In a small mixing bowl, whisk together remaining \u2153 cup sugar and remaining 3 egg yolks.\n\n7 In a small saucepan over medium heat, whisk together whiskey and unsalted butter. Bring to a boil, remove from heat, and slowly whisk whiskey mixture into eggs. Whisk in heavy cream. Return sauce to the saucepan, set heat to low, and cook, stirring, for 1 minute or until sauce begins to thicken. Remove from heat.\n\n8 Lift cake pan out of the pressure cooker, and remove the foil. Cool for 1 hour.\n\n9 Scoop out pudding into individual bowls, and serve with whiskey sauce on the side.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 270\n\nCarbohydrates: 30g\n\nSugars: 25g\n\nDietary fiber: 1g\n\nProtein: 7g\n\nFat: 12g\n\nCholesterol: 280mg\n\nSodium: 115mg\nCaramel Vanilla Tapioca Pudding\n\nSweet tapioca pudding is a favorite for kids and adults alike. This version is matured a bit with caramel and vanilla flavors.\n\nIngredients\n\n\u00bd cup small-pearl tapioca\n\n\u00bd cup granulated sugar\n\n2\u00bd cups whole milk\n\n\u00bc tsp. kosher salt\n\n1\u00bd tsp. vanilla paste, or vanilla extract\n\n\u00bd cup heavy cream, very cold\n\n1 TB. confectioners' sugar\n\n\u00bc cup crumbled English toffee\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 Place tapioca in a strainer, rinse under cold water, and set aside.\n\n2 In a 4-quart (4l) pressure cooker set to medium (traditional)\/high (electric) heat, add granulated sugar and shake the cooker to evenly distribute sugar. Cook, watching sugar closely, until it begins to caramelize at the edges and darken as it melts. Using a clean wooden spoon, stir sugar. It'll clump and melt, but in the end, it'll be an amber to brown-colored liquid.\n\n3 In a small saucepan over medium heat, warm whole milk until just short of boiling.\n\n4 While stirring, drizzle 2 cups hot milk into sugar. Don't worry if sugar clumps; it'll melt.\n\n5 Add tapioca, kosher salt, and 1 teaspoon vanilla paste, and stir until sugar dissolves and milk begins to boil.\n\n6 Lock on the lid, and bring pressure to level 2 (traditional)\/high (electric). Reduce heat to low, and cook for 15 minutes. Remove from (traditional)\/turn off (electric) heat, and let pudding sit for 10 minutes. Perform a natural release, and remove the lid.\n\n7 Add remaining \u00bd cup hot milk, return to medium-low (traditional)\/low (electric) heat, and whisk until tapioca is loose and not clumping. (This might take a little while, so be patient.)\n\n8 Ladle tapioca into small containers, and let it cool for 1 hour. When it's warm but not hot, cover tapioca with plastic wrap, and refrigerate for at least 3 hours or until set.\n\n9 When ready to serve, in a medium bowl, whisk very cold heavy cream, remaining \u00bd teaspoon vanilla paste, and confectioners' sugar until stiff peaks form.\n\n10 Uncover pudding, top with whipped cream, sprinkle with English toffee, and serve.\n\nBe careful when caramelizing the sugar. It gets very, very hot and can burn you easily.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 270\n\nCarbohydrates: 36g\n\nSugars: 25g\n\nDietary fiber: 0g\n\nProtein: 4g\n\nFat: 14g\n\nCholesterol: 40mg\n\nSodium: 170mg\n\nChristmas Pudding\n\nThis traditional British holiday dessert is a wonderful addition to family dinners. Conventional versions are often heavy; this is lighter.\n\nIngredients\n\n1\u00be cups mixed dried raisins, chopped prunes, cherries, cranberries, and apricots\n\n\u00bd cup dried dates, pitted and chopped\n\n2 TB. minced crystallized ginger\n\n1 tsp. orange zest\n\n6 slices fresh white bread, chopped in a food processor to a fine crumb (2\u00bd cups)\n\n3 TB. unsalted butter or vegetable shortening, softened\n\n1\u00be cups sugar\n\n1 cup walnuts, chopped\n\n1 large egg\n\n\u2154 cup whole milk\n\n\u2153 cup water\n\n\u00be cup heavy cream\n\n\u2153 cup unsalted butter\n\n\u00bd tsp. vanilla extract\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 Add a trivet to the bottom of a 6-quart (5.5l) pressure cooker. Add enough water to reach the bottom of the trivet. Grease a 1\u00bd-quart (1.5l) heat-proof pudding mold with unsalted butter.\n\n2 In a large bowl, combine fruit, dates, crystallized ginger, orange zest, breadcrumbs, softened unsalted butter, \u00bd cup sugar, walnuts, egg, and whole milk.\n\n3 Transfer to the mold, and gently pack. Cover with aluminum foil, and secure foil with string or a rubber band. Place the mold in the pressure cooker, set heat to high (traditional)\/high (electric), and bring to a boil.\n\n4 Lock on the lid, and bring pressure to level 2 (traditional)\/high (electric). Reduce heat to low, and cook at 2\/high for 1 hour. Turn off heat, and let pudding sit for 20 minutes. Perform a natural release, and remove the lid.\n\n5 Remove the mold from the cooker, and invert pudding onto a platter.\n\n6 In a medium saucepan over medium-high heat, combine remaining 1\u00bc cups sugar and water, and cook, without stirring, until amber at edges. Gently swirl or stir with a clean wooden spoon, and cook until caramel is dark amber.\n\n7 Drizzle in heavy cream while stirring. Stir in unsalted butter and vanilla extract, and remove from heat.\n\n8 Top pudding with caramel sauce, and serve with whipped cream.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 490\n\nCarbohydrates: 82g\n\nSugars: 56g\n\nDietary fiber: 3g\n\nProtein: 6g\n\nFat: 18g\n\nCholesterol: 55mg\n\nSodium: 220mg\nDulce de Leche\n\nThis easy recipe yields a wonderful caramel concoction with a sweet flavor. It's a perfect dip for apple slices, ice cream topping, or jelly roll cake filling.\n\nIngredients\n\n1 (14-oz.; 400g) can sweetened condensed milk, label removed\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 Add a trivet to a 6-quart (5.5l) pressure cooker.\n\n2 Lay the can of condensed milk on its side on trivet. The can shouldn't touch the sides or bottom of the cooker. Add enough water to cover the can by 1 inch (2.5cm). Set heat to medium (traditional)\/high (electric), and bring to a boil.\n\n3 Lock on the lid, bring pressure to level 2 (traditional)\/high (electric), and cook for 20 minutes. Turn off heat, and let dulce de leche sit until completely cool. Perform a natural release, and remove the lid.\n\n4 Transfer can to a cooling rack, and cool completely before opening. Use in your favorite recipe, or refrigerate for later use. Warm gently before using.\n\nLeave the can inside the pressure cooker with the lid on after it's cooked, and allow it to cool completely before opening. Opening a hot can is never a good idea. The hot ingredients could gush out and burn you.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 298\n\nCarbohydrates: 57g\n\nSugars: 57g\n\nDietary fiber: 0g\n\nProtein: 7.5g\n\nFat: 4g\n\nCholesterol: 12mg\n\nSodium: 99mg\nGingerbread Cake with Vanilla Glaze\n\nThis delicious, moist cake is loaded with gingerbread flavor. The vanilla glaze provides an elegant finish.\n\nIngredients\n\n\u00bd cup unsalted butter\n\n\u00bd cup granulated sugar\n\n\u00bd cup molasses\n\n\u00bc cup water\n\n1\u00bd tsp. ground ginger\n\n\u00be tsp. cinnamon\n\n\u00bc tsp. ground cloves\n\n1\u00bc cups unbleached cake flour\n\n1\u00bc tsp. baking soda\n\n\u00bd tsp. kosher salt\n\n1 large egg, lightly beaten\n\n3 TB. heavy cream\n\n\u00bd tsp. vanilla extract\n\n\u00be cup confectioners' sugar\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 Add a trivet to a 6-quart (5.5l) pressure cooker. Add 2 cups water. Butter an 8-inch (20cm) cake pan, and lightly coat bottom and sides with 1 tablespoon flour. Gently tap out excess flour.\n\n2 In a small saucepan over medium heat, combine unsalted butter, granulated sugar, molasses, and water. Cook, stirring, for 2 minutes or until sugar is dissolved and butter is melted. Remove from heat, and set aside to cool.\n\n3 In a large bowl, combine ginger, cinnamon, cloves, cake flour, baking soda, and kosher salt.\n\n4 Add cooled molasses mixture to dry ingredients, add egg, and stir with a heavy-duty wooden spoon until smooth and combined. Scrape batter into the prepared pan, and tap the pan gently to distribute batter. Cover the pan tightly with aluminum foil.\n\n5 Add the cake pan to the pressure cooker, set heat to medium-high (traditional)\/high (electric), and bring to a boil.\n\n6 Lock on the lid, and bring pressure to level 2 (traditional)\/high (electric). Reduce heat to low, and cook at 2\/high for 25 minutes. Remove from (traditional)\/turn off (electric) heat, perform a natural release, and remove the lid.\n\n7 Remove the cake pan, uncover, and let cake cool completely on a cooling rack.\n\n8 In a large bowl, whisk heavy cream, vanilla extract, and confectioners' sugar until smooth. Glaze should be runny but not overly so. Add more confectioners' sugar to thicken if necessary. Add more cream, 1 teaspoon at a time, if glaze is too stiff.\n\n9 Run a thin-blade knife around the edge of the cake pan, place a large plate top down on the pan, and invert the pan and plate. Gently tap the bottom of the pan to release cake, and lift off cake pan. Drizzle glaze over top of cake, slice, and serve.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 430\n\nCarbohydrates: 64g\n\nSugars: 41g\n\nDietary fiber: 0g\n\nProtein: 3g\n\nFat: 19g\n\nCholesterol: 85mg\n\nSodium: 480mg\n\nRum Raisin, Apple, and Prune Cake\n\nThis cake is a little gooey, a little boozy, and a little tart, thanks to the apples. Don't forget the cardamom. It makes the cake taste like an apple Danish.\n\nIngredients\n\n2 TB. plus 2 tsp. brown sugar\n\n10 TB. unsalted butter\n\n2 small Fuji apples, peeled and cut into thin half-moons\n\n1\u00bd cups cake flour\n\n1\u00bd tsp. baking powder\n\n\u215b tsp. ground cardamom\n\n1 cup granulated sugar\n\n3 large eggs\n\n\u00bc cup whole milk\n\n1\u00bc tsp. vanilla extract\n\n\u00bd cup raisins, soaked in 3 TB. spiced rum for 1 hour\n\n\u00bd cup prunes\n\n\u00bd cup sour cream\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 Add a trivet to a 6-quart (5.5l) pressure cooker. Add 2 cups water. Butter a large piece of aluminum foil.\n\n2 In a small bowl, cream 2 tablespoons brown sugar and 2 tablespoons unsalted butter. Spread in the bottom of an 8-inch (20cm) cake pan, and layer Fuji apple slices on top.\n\n3 In a medium bowl, combine cake flour, baking powder, and cardamom.\n\n4 In a large bowl, cream granulated sugar and remaining 8 table-spoons unsalted butter until smooth. Add eggs, whole milk, and 1 teaspoon vanilla extract, and stir.\n\n5 Combine granulated sugar\u2013egg mixture with dry ingredients, and stir in raisins and prunes. Gently pour batter over apples, and spread to the edge of the pan. Cover with buttered foil (butter side down), and tightly crimp foil to the pan.\n\n6 Fold a long piece of foil lengthwise into a 2-inch (5cm) belt, tuck under the pan, and use the loose ends to lower the pan into the cooker. Set to heat medium (traditional)\/high (electric), and bring to a boil.\n\n7 Lock on the lid, bring pressure to level 2 (traditional)\/high (electric), and cook for 25 minutes. Turn off heat, let cake sit for 20 minutes, and remove the lid.\n\n8 Lift the pan out of the cooker, and remove the foil. Cool cake on a cooling rack.\n\n9 In a medium bowl, whisk together remaining \u00bc teaspoon vanilla extract, remaining 2 teaspoons brown sugar, and sour cream until smooth.\n\n10 Turn out cake, upside down, onto a plate. Cut into 8 pieces, top with brown sugar sour cream, and serve.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 440\n\nCarbohydrates: 60g\n\nSugars: 39g\n\nDietary fiber: 3g\n\nProtein: 5g\n\nFat: 19g\n\nCholesterol: 130mg\n\nSodium: 140mg\nBoozy Dried Fruit Compote\n\nWhether spooned over vanilla ice cream or served in a bowl with a drizzle of cream and a bit of granola, this is a wonderful dessert.\n\nIngredients\n\n1 cup dried apples, chopped into \u00be-in. (2cm) pieces\n\n1 cup small prunes\n\n\u00bd cup dried apricots\n\n\u00bc cup raisins\n\n\u00bd cup dried cranberries\n\n1 cup water\n\n1 cup dry red wine\n\n1 slice lemon\n\n\u00bd cup sugar\n\n1 tsp. vanilla paste, or vanilla extract\n\n1 (3-in.; 7.5cm) cinnamon stick\n\n\u215b tsp. ground nutmeg\n\n1 pinch cardamom\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 In a 4-quart (4l) pressure cooker, combine apples, prunes, apricots, raisins, cranberries, water, red wine, lemon slice, sugar, vanilla paste, cinnamon stick, nutmeg, and cardamom. Set heat to medium (traditional)\/high (electric), and bring to a boil.\n\n2 Lock on the lid, and bring pressure to level 1 (traditional)\/low (electric). Reduce heat to low, and cook at 1\/low for 8 minutes. Remove from (traditional)\/turn off (electric) heat, perform a cold water (traditional)\/quick (electric) release, and remove the lid.\n\n3 Remove cinnamon stick and lemon slice, and let fruit cool before serving. Refrigerate any leftovers in a jar for up to 2 weeks.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 170\n\nCarbohydrates: 45g\n\nSugars: 35g\n\nDietary fiber: 4g\n\nProtein: 1g\n\nFat: 0g\n\nCholesterol: 0mg\n\nSodium: 70mg\nPears Poached in Red Wine\n\nYou'll impress guests when you serve these lovely pears steamed to tender perfection and infused with the perfect amount of spice and sweetness.\n\nIngredients\n\n\u00be cup dry red wine\n\n\u00bd cup water\n\n1 (3-in.; 7.5cm) cinnamon stick\n\n1 tsp. whole black peppercorns\n\n2 slices lemon\n\n\u00bc tsp. freshly ground nutmeg, plus more for dusting\n\n\u00bd cup sugar\n\n4 medium firm, almost ripe d' Anjou pears, peeled\n\n\u00bd cup heavy cream\n\n1\u00bd tsp. honey\n\nMETHOD\n\n1 In a 4-quart (4l) pressure cooker set to medium-high (traditional)\/high (electric) heat, combine red wine, water, cinnamon stick, black peppercorns, lemon slices, nutmeg, and sugar. Add d' Anjou pears, stems up, and bring to a boil.\n\n2 Lock on the lid, bring pressure to level 2 (traditional)\/high (electric), and cook for 8 minutes. Remove from (traditional)\/turn off (electric) heat, perform a cold water (traditional)\/quick (electric) release, and remove the lid.\n\n3 In a medium bowl, whisk heavy cream until it begins to thicken. (You aren't whipping cream, just thickening it.) Add honey, and whisk to combine.\n\n4 Using a slotted spoon, gently transfer pears to a platter.\n\n5 Return the pressure cooker to medium\/high heat, and cook for 5 minutes or until spiced wine is reduced by half or becomes syrupy.\n\n6 Spoon syrup over pears, dollop with honey cream, and dust with ground nutmeg. Serve with extra syrup on the side.\n\nWhen spooning the reduced syrup over the cooked pears, avoid getting any peppercorns, lemon slices, or the cinnamon stick in the serving dishes. You can strain the sauce and serve it on the side if you like.\n\nNutrition per serving\n\nCalories: 260\n\nCarbohydrates: 35g\n\nSugars: 20g\n\nDietary fiber: 0g\n\nProtein: 2g\n\nFat: 11g\n\nCholesterol: 40mg\n\nSodium: 15mg\n\nAppendix\n\n**Helpful Tables**\n\nThis appendix holds some handy tables for quick reference. Use them for a reminder of cook times or to help convert conventional recipes for use in a pressure cooker.\n\nDried beans cook best if they're presoaked first. For every 1 cup beans, add 4 cups water, and soak for 8 hours or overnight. Discard the soak water, and rinse the beans before cooking. The beans need to be fully hydrated before cooking so they don't absorb all the cooking liquid and scorch.\n\n## Contents\n\n 1. Copyright\n 2. Contents\n 3. Introduction\n 4. Pressure Cooker Basics\n 1. How Pressure Cooking Works\n 2. What Your Pressure Cooker Can Do\n 3. Types of Pressure Cookers\n 4. Safety and Maintenance\n 5. Release Methods\n 6. Understanding PSI\n 7. Pressure Cooking Vegetables\n 8. Pressure Cooking Meat\n 9. Converting Conventional Recipes\n 10. Stocking Your Kitchen\n 11. Planning Weeknight Meals\n 5. Pressure Cooker Recipes\n 1. Basics\n 1. Rich Beef Stock\n 2. Chicken Stock \n 3. Vegetable Stock \n 4. Pressure Cooker Eggs\n 5. Pressure Cooker Rice\n 6. Easy Dried Beans\n 7. Pressure Cooker Pasta Sauce\n 2. Breakfasts\n 1. Eggs en Cocotte a la Creme\n 2. Egg Cups\n 3. Apple Cinnamon Breakfast Oats\n 4. Savory Parmesan Steel-Cut Oats\n 5. Five-Grain Oatmeal\n 6. Sausage, Onion, and Gruyere Breakfast Casserole\n 7. Honey, Raisin, and Quinoa Breakfast Risotto\n 8. Bacon Jam\n 3. Appetizers\n 1. Classic Deviled Eggs\n 2. Garlicky White Bean and Parmesan Dip\n 3. Red Beet Hummus\n 4. Middle Eastern Hummus\n 5. Lentil Pate\n 6. Savory Smoked Salmon Cheesecake\n 4. Salads\n 1. Tuna Salad with Chickpeas\n 2. Chicken Salad Deluxe\n 3. Classic Egg Salad\n 4. Wheat Berry Salad with Arugula Pesto\n 5. Farro Tabbouleh\n 6. Picnic-Style Potato Salad\n 7. Hot German Potato Salad\n 5. Soups, Stews, and Chilies\n 1. Roasted Corn and Butternut Squash Chili\n 2. White Bean and Shiitake Soup\n 3. Saturday Soup Beans\n 4. Spicy Chickpea Stew with Sour Tomato Curry\n 5. Cuban Black Bean Soup with Sherry\n 6. Farmhouse Corn Chowder\n 7. French Potato and Leek Soup\n 8. Indian Carrot and Lentil Soup\n 9. Rustic Split-Pea Soup\n 10. Curried Butternut Squash Soup\n 11. Mushroom Barley Soup\n 12. Root Vegetable Stew\n 13. Borscht with Italian Sausage\n 14. Ribolleta\n 15. Texas-Style Chili Con Carne\n 16. Korean Beef Stew\n 17. Vegetable Beef Soup\n 18. Irish Stew\n 19. Pork Ramen\n 20. Hearty Turkey and Vegetable Soup\n 21. New England Fish Chowder\n 6. Vegetables\n 1. Ratatouille\n 2. Honey-Glazed Carrots\n 3. Glazed Carrots with Braised Lettuce\n 4. Southern-Style Green Beans\n 5. Buttered Green Beans with Nut Crunch Topping\n 6. Caramelized Onion Mashed Potatoes \n 7. Mashed Maple Sweet Potatoes\n 8. Brussels Sprouts with Almonds and Prosciutto\n 9. Braised Kale\n 10. Alsatian-Style Braised Red Cabbage\n 11. One-Pot Cabbage, Rice, and Lentils\n 12. Southern Collard Greens\n 7. Meaty Main Dishes\n 1. Barbecue Braised Short Ribs\n 2. Beef Sugo\n 3. Corned Beef\n 4. Cuban-Style Ropa Vieja\n 5. Classic Beef Brisket\n 6. Pot Roast with Fennel and Carrots\n 7. Swedish Meatballs\n 8. Beef Bourguignon\n 9. Chuck Roast with Horseradish Cream and Carrots\n 10. Swiss Steak\n 11. Osso Buco\n 12. Belgian Beef Stew Cooked in Beer\n 13. Pressure Cooker Tacos\n 14. Hungarian Stuffed Peppers\n 15. Hungarian Chicken Paprika\n 16. Caribbean Chicken Curry\n 17. One-Pot Chicken and Sausage Perloo\n 18. Chicken and Dumplings\n 19. Chicken Cacciatore\n 20. Smothered Chicken\n 21. Chicken with 40 Cloves of Garlic\n 22. Thai-Style Green Curry Chicken\n 23. Chinese Red Cooked Chicken\n 24. Hungarian Pork Goulash\n 25. Belgian Ale-Braised Pork Loin with Mustard\n 26. Pork Grillades\n 27. Southern-Style Pulled Pork\n 28. Pork Vindaloo\n 29. Pork Posole\n 30. One-Pot Sausage, Potatoes, and Greens\n 31. Asian Steamed Fish\n 32. Salmon en Papillote\n 33. Fish Curry\n 34. Thai Steamed Mussels\n 35. Beer-Steamed Shrimp\n 36. Cajun-Style Shrimp Jambalaya\n 8. Rice, Grains, and Breads\n 1. Basmati Rice Pilaf\n 2. Dirty Oats with Lentils\n 3. Wild Rice\n 4. Asparagus and Sun-Dried Tomato Risotto\n 5. Risotto Milanese\n 6. Jamaican-Style Rice and Peas\n 7. Steamed Brown Bread with Raisins\n 8. Crustless Sandwich Bread\n 9. Cornbread\n 9. Desserts\n 1. Lemon Pots de Creme\n 2. Chocolate Pots de Creme\n 3. Maple Cream Caramels\n 4. Creme Brulee\n 5. Caribbean-Style Flan\n 6. Classic Cheesecake\n 7. Chocolate Caramel Cheesecake\n 8. Rice Pudding\n 9. Bread Pudding with Whiskey Sauce\n 10. Caramel Vanilla Tapioca Pudding\n 11. Christmas Pudding\n 12. Dulce de Leche\n 13. Gingerbread Cake with Vanilla Glaze\n 14. Rum Raisin, Apple, and Prune Cake\n 15. Boozy Dried Fruit Compote\n 16. Pears Poached in Red Wine\n 10. Appendix\n\n## Guide\n\n 1. Cover\n 2. Table of Contents\n 3. Title Page\n\n","meta":{"redpajama_set_name":"RedPajamaBook"}} +{"text":" \nTHE INN\n\n\"What kind of ghosts are at this place we're headed to?\" Neville asked.\n\nPriscilla riffled through the brochures on her lap. \"The Blue Boy Inn,\" she read aloud. \"Dates back to the American Civil War. Oh, wow, there could be a lot of ghosts here.\"\n\n\"What do you mean by a lot?\"\n\n\"It says here that there have been several murders at the inn. And some mysterious disappearances.\"\n\n\"That's probably just hype.\"\n\n\"No, it's real,\" Priscilla said, reading the history of the place. \"The first murder was a girl named Sally Brown. Nearly a hundred years ago. They never found her body, just her blood, splattered all over the walls. Then there was this guy Andrew McGurk, whose body was found, but not his head.\" She shivered. \"And then\u2014oh, this is terrible\u2014a little baby, who disappeared. And there's more.\"\n\nPriscilla glanced down at the description of the Blue Boy. \"Quite a bit more.\" She looked over at Neville. \"I think we've hit the jackpot with this place. If we're looking for ghosts, this is the place that will have them.\"\n\n\"I can hardly wait . . .\"\nBooks by William Patterson\n\nSLICE\n\nTHE INN\n\nPublished by Kensington Publishing Corp.\nTHE INN\n\nWILLIAM PATTERSON\n\nPINNACLE BOOKS\n\nKensington Publishing Corp.\n\nwww.kensingtonbooks.com\n\nAll copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.\nTable of Contents\n\nTHE INN \nAlso by \nTitle Page\n\n112 \\- Adam heard the sound and swung his gun around in the direction of the pantry. As he did so, the woman in front of him lunged at him with a knife.\n\nCopyright Page\n\n1\n\nAnnabel Wish had a fear of closed spaces. A year ago, she'd been stuck, alone, in an elevator for thirty-six hours, and that had simply been too much to bear. When workers had finally pried open the elevator doors on the morning of Annabel's second day of confinement, they'd found her stark raving mad.\n\nThat was why she kept rolling her car window down now, despite outdoor temperatures hovering around thirty-two degrees, and despite her husband, Jack, constantly admonishing her to roll it back up.\n\n\"Really, Annabel,\" Jack said. \"You're freezing me to death.\"\n\n\"I just need the air,\" she told him.\n\nHe sighed. \"We're almost there. We're not more than forty minutes away now.\"\n\nAnnabel took several deep gulps of air, and then rolled the window up again.\n\nThey'd been on the road for three hours. That was two and a half hours too long for Annabel. Even a subway ride from lower Manhattan to Washington Heights left her uneasy. It wasn't that their car was small: It was a good-sized SUV, some name and brand Annabel wasn't sure of. She never paid much attention to such things. But it was an enclosed space, which meant that she couldn't get up and move around, and that made her want to crawl out of her skin. Annabel kept looking out the window, trying to focus on the trees and houses going by and hoping that Jack was right, that this move would be good for her. Good for them. Good for their marriage.\n\nAll she knew was that she needed air.\n\n\"I remember these roads so well from when I was a boy,\" Jack was saying. \"In the spring and summer there'd be farm stands all through here, selling beans and corn and tomatoes. Dad would stop and we'd load up the car and take it all back with us to the city.\"\n\nAnnabel could see only stark, frozen, bare trees.\n\nShe had never been this far out into the country before. In her twenty-six years, Annabel had been all over the world. London, Paris, Milan, Sydney, Tokyo. It came with the job of being a fashion editor. But it was always cities that she visited. Annabel had never had any interest in seeing life beyond urban boundaries. Even as a girl, she'd always spent her summers in the city. All the grass and trees she had needed she had found in Central Park, and when she grew tired of nature\u2014which was often\u2014there were shops and movies and restaurants and museums. Not for Annabel any regular trips into the pollen-and-ragweed-infested countryside of western Massachusetts of the kind Jack so fondly remembered, visiting his grandfather's rustic old bed-and-breakfast in the village of Woodfield. Annabel had been exquisitely content to remain in the city.\n\nBut they were far away from the city now. They were retracing the route of Jack's summer-vacation sojourns to Woodfield.\n\nExcept that it wasn't summer. It was the onset of a very cold but so far snowless winter. And the bed-and-breakfast they were heading to no longer belonged to Jack's grandfather.\n\nIt belonged to them.\n\nAnnabel looked out her window. They were passing a cemetery. A fat black crow was perched on a granite cross. As Annabel watched, the bird flapped its enormous wings.\n\nShe rolled down the window again and breathed in some more air.\n\nWhen they'd put her in the hospital, the worst thing had been the terrible, confining air. She needed air that flowed freely, and if there was a bit of taxicab exhaust in it, so much the better. How Annabel had wanted to send a chair crashing through the hermetically sealed hospital window and just stand there, her face inches from the jagged glass, and gulp in buckets of air. The sounds of traffic rising from First Avenue would have been far more soothing to her than all that canned hospital Muzak.\n\n\"Annabel,\" Jack said, lifting an eyebrow over at the window and shivering. \"Please?\"\n\nShe rolled it shut.\n\nThey were crossing the Massachusetts line. \"We'll be there in time for lunch,\" Jack said, beaming. \"And Gran's making her famous rabbit stew.\"\n\n\"Jack, you know I've become a vegetarian.\"\n\nHe frowned. \"You can't offend Gran.\"\n\nAnnabel turned away, resisting the urge for air.\n\n\"I'm sure you and Gran will get along just fine,\" Jack said. \"She'll like that you have an eye for color and design. You know the place is going to need a great deal of fixing up, and I'm counting on you, sweetheart, to really give it your signature pizzazz.\"\n\n\"I'm not so sure I'm all that pizzazzy anymore,\" Annabel said, her eyes searching out the window for something. But all she saw were trees and more trees.\n\n\"Oh, come on, sure you are, sweetheart. You haven't lost your eye.\"\n\n\"That wasn't what Carmine thought.\"\n\nCarmine had been her boss at Orbit. The magazine had just launched when Annabel had had her breakdown. She'd been the fashion editor for the premiere issue, but by the time she had come back, after all those months in the hospital, there had been three more editions that had hit the stands. Carmine had brought in what he'd assured Annabel was just a temporary replacement, but the new girl had proven so fresh and hip and original that no one had wanted to let her go. Annabel was offered a \"contributing\" editorship\u2014which was a nice way of telling her that she was no longer needed.\n\n\"I just don't want you to overwork yourself again, baby cakes,\" Carmine had said, trying to sugarcoat his decision.\n\nAnnabel had told him what to do with his contributing editorship and stalked out of his office, breaking a heel on her Manolo Blahnik Sorrita shoe as she did so, much to her humiliation.\n\n\"Well,\" Jack said, \"Carmine doesn't know what he lost by letting you go, sweetheart.\"\n\nBut he did. Carmine had known full well what he was losing. A woman who drank too much, who snorted too much cocaine, who thought the world owed her fame and fortune. Annabel had worked herself to a very lofty place in New York society, but she had burned every bridge she'd crossed to get there. She might have been the city's new fashion darling, but she was tired and angry and frustrated and jealous and insecure. That was hardly the recipe for success in New York. Or success anywhere.\n\nAnnabel had thought that success would drive away all those feelings, which stretched all the way back to her childhood, but in fact success had only made them worse. And so when the day came when the elevator up to the Orbit penthouse got stuck between the forty-first and forty-second floors, Annabel had simply crumbled. The poised, articulate woman dressed in Givenchy and Karl Lagerfeld who had stepped into the elevator late one Friday night had been reduced to a sobbing, quivering mass of jelly on the floor by early Sunday morning, when a janitor discovered the malfunctioning lift. Annabel was once again a child terrified of being eaten alive by a little blue demon named Tommy Tricky.\n\n\"We haven't had any snow yet this winter,\" Jack was saying, drawing Annabel's thoughts back to the present, \"but western Mass can really get sucker punched by nor'easters.\" He smiled over at Annabel. \"So when we get all snowbound, sweetheart, and the power goes off, we're going to use the time to get creative. We can scrape old paint and wallpaper off the walls, and polish the antiques that Gran has down in the basement\u2014there's a mother lode of treasures in that dark old space, Annabel, you'll see.\"\n\nAir. Oh, how she needed air.\n\n\"And we'll go snowboarding and cross-country skiing and skating on the pond\u2014\"\n\nSuddenly, Jack slammed on the brakes and yelled. There was something ahead of them in the road. Something big. Something with antlers.\n\nAnnabel shrieked.\n\n\"Jesus Christ!\" Jack shouted. \"That's a moose! A goddamn moose!\"\n\nThe animal was standing perfectly still in the middle of the narrow, two-lane road. It was at least six feet tall and probably nine feet long, with an enormous head crowned with a rack of sharp antlers. Black eyes stared serenely through the windshield at Annabel and Jack.\n\n\"Holy shit,\" Jack said in a sort of awe. \"I'd heard of moose out in Worcester County, but never out this way before.\"\n\nHe tooted the horn.\n\nAnnabel stared at the creature. Its black eyes unnerved her.\n\nFinally, the moose began to move, plodding the rest of the way across the road and then disappearing into the woods.\n\nJack was grinning like an idiot. \"Who'd ever have thought we'd see a goddam moose?\" he asked as he began moving the car forward again.\n\nAnnabel couldn't speak.\n\n\"Wait'll I tell Morrison,\" Jack was saying. \"He's gonna have a stroke when I tell him we saw a moose!\"\n\n\"I . . .\" Annabel tried again to speak.\n\n\"I wonder if the moose population is spreading west\u2014\"\n\n\"I can't do this,\" Annabel finally said, very softly.\n\n\"What'd you say, sweetheart?\"\n\n\"I said I can't do this,\" she repeated, louder now, looking over at her husband. \"I want to go back to New York.\"\n\n\"Now, Annabel, we've been over this\u2014\"\n\n\"I want go back to New York right now!\"\n\nJack quickly pulled the car over to the side of the road and threw it into park. He turned to face Annabel. \"Now, look, sweetheart. You know this is the only way we can move forward. You know there is nothing left for you in New York. . . .\"\n\n\"Yes, there is! It's my home!\"\n\nJack looked wearily into her eyes. \"We've talked about this many times, Annabel. We made a decision! Dr. Adler helped us make the decision. Remember? And we all decided that the best way for you and I to start over was to leave the city and to accept Gran's offer to take over running the B&B. . . .\"\n\n\"No, you decided. I just agreed. There's a difference.\"\n\nAnnabel turned to look out the car window. How she wanted to roll the window down and climb through it. How she wanted to get out of this car and just start to run. She didn't care where she ran. She'd just run any which way, simply because she could, because she was free. She hated being closed up in a car for so long. It was like being closed up in that hospital . . . which, of course, was like being put in that closet in her stepfather's apartment and told that if she made a sound, Tommy Tricky would hear her and chop her up with his little blue axe.\n\n\"Annabel,\" her mother had told her, \"there's no such thing as Tommy Tricky. Your dad just tells you that so you'll be a good girl.\"\n\nExcept that he wasn't her dad. Her dad, Malcolm Wish, had been killed in the first Gulf War. Annabel's stepfather was a loathsome man she was forced to call Daddy Ron. And he didn't tell her about Tommy Tricky to induce her into being good. He told her about Tommy Tricky because he was a sadist\u2014a terrible, evil man who got his jollies from scaring little children.\n\n\"Tommy Tricky is a little blue boy with a very sharp axe, and he's always hungry,\" Daddy Ron had told her, as he put her in the linen closet. \"He sleeps in here, somewhere under that pile of sheets and tablecloths. So if you make a sound or move around, you'll wake him up. And if Tommy Tricky wakes up, he'll chop you up with his blue axe and eat you up, lickety-split, with his blue lips and blue tongue and big blue teeth.\"\n\n\"Annabel.\"\n\nShe jumped as Jack touched her arm.\n\n\"It was bad in New York,\" he said quietly. \"Do you remember how bad it got?\"\n\nShe nodded, slowly.\n\n\"So this is the only way,\" Jack told her.\n\nAnnabel said nothing more. Her husband put the car into drive and steered it back onto the road.\n\nShe was moving to Woodfield because it was the only way she could keep Jack. He'd leave her otherwise. Annabel knew that. And Jack was all she had left. She couldn't lose Jack, too, not after losing everything else.\n\nShe wanted this move to work. She did want to start over, to find happiness once again in her life and in her marriage. Jack was right that there was nothing left for her in New York. Her friends had all turned on her, put off by Annabel's excesses in those last frantic, hedonistic months before the breakdown. She didn't want that life any longer. She never really had; she'd just gotten caught up in the idea of success, intoxicated by glitz and access. What Annabel wanted was what she'd always wanted, deep down, ever since she was a little girl treated cruelly by her stepfather and ignored by her mother. She wanted a place where she mattered, where she fit in, where she was loved.\n\nAnd where she could move around freely, without any constraints.\n\nMaybe, then, this would be the place for her. True, she sometimes felt a creeping sense of claustrophobia knowing that theaters and museums and couturier shops were hours away\u2014and reachable only by car, and Annabel hated to drive\u2014and that western Massachusetts got very dark at night, and frequently lost power in storms, and was susceptible to being snowbound. But in good weather she could take long walks, or ride a bike into the village. It would be a very different way of life, to be sure, but it needn't be too restrictive. And there was more to recommend Woodfield, too: All of the temptations of Annabel's old life, which had dragged her down to the depths, were very far away.\n\nFinally, there was Jack.\n\nAnnabel glanced over at her husband. How happy he looked. How excited for their new venture. Jack had stuck by her through the worst. He was the only one who had. She owed him this much. But she also had no choice. Jack had been wanting out of the city for the last several years. His own career had stalled as Annabel's had skyrocketed. He had thought he was going to be a big, important writer\u2014but after his first book tanked, he couldn't get another advance. He was done with writing, he said; he hadn't opened his laptop in nearly two years. Annabel knew that Jack would have left New York whether she had agreed to go with him or not. He saw it as the only way forward, for him and for them.\n\nIf Annabel had refused to go with Jack on this new venture, he would have gone without her, and she would have been alone. And by herself, Annabel felt certain she would have slid right back to the depths, and never come back up for air.\n\n\"There it is!\" Jack shouted suddenly, pointing ahead through the windshield. \"You see that roof poking out through the trees?\"\n\nAnnabel tried, but all she saw was a mass of gnarled trunks and limbs, like thousands of skeletal arms reaching up through the soil.\n\n\"We're home, sweetheart, we're home!\"\n\nJack turned up a side road. The SUV rattled over a surface gutted with holes and bumps.\n\n\"Gotta get this road repaved,\" Jack said, more to himself than to Annabel.\n\nAs they rounded a bend, the house came into view. Jack had told her that it was an exceptional survivor of Second Empire French Victorian architecture, and Annabel could see it had once been a very grand house indeed. But now it was quite run-down, with faded, peeling paint that might once have been yellow, but was now a dull gray. Its mansard roof was cut by eight protruding gabled windows and topped by a cupola. A portico supported by two columns ornamented the front door. Around the house, ancient oak trees stood like sentinels, hunched over the structure as if to shield it from decades of wind and rain.\n\n\"I can smell Gran's rabbit stew from here!\" Jack exclaimed, as he turned into the driveway of the house.\n\nAnnabel saw the weather-eaten sign that swung in the slight breeze from an old post. She read it once, and then read it again, as cold fingers played her spine like a xylophone.\n\nTHE BLUE BOY INN\n\nBelow the name was an old engraving of a smiling little boy that looked just like Tommy Tricky.\n2\n\n\"You're going to have to tell him, you know,\" the wizened caretaker told the old woman as they spotted the SUV pull into the driveway.\n\n\"Of course, I know I have to tell him,\" she replied. \"That's the whole reason I offered the house to him. I wasn't about to just put it on the market.\"\n\n\"No, that wouldn't have been a good idea.\"\n\nThe caretaker had a long memory. He'd lived in this house for sixty of his seventy-nine years. He had seen a great deal in that time. He'd become inured to most of it. Nothing much shocked him. But still some images remained seared on his mind. The little pink arm, for instance, resting among the cinders. The caretaker had thought, at first glance, that it had been a doll's arm.\n\nHe had been wrong.\n\n\"He's going to have to tend to the place,\" the caretaker told the old woman. \"Your grandson. He's going to have to do it all eventually. I'm not strong enough anymore.\"\n\n\"I'll explain everything to him,\" the old woman said.\n\nHer eyes narrowed as she watched the automobile come to a stop in front of the house. Its doors opened.\n\n\"But what if he . . . if he's not willing?\" the caretaker asked her.\n\nA queer smile crusted the old woman's lips. \"I know my grandson. He'll be willing.\" She peered through the window. A pretty girl was stepping out of the passenger's side of the car. The old woman frowned. \"I just wish he wasn't bringing a wife with him.\"\n3\n\nGetting out of the car\u2014how good that felt!\u2014Annabel walked slowly over to the sign.\n\n\"You never told me the place was called the Blue Boy Inn,\" she called to Jack.\n\nHe was busy hauling out their luggage from the back of the SUV. \"Yup. It's had the same name for over a hundred years.\"\n\nAnnabel studied the engraving on the sign. The boy was smiling. It wasn't a nice smile. It was the kind of smile that a little demon might make before polishing off a trapped little girl as a tasty snack. In his hand, he carried a gun, but for Annabel it might as well have been Tommy Tricky's axe.\n\n\"Why the gun?\" she asked Jack over her shoulder.\n\nHer husband had sauntered over to stare up at the sign with her. \"It's a musket. The place dates to just after the Civil War. He's supposed to be a Union soldier.\"\n\nAnnabel noticed the gold buttons and epaulets the boy was wearing, faded like the rest of the image.\n\n\"Maybe we should change the name,\" she suggested. \"Put up a new sign.\"\n\nJack put his arm around her. \"Hey, babe, we can't start messing with tradition.\"\n\nHe led her up to the front steps of the house.\n\n\"We'll get our bags later,\" he told her. \"Let's go in and see Gran.\"\n\nThe front door was weathered and flaking with old paint. Jack rapped hard with the old rusted knocker.\n\n\"As a kid, coming to this house was always so much fun for me,\" he said. \"I can't believe it's mine now . . . ours, I mean.\" He grinned down at Annabel.\n\nThe door was opened by a small old man, his face creased in a thousand wrinkles. His eyes were bright and very blue, practically popping out of his gray face.\n\n\"Hello, Mr. Jack,\" the old man said, looking up at them.\n\n\"Zeke!\" Jack exclaimed.\n\nHe shook the old man's hand heartily.\n\n\"This is my wife, Annabel,\" Jack said.\n\n\"How do you do?\" Annabel asked, doing her best to smile down at the old man, though she found it difficult for some reason.\n\n\"Pleased to make your acquaintance,\" Zeke replied, nodding slightly.\n\n\"Zeke taught me how to fish,\" Jack was saying as they entered the house. \"Taught me how to fire a gun, too.\"\n\nAnnabel kept her eyes on the little man. He didn't seem the outdoorsy type. He was frail and slight, hunched over and unsteady on his feet. His skin was a pale yellow, as if he hadn't left the house in decades.\n\nThe place felt damp. The pungent smell of whatever was cooking on the stove\u2014Jack had said it was rabbit stew\u2014permeated the small, low-ceilinged rooms, filling Annabel's nostrils with an unfamiliar aroma she couldn't call either pleasant or unpleasant. Just strong. The house was very dark. Its small windows were nearly obscured by the bushes outside. Ancient, uneven floorboards creaked under foot. Annabel was sure the house was infested with mice. She repressed a shudder.\n\nThey found Gran in the kitchen. She didn't rise to greet them. She remained seated at the old wooden table, a tiny figure dressed in black with a face as pale as her caretaker's. Her shockingly white hair was pulled back from her face and knotted in an untidy bun at the back of her head. Hands like talons rubbed each other as she watched them enter.\n\n\"Gran!\" Jack exclaimed, rushing over to embrace the old woman.\n\n\"Welcome home,\" she said to him, in a low, yet surprisingly girlish voice.\n\n\"This is Annabel,\" he told her, gesturing to his wife to join him.\n\nAnnabel extended her hand. \"I'm very happy to meet you, Mrs. Devlin.\"\n\n\"You must call me Cordelia,\" the old woman told her, taking Annabel's hand and squeezing it tight.\n\nAnnabel smiled. \"All right, Cordelia. Thank you.\"\n\n\"I had Zeke air out your room,\" the old woman said. \"I hope it will be all right.\"\n\n\"I'm sure it's fine,\" Jack replied.\n\nCordelia sighed. \"It's an old house. There are a lot of cobwebs. We don't quite have the strength to keep up with it the way we used to. During the season, we've been hiring some college students to come in and give us some help. But now that you're here . . .\"\n\nJack was beaming. \"We'll get the place in tip-top shape!\"\n\n\"In fact,\" Annabel said, \"I'm a designer. I'd love to maybe look at opening up the space a little bit. The rooms are so small. If we open things up a little bit\u2014\"\n\n\"I wouldn't go around opening things up willy-nilly,\" Cordelia said, cutting her off. Her old blue eyes shone in Annabel's direction. \"The architecture of the house is fragile. You wouldn't want to open something up and find the whole place falling down on you.\"\n\nAnnabel smiled. \"Of course not. We'll definitely work with the blueprints.\"\n\n\"Don't worry, Gran,\" Jack said. \"We're not coming in with a wrecking ball. We'll respect tradition. That's what you said in your letter to me. That there was a tradition here and that you'd give us the house if we respected it. And we intend to.\"\n\nThe old woman smiled.\n\nAnnabel looked away. She had the sudden sensation of claustrophobia. The rooms were so small here, so dark. The ceilings were so low. But it was worse than that. She had the sudden fear that she had been lured into this place with false promises. They would make it their own, Jack had promised. They could start over, build something that was theirs. But if Cordelia was always going to be there, overseeing things, nixing ideas and squelching their creativity, then what sort of life would this be? Once again, Annabel wanted to run. She wanted to throw open the back door and run out through the woods until she found the road, and then hitchhike her way back to New York.\n\nBut there was nothing in New York for her anymore. All her bridges back into the city had been burned, all her tunnels filled in with cement. She was on her own.\n\nAt the Blue Boy Inn.\n\nThis is where Tommy Tricky lives, she heard Daddy Ron tell her.\n\nHow badly Annabel wanted to run.\n4\n\nPriscilla Morton thought of herself as a ghost hunter. Ever since she'd been a kid, she'd searched out every supposedly haunted house or mysterious graveyard she could find, traipsing all over the south of England, where there were plenty such places. When she and her boyfriend, Neville, decided to take a two-week holiday to the United States, Priscilla had insisted that their first week be spent visiting different haunted inns. She'd discovered that there were as many of them in New England as there were in Old England. Neville, who thought Priscilla's ideas about ghosts were nonsense, had agreed, only if their second week could be spent in Florida, at Disney World.\n\nPriscilla had told him they had a deal.\n\nThat didn't mean Neville was suffering that first week gladly.\n\n\"Really, Priscilla,\" he was saying, driving north on Interstate 91 through Hartford, \"it's freezing cold out there. What kind of holiday is this? If we'd wanted cold and gray skies, we could have stayed in England.\"\n\n\"You have to admit that inn last night was worth it,\" Priscilla replied. \"I heard the wailing, just as the innkeeper promised.\"\n\nHer boyfriend scoffed. \"That was just the wind. Really, you believe anything.\"\n\nThe place in Connecticut had dated from 1799. Two centuries ago a woman had been killed in the room they'd stayed in, and legend had it that her screams still sounded through the house, waking guests and sending them running for the manager. Priscilla had heard the poor woman's wails and had sat straight up in bed. She'd woken Neville, snoring like a bear beside her, but he'd only grunted and gone back to sleep.\n\n\"I'd say we got our money's worth on that one,\" she said, looking down her list of haunted guesthouses. And it was a good thing, too. The first two places, one in Rhode Island and the other near New Haven, had been busts. No screams, no apparitions. Neville couldn't wait to get to Florida.\n\n\"The temperature this morning is eighty-five degrees Fahrenheit in Orlando,\" he told her. \"We could be sitting by a pool right now, sipping margaritas.\"\n\nPriscilla stuck her tongue out at him. She wasn't sure what she saw in him. He wasn't very handsome, with kind of a pimply face and stringy hair and a gut that hung over his belt. And he could be such a stick in the mud. Neville didn't like most of the things that Priscilla liked, be they ghost hunting or bird watching or kayaking. All Neville liked was to watch football and drink beer. But he was good to her, Priscilla supposed. He put up with her. Her mother had always said it would take a rare man to put up with Priscilla's eccentricities. She was only twenty-four, but she knew that sometimes she acted older. Like how she'd preferred quilting bees to rock concerts growing up. Priscilla had never been into television or fashion or rap music or any of the sorts of things other young girls liked. Even now she would rather go on an architectural tour of old churches than go out to a pub. She and Neville had been dating for three years. Priscilla doubted they'd ever get married. But that was okay by her. She didn't think she was the marrying type.\n\nNeville was older than she was, by almost ten years, and Priscilla supposed he stayed with her because, all of her quirks aside, he figured he couldn't do much better. In fact, he'd done very well. For all her peculiarities, Priscilla was quite pretty, with long, silky blond hair, full breasts, and a tiny waist. If not for the thick, black, oversized eyeglasses she wore, she might have been mistaken for a blond bombshell. She figured if she put her mind to it, she could get a much hotter guy than Neville. But she didn't have time to put her mind to such things. She'd much rather concentrate on ghost hunting or gravestone rubbing.\n\n\"Where is this next place we're heading for?\" Neville asked, steering the car past the glittering skyline of Hartford. \"It's in Massachusetts?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" Priscilla replied. \"Just keep north on this road. When you get to the Massachusetts Turnpike, you'll go west.\"\n\n\"How many miles?\"\n\n\"I don't know. I can't read American maps all that well. But I'll keep navigating.\"\n\nNeville grunted. \"We'd better see a real ghost this time, covered in chains. If not, we're heading out early to Florida.\"\n\n\"It's not my fault that you wouldn't wake up last night to listen to the wailing of that poor dead spirit.\" Priscilla shuddered. \"It was absolutely spine-tingling.\"\n\n\"You're crazy. I heard the wind. That's all it was.\"\n\nPriscilla just snorted. Neville was such a skeptic. Really, what was she doing with him?\n\n\"So what kind of ghosts are at this place we're headed to?\" he asked her.\n\nShe riffled through the brochures on her lap. She found the one that described their destination.\n\n\"The Blue Boy Inn,\" she read out loud. \"Dates back to the American Civil War.\" She read a little further along. \"Oh, wow, there could be a lot of ghosts here.\"\n\n\"What do you mean by a lot?\"\n\n\"It says here that there have been several murders at the inn. And some mysterious disappearances.\"\n\nNeville snorted. \"Oh, that's probably just hype.\"\n\n\"No, it's real,\" Priscilla said, reading the history of the place. \"The first murder was a girl named Sally Brown. Nearly a hundred years ago. They never found her body, just her blood splattered all over the walls.\"\n\n\"Oh, goody, let's stay in that room,\" Neville quipped. He was being facetious. But Priscilla really hoped they got booked into Sally Brown's old quarters.\n\n\"Then there was this guy Andrew McGurk, whose body was found, but not his head.\" She shivered. \"And then\u2014oh, this is terrible\u2014a little baby, who disappeared. The only thing they ever found of her was her arm.\"\n\n\"I don't like baby ghosts,\" Neville grumbled. \"I imagine they cry all the time.\"\n\n\"And there's more,\" Priscilla said, glancing down at the description of the Blue Boy. \"Quite a bit more.\" She looked over at Neville. \"I think we've hit the jackpot with this place. I mean, if we're looking for ghosts, this is the place that will have them.\"\n\n\"I can hardly wait,\" Neville said, as he drove the car north on 91.\n5\n\nThe arthritis in Zeke's knees and hips burned like a thousand wasps stinging him all at once. Each step up the narrow stairs to the attic was agony. He couldn't do this much longer.\n\nIt was time to turn this job over to someone else.\n\nAnd who better than young Mr. Jack?\n\nZeke lifted the old rusted iron key from the ring he carried on his belt, the one that had been jangling against his side all the way up the stairs. He slipped it into the keyhole on the door.\n\nHow many times had he done this particular job? Impossible to count. It seemed all his life. But it wasn't all his life. There had been a time before Zeke had come to this house, though he could hardly remember that life now, when his life had seemed full of promise. But that was a long, long time ago. Half a century Zeke had been tending to this place. And for almost half of that time, he'd been making this trip up to the attic, twice a day.\n\nHe turned the key in the lock.\n\nDownstairs, Mr. Jack and his pretty wife were settling in, unpacking, freshening up. Oh, they had such plans. They were going to clean the place up. Modernize it. The woman spoke of getting something called \"wireless internetting,\" whatever that was.\n\nA little smile played across Zeke's lips.\n\nThey could plan all they wanted. They'd soon learn it wasn't they who made decisions about the house.\n\nHe opened the door.\n\nHe listened.\n\nHe heard the sound then in the dark, cobwebby room.\n\nThe panting.\n\nZeke stepped inside and closed the door behind him.\n6\n\nAnnabel stood gazing out of her window into the cold bare limbs of the trees that surrounded the house. They looked like some sort of petrified aboriginal humans, frozen in the midst of some terrible cataclysm, staring up at the Blue Boy Inn with their arms outstretched to the sky.\n\n\"Lots of possibilities, don't you think, sweetheart?\"\n\nJack had come into the bedroom behind her.\n\n\"I think if we knock this wall down here,\" he was saying, \"we can open up the room to include the bathroom in a sort of master suite. That way we don't have to mingle with the guests in the hallway when we first get up in the morning.\"\n\nAnnabel didn't say anything. She just kept staring out into the trees.\n\n\"What do you say, baby cakes? Isn't that a good idea? You're the one with the artistic eye.\"\n\nShe turned around to face him. \"I think it's a splendid idea,\" she said, trying to smile. \"But I thought you wanted to respect tradition.\"\n\n\"I do, sweetheart, but you know I was mostly saying that just to placate Gran.\" Jack smiled broadly, his cheeks indenting with dimples, and he took her in his arms. \"This has been her home for a long, long time. I didn't want her to think that we were going to start pulling it down around her.\"\n\n\"It needs a lot of work, Jack,\" Annabel told him. \"Much more than I thought. So many walls and floorboards need to be replaced. The plumbing and electricity needs to be updated.\"\n\n\"I know, babe. One step at a time.\"\n\nShe shuddered and closed her eyes. She imagined she was at Fifth Avenue and Broadway, and the sound of honking taxicabs and police sirens filled her ears. It made her feel better, at least for a few moments.\n\nShe gently slipped out of her husband's embrace. \"If I'm going to do this, I'll need your support, you know.\"\n\n\"You have it!\"\n\n\"Are you sure?\"\n\nShe looked at him. Jack's big blue eyes seemed filled with sincerity and purpose. They'd been madly in love once, five years earlier, when they'd met at a party and spontaneously married eleven days later, with no friends or family in attendance, just a justice of the peace and Jack's high school ring as a wedding band. Since then, some of the impulsivity of their union had faded, and Annabel's crises over the past year had severely strained their marriage. She didn't blame Jack for having a fling with Rachel Riley, one of her colleagues at Orbit. It had been just a one-night thing, when Annabel was locked away and Jack was lonely. He'd confessed to Annabel when she got out, apologizing profusely. She'd forgiven him. It was understandable.\n\nBut she could barely stomach looking at Rachel Riley, with her ridiculously blond hair and big boobs. She'd been Annabel's friend. Supposedly.\n\nBut in every other way, Jack had stuck by her. After the affair with Rachel, he had become even more devoted to making sure Annabel got better. So many other men might have walked away, but Jack didn't. Even during the period when she was coming home from fashion shoots strung out on coke, screaming and ranting and craving more blow, Jack had put up with her. He had calmed her down. He had brought her down from the high without letting her crash. When the time came for rehab, Jack had been right there, lending Annabel support and encouragement. Even as his own dreams of success had withered away, he hadn't given up on Annabel's.\n\nJack had thought he was on the fast track to the big time. In those heady first months after their hasty marriage, they'd imagined themselves the Next Big Power Couple. How excited he had been when a big publishing house bought the novel he'd been laboring over since college. It was a deep, involved story of a young man and his search for meaning in a world that was increasingly impersonal and commercial. Annabel thought that was ironic, given that Jack was always saying what he wanted most from his book was a contract for a Hollywood blockbuster so they'd get rich, rich, rich. When that hadn't happened\u2014after much advance publicity, the reviewers had called the book \"tedious\" and \"pretentious\"\u2014Jack had been devastated.\n\nAnd it was just at that moment that Annabel's career had started its dizzying ascent. Her eventual crash was even more spectacular than Jack's.\n\nNow here they both were, in the middle of the woods, miles and miles from civilization, in a place called the Blue Boy Inn.\n\nWhere Tommy Tricky lives, Annabel thought.\n\nShe smiled over at Jack.\n\n\"I didn't mean to doubt you,\" she said. \"I know you support me. I couldn't have gotten through everything without you.\"\n\nJack beamed, leaned over toward her, and kissed her on the forehead.\n\n\"I'll see you downstairs, hon,\" he said. \"You really ought to try Gran's rabbit stew. I know you don't want to eat bunnies, but, really, it's out of this world.\"\n\n\"I'll pass on it for now,\" she told him.\n\nHe winked at her and bounded out of the room.\n\nAnnabel looked around. How small the room was. So square and the ceilings were so low. The whole place smelled like old, wet wood. And rabbit stew. Annabel shivered.\n\nShe would never last here.\n\nBut she had to. There was nowhere else.\n\nNo other choice.\n\nShe would make the best of it. She would redesign this place. It was theirs, after all. The old woman was signing over the property to them. After that, they could do what they liked. Annabel needed a project. She could do this. She could bring in carpenters and painters and electricians. She still had some contacts over at the HG television network. Maybe she ought to pitch them a reality show set in the woods of western Massachusetts, as a former New York socialite tries to remake an old house....\n\nAnd her life.\n\nNo, Annabel didn't want cameras around for that.\n\nShe looked out the window again, at the gnarled branches so close to the house. It's like they're trying to suffocate us, Annabel thought.\n\nWhen was the last time she and Jack had made love?\n\nThe thought struck Annabel suddenly and unexpectedly. She paused. She couldn't remember. Yes, wait, now she could. It had been three weeks ago. Right after he'd gotten the call from his grandmother. Jack had been so excited by the idea. He'd started kissing Annabel all over the face. \"This is it, sweet cakes!\" he had shouted. \"The answer to our doldrums! Our new path! Our way out of the city! We're going to be huge successes there. Just you wait and see!\"\n\nThe fact that Annabel hadn't wanted to leave the city was immaterial. She had been bulldozed by Jack's enthusiasm. And by his amorous advances. His big hands had suddenly been all over her. She hadn't wanted to make love that day, but Jack had insisted. Annabel had given in, and then, while he was inside her, she had started to cry, wanting to enjoy it, wanting to love sex the way she used to\u2014wanting to love Jack the way she used to. How much Annabel wanted to love everything in her life the way she once had in days gone by\u2014before the drugs and the breakdown and the humiliation.\n\n\"Baby doll,\" Jack had said, looking down at her, red-faced and puffing. \"Why are you crying?\"\n\nShe had replied that the tears came from her orgasm. That had been a lie.\n\nThat was also the last time they made love.\n\nHe might want to, tonight, she thought to herself. To celebrate our first night here.\n\nAnnabel dreaded the prospect. Not that she wanted to withhold sex from Jack. In fact, she wanted very much to make love to him, to feel his arms around her, to feel happy and content in his embrace the way she used to. She craved that feeling.\n\nBut she knew she couldn't feel that way. Not here. Not in this house.\n\nA whiff of the rabbit stew reached her nostrils again, and nearly made her vomit. It smelled sickeningly sweet, like a dead mouse rotting under the stove.\n\nThis is never going to work, she thought to herself.\n\n\"Annabel, you have got to believe in yourself,\" her mother always used to tell her. \"You're such a timid little kitten. You need to believe you can do whatever you put your mind to doing.\"\n\nThat had always been a challenge for Annabel. Even when she'd been on top of the world, New York's latest fashion and design darling, she'd doubted herself. It was why she had turned to coke and booze. She'd needed to feel confident\u2014and she felt confident when she was high. But when she came down, she was right back to feeling unsure and timid again, so she had searched out more white powder to sniff up her nose. It had been a vicious cycle. No wonder she had burned out so quickly.\n\nBut she had to believe in herself now. She had to make this venture work.\n\nShe smiled as she looked at herself in the mirror. She tied her chestnut-colored hair back in a ponytail. Her big brown eyes disclosed her lack of sleep these past several weeks. Her face was a little fuller now than it had been during the worst of her addiction, but she could still stand to put on a few pounds. She wore no makeup. She reached into her purse and pulled out a lipstick, rubbing a very light pink on her lips.\n\n\"You can do this,\" she told her reflection.\n\nRight away, she doubted her own words.\n\nIn rehab, they had tried pumping her with self-confidence, cheering her on. There had been therapists and psychologists whose jobs had been merely to instill in Annabel a sense that she mattered, that she was powerful. They were successful enough that she had been able to leave, to return home to Jack, to be able to handle the cravings when they came, and to finally feel free of them. Annabel didn't want coke anymore. She wanted something else, however, though that was harder to identify. Happiness, she supposed, but that felt like asking for too much.\n\nShe had an image then, as she gazed at herself in the mirror, of her mother's body hanging behind her.\n\nShe didn't jump. She saw it sometimes. Just like the day she had come in from school, aged sixteen, and found her mother hanging in the dining room.\n\nThe same mother who had told Annabel to believe in herself.\n\nAnnabel closed her eyes, opened them again, and the image was gone. That was the way it worked.\n\nBut now she spied something else behind her in the mirror.\n\nSomething that moved.\n\nAnnabel spun around. There was nothing there. Whatever she had seen was small, close to the floor, maybe a cat or a dog, moving quickly through the small, shadowy space between the bed and the dresser.\n\nA squirrel? Annabel asked herself.\n\nShe took a step toward the spot where she had detected the motion. Had whatever it was gone under the bed?\n\n\"I wouldn't be surprised if this place is infested with vermin,\" Annabel said out loud, wondering whether she ought to stoop down and peer under the bed herself or go get Jack. She was a city girl, after all. In Central Park, she'd always been afraid of the squirrels.\n\n\"Believe in yourself, Annabel,\" she told herself, and laughed.\n\nShe knelt down on the old, warped wooden floorboards. She lifted the bedspread and peered under the box spring.\n\nNothing. Just clumps of dust.\n\nAnnabel sighed.\n\nShe must have imagined she saw something. It must have been just the shadow of a tree branch moving outside. The day was becoming breezy, after all.\n\nAnnabel stood back up.\n\nShe looked over toward the door.\n\nAnd there, grinning malevolently up at her, was the tiny blue figure of Tommy Tricky, gnashing his long, sharp, blue teeth.\n7\n\nZeke heard the woman's scream as he was locking the door to the attic. He hurried down the steps as best he could, his arthritic joints screaming at him, and made his way to Annabel's room.\n\nHe hadn't expected it to start this soon.\n\nThe caretaker found the new mistress of the house standing up against the wall in the corridor, her face the color of flour, and her body shuddering as if she was having a seizure. Zeke reached out a hand to steady her.\n\n\"Miss Annabel,\" the old man said. \"What's wrong?\"\n\n\"I saw something,\" she managed to say.\n\n\"What did you see?\"\n\n\"A boy. A little man.\"\n\nZeke narrowed his rheumy eyes at her. \"There's no little boys here.\"\n\n\"I saw him,\" Annabel said, still trembling.\n\n\"What was he doing?\"\n\n\"Smiling.\" She burst into tears and covered her face with her hands. \"Teeth. His teeth!\"\n\n\"A little boy smiled at you?\"\n\nZeke kept his eyes trained on Annabel.\n\n\"Tell me exactly what you saw,\" he said.\n\nBut she was too overcome now. She just sobbed into her hands.\n\n\"What's going on?\" came the voice of Mr. Jack, heading down the hallway toward them. He seemed more annoyed to be pulled away from his rabbit stew than concerned about his wife.\n\n\"Miss Annabel said she saw a little boy,\" Zeke told him,\n\n\"A little boy?\"\n\n\"Oh, Jack,\" she said, and threw herself into his arms. \"I saw him. The blue boy . . .\"\n\n\"The blue boy?\" her husband asked.\n\n\"You mean, the boy from our sign out front?\" Zeke asked.\n\n\"And then he disappeared!\" The color had returned to Annabel's face. Now she was all red and purple from crying. \"He ran down the hall and somehow just disappeared.. . .\"\n\n\"Annabel,\" Jack said, stroking her hair, \"sweetheart, you had a hallucination. . . .\"\n\nShe looked up at him. Zeke saw them exchange a glance that carried some meaning. Apparently, this pretty young lady had had hallucinations before.\n\nThat could prove convenient.\n\n\"It's okay,\" Mr. Jack told Zeke. \"My wife has a vivid imagination sometimes.\"\n\n\"Imagination is good for the soul,\" the caretaker replied, \"but not when it scares you half to death.\"\n\n\"She'll be okay, now, won't you, baby cakes?\" Jack asked, gently moving Annabel back into their room. He shot Zeke a glance. \"Tell Gran I'll be back down in a minute.\"\n\n\"Yessir, Mr. Jack.\"\n\nThe old man shuffled down the hall back toward the kitchen.\n\nCordelia was waiting for him. Her intense blue eyes seemed to burn holes in her pale face. Her gnarled hands were opening and closing.\n\n\"What has happened?\" she asked, in that voice that seemed so much younger than the face from which it came.\n\n\"She saw a little boy,\" Zeke told her.\n\n\"A little boy?\"\n\n\"A little blue boy,\" the caretaker added.\n\nCordelia turned away. \"I wish he hadn't brought her,\" she said.\n\n\"You can't expect a man to leave his wife behind.\"\n\nShe turned her eyes back to him. \"Why not? My husband did. My son left poor Jack.\"\n\n\"That's what happens here,\" Zeke said, rather matter-of-factly.\n\nCordelia sat back down at the table. \"By the way,\" she said. \"You'll need to prepare one of the rooms.\" She paused. \"We've got guests arriving.\"\n8\n\nAnnabel started the car and backed out of the driveway. She wasn't very good at driving; there was never a need in the city. But she'd gotten her license because sometimes she'd needed to drive when they'd go out on photo shoots in the Hamptons or in Connecticut. She didn't necessarily enjoy being behind the wheel of a car, but right now the idea of getting on the road, away from the house, seemed blissful.\n\nJack had agreed it was a good idea for her to go down to the market and get some groceries. \"It will clear your head,\" he'd told her.\n\nAs a vegetarian, Annabel was going to need some other provisions in the refrigerator besides leftover rabbit stew if she was going to survive. There was a market down at the end of the road, and Jack had told her to buy everything she wanted.\n\nWhat she wanted was freedom. But Annabel couldn't figure out a way to buy that.\n\nShe steered the SUV down the twisting country lane. The misshapen trees on either side of the road terrified her. They reminded her of Cordelia's arthritic hands. She tried to concentrate on her driving, but Annabel's heart was still thudding in her ears from the scare she'd had.\n\nI saw Tommy Tricky.\n\nShe let out a deep breath.\n\nNo, she told herself. It was not Tommy Tricky. It was another hallucination, like the ones she'd had during rehab and immediately after. Her therapists had found she was prone to hallucinations. She would begin to imagine that nothing was safe around her. Her therapist, Dr. Adler, had kept telling her, over and over, \"You are safe, Annabel. Nothing can hurt you.\" But she had gone through periods where she had been absolutely convinced that she was unsafe\u2014that everything and everyone around her was out to get her.\n\nGetting off the drugs hadn't been easy. There were times she'd thought she was going mad. She saw snakes coming through the floorboards. She'd thought the apartment was on fire one horrifying night. None of it had been real, and the little blue boy she'd seen wasn't real, either.\n\nOf course, I'd hallucinate about Tommy Tricky. I was upset and anxious, worried about the move. I was feeling claustrophobic. And I'd just seen that horrible sign out front.\n\nAnnabel was going to replace that sign no matter what anybody said. Screw tradition. She wanted it down.\n\nHer stepfather had been a sadistic son of a bitch. How could he have terrified a little girl the way he did? Whenever he wanted to get a rise out of Annabel, he'd say, \"Watch out for Tommy Tricky!\" How she wished her mother had put a stop to it. But her mother was weak. She had just let that horrible man continue torturing her daughter. \"Look behind you,\" Daddy Ron would say. \"I think I see ol' Tommy creepin' up on ya.\"\n\nAnd then he'd laugh\u2014a giant guffaw\u2014as Annabel would start to cry.\n\nWhen Daddy Ron had been drinking, it was even worse. He got angry so quickly after he'd had a few beers. He looked for excuses to punish Annabel. One time, when her mother had gone out, Annabel had dropped the milk carton as she was putting it away. It had spilled on the kitchen floor, an ocean of milk spreading across the tiles. The next thing she knew her stepfather was screaming at her. He grabbed her by the shirt and dragged her down the hall to the linen closet. He shoved her inside and locked the door. Annabel had sat in the darkness, knees pulled up to her chest, sobbing as Daddy Ron taunted her from outside.\n\n\"Tommy Tricky is in there with you! He's got his sharp little axe! He likes to chop up bad little girls and eat them for lunch!\"\n\nMom had let Annabel out of the closet when she got home, hugged her briefly, and then told the little girl not to make Daddy Ron angry anymore.\n\nUp ahead, Annabel spied the market. It was a small wooden structure fronted by big glass windows. A sign above the door read FALLS GENERAL STORE. Annabel pulled into the parking lot and cut the engine.\n\nShe took a deep breath, opened the car door, and headed inside. A bell over the door rang as she passed through.\n\n\"Good afternoon,\" the lady behind the counter sang out.\n\n\"Good afternoon,\" Annabel replied.\n\nThe woman was large\u2014not fat, just big-boned and tall, with broad shoulders and wide hands. Her hair was gray, worn long, and her face was friendly. She was probably sixty, but her skin was entirely smooth and unwrinkled. Her eyes were periwinkle blue.\n\n\"May I help you?\" she asked.\n\nAnnabel smiled. \"Just moved in with my husband's grandmother. And I'm a vegetarian. Turns out there wasn't a lot in her fridge that I could eat.\"\n\nThe woman laughed. \"Well, right now we don't have a lot of fresh produce. We tend to only sell what's grown locally, so you'll have to wait a few months before we'll have tomatoes and corn and green beans and sweet peas and carrots. . . .\" She smiled as she came around from behind the counter. \"But I think we can stock you up with some of the best canned goods and preserves.\"\n\n\"Thanks,\" Annabel said, returning the woman's smile. \"Even frozen is fine.\"\n\n\"I'm Millie,\" the woman said.\n\n\"Annabel.\"\n\n\"Pleased to meet you. Where did you move here from?\"\n\nShe was pointing Annabel to an aisle filled with canned vegetables and fruits. Most of it was local stuff, preserved right here in western Massachusetts. Lifting a handbasket, Annabel began filling it up with various cans and jars. She tossed in a few boxes of whole wheat pasta as well.\n\n\"New York,\" she said, replying to Millie's question.\n\n\"The city?\"\n\nAnnabel nodded.\n\nMillie laughed again. It was a small, tinkly sound for such a big woman. \"Well, you're going to be in for some culture shock up here. How long you staying?\"\n\nAnnabel sighed. \"For good,\" she said.\n\nMillie raised her eyebrows.\n\n\"My grandmother-in-law is rather frail. She can't keep up the place by herself anymore, so she's asked my husband and me to take over the house.\"\n\nMillie folded her masculine arms across her chest. \"So you're really okay moving out of cosmopolitan Manhattan for this little hole in the woods in the middle of nowhere?\"\n\nAnnabel gave her the most convincing smile she could manage. \"So long as I can find other things to eat than Gran's rabbit stew.\"\n\nSomething in Millie's eyes changed. Her brows furrowed as she studied Annabel.\n\n\"Something wrong?\" Annabel asked.\n\n\"What's your grandmother-in-law's name?\"\n\nAnnabel returned her odd stare. \"Cordelia Devlin,\" she said.\n\nMillie opened her mouth to say something, and then stopped. She tried again. \"And the house you've taken over,\" she said slowly, \"is the Blue Boy Inn.\"\n\n\"That's right.\"\n\n\"Well, well,\" Millie said, hugging herself tighter. \"So the old place is going to be given a new lease on life.\"\n\nAnnabel smiled widely. \"That's what my husband and I are hoping. We're going to fix it up, modernize it, get some new technology in there. . . .\"\n\n\"Technology?\"\n\nAnnabel placed a jar of peanut butter and some breadsticks into her basket. \"Well, the place doesn't even have any flat-screen TVs, let alone any Internet. I think a guesthouse needs some amenities, even if it's out in the woods.\" She thought about it. \"Actually, especially if it's out in the woods.\"\n\n\"Well, most of the people who still come to the Blue Boy aren't coming for cable television and Facebook.\" Millie unfolded her arms. \"As I'm sure you're aware.\"\n\nAnnabel looked over at her. \"You mean they come to get away from all that?\"\n\n\"Maybe, but not necessarily,\" the storekeeper replied. \"They come to the Blue Boy because they're looking for ghosts.\"\n\nJust then, the bell over the door jangled. Annabel was still struck by what Millie had just said, so she didn't turn to look, but Millie did.\n\n\"Hello, chief,\" she sang out.\n\nAnnabel moved her eyes over to observe the newcomer. He was a tall, dark-haired man with a craggy, handsome face, maybe about forty, dressed in dark dungarees and a brown corduroy jacket. He gave Millie a little salute.\n\n\"What can I help you with today, chief?\"\n\n\"Just a quart of milk, Mil,\" he said. \"Ran out last night and had to eat my Cheerios dry.\"\n\nMillie turned to look back at Annabel. \"That's what he eats for breakfast and for dinner. Cheerios. The man needs a good woman who will cook for him.\"\n\nThe man laughed. \"I've asked you a million times to marry me, darlin', but you always turn me down.\"\n\n\"And take a look at him!\" Millie said, still talking to Annabel. \"Movie star handsome. But still unattached.\"\n\n\"I'm married to my badge,\" he said, placing the milk down on the counter.\n\nMillie moved around to ring him up. \"And isn't Woodfield fortunate to have such a dedicated chief of police.\" She dropped the milk into a small paper bag. \"Hey, chief, meet the new girl in town. Just arrived.\" Millie fixed him with a look. \"She and her husband are taking over the Blue Boy Inn.\"\n\nThe chief looked around at Annabel for the first time. For some odd, unexplainable reason, she blushed.\n\n\"Is that right?\" he asked. \"Cordelia's giving the place up?\"\n\n\"She's my husband's grandmother,\" Annabel explained. \"And she's asked us to come run the place. She can't do it on her own anymore.\"\n\n\"Doesn't she still have Zeke around to help her?\"\n\n\"Yes, he's still there. But he's rather old as well.\"\n\nThe chief smiled. \"Older than the earth, it seems.\" He moved closer to Annabel and extended his hand. \"Well, welcome to town. I'm Richard Carlson. If there's anything I can do for you or your husband, do let me know.\"\n\nShe shook his hand. \"Thank you,\" she said. \"I'm Annabel Wish.\" She was struck by how dark the chief's eyes were. Almost black.\n\n\"Enjoy the rest of your day, Millie babe,\" the chief said, heading out of the store.\n\nThe little bell over the door rang again.\n\nAnnabel watched him go through the large windows. He slid into a plain black car, probably a Ford. No cruiser. Annabel imagined he must have been off duty, since he hadn't been wearing a uniform.\n\nShe brought her basket of provisions up the counter.\n\n\"Oh, you'll like these,\" Millie said, lifting a couple jars of raspberry preserves. \"I know the lady who cans these. Grows all her own berries on her farm. In the summer you can go up there and pick your own. Raspberries, strawberries, blueberries . . .\"\n\n\"I'll keep it in mind,\" Annabel said. \"But I'm not much of a berry picker, except from the display at Whole Foods.\"\n\nMillie frowned. \"You're going to have a lot of adjustments living here, sweetie.\"\n\n\"I know.\" Annabel paused. \"Millie, what did you mean when you said people come to the Blue Boy to see ghosts?\"\n\nThe storekeeper stopped what she was doing and fixed her with her blue eyes.\n\n\"You don't know?\"\n\n\"Know what?\"\n\n\"It can't be that your husband never told you about the murders.\"\n\nAnnabel's blood went cold.\n\n\"Murders?\" she asked. \"What are you talking about?\"\n\n\"Well, if he hasn't told you, then it's probably best that you ask him.\"\n\nAnnabel suddenly felt frantic. \"No, please, tell me what you know.\"\n\nMillie shrugged. \"It's not like I'm telling tales out of school. Everybody up here knows the history of the Blue Boy Inn. The only reason it stays in business is because of the ghost tourists. People think it's haunted because of all the deaths that have taken place there over the years.\"\n\n\"And these deaths were . . . murders?\"\n\nMillie was placing Annabel's groceries in a paper bag, one much larger than the one she'd just given to Richard Carlson. \"Well,\" she said, \"not all, probably, but some of them definitely were. Like, for example, you don't accidentally get your head cut off.\"\n\n\"Oh, dear God,\" Annabel said.\n\n\"Look, honey, I'm sorry to be the one to break this to you. I can't believe you could move up here and not know. You should go right back up there and get your husband to tell you everything.\" Millie's eyes were kind, but also serious. \"Because there's no way he doesn't know. One of the deaths up there, a long time ago, was Cordelia's young granddaughter. And if I'm figuring correctly, that would have been your husband's sister.\"\n9\n\n\"It's up here, turn here!\" Priscilla shouted at Neville. I\"That little lane, there!\"\n\n\"Never would have spotted the bloody road,\" Neville grumbled, turning the car up the rutted passageway through the trees.\n\n\"Yes, very easy to miss,\" Priscilla agreed. \"Hidden away in the woods. The way all haunted houses should be.\"\n\nHer boyfriend smirked over at her. \"Have I told you how excited I am to get to Florida?\"\n\n\"Yes, six thousand times. Pull in over there. Next to the sign.\"\n\nThe Blue Boy stared down at him with his faded-paint eyes.\n\n\"Creepy, isn't he?\" Priscilla said.\n\n\"I'd say the place is what's creepy,\" Neville replied, shutting off the car. \"Looks like it hasn't been updated in decades.\"\n\n\"Perfect,\" Priscilla chirped, hopping out of the passenger seat. She stood gazing up at the old inn. \"I can feel the vibrations, can't you?\"\n\n\"All I can feel are hunger pains. You wouldn't let me stop at that McDonald's back on the highway. Hope this place has something to eat.\"\n\nNeville withdrew their two bags from the trunk, and then clicked the remote to lock the car. A series of two quick, high-pitched beeps followed.\n\n\"I smell something cooking,\" Priscilla said, lifting her nose in the air.\n\n\"Probably human flesh,\" Neville muttered.\n\nThey headed up the walk to the front door. There were no other cars in the gravel driveway.\n\n\"Oh, there's somebody,\" Priscilla said. \"Over there, coming out of the woods.\"\n\nThe trees had grown thick around the house. Only a few patches of sunlight shone through here and there. The deciduous trees might have been bare of leaves, but their gnarled limbs had all tangled together so tightly that they blocked out the sun in many places. And there were lots of tall pine trees as well, leaving the Blue Boy Inn mostly shrouded in shade and shadows.\n\nSo it was hard to see the person emerging from the woods about thirty or so yards away, but Priscilla was trying to wave whoever it was down. It was possibly the proprietor.\n\n\"Hello!\" Priscilla called, taking a couple of steps in the direction of the figure. \"Hello, we have a reservation to stay here!\"\n\n\"Maybe it's just another guest,\" Neville said. \"Let's just go up and ring the doorbell.\"\n\nPriscilla frowned. \"There are no other cars here. It can't be a guest! Hello!\"\n\nShe waved her hand to catch the person's attention.\n\nIt was a woman, she could see now. The hair was long and possibly blond or gray. She was wearing some kind of white, diaphanous dress....\n\n\"Hello!\" Priscilla called again.\n\nThe woman finally turned in her direction.\n\nAnd Priscilla let out a gasp.\n\nThe woman's face was covered in some kind of dark substance.\n\nIt could only be blood.\n\nPriscilla screamed.\n10\n\nAnnabel heard the woman scream as she steered the SUV back up the driveway. There was a small red car parked at the inn now, and a man standing near it holding two suitcases, and a woman a few feet away, screaming and pointing toward the woods.\n\nAnnabel hopped out of the car.\n\n\"What's wrong?\" she called.\n\n\"She's covered in blood!\" the woman was shrieking\n\nThe man was trying to calm her down. \"Priscilla, come back here!\"\n\nAnnabel looked in the direction the woman was pointing. She saw nothing.\n\nShe approached the woman. \"Can I help you? What did you think you saw?\"\n\nThe woman turned a pair of frantic but obviously exhilarated eyes to her. \"Was she a ghost? Does she walk the property?\"\n\n\"I don't know who you're talking about,\" Annabel told her.\n\nThe man had joined them. \"We saw someone coming out of the woods. . . .\"\n\n\"A woman,\" his companion added. \"She's gone now. When I screamed, she bolted back into the woods.\" She frowned. \"I shouldn't have screamed. I know better than that. We can sometimes scare ghosts as much as they can scare us.\"\n\nAnnabel looked at the couple standing in front of her. They were obviously guests arriving at the inn\u2014\"ghost tourists,\" as Millie had called them. They had English accents. They'd apparently come a long way to experience the Blue Boy's ghosts.\n\n\"Well,\" Annabel said, \"I can't tell you anything. It's my first day here. My husband and I just moved here.\" Her gaze moved up to the front porch of the inn. \"But I'm sure my grandmother-in-law can tell you whatever you need to know.\"\n\nCordelia was standing there, her face set like stone. She must have heard the woman's scream.\n\nThe couple hurried up to her, jabbering about ghosts. Annabel heard the old woman start to reply, but she didn't care to listen to what she had to say at the moment.\n\nShe decided she wanted to do a little exploring herself.\n\nHer groceries would keep in the car for the moment. It was cold enough out. She started off across the grass in the direction the English woman had been pointing. If she had been alone in her claim of seeing something, Annabel would have dismissed her as a fanatic. When you come to a place wanting to see something, chances are you would. The human mind was susceptible to suggestion. Hadn't Annabel thought she'd seen Tommy Tricky earlier?\n\nBut the man said he'd seen somebody as well. So chances were they really did see somebody. Chances were it was a real person, and the woman's hysterical scream had indeed frightened the visitor away. Annabel hoped she found someone out there, so she could bring her back and introduce her to the English couple, and to Cordelia.\n\nShe wanted an end to ghost stories. She had no desire to be part of a place that depended on crazies coming to stay there. Annabel had been in a crazy house. She did not want to surround herself with lunatics and delusional people.\n\nShe'd had enough of that.\n\nShe pushed her way into the trees. A broken, brittle branch on the ground snapped as she stepped on it.\n\nJack was wrong not to tell her about the inn's reputation. Very wrong.\n\nBut if he had, she would likely have refused to come. It would have been too much for her. So he'd kept the knowledge from her, understanding how it would freak her out.\n\nAnnabel was going to tell him that he was wrong, and she was going to add that they were going to put a stop to the stories immediately.\n\nPerhaps some terrible things had happened at the inn. But she and Jack were not going to make their livings from exploiting those tragedies.\n\nAnnabel stopped. There was something sticking out of a clump of dead leaves in a little clearing up ahead.\n\nSomething white.\n\nAs Annabel approached, she saw it was a stone.\n\nA stone marker.\n\nOn which was inscribed a name.\n\nCINDY DEVLIN\n\nIt must be Jack's sister.\n\nThis was her grave!\n\nIn that second of realization, a hand reached out from behind her and clutched Annabel by the shoulder.\n11\n\n\"Welcome to the Blue Boy Inn,\" old Mrs. Devlin said, as she escorted them into the old house.\n\nPriscilla was peeved. Mrs. Devlin had insisted they must have just seen a hiker. The Blue Boy Inn had no ghosts outside the house, she said, and certainly none that walked around with blood on their faces. Priscilla was deeply disappointed. She hoped this place, unlike so many of the others, wouldn't be a rip-off.\n\n\"Leave your bags there, by the door,\" the old woman said to Neville. \"I'll have Zeke or my grandson, Jack, carry them up to your room.\"\n\n\"We'd like Sally Brown's room,\" Priscilla said.\n\nMrs. Devlin gave her a wan smile. \"And you shall have it.\"\n\nNeville returned the smile. \"I suppose you get a lot of crazy ghost hunter types staying here.\"\n\nMrs. Devlin was nodding as she led them into the kitchen. \"We're listed in all the guidebooks as a 'haunted inn.' It keeps people coming.\"\n\n\"And how often do guests see apparitions?\" Priscilla wanted to know.\n\nThe old woman stopped at the roughhewn kitchen table, steadying herself against it with her hands. \"Some of them report a sighting or two. I make no guarantees.\"\n\nPriscilla snorted. \"Well, there have been so many killings in this house. I'd imagine the spirits are very restless here.\"\n\nNeville sighed. \"She's a true believer, I'm afraid,\" he told Mrs. Devlin.\n\n\"A cup of tea?\" the old woman asked.\n\nBoth accepted, and she gestured for them to sit at the table.\n\n\"I take it you're not a believer then, sir,\" Mrs. Devlin said, looking over at Neville as she poured steaming hot tea into two delicate china cups, balanced on saucers.\n\n\"Not really. I'm here for the fun of it, and because Priscilla would only go with me to Florida after a week of ghost hunting in New England.\"\n\nMrs. Devlin pushed the cups of tea toward them with her bony, spotted hands.\n\n\"Thank you,\" Priscilla said, taking hers and lifting it to her lips.\n\n\"Well,\" Mrs. Devlin said, sitting down at the table opposite them, \"I suppose there must be restless spirits here. You're right, young lady. There have been an awful lot of deaths in this house. More than our share.\"\n\n\"So you've never seen any ghosts?\" Priscilla asked, setting down her cup into the saucer and leaning slightly toward the old woman.\n\n\"I don't think I'd recognize them if I did. I've been here a very, very long time. Sometimes it takes someone unaccustomed to the place to pick up on things.\"\n\nPriscilla nodded. \"That's true. I've read about that phenomenon. You live here with the spirits and so you're on the same vibration. You don't see them. But those who come in from the outside can pick up more easily on things.\"\n\nNeville laughed out loud. \"What a bloody rationalization! Fanatics like you, my dear, can come in and claim they see things simply because you're on a different vibration!\"\n\nPriscilla shot him an angry look.\n\nNeville grinned, reaching over to pat her hand. On her pinky she wore an opal ring. It was supposed to attract spirits. \"I use the word fanatic with great affection, my dear.\"\n\n\"Zeke has seen some ghosts,\" Mrs. Devlin told them.\n\nPriscilla looked back over at her. \"Who's Zeke?\"\n\n\"Our caretaker. He's been here nearly as long as I have. He's seen things. You should ask him.\"\n\n\"Oh, I certainly will.\"\n\n\"I should also tell you,\" Mrs. Devlin said, standing up again, with some difficulty, \"that my grandson and his wife have just arrived. They will be living here with me now, taking over the care of the place. Zeke and I have gotten too old to do it all by ourselves anymore.\"\n\n\"Is that the lady who drove up while we were outside?\" Priscilla asked.\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"She went off into the woods,\" Neville said. \"I guess looking for the woman who was hiking.\" He smirked. \"To apologize for Priscilla screaming her head off, I imagine.\"\n\n\"I tell you,\" Priscilla insisted, \"her face was covered with blood.\"\n\n\"Perhaps she scratched herself in the thicket out there,\" Mrs. Devlin said. \"Or it was mud. It gets very swampy a few feet into the woods.\"\n\nPriscilla sniffed. She wasn't entirely convinced that what she'd seen had not been a ghost.\n\n\"Anyway,\" the old woman continued, \"I haven't yet filled in my granddaughter-in-law about some of the more distressing chapters in the inn's history. I didn't want to frighten her too badly on her first day. And since you've obviously read everything there is about the Blue Boy Inn, I'd appreciate you not bringing it all up with her. At least, not quite yet.\"\n\nNeville made a face in surprise. \"You mean to tell me, her husband brought her to live here without telling her about the history of this place?\"\n\nMrs. Devlin pursed her lips. \"We decided it was best to tell her when she got here.\"\n\nNeville laughed. \"Because otherwise, no sane person would ever have come.\"\n\nA tight smile stretched across the old woman's face. Priscilla took it to mean that Mrs. Devlin was saying, Ah, but my granddaughter-in-law isn't sane.\n\n\"You must be tired from your drive,\" Mrs. Devlin said, lifting an old copper key off a nail on the wall near the sink. \"I'll show you up to your room.\"\n\nPriscilla and Neville stood to follow her.\n\n\"So were the killers of any of those who were murdered here ever found?\" Priscilla asked as they headed back out into the hallway.\n\n\"Most of the deaths here were simply tragic accidents,\" Mrs. Devlin said, leading the way through the narrow, musty corridor, not looking back as she spoke.\n\n\"Well, that poor man whose head was never found,\" Priscilla said. \"That was no accident.\"\n\n\"No, I suppose it was not,\" the old woman replied. \"Andrew McGurk died here before my time. My husband's father owned the place then.\"\n\n\"And the little baby who disappeared,\" Priscilla asked, \"except for her arm?\"\n\nMrs. Devlin paused near the stairs. \"For the life of me, I don't know where Zeke or Jack are,\" she said, evidently done with speaking about murder and death and ghosts.\n\n\"That's all right,\" Neville said, grabbing their bags. \"I don't mind hauling them myself.\"\n\nThe old woman frowned. \"Not a good way to treat our guests. I apologize.\"\n\nThey started up the stairs.\n\n\"But please,\" Priscilla said. \"Tell me about the baby.\"\n\n\"I had just arrived here,\" Mrs. Devlin said. \"Had just married my husband. And I suspect, in that case, it was a kidnapping gone wrong. The mother was a rich heiress. She was running away from her father, and some goons were after her. I think they thought taking the baby might get them quite the ransom.\"\n\n\"But why would they cut off the poor thing's arm?\" Priscilla asked.\n\n\"You'd have to ask them,\" Mrs. Devlin said.\n\nThey had reached the top of the stairs.\n\n\"Here's your room,\" the old woman said, unlocking the door.\n\nThey stepped inside. It was small, neat, low-ceilinged. Mustiness pervaded everything. The four-poster bed was small, carefully made. A three-drawer dresser stood beside the single window. Except for a straight-backed chair, that was all the furniture in the room.\n\n\"And Sally Brown?\" Priscilla asked. \"The girl who died in this room?\"\n\n\"Before my time, too,\" Mrs. Devlin said. \"But what my mother-in-law told me was that poor Sally got word that her fianc\u00e9 had died in Germany. This was during World War I. And so she slit her wrists. That was the cause of the blood on the walls.\"\n\n\"But her body was never found,\" Priscilla pointed out.\n\n\"I was told Sally ran outside to bleed out,\" the old woman said matter-of-factly. \"I suspect bears and coyotes finished off her remains.\"\n\nNeville shuddered. \"Such a delightful history.\"\n\n\"Even if they weren't all murders,\" Priscilla said, \"these were very traumatic deaths. Suicides make for some of the most frequent ghosts.\" She looked over at Mrs. Devlin. \"Do many people report seeing Sally?\"\n\nThe old woman nodded. \"Yes. Many do.\"\n\nPriscilla smiled.\n\n\"Then I'll let you get settled,\" the old woman told them. \"I've made some rabbit stew if you'd like some for dinner. Otherwise, there are some decent restaurants up in Sheffield.\"\n\n\"Thank you,\" Neville said.\n\nMrs. Devlin left them alone.\n\n\"It was a ghost I saw out in the woods,\" Priscilla said. \"I know it. I'll bet it was Sally Brown!\"\n\nNeville flopped down on the bed. Dust puffed up into the air.\n\n\"I don't think I could eat rabbit stew,\" he said.\n\nPriscilla was examining the wallpaper for bloodstains. \"We're going to get what we paid for here, I'm certain of it.\" She looked over her shoulder at Neville. \"We're going to have a major close encounter with the spirit world here. I can feel it in the air!\"\n\nNeville could only groan.\n12\n\nAnnabel spun around to see who\u2014or what\u2014was behind her.\n\n\"Jack!\" she shouted.\n\nHer husband was grinning sheepishly. Standing beside him was the hunched-over figure of Zeke.\n\n\"I didn't mean to scare you, baby cakes,\" Jack said.\n\n\"Well, you did,\" Annabel replied.\n\n\"I'm sorry,\" he said, trying to take her hands, but she pulled them away.\n\n\"What is this, Jack?\" Annabel pointed down at the ground. \"This stone?\"\n\nThe name seemed to glare up at them.\n\nCINDY DEVLIN\n\n\"That's my little sister,\" Jack said, very quietly.\n\n\"You never told me you had a sister,\" Annabel said, her voice harder than she meant it to be. \"Never, in all our years together.\"\n\nHe looked at her. His eyes shone with pain. \"It's always been difficult to talk about Cindy,\" Jack told her.\n\n\"She was a very sweet little girl,\" Zeke offered. \"Such a tragedy.\"\n\nAnnabel looked from them down to the grave marker in the leaves, then back to them again.\n\n\"Why is she buried here, in the middle of the woods?\"\n\nJack smiled sadly. \"She's not buried here. That's just a stone Dad put up to remember her by. To give us someplace to come to.\"\n\n\"Her body was never found,\" Zeke explained, his old yellow eyes finding Annabel's.\n\n\"What happened to her?\"\n\nJack took in a long breath, and then let it out very slowly. \"She just disappeared. She\u2014must have gotten lost in the woods or something. There was no trace of her.\"\n\n\"Except\u2014\" Zeke began to say.\n\nBut Jack shot him a look that shut him up.\n\n\"Except what?\" Annabel asked.\n\nJack hesitated. \"We found blood. A lot of it.\"\n\n\"She was a sweet little girl,\" Zeke added. \"The sweetest, really.\"\n\n\"I'm sorry to hear this,\" Annabel said. \"I wish you had told me about her before.\"\n\nJack sighed. He made no response.\n\n\"In fact,\" Annabel went on, \"I wish you had told me a lot of things before we came here. Such as all the deaths and murders that took place at the inn over the years. When did you think you'd tell me, Jack? You must have known I'd find out as soon as we got here.\"\n\n\"Who told you about all that?\" Zeke asked.\n\nAnnabel shifted her eyes over to the old man. \"The woman at the market.\"\n\n\"Ah, that Millie, she's a busybody,\" Zeke grumbled.\n\n\"I was hoping Gran and I could tell you, in our own way,\" Jack said.\n\nAnnabel looked down at the little white stone marker. \"You knew I wouldn't come if I had known this place had such a lurid history.\"\n\nJack took her hand. \"Babe,\" he said softly. \"We're no strangers to lurid histories, you and I.\"\n\n\"What's that supposed to mean?\" Annabel asked.\n\n\"Just that . . .\" Jack seemed to search for the right words. \"We needed a place to start over. And I think the Blue Boy Inn needs to start over, too. You and I . . . we want to put our pasts behind us. So does the Blue Boy.\"\n\nShe frowned. \"That's not likely, with all these ghost tourists seeking the place out.\"\n\n\"It's true that there have been some unfortunate tragedies here,\" Jack admitted. \"But the town made way more of them than they were. Over the course of more than a hundred years there have been some deaths here. Some perfectly peaceful. Some not so peaceful. That's to be expected anywhere that's been around for as long as the Blue Boy. But the locals like to tell stories, and every new death here has been woven into a never-ending tale. Legends of ghosts and death curses sprung up. And the tourists started coming.\"\n\nAnnabel was still looking at the marker for Cindy Devlin.\n\n\"If she got lost in the woods,\" Annabel asked, \"why was there a lot of blood?\"\n\nJack sighed. \"The police chief thought maybe a bear got her. There had been sightings of bears not long before she went missing.\"\n\n\"And where was the blood?\"\n\nZeke stepped forward. Annabel had almost forgotten he was there.\n\n\"On the back steps and down the path,\" the old man said. \"I found it. We'd been calling for Cindy all morning, when she wasn't in her bed. And then I went around back and found the blood. . . .\"\n\n\"My father speculated she got up in the night for some reason,\" Jack said, his voice thick with emotion. \"And she went out back and that's where the bear spotted her. . . .\"\n\n\"But why was her body never found?\"\n\nJack shrugged. \"The police scoured the woods for her. The bear must have . . .\" He couldn't speak. \"She was so little, you know.\"\n\nAnnabel reached up and touched his cheek. She had been so upset about not being told about all this history that she hadn't been very compassionate. This was his sister that Jack was talking about. This was a childhood tragedy that had apparently scarred him so badly he'd never been able to speak of it before.\n\n\"I'm sorry, Jack,\" Annabel said, stroking her husband's bristly cheek.\n\n\"We thought we'd find something of her,\" Zeke piped in. \"But nothing. Just the blood.\"\n\n\"And then,\" Jack said, finding his voice, \"the town went and turned it into another example of the murder curse on the Blue Boy Inn, adding poor little Cindy to their long list of ghosts that haunted the house.\" He shook his head. \"I never told you, sugar cakes, because I've always hated that part of the Blue Boy's history. As far as I'm concerned, we're putting an end to it.\"\n\n\"Good,\" Annabel said. \"We stop marketing the place as a haunted hotel. Get it out of those guidebooks. Debunk the ghost stories whenever anyone asks about them.\"\n\n\"That's a mighty fine sentiment,\" Zeke said. \"But without those ghost tourists, I'm not sure you have a business. What else could bring people out to the middle of nowhere to a rundown old house?\"\n\n\"So we change the place from rundown to fabulous,\" Annabel replied. \"We modernize. We renovate from top to bottom. Make it comfortable and loaded with amenities. We are on some gorgeous property here. In the spring and summer these woods will be in full green bloom. And in the fall I can only imagine how magnificent the colors will be. I'd love to redo the gardens, make some paths, maybe put in a Jacuzzi. We'll make this place the perfect getaway destination. We won't need ghosts to sell it.\"\n\n\"I think you have the right idea, babe,\" Jack said.\n\nZeke gave them a crooked smile. \"Not sure what Cordelia will think of ripping the place up.\"\n\nAnnabel felt her back stiffen. \"She asked us to come here, didn't she? She wanted us to take over the place. If she wants this place to stay in business, she'll agree. Otherwise, none of us can afford to keep this house going. We'd have to put it on the market. . . .\"\n\n\"Oh, no,\" Zeke said. \"I know Cordelia wouldn't want to do that.\"\n\n\"Then it's settled,\" Annabel said. \"We're going to make this an entirely new place, with an entirely new reputation, aren't we, Jack?\"\n\n\"We sure are, sugarplum,\" he said, wrapping his arm around her and pulling her into him.\n\nOverhead a crow screeched in the bare limbs of a tree.\n13\n\nCordelia listened to her guests moving above her. They seemed like nice people. Strange, like all the ghost tourists were, but nice. She especially liked the man.\n\nNothing would happen while they were in the house. She would see to it.\n\nShe'd been seeing to it for a long time. Now she was old. She was giving the Blue Boy over to Jack and his wife. Could she sleep easy, knowing they would be the ones to take over from her in safeguarding the house?\n\nAnnabel was a wild card. Cordelia wasn't sure about her. She seemed obstinate. Defiant. Too independent.\n\nThat could prove problematic.\n\nShe wished once more that Jack hadn't brought a wife.\n\nFor a moment her thoughts wandered to Jack's father. Her son. He'd brought a wife to the Blue Boy Inn, too. And two little children.\n\nBut Cordelia pushed the thought out of her mind.\n\nShe heard the sound of her guests upstairs running water. They were washing up. They would be downstairs again soon.\n\nThe old woman made her way into the living room. It was a big, open space, furnished with just a few antique wingback chairs and a long table in front of large bay windows. The windows were cloudy. How many years had it been since Cordelia had washed them? But what did it matter, really? The bushes outside had grown up so thickly in front of the windows that they nearly obscured the sunlight anyway.\n\nIt was better that way, Cordelia thought. This house\u2014and especially this room\u2014needed no prying eyes looking in from the outside.\n\nThe living room was dominated by the old stone fireplace in the center. The hearth extended four feet out into the room, and the mantel was a good six feet. But the fireplace was devoid of any tools hanging at its side. There was no pot hanging inside, even for show. In fact, the opening was bricked over. No fire could be built there. The bricks enclosed the path down to the firebox and sealed off the flue. They had been installed with care and precision. Cordelia knew this. Because she had helped lay the bricks.\n\nShe heard the back door squeak open.\n\n\"Gran, we're back!\" she heard Jack call.\n\nWith a final glance at the sealed-off fireplace, Cordelia headed toward the kitchen.\n14\n\nRoger Askew was a mean son of a bitch.\n\nHe'd just told that busybody, dried-out old fruit Millie Westerbrook at the general store to stick it where the sun don't shine, and then added that since nothing had been stuck there in ages for her, she'd probably enjoy it.\n\nMillie had been giving Roger a hard time because he smelled like whisky and dropped the F-bomb in front of some little kids. Why couldn't the bitch just mind her own business?\n\nSo Roger had just paid for his pack of smokes and slammed out of that goddamn place.\n\nAs he trudged through the path in the woods, he realized the reason he was in such a foul mood was all because of Tammy.\n\nHis girlfriend.\n\nRather, his ex-girlfriend. At least she would be, after today.\n\nShe was a lazy, good-for-nothing bitch. Roger had asked her to do one simple favor for him. Run down to the store and get him some cigarettes. And she'd said she had to pick up that brat of hers, Jessica, from school. Like the kid couldn't have waited five minutes? Tammy was just so goddamn selfish. She never did anything for Roger.\n\nShe hadn't even been putting out lately.\n\nHe stopped on the path, tore open the pack of cigarettes, shook one out, placed it between his lips, and lit it.\n\nHe sucked in the smoke. Ah, yes. He'd needed that.\n\nRoger was going to be twenty-nine in a couple of weeks. It was time he made a clean break. He needed to give Tammy the old heave-ho. He deserved a girlfriend who appreciated him.\n\nNot one who bitched at him all the time to find a job.\n\nHe'd had no choice but to quit the last one. The manager of the Jiffy Lube was a fucking prick. He'd had it out for Roger. Always on his case, making him take the worst of the freaking lemons that people drove into the place, the cars that were literally ready to die, and Roger was somehow supposed to get them purring smoothly again. Finally, he'd told his asshole manager to go fuck himself, and added that, since it had obviously been a long time since anyone had fucked his scaly self, he'd probably enjoy it.\n\nThat was one of Roger's favorite insults.\n\nUp ahead on the path, he saw someone walking toward him.\n\nRoger hoped it wasn't anyone he knew. He was in no mood to say hello to anyone. All he wanted to do, in fact, was punch someone. He had a temper. He knew that. He'd served time for beating up a few people, and Tammy had threatened to have him arrested the last time he'd hauled off and whacked her across the head. So far he had yet to smack that brat of hers, not that Jessica didn't have it coming. But Roger knew if he ever hit the kid, he'd have to deal with the freaking banshee her mother would become.\n\nHe hated kids. Even his own. His daughter was probably eight or nine years old by now. She lived with her mother up in Pittsfield. Roger hadn't seen her in three years, but still her bitch of a mother kept demanding he pay child support, and Roger was damned if he was going to fork over the little bit of cash he had to a kid he never saw and who he had doubts was really his, anyway. So now the mother-bitch had offered him a deal. Give up all parental rights for all time and she'd stop hounding him for money.\n\nRoger figured that was a deal. Tomorrow morning he was heading up to Great Barrington to make that all legal.\n\nHe looked up the path again. Whoever he'd seen there was gone.\n\nWhere the fuck did they go? There was one straight path through these woods, from the store to the apartments along the river, where Roger lived. Must have been some goddamn nature explorer, heading off into the woods to scrounge for mushrooms or something freaky like that.\n\nAbove him, a crow in the bare tree branches suddenly screeched, making Roger jump a little.\n\nHe wished he could shoot the thing. Roger hated everyone and everything. Ever since he'd been born in this godforsaken little town, everyone had been against him. His parents. His teachers. The cops. That bitch who'd seduced him into getting her pregnant and then having his kid. Roger had told her to abort the thing, but she wouldn't.\n\nSomeday, really, he ought to just give in to his rage and get a gun and start shooting. Like those guys who finally snapped and mowed down theaters full of people or kindergarten classrooms. Roger could relate. They had just had enough of all the crap that they were dealt on a daily basis. If people only weren't so goddamn nosy\u2014\n\nBehind him, Roger heard a twig break.\n\nHe looked over his shoulder.\n\nNo, the sound hadn't come from behind him. It had come from off in the woods somewhere.\n\nIt was whoever had been on the path ahead of him, now moving among the trees.\n\nThe woods were a pale blue this time of day. The sun was low in the sky, hidden by clouds, and the cold, bare trees seemed to shiver before the coming darkness. The ground was hard. There wasn't a speck of green that Roger could make out anywhere.\n\nJust blue. Deep blue shadows.\n\nHe took the last drag on his cigarette and dropped the butt to the ground. He picked up his pace a little.\n\nFrom the other side of him, he heard another twig snap in two.\n\nWhy did his flesh crawl?\n\nHe'd been on this path hundreds, maybe thousands, of times. It was as familiar to him as his own living room. And Roger didn't scare easily. Rather, he scared other people. That had always been the way it was.\n\nHe was a big guy. Five-eleven, one-hundred-eighty-five. He was strong. He wore his hair long, down over his shoulders, and he brandished blue, red, and purple tattoos up and down his arms. Skulls and arrows and lightning bolts. When people saw Roger Askew coming, they didn't mess with him.\n\nSo why was he suddenly creeped out? Why did he want to get off this path as soon as he could?\n\nThe crow in the trees suddenly took off into flight, the sound of its giant wings flapping echoing down through the skeletal trees.\n\nRoger began to walk even faster.\n\nUp ahead, whoever he'd seen earlier stepped back onto the path from the woods.\n\n\"It's just a woman,\" Roger whispered to himself, instantly relieved, and even a little embarrassed that he'd been afraid.\n\nA woman dressed in white. With long gray hair.\n\nWho could be afraid of some old lady?\n\nShe stood there in the middle of the path, waiting for him.\n\nRoger felt the fear return, flooding his body like a shot of Novocain. His limbs froze. His heart began to echo in his ears.\n\nHe wanted to turn back and run the other way.\n\nBut this was just some old bitch! Why should he fear walking past her?\n\nRoger forced his numb legs to continue walking.\n\nAs he drew closer to the woman, he noticed a few things about her. She was watching him intently. Her face was dirty, caked with something. And she wasn't really that old at all.\n\nWhen he was just a couple of feet away from her, the woman spoke.\n\n\"Are you from around here?\" she asked.\n\n\"Yes,\" he told her.\n\n\"I seem to have lost my way,\" the woman told him.\n\nRoger was now standing directly opposite her. Not only wasn't she old, but she wasn't half bad-looking, either. Out here in the middle of the woods, Roger realized he could do anything he wanted to her. He began to get excited.\n\nA smile started to make its way across his face, like a worm.\n\nHe never even saw the knife, but he felt it. And the warm cascade of blood that flowed from his gut down over his groin and legs. He felt that, too.\n\nRoger looked up in disbelief at the woman.\n\nBut she was gone.\n\nHis legs crumpled beneath him. And then everything went dark.\n15\n\n\"I hope you slept well,\" Annabel said to Priscilla and Neville when they shuffled into the dining room for breakfast the next morning.\n\n\"Well, I might have,\" Neville replied, bleary-eyed, \"but Prissy here was carrying on a conversation with somebody.\"\n\nPriscilla looked exhausted but exhilarated. \"She came to me!\" she told Annabel. \"Sally Brown! She was sitting in my room talking to me all night!\"\n\n\"Yeah, and keeping me awake,\" Neville grumbled, pouring himself some coffee.\n\nPriscilla held up her hand. \"I wear an opal ring all the time that was given to me by a psychic. It's said to be able to attract ghosts!\"\n\nAnnabel didn't want to encourage the woman's delusions. The sooner they ended this association with ghosts and weirdos the better.\n\n\"Well, what we hope for our guests is they get a good rest when staying here, so I hope tonight will be more peaceful,\" she said, laying out a tray of blueberry and corn muffins that she and Cordelia had baked that morning. The old woman had shared her recipe and showed her where all the ingredients were kept in the pantry. Eventually, when she retired, Cordelia told Annabel this would be her job. Annabel thought a better idea would be to hire a chef who could whip up some nouvelle cuisine breakfasts for their guests.\n\nAs Neville slabbed butter all over a muffin, Priscilla sat down and gushed about her otherworldly encounter.\n\n\"I opened my eyes and there she was, as real as you are,\" she said. \"She told me that she had spent her life walking these hallways, trapped in these rooms. Oh, it was so thrilling!\"\n\n\"Did you see her, too?\" Annabel asked Neville.\n\nHe shook his head. He had butter on his chin. \"I just heard Priscilla chattering away. A couple of times she prodded me to sit up and have a look, but each time I did, I saw nothing. She wouldn't turn on the light.\"\n\n\"Sally asked me not to,\" Priscilla said. \"She doesn't like the light.\"\n\n\"Yeah, well, whatever,\" Neville said, returning to his muffin.\n\n\"I should tell you,\" Annabel said, \"that I don't believe the stories of the ghosts in this house. Once my husband and I take over running the inn completely, we aren't planning on marketing that particular element anymore. We're going to upgrade the house and make it a real first-class destination. No more tales of ghosts and murders.\"\n\nPriscilla looked horrified. \"But you can't do that. The ghosts will still be here. Just because you don't want to promote them doesn't mean they'll just go away.\"\n\n\"I guess we'll cross that bridge when we get to it,\" Annabel told her.\n\n\"Seriously! Sally Brown can't cross to the other side! She told me so! She's trapped. We sat and talked for nearly an hour!\" Priscilla smiled, remembering. \"She's really quite sweet, you know.\"\n\nAnnabel smiled as well. \"Well, I'm pleased that you got what you came here for.\"\n\nThe Englishwoman's face suddenly changed. \"You're patronizing me. Just like Neville.\"\n\n\"No,\" Annabel protested. \"Really, I'm not. . . .\"\n\n\"Yes, you are. If you don't believe in the ghosts, then you think that I'm either making up what I saw last night, or that I'm mad.\"\n\n\"No, really, I just\u2014\"\n\n\"Of course, we believe you,\" came a new voice.\n\nThey turned around. Jack stood in the doorway of the kitchen. He was wearing jeans and a white ribbed tank top. Annabel could tell he'd just come from the shower. His hair was still damp.\n\n\"I was a child in this house,\" Jack said, coming into the kitchen and pouring himself some coffee. \"My wife was not. So she doesn't know.\"\n\nPriscilla turned to look over at Neville. \"You see?\" she asked.\n\nIn the moment she was looking away, Jack took the opportunity to wink over at Annabel. She realized he was only trying to pacify the guests. She said nothing more.\n\n\"Did you see many ghosts here when you were a boy?\" Priscilla asked him.\n\n\"Oh, many, many ghosts,\" he said, sitting down at the table opposite her. \"Some were pretty scary, but some were friendly ghosts, like Casper.\"\n\n\"Did you ever meet Sally Brown?\"\n\n\"Sure, I did. Sally and I got to be good friends.\"\n\nAnnabel couldn't stand it. She walked out into the living room. She figured she'd start today with a good cleaning of the living room and dining room. She'd mentioned the idea to Cordelia this morning, who hadn't seemed to mind. Annabel wondered how long they'd have to tiptoe around Cordelia's feelings. She'd asked them to take over the place, so she couldn't very well stand in their way of modernizing it. Eventually, they'd have to just sit her down and explain that if the inn was ever to turn a profit again, they'd have to make some changes. Once the paperwork was complete, and the Blue Boy was in their names instead of Cordelia's, they could do what they wanted.\n\nAnnabel paused. It felt odd that the Blue Boy would be in her name. That she'd be an owner of a place that appeared from its sign to be the home of Tommy Tricky.\n\nShe was gripped by a memory.\n\nDarkness. Stale air. The smell of mothballs.\n\nShe was trapped in a closet. She was banging on the door. She could hear her heart thudding in her ears.\n\n\"Help me! Mommy! Help me!\"\n\n\"Your mommy isn't here, she can't help you,\" came the voice of Daddy Ron. \"She can't save you from Tommy Tricky!\"\n\n\"No!\" Annabel screamed.\n\n\"He's right behind you! Can you see hear him breathing?\"\n\nAnnabel could. The imp was panting, like a dog.\n\n\"And how he loves to eat bad little girls!\"\n\n\"Miz Wish?\"\n\nAnnabel jumped. A voice behind her. A real voice. Not the terrible daydream.\n\nShe turned around. It was Zeke.\n\n\"Sorry,\" the caretaker said. \"I didn't mean to startle you.\"\n\n\"Oh, it's all right,\" she said. \"I was . . . lost in thought.\" She tried to smile. \"Zeke, will you help me take down these curtains? I want to wash them and air them out. I'm going to be giving the living room a deep cleaning today.\"\n\n\"Yes, sure, I can help you,\" he said. \"But I wonder, first, if you've seen Miz Cordelia.\"\n\nAnnabel looked at the old man's face. He was clearly upset about something.\n\n\"Why, yes, I saw her earlier this morning. We baked some muffins for the guests. I told her about my cleaning plans, and she seemed fine with them.\"\n\n\"Do you know where she went afterward?\"\n\n\"No, I don't. Isn't she in her room?\"\n\nZeke shook his head. \"I've looked everywhere for her. And there's something I need to discuss with her right away.\"\n\n\"Anything I can help you with?\"\n\n\"No, ma'am.\"\n\n\"Well, Jack's in the kitchen. Maybe he can help\u2014\"\n\n\"Nobody can help but Cordelia,\" Zeke said. \"If you see her, please tell her I'm looking for her.\"\n\n\"Of course.\"\n\nThe old man hurried off, as best as he could hurry, hobbling up the steep, narrow stairs.\n\nThat was odd. Where in this cramped old house could Cordelia possibly disappear?\n\nAnnabel stuck her head back into the kitchen. Neville had left. She could see him through the window out in the backyard, smoking a cigarette. Priscilla and Jack were still seated at the table, leaning in toward each other, discussing the ghosts of the house. Their faces were only inches apart. It made Annabel oddly uncomfortable.\n\n\"Another ghost I remember seeing was a little boy,\" Jack was saying. \"He'd come riding a tricycle down Gran's path and then just disappear!\"\n\n\"Oh, that's brilliant,\" Priscilla said, completely snookered and in awe.\n\nShe was pretty. Annabel hadn't really noticed before. Priscilla had just seemed too odd and eccentric to be pretty. But she was. Long blond hair and breasts much larger and fuller than Annabel's more modest pair. For a second she had a flash of Rachel Riley, and then pushed the thought away.\n\n\"Jack,\" she said. \"Zeke is looking for your grandmother.\"\n\n\"Haven't seen her,\" her husband replied, before resuming the story of the ghost boy on the tricycle. Priscilla continued to give him her rapt attention.\n\nAnnabel stewed. It was one thing to mollify the guests, to not offend them\u2014but he was actively encouraging all this ghost talk, after he and Annabel had decided they'd put that all behind them. She turned on her heel and strode back out into the living room.\n\nShe heard something then.\n\nThe slightest sound.\n\nScratching.\n\nShe listened closely.\n\nIt was coming from the other side of the room.\n\nAnnabel approached the sound.\n\nIt seemed to be coming from the fireplace. From below it, to be exact. The sound seemed to rise from below the fireplace and from the floorboards surrounding it.\n\n\"Rats,\" Annabel murmured to herself.\n\nOr maybe just mice or squirrels or chipmunks.\n\nEither way, she thought, they'd need to exterminate.\n16\n\n\"There you are,\" Zeke rasped, out of breath, as he spotted Cordelia, huffing nearly as much as he, coming down the stairs.\n\nThe old woman fixed him with an icy glare. \"You're incompetent,\" she snarled.\n\n\"I did not leave the door unlocked, if that's what you're thinking,\" Zeke replied.\n\nCordelia glanced around. She could hear Annabel in the living room. She lowered her voice.\n\n\"Well, I certainly didn't leave it unlocked,\" she whispered angrily. \"You were the last in there.\"\n\nZeke's old eyes looked as if they might burst into tears. \"I was certain I locked the door! I always check, every time I leave.\"\n\n\"Well,\" Cordelia muttered, \"it's all taken care of now.\"\n\nHe grabbed her bony wrist. \"Are you sure? Everything is safe?\"\n\nCordelia yanked away from him and moved toward the kitchen. \"For now. But you better take care, you old fool. Jack has got to know soon. Don't let anything happen in the meantime.\"\n17\n\nAt the little police station at the end of the one-block Main Street of Woodfield, Chief Richard Carlson was going over the day's schedule with his deputy, Adam Burrell. Carlson was drinking a cup of coffee and eating a cinnamon cruller he'd picked up at Deb's Diner. His fingers were sticky and sugary as he turned over the schedule's pages.\n\n\"Might be a bit of a traffic tie-up at the Route 7A intersection today,\" the chief told his deputy. \"They're putting up a new light around noon.\"\n\n\"I'll be there,\" Burrell assured him.\n\n\"And tonight there's that meeting in the public works room at town hall. Can you be there as well?\"\n\n\"Sure thing, chief.\"\n\nCarlson smiled. \"Thanks, Adam. Just not sure I can handle another one of those.\"\n\n\"Small town politics getting you down?\"\n\nCarlson sighed. \"It seems everyone's got an agenda against everyone else. The town manager hates the board of selectmen, the board of selectmen hate the school superintendent, the school superintendent hates the town manager . . . it's a vicious circle.\"\n\nBurrell smiled. He was a young man, redheaded and freckled. \"Yeah, but everybody loves the chief of police.\"\n\nCarlson knocked on the wood of his desk. \"So far,\" he laughed.\n\n\"Hey, you've been chief for a decade and no one's tried to get you fired. That's a good run.\"\n\nCarlson finished the last of his cruller. \"I guess it is,\" he said.\n\nBurrell left the office to start his morning's rounds. The chief sat back in his chair, sipping his coffee. Deb made it good and strong, the way he liked it. He drank it black. In the old days, when Amy had still been around, he'd taken cream and sugar in his coffee. But ever since Amy had died, Carlson had needed something stronger in the morning. Something to jolt him awake and keep him alert and concentrating all day.\n\nThe people of Woodfield had never known Amy. His wife had died two years before Carlson had come to this little town. He was the \"new bachelor chief of police\" and had attracted a great deal of feminine attention during his first few years here. Every single lady, and a couple married ones, too, had seemed to try to date him. He'd gone out on one date in his whole time here, just one, and it had been a disaster. Cora Coakley. Poor Cora. She'd seemed nice enough when she'd come into his office, bringing him homemade jams and apple pies. But when they went out to dinner, she'd sat across from him blushing so hard Carlson had started blushing in return, and every attempt at conversation had faded off to a few mumbled sentences. Now when Carlson saw Cora around town he just tipped his hat to her. He didn't want to say something to her and risk those cheeks of hers turning bright apple-red again.\n\nThe fact was he didn't want to date anyone. He had loved one woman. One woman only. Amy had been everything to him. He could never replace her. Even twelve years after her death, Carlson could not imagine loving another woman.\n\nHis phone buzzed.\n\nIt was Betty, his secretary, in the front office.\n\n\"Rich,\" she said, \"Tammy Morelli is on the line. I tried to give her Adam's voice mail, but she insisted she wanted to talk to you.\"\n\n\"Okay, put her through,\" he told Betty.\n\nPoor Tammy. She worked at Deb's Diner. Poor kid didn't have it easy, raising that little girl, Jessica, all by herself, with no help from that good-for-nothing boyfriend of hers, Roger Askew. Carlson had noticed that Tammy wasn't at the diner this morning. When he'd asked about her, Deb had just shook her head in exasperation.\n\n\"Hey, Tammy,\" he said when Betty switched over the line.\n\n\"Chief, I know what you're going to say, but I've got to tell you anyway,\" she said.\n\n\"Okay, shoot.\"\n\n\"Roger didn't come home last night.\"\n\n\"And what did you think I was going to say about that?\"\n\n\"Well,\" Tammy said, \"first I figured you'd say, 'Good. It would be better for you if he never came home.' Then I figured you'd say, 'Well, there's no cause for alarm. He's probably off somewhere sleeping off a hangover.'\"\n\nCarlson smiled. \"You know, Tammy, you're psychic.\"\n\n\"And you're right on all counts,\" she replied. \"The only thing is, this morning, he had a court date up in Great Barrington, and I know he really wanted to go because he hoped to get some charges dismissed against him. . . .\"\n\n\"Failure to pay child support, wasn't it?\" Carlson asked.\n\n\"Yes, he was agreeing to give up all parental rights to his kid in order not to have to pay another single cent to her,\" Tammy told him.\n\n\"What a great dad.\"\n\n\"Believe me, I think that little girl will be better off without him in her life.\"\n\n\"Maybe you ought to think the same about your own little girl,\" the chief told her.\n\nTammy started to cry. \"I know, I know. I'm going to leave him. Really, I am. I just . . . right now . . . like this morning. I know Roger's a waste of a human being. But at least he can take Jessica to school for me. I pick her up in the afternoons when I get out of the diner, but Deb's got me working the breakfast shift, and so I can't take Jessica and she's scared of the bus. So Roger comes in handy once in a while.\"\n\n\"That's why you weren't at the diner this morning,\" Carlson said. \"But even though you didn't call asking for my advice, Tammy, I'm going to say anyway that Roger's occasional chauffeur assistance really doesn't outweigh his drinking, his temper, his violent flareups.. . .\"\n\n\"I know, I know! And believe me, if you find that he's dead in a ditch out there, I'm not going to cry one single freaking tear over him.\" She grew quiet. \"But I thought I should at least report that he didn't come home. I'll let you take it from there.\"\n\n\"Okay, Tammy, I'll mark it down,\" Carlson told her.\n\n\"You're not going out looking for him?\"\n\n\"Has he been missing for forty-eight hours?\"\n\n\"No, just since last night, when he went out to get cigarettes at Millie's store.\"\n\n\"Okay, well, then, you just keep us posted on whether he comes home, or not.\"\n\n\"All right, chief.\"\n\n\"Take care of yourself, Tammy.\"\n\nShe promised she would, but Carlson doubted it.\n18\n\n\"You've got to talk to her,\" Annabel said, alone at last with Jack in their room. \"You've got to tell your grandmother that in asking us to take over the place, she has to give her consent to some modernizations.\"\n\n\"I'll talk to her, babe,\" Jack promised. \"Gran's just sentimental. She's run this place a long time. She's attached to the way she and my grandfather used to do things. And then my dad and mom . . .\"\n\nJack's voice trailed off.\n\n\"What about your dad and mom?\" Annabel asked.\n\n\"Well, Dad took over after Granddad died. And I remember he wanted to make some changes to the place, too, but . . .\"\n\nOnce again his voice trailed off. He walked over to the window and looked out into the tangled arms of trees.\n\n\"What is it, Jack?\" Annabel asked, her voice becoming compassionate. \"Has coming back here made you think of your parents' deaths?\"\n\nHe nodded, still looking out the window, away from her. \"This was the last place I ever saw my mother. She was here one day, absolutely fine. Next thing I knew, she was gone, off to the hospital in Boston. I never even knew she had cancer until she was gone.\"\n\nAnnabel walked up behind him and placed her hand on his back. Jack so rarely spoke of his parents, especially his mother. She died when he was in his teens of breast cancer. Now that Annabel knew he had lost a little sister as well, she felt tremendously sad for her husband. His childhood had been filled with tragedy.\n\n\"I hadn't realized you had been visiting here when your mom was taken away to the hospital,\" she said softly.\n\nHe turned back around to look at her. \"We had come up here to start the process of helping Gran after Granddad died. Mom had been pretty excited about the idea. She had lots of ideas, just like you.\" His voice thickened and he couldn't go on for a moment. \"But it wasn't meant to be. Within a week of us getting here, she suddenly got sick and Dad took her to Boston. I never even had a chance to say good-bye. I just came downstairs one morning and Mom and Dad were gone. Dad came back late that night and told me Mom was in the hospital. She died a few days after that.\"\n\n\"I hadn't realized she died so quickly,\" Annabel said. \"I mean, to seem so completely healthy one day, and then be rushed to the hospital and die a few days later . . . breast cancer is usually a far more lingering illness.\"\n\nJack's face darkened. \"Well, that's what Dad told me she died from.\"\n\n\"You think it might have been something else?\"\n\n\"I don't know. But it always did seem so fast and strange. The last time I saw Mom, she was happy and singing and down there in the parlor supervising some workers who'd come to do renovations. She was excited to have a project. She had so many ideas about fixing the place up. And then she was gone.\"\n\n\"Obviously, your father didn't want to continue with her renovation plans after she died,\" Annabel said.\n\nJack shook his head. \"He was too distraught, I guess. Cindy disappeared not long after that, too. So Dad was never the same.\" His face showed the sadness he carried. \"That's when I was sent off to boarding school in Connecticut. Dad died a few years later himself.\"\n\nAnnabel took his hands in hers. \"Jack, was coming back here a bad idea?\"\n\nHis eyes met hers. \"No. This is our chance to start over. To finally make something of our lives. To become successful.\"\n\n\"Well,\" Annabel said, \"to do that, we'll need to honor your mother's wishes and redo this place like she wanted to do.\"\n\n\"Yeah,\" he said, nodding. \"That would be a nice tribute to Mom.\" He smiled weakly. \"Though, as I recall, Gran wasn't keen on her changing things, either.\"\n\n\"The only way to turn this old dump into a moneymaker is to renovate it,\" Annabel told him. \"That's the only way we can become successful here.\"\n\nJack nodded again. \"You're right, babe. I'll speak to Gran and tell her she's got to let us do what we need to do.\"\n\n\"Thank you, Jack,\" Annabel said, reaching up and kissing him lightly on the lips.\n\nThe little kiss led to another, and then several more. In moments, they were kissing deeply, the first time in a long time. Annabel had feared this moment, had dreaded the idea of being intimate with Jack again, but now that the moment had arrived, she didn't push it away. She wanted things to be right between her and Jack. They'd embarked on this journey together. They needed to be united, committed. They were starting over.\n\nShe kissed Jack hard, fumbling with the buttons of his shirt.\n\nHe cupped her breasts with his hands.\n\nIn moments, they had tumbled backwards onto the bed. Jack had slipped off his shirt and was now pressing Annabel's over her head. She felt his hot, wet breath on her neck and shoulder. His hands were now pulling down her jeans. She heard the jangle of Jack's belt buckle unfastening. Annabel tensed and waited.\n\nBut then . . . nothing.\n\nJack flopped over onto his back beside her. His eyes were staring straight up at the ceiling.\n\n\"I'm sorry,\" he whispered.\n\n\"It's okay, Jack,\" she said.\n\nAnnabel didn't know how she felt. Disappointed? Relieved? She reached over and stroked her husband's face, but he gently pulled away from her touch.\n\n\"I guess I'm just too . . . I don't know . . . too worked up,\" he said, still looking at the ceiling. \"It's all I think about. This has got to work, you know, baby cakes?\"\n\n\"What has got to work?\" she asked quietly.\n\nHe finally pulled his eyes away from the ceiling tiles and looked at her. \"This,\" he said. \"This house. This business idea. This taking over and making it ours.\"\n\n\"We'll do what we can, Jack. We aren't miracle workers.\"\n\nHe sat up, his face suddenly tense. \"No, it's got to work! I won't take any failure! I tried so hard with that goddamn book, Annabel. I thought I had the whole success thing figured out. And I failed, sweetheart. I failed!\"\n\n\"Jack, publishing is a tough business. You didn't fail. The company just didn't market your book the way they should have.\"\n\nHis eyes grew dark. \"Bullshit. The book was crap. I'm a lousy writer.\" He suddenly grabbed Annabel by the shoulders, making her jump. \"This is my last chance, angel pie. I've got to make this fucking guesthouse the most successful inn in all of New England! I've got to make us rich! This is my goddamn last fucking chance!\"\n\n\"Jack, putting that kind of pressure on yourself isn't going to help.\"\n\nHe let go of her shoulders, his eyes narrowing at her. \"What's the matter, sweet cakes? Don't you want to be successful? Seems to me, after all you've been through, you'd want a second chance to prove yourself, too.\"\n\n\"Prove myself to who?\"\n\n\"Annabel,\" her husband said, \"I don't want this house to blow up in our faces, leaving me to rot somewhere in the city and you back on the blow.\"\n\n\"I'm never going back on the blow, Jack,\" she told him. \"No matter what happens.\"\n\nHe stood, shrugging. \"You gotta hope not. That's why we need this to work, angel face. For both of us. Get a big glossy profile in Travel & Leisure magazine.\"\n\nAnnabel didn't stand. She just sat there in her panties and her unhooked, crooked bra, looking at him. \"I fully intend to do everything I can to make this place successful, Jack. That's why I wanted you to set some ground rules with your grandmother. But it's not life or death, Jack. I refuse to see it that way. If I learned anything in rehab it's that we always have choices. We always have options. If not this, there will be other things\u2014\"\n\n\"No!\" Jack cut her off. \"It's this, babe! This!\" He suddenly looked defeated. \"I don't have the strength to try again if this fails.\"\n\nHe buttoned up his shirt and buckled his belt and headed for the door.\n\n\"I'm going to go talk to Gran. Tell her we're going to start renovating the place.\" He smiled at Annabel. \"First thing tomorrow morning.\"\n\nShe gave him a weak smile of consent. He left the room.\n\nAnnabel wasn't unhappy. This was what she wanted. She had some great ideas about how she could fix the house up. She'd start with the parlor, then the bedrooms.\n\nBut Jack's all-or-nothing attitude troubled her. She guessed that, in her own struggle in overcoming her addictions, she'd failed to see just how profoundly Jack had been affected by his own career troubles. Annabel had known how disappointed he was, but she now understood the disappointment had gone very deep. It had been publicly very humiliating for him to get such universally terrible reviews. It had called into question his whole life's game plan. Suddenly, she felt terribly sorry for Jack.\n\nShe fixed her bra, slipped her shirt back on, and pulled up her jeans.\n\nThe only thing to do was to get moving.\n\nAnnabel pulled out her computer and hit the power button, before suddenly remembering there was no Internet in this godforsaken place. How was she supposed to find the best local contractors to hire to start the work on the house?\n\nThe old-fashioned way, she told herself.\n\nShe dug out of her pocket the card she had picked up at the market yesterday. MILLIE WESTERBROOK, it read. Proprietor. And underneath was the phone number.\n\nAnnabel whipped out her phone. Not many bars, but enough. She entered the number of the market.\n\n\"Woodfield Market,\" a woman's voice chirped.\n\n\"Hi, this is Annabel Wish. I was in yesterday?\"\n\nA moment of silence on the other end.\n\n\"I just moved into the Blue Boy Inn.\"\n\n\"Oh, sure,\" Millie said, her voice filling with recognition. \"What can I do for you, honey?\"\n\n\"I'm wondering if you might be able to recommend a good contractor.\"\n\n\"Well, the best around is Charlie Appleby. He and his sons do good work.\"\n\n\"Terrific,\" Annabel said. \"Do you think they'd be able to start work right away?\"\n\nMillie laughed. \"Had enough of all that dust and gloom already, huh?\"\n\n\"I figure if we can start now, maybe we'll be up and running by summer.\"\n\n\"Charlie's pretty busy, but he could probably get one of his boys to start giving you a hand. Hold on. Let me get his number for you.\"\n\n\"Thanks, Millie.\"\n\nAnnabel smiled. It felt good to be taking the first step.\n19\n\n\"Oh, I'm sorry,\" Jack said. \"I didn't know anyone Owas in there.\"\n\nPriscilla blushed a deep crimson, holding the towel as tightly around her as possible. She had just stepped out of the shower when the door to the little bathroom had opened and Jack had walked in. She didn't think he'd seen anything, as she'd already been wrapping the towel around herself. But she couldn't be sure.\n\nNow he stood on the other side of the door, having closed it again, apologizing.\n\n\"It's all right, really,\" Priscilla told him. \"I should have locked the door.\"\n\n\"I forgot there were no bathrooms in the individual guest rooms,\" he told her. \"We're going to be changing that. When you come back next time, every room is going to have its own private bath.\"\n\n\"Wow, that's ambitious,\" Priscilla said.\n\n\"We've got a lot of big plans,\" Jack told her through the door.\n\nPriscilla thought it was a little odd that he kept talking to her, knowing that she was naked and dripping inside here. But she kind of liked it. Jack was very handsome. He'd made her heart flutter as she was talking to him. That never happened with Neville.\n\nShe suddenly felt bold. Making sure her towel was firmly secured around her, Priscilla grabbed the door handle and walked out into the hallway.\n\nJack was still standing there, as if waiting for her. She noticed the way his eyes looked her over. Priscilla felt a tingle of electricity race through her body.\n\n\"It's good to have plans,\" she told Jack. \"I can't wait to come back and see how you've remodeled the place.\"\n\nHe didn't reply immediately. His eyes were too busy eating her up.\n\nPriscilla was being very naughty, and she knew it. Jack was a married man. But what harm could a little flirting do?\n\n\"Yeah, well, you won't recognize the place,\" Jack told her.\n\n\"I would hope you'd talk with me first before you start knocking down walls.\" It was a new voice. They both looked around.\n\nThe old woman, Mrs. Devlin, stood at the end of the corridor. Priscilla let out a little gasp.\n\n\"I was just heading back to my room,\" she chirped, and hurried down the hall.\n20\n\n\"Come into my room,\" Cordelia told her grandson. She could feel her lips tightening into a scowl.\n\nJack obeyed. Once they were inside, Cordelia closed the door behind her.\n\n\"Now, don't worry, Gran,\" Jack was saying. \"We're not going to start tearing down walls. Anything we do, we'll include you in on the plans.\"\n\n\"Now, listen to me, Jack,\" she said, her tiny frame standing up to him, her neck craned to look up into his face, her bony finger pointing. \"This house has stood for more than a century. There is an integrity to this house. Your father believed so, and his father before him. You can't come in here with a wrecking ball.\"\n\n\"I told you, Gran. It will be nothing like that.\"\n\nHer fingers curled into two tiny fists. \"When I'm gone, do whatever you want. But for now, Jack, please, just leave things as they are.\"\n\n\"Gran, Annabel has some ideas. Good ideas. They'll make the place even better.\"\n\n\"Ideas!\" She sniffed. \"Other people have had ideas, and it's done them and us no good.\"\n\nJack made a face as he looked at her. \"Are you talking about my mother?\"\n\nCordelia wished she hadn't said that. She tried to backtrack. \"Your mother was a dear, kind woman. She meant well. But if she had succeeded in tearing up the place as she had planned . . .\"\n\n\"Mom wasn't going to tear up the place, Gran,\" Jack said. \"And neither will Annabel and I. Maybe if Mom had succeeded in fixing the place up all those years ago, it wouldn't have gone into the red.\" He made another face, which Cordelia took to indicate sympathy, but which seemed simply idiotic to her. \"I've gone over the books you gave me, Gran,\" Jack went on. \"This place hasn't made any money in years.\"\n\n\"We get by,\" she told him.\n\n\"Gran, I've spent too much of my life just getting by,\" Jack said. \"You asked me to come up here and take over from you. I plan to do that. And I plan on making a success of things. A success of me!\"\n\nHer gnarled old fingers gripped his wrists. \"Jack, please, go slow. And please don't do anything without talking to me first.\"\n\n\"I told you we'd include you in everything,\" he said, smiling at her, lifting her hands to his lips to kiss them.\n\nCordelia's eyes stung with tears. Nearly sixty years ago she had come to this house a happy bride. How had it come to this?\n21\n\n\"Help me!!\"\n\nCordelia, aged twenty-five, had stood there, not believing what she was seeing.\n\nThe woman struggled. Her face was a mask of terror.\n\n\"Help me!\" the woman screamed again.\n\nCordelia tried to run to her, but her husband stopped her.\n\nAnd she had watched in sickening horror as the woman was pulled down into the darkness.\n22\n\n\"Just please go slow,\" Cordelia said to her grandson, her voice low and whispery.\n\nJack pulled her in for a big bear hug. She practically disappeared against his chest.\n\n\"Don't you worry about anything, Gran,\" he said. \"We'll respect the integrity of the house. You'll be pleased with the changes. You'll see.\"\n23\n\nAnnabel was having a grand time, mapping out designs for the house. She'd found a little table in one of the other, unused bedrooms and dragged it back to her own, making it into a desk for herself. She began sketching a rough blueprint of how she envisioned the parlor could look. One wall gone, the fireplace opened up, the windows enlarged . . .\n\nThis is just what I need, Annabel thought to herself. A project.\n\nIn New York, she had liked nothing more than to be immersed in a project. During her short tenure at Orbit, she had loved designing the look of the magazine, working with their graphics team to come up with a sleek, stylized presentation. She was always sketching, trying new ideas out. In those days, Annabel was at her happiest, most fulfilled.\n\nToo bad her nights had been consumed with coke.\n\nBut that was over now. She had triumphed. She had made it through rehab, survived her breakdown, and emerged whole and healthy. She had not wanted to come to Woodfield with Jack. She'd felt pressured into doing so, as if she'd had no other choice. But maybe that was changing. Maybe the challenge of remodeling this place would be just what she needed.\n\nBecause Annabel needed something.\n\nShe needed to feel as if she mattered. As if she could run her own life. She needed to feel strong and capable again. She'd triumphed over the addiction, but what she still felt she hadn't regained was the self-confidence. She wondered if she'd ever really been self-confident, if maybe all her time as a hotshot New York fashionista and designer had been a sham, if she'd been fooling herself and everyone else. She wondered if she had ever really believed in herself, or if she had been putting on a show\u2014if she had still been, at heart, the scared little girl Daddy Ron had locked in the closet.\n\nYet Dr. Adler at the hospital had told her that before she could believe that she was strong and capable, she needed to believe she was safe.\n\n\"Do you feel safe, Annabel?\" Dr. Adler had asked her.\n\n\"I feel safe here,\" she had replied, meaning the hospital, \"but I'm not sure I'll feel safe anywhere else.\"\n\nShe had hated the hospital\u2014hated feeling confined and boxed in\u2014but at least she had felt safe there.\n\nI need to feel safe here, too, Annabel told herself. And I can feel safe by making this place my own. So long as it doesn't feel like my own, then I won't feel safe.\n\nAnd feeling unsafe was a terrible way to live.\n\nAlready she had hallucinated since coming here. Her mind was sometimes going to play tricks with her\u2014Tommy Tricky, as a matter of fact. Dr. Adler had warned her about that. But she couldn't succumb to such tricks. She had to teach her mind to distinguish between reality and illusion. She had to make her mind strong\u2014working it out every day, the way people worked out their bodies by going to the gym. And the best mental calisthenics Annabel could do were the designs and blueprints for her renovation of the inn.\n\nIf Annabel could meet the challenges of living here at the Blue Boy\u2014if she could find her courage and her strength and her self-confidence here\u2014then all the pain and struggle she had gone through would have been worth it. But most important, she needed to do it on her own. Jack had been a steadying influence during the worst of her ordeal. He'd been a great support. But Annabel needed to do this next part on her own. That was vital.\n\nI need to find a way to feel strong and safe again on my own, she told herself, as she sketched out the windows she had in mind to open up the parlor.\n\nFrom a corner of the room, she heard scratching.\n\n\"I may need to find an exterminator as well,\" she said with a long groan.\n\nDamn it. The idea of vermin running around inside the walls of the house creeped her out, made her flesh crawl. She'd heard scratching downstairs in the parlor. Probably mice. Or maybe chipmunks. Annabel hoped it was nothing worse than that.\n\nShe stood and walked over to the wall. Crouching down, she pressed her ear low to the wall. She could definitely hear something, but in fact, she realized it wasn't the same sound she'd heard downstairs. Up close, Annabel wouldn't describe it as scratching. It sounded more like . . . scuffing. Like someone was scuffing along the floor behind the wall....\n\n\"That's crazy,\" Annabel said out loud. \"Mice and chipmunks don't scuff.\"\n\nBut it sounded bigger, heavier than a mouse or a chipmunk.\n\nPressing her ear harder against the wall, Annabel was surprised to discover that a part of the wall buckled just a bit. A sliver of the plaster actually moved. She looked down.\n\nShe saw a small panel, about two feet by three feet, where the wall met the floor.\n\nSlowly, carefully, Annabel slid the panel back. If there was some animal behind there, she didn't want it jumping out at her. But the sound was gone now. There was utter silence. Still, Annabel moved very slowly, frightened that a skunk or a possum was about to poke its snout through the panel at her. With careful deliberation, she pushed the panel aside, trying to catch a glimpse of what was behind the wall.\n\nIt was too dark to see. Annabel stood and hurried over to her pocketbook, snatching up her phone. There might not be any reception up here, but she could still use her flashlight app. She pointed her phone into the panel and switched on the light.\n\nShe saw no animal or any sign of one. There was just a very narrow space that seemed to lead all around the room. No way was she going in there to explore. Annabel hated enclosed, tight spaces. She just wanted to close this panel and seal it shut\u2014\n\nBut then her eyes landed on a small dusty pile of books just beyond the panel opening.\n\nHesitantly, Annabel reached in and grabbed the book on the top of the pile.\n\nBringing it back out into the room, she looked down on its cover. The book seemed ancient. The binding was cracking and covered in mold. The mold made a pretty blue-and-white pattern across the black leather cover. Carefully, Annabel opened the book. She let out a little gasp when she read the words on the frontispiece.\n\nDAEMONOLOGY\n\nInvocations and Spells\n\nThe date at the bottom was 1862.\n24\n\n\"Stay back,\" Chief Richard Carlson told the kids who had gathered along the trail. \"Stay behind Deputy Burrell.\"\n\nThe call had come in about half an hour ago. Some kids had found something along the path through the woods. One of them, little Julie Chen, had run home to her mother screaming and then Mrs. Chen had called the police.\n\nThe kids claimed it was a body.\n\nA dead guy, they said.\n\nRichard had ordered the kids kept back. A group of curious adults had gathered by now, too, and Adam was holding them back as well while the chief made his way up the path.\n\n\"It's right over there,\" called one of the kids who had found whatever it was. \"Just off the trail beside a log.\"\n\nRichard could see something in the direction the kid was pointing. It looked like a clump of dark brown blankets from where he was standing. He continued toward it.\n\nWhat if it was a body?\n\nWhat if it was murder?\n\nThere hadn't been a murder in Woodfield since Richard had taken over as chief. The job was very different from his time working on the Boston police force, where he'd had to turn over a dozen dead bodies a year, all of them potential homicides until proven otherwise. During his years in Boston, Richard had seen his share of bloodshed. But since coming to Woodfield, his worst problems were those damn town meetings where everybody was fighting with everybody else. That and the occasional underage drinking down at the lake, or thrill riders going ninety down the old twisting back roads.\n\nWoodfield was a quiet, peaceful little village. But Richard knew it hadn't always been so.\n\nBefore he'd come to town, there had been a string of unexplained deaths. Many of them were out at the Blue Boy Inn, but not all. On slow days, Richard sometimes went through the cold case files, lifting the bulging manila folders down from the shelf and leafing through them. For such a small town, there were an awful lot of unexplained deaths.\n\nAnd from the looks of it, there had just been another one.\n\nRichard turned back toward his deputy. \"Adam,\" he called. \"Get the EMTs here pronto.\"\n\nHe heard Adam make the call.\n\nThe chief knelt down beside what from a distance had looked like a brown clump. It was brown all right. Brown, hardened blood. The corpse was lying on its right side and its clothes were all drenched in blood. The poor guy's face was turned, pressed into the dirt, so Richard didn't recognize him as a local. At least not right away.\n\nHe felt for a pulse. He knew there wouldn't be one, but he did it anyway. The guy was dead. And cold. Richard guessed he'd been dead for a while.\n\n\"What is it, chief?\" somebody called from the crowd.\n\nHe wasn't sure he could say exactly. From the looks of it, the guy might have been jumped as he walked down the path. Or maybe he'd been dumped here. But it was clear he must have been stabbed to produce so much blood.\n\nRichard took out his phone and snapped several pictures. Then, carefully, he turned the corpse on its back.\n\nThat was when he recognized him.\n\nHoly shit.\n\nRoger Askew.\n\nHe heard Tammy's voice.\n\nRoger didn't come home last night.\n\n\"He sure as hell didn't,\" Richard whispered.\n\n\"Hey, chief,\" Adam shouted over to him. \"The EMTs are on their way.\"\n\nRichard nodded.\n\nHis first thought was this was a drug deal or a gambling debt gone bad. Roger Askew had lots of enemies. It wasn't going to be easy to find his killer.\n\nRichard was looking down at the corpse. Roger's right arm was twisted under his body at an odd angle. All Richard could see was his shoulder. Gently, the chief reached forward to examine the arm. The odd angle might be a clue as to how Roger died.\n\nBut as he felt under the cold, stiff body, Richard uttered a little sound in surprise.\n\nThere was no right arm!\n\nIt had been severed just below the shoulder. That was why there was so much blood.\n\nRichard stood up. The sun was dropping a little lower in the sky and the woods were filling up with shadows, strange twisting shapes cast by the bare branches of the trees. Had the arm been cut off for some reason, and then tossed aside? The chief stepped away from the corpse, walking through the dead leaves, trying to see if he could discover the arm. But the leaves weren't disturbed for several yards around the body. There was no sign of any more blood.\n\nHe and Adam would do a more thorough search, and the state forensics team would likely be called in. But at the moment, Richard suspected that Roger's arm had been cut off and then his killer had taken it away.\n\nBut why?\n25\n\n\"Well, Miz Wish,\" Zeke was telling her, \"what can I say? It's an old house. There have been many people who've lived and stayed here over the many decades. And maybe one of them had some rather unique reading interests.\"\n\nAnnabel had told him about the books she had found behind the panel. \"Well, they really disturbed me,\" she said, shivering.\n\n\"I hope you threw them away,\" the caretaker told her.\n\n\"No,\" Annabel admitted. \"The others I left inside the panel. The one that I took out and examined, I placed outside, on the wood box. Would you take it down to the library and donate it, Zeke? It's so old that I thought maybe some historian would want it.\"\n\n\"Such blasphemy ought to be burned,\" Zeke said. \"Don't worry. I'll take care of it.\"\n\n\"Good. I just want it out of the house.\" She rolled out the diagrams she had drawn up onto the parlor table. \"And maybe nail shut that panel for me, too?\"\n\n\"Happy to oblige, Miz Wish.\" Zeke smiled, looking down at the plans Annabel was showing him. \"What do we have here?\"\n\n\"Some ideas I have about redesigning this room,\" Annabel said. \"I've spoken with a contractor. He's coming by in the morning to help me get started. His name is Chad Appleby. His father is Charlie Appleby.\"\n\nThe old caretaker lifted his bushy white eyebrows. \"I've known Charlie since he was a boy riding his tricycle. Can't believe he's got a kid old enough to do contracting work.\"\n\nAnnabel smiled. \"He assured me that Chad is very good, that he thought he could give me a hand doing a few small jobs. When we move into the next stage, which will involve more intensive renovation, Charlie said he would come over to do the work.\"\n\n\"I see,\" said Zeke.\n\nAnnabel's smile changed into a smirk. \"Charlie added that he only hoped he wouldn't find any bodies stuffed inside the walls when he starts tearing them down,\" she said.\n\nThe caretaker shrugged. \"Well, those are the risks you take when you start moving things around.\"\n\n\"Look, Zeke,\" Annabel said, \"I need to know that I'll be able to count on you. I know Cordelia is worried that we'll destroy the historical character of the house. But trust me, that's the last thing I want to do. In New York, I helped redesign many old buildings. Staying true to the character and the integrity of the place was always one of the most important motivations.\"\n\n\"What exactly do you plan to do to the house?\" Zeke asked.\n\n\"For now, we're just going to start with this room,\" Annabel told him, gesturing around the parlor. \"It's the first thing guests see when they walk into the house. I want to clean it up and give it a good polish. We're going to paint the walls, replace the windows, and sandblast the floor. Eventually get some new windows, and take out that wall over there.\"\n\nShe walked over to the fireplace.\n\n\"And we're going to open up the fireplace again,\" she added.\n\nZeke just looked at her.\n\n\"I have a mason coming by as well tomorrow,\" Annabel said, stooping down and examining the bricks that had been mortared over the fireplace opening. \"I'll want to make sure the chimney is still sound. And I suspect we have mice or rats or squirrels living in there. I've heard a lot of scuttling. Up in my room, too.\"\n\n\"Listen, Miz Wish,\" Zeke said. \"I don't think you oughta open up the fireplace. I can tell you that the chimney is no good. And the ash dump down in the basement is all cracked. Why don't you start on something simpler? Fixing the windows is a good idea, and I'll help you paint the walls.\"\n\nAnnabel shook her head. \"We need a roaring fire in this room to ward off the cold this winter. How inviting will it be to walk into this room and feel the warmth of the fire, see the light flickering on the walls at night?\" She smiled, standing up, and turning around to look back at Zeke. \"In fact, I'd say fixing the fireplace is number one on my list.\"\n\nZeke stared at her. \"Have you told Cordelia?\"\n\n\"Jack spoke to her. Believe me, she's going to love how we fix the place up.\"\n\nZeke watched her as Annabel spread her plans out on the table, looking up from them at the walls and the windows, then down at her blueprints again.\n\nThe woman was a fool.\n\nShe walks into this house and thinks she can do what she likes, Zeke thought. She has no idea. None whatsoever.\n\nShe's bringing in a mason to check out the chimney.\n\nZeke knew that, one way or another, he'd make sure that mason told Annabel to leave the fireplace alone.\n26\n\n\"I think this calls for a glass of wine, don't you?\" Jack was asking.\n\nThey had all just come down to the dining room for dinner. Normally, the inn only served breakfast to its guests, but because a light dusting of snow was suddenly blanketing the roads, Annabel had offered to make dinner for everyone. Priscilla and Neville had thought that was a grand idea, since they weren't keen on skidding along back roads in search of some restaurant.\n\nJack uncorked the wine as Annabel began chopping vegetables in the kitchen.\n\n\"She's a vegetarian, you know,\" Jack told his English guests, pouring some merlot in a glass for each of them. \"Hope you don't mind a meal of carrots and lentils.\"\n\n\"I'm sure it will be delicious,\" Priscilla said, accepting her glass and taking a sip. \"Oh, this wine is divine.\"\n\nIt was just the four of them for dinner, plus Zeke, as Cordelia had complained of a headache and disappeared into her room. The rest of them sat around the dining table drinking their wine, Zeke sipping from a mug of beer.\n\n\"I should really go out to the kitchen and offer Annabel my help,\" Priscilla said.\n\nJack grinned over at her. \"You just stay right there,\" he told her. \"You're a guest. Annabel enjoys cooking.\" And he winked at her.\n\nPriscilla could feel her cheeks redden.\n\n\"Annabel said she's going to open up the fireplace,\" Neville offered, apparently oblivious to Jack winking at his girlfriend. \"A fire sure would be nice on a snowy night like this.\"\n\nJack was nodding. \"We've got some good ideas for this place. I was telling Priscilla earlier that if you come back a year from now, you'll never recognize it.\"\n\n\"Now, look here,\" Zeke said, gazing up at them from over his mug. \"You told your grandmother you'd go slow.\"\n\n\"Don't worry, Zeke,\" Jack assured him.\n\n\"And I'm not sure that chimney is fixable,\" the old caretaker said. \"Not sure you want to spend four grand to fix it your first month here.\"\n\n\"What's a bed-and-breakfast in the woods without a fireplace?\" Neville asked. \"I'm with you, Jack. Get that chimney smoking again.\"\n\nJack was smiling and refilling everybody's glass of wine. \"Absolutely,\" he said. \"We could be toasting marshmallows as we wait for dinner.\"\n\nThey all laughed, except Zeke.\n\n\"What is that American custom of marshmallows and chocolate over a fire?\" Priscilla asked.\n\n\"Do you mean s'mores?\" Jack laughed. \"Oh, sure, it's very tasty. Melted marshmallow and chocolate between a graham cracker sandwich. Sticky, but good.\"\n\n\"Sounds delectable,\" Priscilla said, allowing her eyes to find Jack's again.\n\nHis eyes locked on to hers. \"Gooey, sweet, and very satisfying,\" he told her, enunciating each word carefully.\n\nHer cheeks reddened darker.\n\n\"Well,\" Neville said, \"if we come back next year, I hope you'll have performed an exorcism on all the ghosts in the place.\"\n\nJack moved his eyes away from Priscilla and found her boyfriend. \"Have they been keeping you up at night?\"\n\n\"Only thing keeping me up is Priscilla jabbering with herself, thinking she's seeing spirits,\" Neville replied, before reaching over for the bottle of wine and refilling his glass.\n\n\"I am seeing spirits,\" she told him. \"Two nights in a row now I've seen Sally Brown. Poor thing. She's very confused. Doesn't even know her name. But she comes into the room and sits at the end of the bed.\"\n\n\"Oh, does she now?\" Jack said, smirking, winking this time at Neville.\n\n\"She does,\" Priscilla insisted. \"I keep trying to tell her that it's okay to move on, that she shouldn't be trapped here between worlds. But she tells me she can't leave, that they're keeping her here.\"\n\nZeke sat forward in his chair. \"Who's keeping her here?\" he asked.\n\nPriscilla shrugged. \"She hasn't said,\" she told him, knocking back the last of her wine and setting down her empty glass, which Jack moved to quickly to replenish. \"But if she comes by tonight again, I'll ask her.\"\n\n\"Just ask her quietly, okay?\" Neville quipped. \"I don't like being woken up.\"\n\n\"So you've seen nothing?\" Zeke asked.\n\n\"I fall asleep as soon as my head hits the pillow,\" Neville replied. \"She sits up waiting for her ghosts.\"\n\nJack stood, taking another bottle of wine out of the cabinet. \"You know, if it were up to me, I'd keep the whole supernatural reputation for the place,\" he told the group as he uncorked the bottle. \"I think it's a great selling point.\"\n\n\"It's a wonderful selling point,\" Priscilla said. \"But it's more than that. It's truth in advertising. You can't rent out rooms without telling people they might be visited by spirits in the night.\" She smiled as she took a sip of wine. \"Wouldn't be fair.\"\n\nThat brought another round of laughter.\n\n\"Well, Annabel doesn't like the idea,\" Jack said, sitting back down at the table, but this time taking the seat next to Priscilla, whose glass, though still half-full, he filled back up to the top. \"Maybe we can work on her.\"\n\nPriscilla giggled.\n27\n\nFrom the kitchen Annabel could hear them laughing.\n\nShe was glad they were having fun. It was good to hear laughter from real people in this gloomy old house.\n\nThe carrot-and-lentil soup bubbled on the stove. She'd also made rosemary popovers and an enormous salad. A good meal for a snowy night.\n\nMaybe this wouldn't be so bad after all. She had the contractors coming tomorrow. Soon they'd be opening this place up, letting in light, sweeping out cobwebs, and drying out the mold. Maybe this little adventure would be just what Jack hoped it would be, a new start for both of them. A path to success.\n\nThe wind whistled against the house, rattling the glass panes in the windows.\n\nAnnabel couldn't wait until a fire was blazing in the parlor.\n28\n\nTammy Morelli sat opposite Chief Carlson, her fingers massaging her temples. \"Well, sure, Roger had enemies,\" she said. \"Lots of people wanted him dead.\" She closed her eyes. \"Including me, sometimes.\"\n\nShe opened her eyes again. They were bloodshot from crying. Richard didn't understand how a woman like Tammy, basically a good, decent, hardworking person, could actually grieve over a lazy bum who had beaten her and used her. But Tammy had sobbed like a baby when Richard had given her the news that Roger was dead.\n\nMurdered.\n\n\"Anyone hate him enough to cut off his arm?\" Adam Burrell asked her.\n\nTammy shuddered. \"I have no idea,\" she said, massaging her temples harder.\n\nRichard felt sorry for her. \"I don't want to keep you any longer, Tammy. But if you can think of anything, like maybe the symbolism of his right arm . . . like maybe he did something to someone and they were cutting off his arm for revenge. . . .\"\n\nHer eyes snapped open and she was looking directly at Richard.\n\n\"But Roger was left-handed,\" she said. \"If he did anything to someone, he'd have done it with his left arm.\"\n\nThe chief nodded.\n\nAfter Tammy was gone, Richard and Adam sat in silence for a while. Outside the snow squall was ending. It had been a light winter so far, but that could change. It was still early. They could yet be buried in seven feet like they'd been last year.\n\n\"Tell me something, Adam,\" Richard said. \"You grew up here. The cold case files tell me that there were a number of unsolved murders in this town before I took over as chief.\"\n\nThe deputy was nodding. \"They stretch way back, more than a century.\"\n\n\"The last big flare-up was a little more than twenty years ago,\" Richard told him, remembering the files he'd perused. \"So you must remember that.\"\n\n\"Sure do,\" Adam said. \"I was around seven years old at the time. My parents were terrified. Kept me in the house, wouldn't let me go outside to play. There was even stuff on the news about the Woodfield Serial Killer.\"\n\n\"I seem to recall from the files that four people were killed in a matter of a few days.\"\n\n\"Well, four people went missing, never to be seen again. But only one body was found. The police chief at the time presumed there was a link.\"\n\n\"And why was that?\"\n\n\"Because they'd all either been living or working at the Blue Boy,\" Adam told him.\n\nThe chief stood, walking over to the shelf and retrieving several folders. Placing them down on the table, he thumbed through the top file.\n\n\"Yes, here it is,\" he said. \"A man and his wife had been staying at the inn. He reported she went for a walk and never returned. No body was ever found. But murder was suspected given the fact that the very next day Cynthia Devlin, the owners' granddaughter, also went missing. Although again no body was found, the little girl's blood was discovered all over the grounds. There was speculation a bear might have killed her.\"\n\n\"It wasn't a bear,\" Adam said. \"Because there were two other guys as well.\"\n\nRichard flipped forward a few pages in the file. \"Yes, here they are. Contractors. They'd come up from New York to do some work on the place.\" He read further. \"One would be reported missing by his wife. He never returned to New York. The other was found in the woods outside the Blue Boy, a bullet through his heart.\"\n\n\"Yeah, that sounds about right.\"\n\nRichard couldn't figure it out. \"There doesn't seem to be a pattern, except that they were all connected somehow to the Blue Boy Inn.\"\n\nAdam shuddered. \"My parents always told me to stay away from that place, that it was haunted,\" he said.\n\nThe chief was still reading through the file. \"It says here that the owners were all questioned and were cleared of any suspicion.\" He read a little further into the report. \"Cordelia had just taken over the place, her husband having recently died. Her son was questioned, it says here, but having lost his daughter, the poor guy was pretty shaken up, and he moved away soon after that.\"\n\n\"Hey, chief,\" Adam asked, leaning back in his chair, his hands behind his head, \"are you thinking that Roger Askew's death might be somehow connected to those deaths twenty years ago?\"\n\n\"I can't see how it's possible,\" Richard said, closing the file. \"Roger was killed half a mile away from the inn. But I'd like to look into those cold cases regardless. The file left it all a complete mystery, saying no suspects or motives could be found, especially since only one body was ever found.\"\n\nAdam smirked. \"It'll give us something to do. It's been pretty boring around here lately.\"\n\n\"Don't let anyone know we're reopening those cases,\" Richard told him. \"Officially, we're only investigating the death of Roger Askew. I have a feeling that one will be easy to solve as soon as we start talking to Roger's cohorts. But as you're talking to people, ask what they remember about the Blue Boy twenty years ago.\"\n\n\"Will do, chief,\" Adam said, bolting out of his chair, replacing his cap, and heading out the door.\n\nRichard sat back down at his desk. He thought of that woman who'd just moved to the Blue Boy, the one he'd met at Millie's store. Such a pretty woman. Annabel, she'd said her name was. Richard hoped he wouldn't rattle her too much asking questions about the Blue Boy's bloody past.\n29\n\nAnnabel wasn't pleased by how drunk everyone was. Even Zeke seemed to have had too much beer. The other three, including her husband, had polished off three bottles of wine. Her dinner had been a hit\u2014Neville had asked for three helpings of the soup\u2014but now Annabel wished she'd served something more substantial to soak up all the alcohol everyone had consumed. Everyone but herself, of course.\n\nShe was disappointed in Jack. He'd still had the occasional glass of beer or wine even after Annabel had come home from rehab. She didn't expect him to go sober just because she'd had an addiction. But he'd never gotten drunk in all that time.\n\nUntil tonight.\n\nAnd he was flirting shamelessly with Priscilla.\n\nAnnabel stood. \"I'm going to clean off these plates and make some coffee,\" she said, scooping up her plate and Jack's.\n\n\"Coffee?\" Jack blurted. \"I don't want coffee. How about we open another bottle of wine?\"\n\n\"I think you've all had enough,\" Annabel said, piling the three other plates onto the two she held in her hand.\n\n\"Aw, come on, Annabel,\" her husband said, \"don't be such a spoilsport.\"\n\n\"No, she's probably right, Jack,\" Neville said. \"I've had plenty. And Priscilla is such a lightweight.\"\n\n\"Pretty girls usually are,\" Jack said, winking openly over at Priscilla, who blushed a bright scarlet.\n\nAnnabel carried the plates out to the kitchen.\n\nAll she could think of was Rachel Riley. Her bleached hair and big tits filled up Annabel's mind.\n\nShe placed the plates into the sink. Neville came in behind her, carrying soup bowls.\n\n\"Thank you,\" Annabel said.\n\n\"You're a marvelous cook,\" Neville told her. His cheeks were flushed from drinking, his mosaic of pimples redder than usual. \"Really, I'm usually a meat-and-potatoes sort of bloke, but this was superb.\"\n\n\"I'm pleased you liked it.\" She kept her eyes averted, focusing her attention on filling the sink up with soapy water.\n\n\"I do think it's a good idea to get the house fixed up and fireplace cleared. I wish you all the luck with that.\"\n\nFinally, Annabel turned to look at him. She smiled. \"I appreciate that, Neville,\" she said.\n\n\"You know, I've heard some rustling sounds from down there,\" he added. \"I'm afraid you might have some vermin to deal with when you pull up those bricks.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" Annabel agreed. \"I've heard it as well. Maybe just a couple stray squirrels. At least, that's what I'm hoping.\"\n\n\"Yes, well,\" Neville said, and he seemed suddenly at a loss as to what else to say.\n\nThey looked at each other awkwardly.\n\n\"Can I help you here?\" he asked finally.\n\n\"No, thank you.\" Annabel nodded toward the door to the dining room. \"I'm fine here. Please go back and keep Priscilla company.\"\n\nNeville smiled, nodded a little, and then headed back into the dining room.\n\nHadn't he seen the way Jack had been flirting with his girlfriend? Was he blind? Clueless? Or maybe he didn't care.\n\nAnnabel sighed, dropping her hands down into the soapy water. She couldn't go back out there quite yet. She hoped that Neville would take Priscilla off to bed. Then Annabel would tell Jack that they, too, should call it a night. She wouldn't mention his obnoxious behavior. No need to play the jealous wife. She and Jack needed to be united in the morning, when the contractor arrived and Cordelia started throwing up roadblocks to the renovation. Besides, Neville and Priscilla were leaving in the morning. They had to get down to Hartford to catch a flight to Florida late tomorrow afternoon.\n\nBut as Annabel washed dishes, the laughter from the dining room only continued and got louder.\n\nShe brought out the coffee. Zeke's head had dropped down onto his chest and he was snoring lightly. Jack was regaling Neville and Priscilla with a story about the time he'd been at some fancy restaurant in New York right after his book came out, and people as diverse as Anna Wintour and Mayor Bloomberg and Lady Gaga were coming up to him to congratulate him. That had never happened.\n\n\"Here,\" Annabel said, pouring some coffee for her husband and pushing the cup over at him. \"Drink this.\"\n\nHe ignored her, continuing on with his story, which now had turned into how he turned down an offer to write a Broadway show because they wouldn't pay him enough. He described the way he'd told off these imaginary producers and he had Priscilla and Neville laughing so hard that tears were popping out of their eyes.\n\nAnnabel sat back and watched them. Drunk people were so ridiculous. She hated to think she'd once been like that, at some public function and as high as a weather balloon. She kept noticing the way Jack winked over at Priscilla when he was finished with one of his stories. She decided she couldn't watch any more, so she got up from the table and walked out of the dining room and into the parlor.\n\nAnd suddenly the whole room was different.\n\nIt was as if someone had slipped a mickey into her coffee. Some sort of hallucinogen. The room seemed to sway and vibrate. Annabel had to reach out and touch her hand to the wall to steady herself.\n\nFrom behind her the laughter from the dining room continued, only now it got absurdly louder and then seemed to disappear entirely for a few seconds, as if the merrymakers were holding their party underwater. Annabel tried to clear her head. She stood in one spot, holding on to the wall, taking long, deep breaths. She closed her eyes.\n\nWhen she opened them again, Tommy Tricky was standing in front of her.\n\nGnashing his sharp blue teeth.\n\nAnnabel let out a small scream.\n\nBut the creature was gone. A figment of her imagination. The room continued to spin. What was happening to her?\n\nThe laughter surged. Annabel felt as if her legs would give out from under her. She made her way across the room by holding on to the wall. She reached the fireplace and looked down at the bricks that sealed off the opening.\n\nShe heard scraping coming from below.\n\nScraping, scraping, scraping.\n\nA hand was on her shoulder. Annabel gasped.\n\nTurning, she saw Neville, as if in a dream.\n\n\"Vermin,\" he said, his eyes crazy. \"Vermin.\"\n\nAnnabel thought she'd pass out. She nearly fell onto the fireplace, holding on to it to keep from falling to the floor. Neville was gone. Had he ever been there?\n\nOnce again, Annabel made her way around the room, her right hand against the wall to keep herself steady. She turned the corner back into the dining room.\n\nAnd there was Jack fucking Rachel Riley on top of the table.\n\nAnnabel closed her eyes and opened them again.\n\nNo, not Rachel. Jack was sitting very close to Priscilla and they were about to kiss. Her husband looked over at her and smiled.\n\nHis mouth was full of sharp, broken teeth.\n\nAnnabel cried out and ran upstairs, shutting herself in her room.\n\nBut it wasn't her room. She was in a closet. A very small, cramped, dark closet.\n\nDaddy Ron had put her in there.\n\n\"Turn around, Annabel,\" her stepfather's horrible, jagged, drunken voice rasped through the door. \"Turn around and see who's behind you!\"\n\n\"He's not real!\" Annabel shouted, her hands in her hair.\n\n\"Aw, Tommy don't like it when people say he's not real. Gets him real mad.\"\n\nAnnabel spun her head from side to side, looking into the darkness.\n\n\"Hear him sharpening his teeth?\" Daddy Ron asked.\n\nShe could. She could hear the devil's teeth gnashing, anticipating the moment he bit down into her flesh.\n\n\"He's right behind you, Annabel!\" Daddy Ron shouted, and then he laughed.\n\nShe had to get out of there. All around her, linens were stacked neatly on shelves. Her mother's linens. There was a hamper beside her filled with dirty clothes. It was a tight space. So small. She was stuck there, using up all the air. Pretty soon there would be no oxygen left and Annabel would die.\n\nShe had to break free. She began pounding on the door, swinging her arms out, knocking all the linens off the shelves.\n\nAnnabel was trapped! Her claustrophobia took over and she screamed.\n\nThat was when she saw the little boy's hand resting upon her shoulder.\n30\n\nPriscilla staggered up the stairs to her room. What had happened down there? She was drunker than she had ever been before. She had allowed Jack to keep refilling her glass because he excited her. Excited her far more than Neville had ever done. More than any man had ever done.\n\nBut now she was lost in a fog of her own thoughts and desires. What had happened? Her blouse was unbuttoned. Where was everybody?\n\nShe took another step and tripped. She had to grab ahold of the bannister to keep from falling down.\n\n\"Neville?\" she called in a small, whispery voice.\n\nThe stairs were moving. The whole house seemed to be swaying. Priscilla clung to the bannister for fear she'd tumble down the stairs.\n\n\"Neville?\" she called again.\n\nHe had gone upstairs. She thought she remembered him saying good night, that he'd had far too much to drink himself and was calling it a night.\n\nHe had left her alone with Jack.\n\nZeke was gone, too, and Annabel.\n\nIt had just been Priscilla and Jack.\n\nShe tried to button up her blouse, but her fingers wouldn't work.\n\nShe reached the top of the stairs and stumbled into the hallway. It was very dark and very quiet. Priscilla could hear herself breathing. At least the house had stopped spinning. She took a step down the corridor. Her room was only a few feet away.\n\nWhat had happened down there? She wished she could remember.\n\nAhead of her, a figure approached.\n\nA figure in white.\n\n\"Sally,\" Priscilla said softly. \"Sally, help me. . . .\"\n\nSally Brown approached her. She looked at Priscilla with eyes that seemed both sympathetic and accusatory. Priscilla reached out to her.\n\nSally smiled, and grabbed hold of her hand. A glint of moonlight reflected off Priscilla's opal ring. She followed the ghost down the hall, and then began climbing some stairs. At the top of the stairs was a door. Sally opened the door and they passed through.\n\nThe attic. They were in the attic.\n\nBut then Sally was gone and Priscilla was alone.\n\nShe turned around a few times, got dizzy, and dropped down to sit on an old stuffed chair that smelled like dust and mold. She sat there for a while, breathing heavily, until her head stopped spinning again.\n\nIt had started to rain outside. At least, Priscilla thought it had. She could hear a soft tap-tapping on the walls and roof of the attic.\n\nPriscilla looked around the room. A small lamp on the table provided a very dim light. \"Sally,\" she whispered. \"Sally, where are you?\"\n\nThere was a small rumble of thunder off in the distance.\n\nAt least, Priscilla thought it was thunder.\n\nThe rain was hitting the house harder now. An icy rain, Priscilla thought. She imagined the long icy fingers that scratched the roof of the house. She shivered.\n\n\"Sally!\" she called again. \"Where have you gone? What have you brought me here to see?\"\n\nDespite her dizziness and confusion, Priscilla was excited. This was exactly why she'd come to the Blue Boy Inn. To see ghosts. And now Sally had brought her to a place where she'd see plenty of ghosts, Priscilla was sure.\n\nAll at once, a huge thunderclap made her jump, and the lamp went out.\n\n\"Oh, no,\" Priscilla murmured. She loved her ghost adventures, but she'd prefer not to experience them in total darkness. That was just a little too creepy.\n\nShe breathed a sigh of relief when the light flickered back on again.\n\nOn the table in front of her, Priscilla spotted a candle and an old book of matches. The candle was little more than a stub. Priscilla considered lighting it, but seeing that it was so small, she didn't want to waste the wax while the electricity was still on. Should the power go out again, she'd light it. She kept the book of matches near her hand so she could find it easily if the darkness returned.\n\nShe smiled. Despite all she'd had to drink, she was still thinking clearly.\n\nThe lamp flickered. Priscilla felt her heart flutter.\n\nShe looked up. And she saw in the darkness a hand holding a knife.\n\nPriscilla screamed.\n\nIt took her several minutes to calm herself. \"Well, that was a good one, Sally,\" she said out loud. \"Who was that? The person who killed you? Does his ghost walk here, too?\"\n\nShe had learned that ghosts could only hurt the living in very rare circumstances. Priscilla wasn't afraid of being hurt. She was afraid in a fun-house kind of way, the way she might feel watching a scary movie.\n\nThunder again, the loudest yet, directly over the house.\n\nThe light struggled to hold\u2014\n\n\u2014shivered\u2014\n\n\u2014and then went out.\n\nDarkness.\n\nPriscilla held her breath.\n\n\"Come back on,\" she whispered.\n\nBut the darkness remained.\n\n\"Oh, well,\" she said, feeling for the matches.\n\nHow terribly dark it was in the attic. Gripping the box of matches in her left hand, Priscilla felt around for the candle with her right. What if the power didn't return? The little stub would never last.... She moved her hand over the tabletop. Where was the candle? It had been sitting right there! The darkness was absolute. Deep and thick. The rain kept up its pummeling of the roof. She prayed for a flash of lightning just to show her the candle. But all she got was a low rumble of thunder.\n\nThere!\n\nShe felt something in the dark. The candle\u2014\n\nShe moved her fingers to grip it.\n\nAnd whatever it was that she touched\u2014moved!\n\nIt was a hand! A human hand!\n\nSomeone was in the dark with her!\n\nPriscilla gasped.\n\n\"Who's there?\" she asked. \"Who is it?\"\n\nOh, this was exciting!\n\nBut she'd prefer it without the total darkness.\n\nFinally, a flash of lightning. The room lit up for an instant. Priscilla saw she was alone in the room.\n\nAnd there\u2014there was the candle!\n\nShe grabbed it as the darkness settled in again. Fumbling for the matches, Priscilla found that her hands were trembling. But still she managed to strike a flame and shakily light the wick of the candle. A small, flickering circle of light enveloped her. She sat back in the chair, awaiting whatever vision Sally had to show her next.\n\nThe memory of the hand she had felt\u2014\n\nIt was small, she thought. Like a child's.\n\nShe lifted the candle and stood. She was far too anxious to stay seated. As she moved into the center of the room, Priscilla realized she was stepping in something sticky.\n\nWas rainwater dripping in from the walls?\n\nShe lowered the candle.\n\nAnd she could see plainly that it wasn't water.\n\nIt was blood!\n\nShe looked up. And there, in the candlelight, was Sally.\n\n\"Oh, Sally,\" Priscilla said. \"I'm glad you're back.\"\n\nBut then she saw that Sally was the one holding the knife.\n\n\"Sally,\" Priscilla said, \"why are showing me this?\n\nSally took a step closer to her, pointing the knife at her.\n\n\"Sally! Please stop this!\"\n\nThe ghost swung the knife, nicking Priscilla's arm. She drew blood.\n\nSuddenly, Priscilla was terrified.\n\n\"Sally, no!\"\n\nThe ghost kept coming closer. Priscilla turned and ran.\n\nIn her mind, still swimming from the wine, the small space of the attic suddenly seemed cavernous. She ran and ran, for many minutes it seemed, down an endless corridor that stretched farther and farther off into the distance. How could this be happening? How could she keep running for so long? What had happened to this room?\n\nBehind her, Sally's footsteps echoed as she pursued her. Thunder clapped overhead. Priscilla just kept on running, down that impossibly long corridor.\n\nAnd then she stopped, her head spinning as if she were riding an out-of-control carousel. She turned around. Sally was right behind her, smiling sweetly.\n\n\"Oh, Sally,\" Priscilla said. \"You gave me such a fright.\"\n\nThen the knife came plunging down into Priscilla's face.\n31\n\n\"Wake up, you old fool.\"\n\nZeke opened his eyes. Sunlight was streaming into his room and Cordelia was standing over him, glowering at him, her arms akimbo.\n\n\"What time is it?\" Zeke asked, sitting up, just as a headache pushed him back down.\n\n\"It's past time, you miserable man,\" Cordelia scolded.\n\n\"Oh, no,\" Zeke said, sitting up again, slower this time, rubbing his forehead.\n\n\"I've taken care of things,\" Cordelia said. \"No thanks to you.\"\n\n\"Is everything all right?\"\n\nCordelia's eyes darkened. \"Everyone is sleeping off their hangovers in their rooms. After all that noise last night, I presume they'll sleep well past noon.\"\n\nThe old man got up out of bed. He was still wearing the clothes he had on yesterday. He smelled of beer and sweat.\n\n\"It's been so long, Cordelia,\" he told her. \"So long since I just had a good time . . . unwound . . . had a few beers. Don't be angry at me.\"\n\n\"You had more than a few beers, apparently. I came in here two hours ago and couldn't get you to wake up for the life of me.\" She folded her arms over her chest. \"So I had to take care of things myself.\"\n\n\"And everything was all right?\"\n\nCordelia narrowed her old eyes at him. \"I think she's figured out how to deal with that lock.\"\n\n\"The door was locked, wasn't it?\" Zeke asked.\n\n\"It was locked,\" Cordelia said. \"But I don't think it was locked all night.\"\n\n\"What makes you think so?\"\n\nShe brushed her hand at him. \"I don't have time to stand here jabbering with you. We have things to do today.\" She scowled. \"Annabel has some people coming to see her.\"\n\n\"The mason,\" Zeke said, nodding.\n\n\"Make sure he stays far away from that fireplace,\" Cordelia said, before hobbling out of Zeke's room.\n32\n\nAnnabel opened her eyes.\n\nFor a moment she had absolutely no idea where she was. She looked up at the ceiling and didn't recognize it. She sat up and looked around. The room made no sense to her.\n\nThen she realized she was at the Blue Boy Inn, and Jack was snoring beside her. They both were wearing the same clothes they had worn the day before.\n\nWhat had happened last night?\n\nShe'd hallucinated, that was what had happened. She'd thought she'd been locked in a closet by Daddy Ron. It had been horrifying.\n\nYou're safe, Annabel, she heard her therapists telling her. You are completely safe.\n\n\"I'm safe,\" she whispered to herself.\n\nAnnabel swung her legs off the bed and placed her feet\u2014still in shoes\u2014against the floor. Her hands covered her face and she felt as if she might cry. She hadn't had a childhood flashback like that in a very long time. During her breakdown and her time in rehab, such flashbacks had come frequently. Many a night she had thought she was back in the closet, locked there by Daddy Ron. But recently Annabel had begun to hope that she was finally free of such nightmares, that she had finally moved past those terrible memories.\n\nApparently not.\n\nDr. Adler had warned her that the flashbacks might come back if she was stressed or experienced some sort of trauma.\n\nAnnabel removed her hands from her face and looked over at Jack, snoring like a grizzly bear beside her.\n\nShe remembered the trauma of last night.\n\nJack had been flirting with Priscilla. He may have even had sex with her.\n\nAnnabel stood and pushed herself over to the mirror. She looked into her eyes. They were puffy and bloodshot.\n\nWhat had she seen? Jack and Priscilla. What had they been doing?\n\nShe turned to look at her husband.\n\nHow she hated him.\n\nNo, she told herself. You love Jack. He stayed with you through everything. You love Jack. You owe him so much.\n\nAnnabel had to get out of that room. She felt boxed in. The air was stale and smelly.\n\nOut in the hallway, she breathed better.\n\nAnd suddenly she remembered the contractor and the mason were coming this morning. Yes! For some reason, the thought cheered her. She looked at her watch. They would be there in an hour. She hurried to the bathroom to get ready.\n33\n\nChad Appleby was finishing up his breakfast at Deb's Diner.\n\n\"You want more coffee, Chad?\" Tammy asked him.\n\n\"Sure, Tam. Just a splash.\"\n\nShe refilled his cup.\n\n\"You know, I can't say I liked Roger,\" Chad said, \"but I'm sorry if what happened has left you upset.\"\n\nTammy gave him a wan smile. \"I appreciate that, Chad. I suppose it's good that he won't be coming around anymore. Jessica was scared of him.\" She sighed. \"But nobody deserves to get stabbed to death and get his arm cut off.\"\n\n\"Cops have no idea who did it?\"\n\nTammy shook her head. \"The chief has talked to all of Roger's friends and all of his enemies, and nobody seems to have had anything to do with it, or figure out any motive. I mean, why cut off his arm?\"\n\nChad used his last piece of bacon to wipe up the egg yolk on his plate and then forked it into his mouth. \"And they haven't found the arm yet, have they?\" he asked as he chewed.\n\nAgain, Tammy shook her head. \"The whole thing creeps me out,\" she said, before moving on down the counter to refill the next customer's cup.\n\nChad looked at his watch. Paulie was supposed to meet him here fifteen minutes ago. But Paulie was always late. Back in high school, Paulie got more demerits for showing up late to class than any other kid in their class. He was a stoner, but Paulie was also a damn good builder and mason, and that was why Chad had asked him to come out with him this morning to the Blue Boy Inn.\n\nHe couldn't believe that was where he was going. Dad had asked him, \"Hey, Chad, you want to take on one very weird job?\"\n\n\"And what would that be, Dad?\"\n\n\"The Blue Boy Inn wants its chimneys inspected,\" his father had told him.\n\nThe Blue Boy Inn. Everybody in town knew that old place was haunted. Or at least had so much creepy history that it should be haunted. There was the time that little girl went missing but blood was found all around the place. And a guy was found shot dead in the woods a stone's throw from the place. Plus, there were stories that lots of people had died in the rooms over the last hundred years or had never been seen again after they'd gone inside. The Blue Boy was legendary in these parts.\n\nAnd the two old people who ran it, that guy Zeke and that ancient Mrs. Devlin, looked like they were cast members of The Addams Family, all wrinkled and hunched over and dressed in black.\n\nChad had told his father that he was glad to take the job. He'd never been inside the Blue Boy, and he looked forward to finally getting a peek inside the spook house.\n\n\"Sorry I'm late, my man,\" came a voice behind him suddenly, a hand on his shoulder.\n\nChad looked around. Paulie had arrived, and his red, glassy eyes revealed he'd been four-twentying in his truck on the drive over.\n\n\"Sit down and have some coffee, Paulie,\" Chad told him.\n\nTammy brought him a cup.\n\n\"So you anxious to get a look inside the Blue Boy?\" Chad asked.\n\nPaulie grinned. He was a doughy-faced guy with floppy ears. They made an odd-looking pair, Paulie so soft and stout and Chad so chiseled, slender, and tall.\n\n\"Sounds cool to me, man,\" Paulie said, taking a sip of coffee. \"Hope we don't run into any ghosts.\"\n\n\"Remember that Halloween you and me and Nicky Malone went up there and threw rotten tomatoes until the old lady came out and scared us away?\" Chad laughed. \"Jesus Christ, we were bad kids. I'm surprised the old lady didn't call the cops on us.\"\n\n\"Maybe she did,\" Paulie said, his floppy ears wiggling. \"Maybe we were just too fast.\"\n\n\"Well, we're reformed now, aren't we, Paulie? Model citizens.\"\n\nPaulie laughed.\n\nIn truth, antics like the one at the Blue Boy, tossing those tomatoes, bothered Chad to remember. He'd never been a bad kid, really, but there had been other pranks like that. Like the time he and Nicky had pointed a DETOUR sign down an old dirt road and caused half a dozen cars to get stuck in ruts. And another time he'd rigged up a bucket of water over the front door of the high school and pulled a string so it doused stuffy old Mr. Hillcrest, the principal. Nobody could ever pin any of those things on Chad and his friends.\n\nNow he hated to remember them. He was twenty-four years old, and intended on doing Dad proud as his assistant in the family contracting business. His older brothers had no interest in taking over the company. They were lazy good-for-nothings. But Chad imagined a day when Dad retired and Appleby Contracting would be his own.\n\nMaybe he'd even hire old Paulie to work for him full-time. Providing the wacky weed wasn't still a daily ritual.\n\n\"Well, come on,\" he said all of a sudden, getting up off his stool and plunking down a twenty and a couple of ones on the counter. It was a bigger tip than Chad was used to leaving, but he felt sorry for Tammy. \"If we don't get a move on,\" he told Paulie, \"we'll be late getting to the Blue Boy. I told the new owner we'd be there at ten.\"\n\nPaulie downed his coffee and stood, a little shakily, to follow his friend out of the diner. Chad waved good-bye to Tammy and placed his hand on the door, but suddenly Paulie stopped him.\n\n\"You know,\" Paulie said, looking up at him with those bloodshot eyes, \"maybe we oughta smoke a little something before heading up to that haunted house.\"\n\n\"I'm fine, Paulie,\" Chad told him. \"And I think you're already higher than the Blue Boy's weathervane. In fact, why don't you ride with me? Leave your truck here.\"\n\nPaulie smiled. \"All right, captain. You're the boss.\"\n34\n\nCordelia watched from the window of her room. There were men coming to the Blue Boy. Men who intended to knock down walls and pry up bricks. She wouldn't let them.\n\nThey must be stopped.\n\nShe remembered the day she and her husband had first sealed up the fireplace. Cordelia had laid many of the bricks herself. Then, years later, she'd had to lay those bricks again, this time with her son.\n\nShe hoped that old fool Zeke wouldn't fail her again, as he had failed her so often recently. Zeke's infirmities were the reason she'd had to ask her grandson to come up and take over. Otherwise, she never would have involved Jack.\n\nBut she was going to have to involve him completely soon. Especially if his wife persisted in her cockamamie schemes to renovate the place.\n\nJack's mother, Cordelia's daughter-in-law, had had similar ambitions.\n\nAnd look what had happened to her.\n\n\"What are you doing?\" Cordelia had asked the young woman, all those years ago.\n\n\"I'm taking the bricks out of the fireplace,\" Jack's mother had replied. \"We should have fires in this room. It will make the place more inviting. Cozy and warm.\"\n\nCozy and warm.\n\nThe Blue Boy Inn had never been cozy and warm, not one day in all the years Cordelia had lived in the place.\n\nShe was going to have to speak to Jack. Soon. Very soon.\n\nThe way her husband had spoken to her.\n\n\"You're mad,\" she had said to him, when he finished.\n\nHis weary eyes told her that he was not mad. He was simply terrified.\n\nIn her mind, Cordelia heard again the screams of the mother whose baby had been taken from her. The little baby whose arm was found. Only the arm.\n\nHow that memory was seared into Cordelia's mind.\n\nShe pulled back the dusty old lace curtain and peered down onto the yard. She spied Zeke standing in the shadows of some tall pine trees. Good. He was there, at least. She prayed he'd be successful.\n\nShe was so intent on watching Zeke that she didn't hear the soft footfalls behind her.\n\nBut Cordelia certainly felt the sting of pain that suddenly seized the back of her head.\n\nWithout making a sound, the old woman crumpled to the floor.\n35\n\nZeke heard the truck rattling up the dirt driveway before he actually saw it. The snowfall from the night before had mostly melted by now, and the tires of the truck were spraying stones from side to side as they crunched over the path through the woods.\n\nThe old caretaker watched carefully as the truck came into view and parked at the far end of the lot. Two young men stepped out. One was tall and blond and rather handsome; the other was shorter, darker, and stout. Without saying a word to each other, the men made their way up toward the house.\n\n\"Good mornin',\" Zeke shouted, suddenly emerging from the shadows.\n\nThe men appeared to be slightly startled. They turned around to look at him. The shorter one seemed to sway just a little bit as he looked at Zeke, and his eyes were red.\n\n\"Good morning,\" the taller man said.\n\n\"May I help you?\" Zeke asked. \"I'm the caretaker here.\"\n\n\"We're here to see Annabel Wish,\" the man told him. \"I'm Chad Appleby and this is Paul Stueckel.\"\n\n\"I see,\" Zeke said. \"You're the contractors, I take it.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir, we are.\"\n\nZeke smiled with his crooked teeth. \"Is she askin' you to do a big job?\"\n\n\"I wouldn't know that yet,\" Chad told him. \"I haven't seen what she wants to do.\"\n\n\"Say she asks you to take down a few walls and restore a fireplace and chimney,\" Zeke said. \"How much would that cost her?\"\n\n\"I'm not sure,\" Chad said, seeming to grow a little leery of talking to him. He kept glancing up toward the house. \"I'd have to see the actual work it entailed, and the condition of the house. . . .\"\n\n\"How about if I told you,\" Zeke asked, drawing in closer to the men and speaking in a conspiratorial whisper, \"that whatever you quote Miz Wish to do the job she's asking, Mrs. Devlin will pay you that plus half to not do the job?\"\n\nThe men looked at him strangely.\n\n\"Mrs. Devlin is sort of sentimentally attached to the house as it stands right now,\" Zeke explained.\n\nChad frowned. \"Well, from what Ms. Wish told me on the phone, it's she and her husband who are now the owners.\"\n\n\"Paperwork hasn't been signed yet,\" Zeke told him.\n\n\"But if it's going to be,\" Chad replied, \"then I really ought to speak with the woman who asked me to come out here and give her an estimate.\"\n\n\"Mrs. Devlin will pay you double whatever you quote to leave the house alone,\" Zeke said, his voice hard as he upped the offer.\n\nThe two men exchanged looks.\n\n\"I think I need to speak with Ms. Wish,\" Chad said finally, heading off toward the house. His zoned-outlooking friend followed.\n\n\"Remember what I've offered you,\" Zeke called after him. \"But the offer's no good if you tell Miz Wish about it.\"\n\nThe men didn't look back. They just continued on toward the house.\n36\n\n\"Well,\" Annabel asked, after she'd given the contractors a tour, \"what do you think?\"\n\nChad looked around the place. \"To really fix everything up, to do the kinds of things you've drawn up in your plans, will cost a lot of money. We're looking at six figures. I can maybe keep it under two hundred grand, but I can't guarantee it.\"\n\nAnnabel frowned. \"That was what I was afraid you'd say.\"\n\nChad shrugged. \"I wish it could be less. But the house is really falling apart. All the electricity is going to need to be updated. And the plumbing . . . from what I can see, I'm surprised you haven't had a major episode yet. The pipes are all rusted out.\"\n\n\"Well, we'll start slow,\" Annabel said. \"A bit at a time.\"\n\nChad smiled at her. \"That's what Dad and I usually tell our clients. Go room by room.\"\n\nAnnabel returned his smile. \"And this is the room where we will start. The parlor.\"\n\nChad liked her. It helped, of course, that she was pretty damn hot, with that shapely body and shiny auburn hair. But she was also real smart, having drawn up some blueprints like a real pro, and had some really cool ideas about how to fix this old place up. It would be a hell of a lot of fun to help her do it.\n\nBut if he refused, the old gnome in the parking lot said Mrs. Devlin would pay him double. That was possibly three hundred thousand smackers for sitting on his ass!\n\n\"So we'll do this room first,\" Annabel was saying, gesturing around at the walls. \"Open it up. Bring in some more light.\" She strode over to the fireplace. \"What did you guys decide about the chimney? Is it salvageable?\"\n\nPaulie had been doing his own inspecting. His sleepy face brightened now that it was his turn to show off his expertise.\n\n\"Well,\" he said, \"from what I could see up on the roof and down in the basement, the chimney is in surprisingly good shape. Why did they brick it over?\"\n\n\"I have no idea,\" Annabel replied. \"The caretaker told me the chimney was broken.\"\n\n\"Why would he say that?\" Paulie wanted to know.\n\nChad stepped forward. \"Is the caretaker the little, hunched-over old man we met on the way in?\"\n\nAnnabel nodded. \"That's Zeke.\"\n\nSuddenly, he felt he needed to do the right thing. \"Ma'am,\" he said.\n\n\"Call me Annabel,\" she told him.\n\nThat just made him more determined to tell her the truth. \"Look,\" Chad said, \"I don't want to get anybody in trouble, but . . .\" He hesitated. \"That old guy told us Mrs. Devlin would pay us double whatever we quoted you not to do the renovation.\"\n\n\"What?\" Annabel seemed aghast.\n\n\"I just thought you should know. I mean, if we're going to work together . . .\"\n\nHer eyes were blazing. \"Cordelia asked us here, my husband and I, to take over the place. But then she tries to control everything we do.\"\n\nChad looked at her. \"The old man said the paperwork hasn't been officially signed yet. He said the old lady still calls the shots.\"\n\n\"She's already put my husband on the deed,\" Annabel told him, \"and my husband supports the renovation one hundred percent.\" She folded her arms across her chest. \"Besides, Mrs. Devlin doesn't have that kind of money. She just told Zeke to tell you that to get you to back off.\"\n\n\"That's what I figured,\" Chad said. \"Well, I just thought you ought to know.\"\n\n\"Indeed,\" Annabel told him. \"Thank you.\"\n\n\"So, yeah,\" Paulie said, looking down at the fireplace. \"I'd say that I could get this baby smoking for you in no time.\"\n\n\"Could you start right away?\" Annabel asked.\n\n\"Sure,\" Paulie said. \"I could come by later this week and get going. . . .\"\n\n\"No,\" Annabel said. \"I mean today. Could you start today? I'll pay you entirely upfront.\"\n\nHer eyes were filled with fire.\n\n\"Well,\" Paulie told her, \"I suppose I could.... I'd have to go back home and get some tools. . . .\"\n\nAnnabel smiled. \"I want Cordelia to come down those stairs and see the work has begun,\" she said.\n37\n\nBut what puzzled Annabel was why Cordelia had not yet come down the stairs at all this morning.\n\nAs she watched the two men rattle off in Chad's truck, with Paulie promising to be back before noon, Annabel supposed that Cordelia might have gotten up earlier this morning and then gone back to her room. She did that sometimes. And Annabel had slept a little later this morning anyway, given her bad dreams all night long.\n\nEveryone, in fact, was sleeping late this morning. Annabel tiptoed up the stairs and opened the door to her room. Jack was still sound asleep, flat on his back, still dressed in his clothes. Pausing outside the door of their English guests, Annabel could hear snoring from inside. Neville and Priscilla were apparently still sleeping off their drunks as well. They had a plane to catch later this afternoon, and the airport was at least an hour away. If they weren't awake soon, Annabel would have to wake them.\n\nShe headed back down the stairs.\n\nHad something happened between Jack and Priscilla last night?\n\nSettling down at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee, Annabel tried to make sense of what had happened last night. Jack had definitely been flirting with Priscilla. He'd been drinking too much. He hadn't had so much to drink in a long time, and apparently he'd lost his ability to handle his liquor. But had anything happened other than flirting?\n\nHad Annabel caught them kissing? Fucking?\n\nWhy couldn't she remember?\n\nIt was all just an hallucination, she told herself, rubbing her temples with her fingers. And that, in some ways, was even more distressing than the idea of Jack fooling around with another woman.\n\nShe'd had hallucinations during the worst of her addiction. At rehab, sometimes they'd been overpowering. Sometimes they had been so strong that Annabel couldn't distinguish between illusion and reality.\n\n\"You're safe,\" Dr. Adler, her favorite therapist, had insisted to her, but Annabel hadn't bought it.\n\n\"I'm not safe!\" she had screamed, as visions of demons walked through the walls. \"I'm completely unsafe! \"\n\nHow terrible those days had been.\n\nAnnabel prayed her hallucinations weren't coming back.\n\nBut ever since she'd come to this house, she'd had signs they were returning. She'd seen Tommy Tricky her first day here. And last night, after becoming upset with Jack, she'd thought the whole house was spinning. She'd thought she was a little girl again, put in the closet by Daddy Ron. Tommy Tricky had been in the closet with her. He had come at her. He had tried to eat her!\n\n\"Stop,\" she told herself.\n\nShe stood and looked out the window. Where was Zeke? She was furious with him. How dare he try to bribe the contractors? When Annabel found him, she'd let him have it. And when Jack woke up, she'd tell him exactly what his grandmother had tried to do. They wouldn't put up with such nonsense anymore. They needed to lay down the law. They were in charge now.\n\nAnnabel had to feel that she was in charge. Otherwise, she thought she might crumble into a million pieces and her hallucinations would take over again. Down into a black hole she'd tumble, and she'd never be safe again.\n38\n\nPaulie sat in his truck and lit his pipe. He inhaled the sweet, precious weed long and deep. He felt it fill his lungs. He'd parked far enough away from the house that nobody could spot him toking. In seconds, Paulie's mind was blissful and calm.\n\nBracing for the cold air outside, he opened the door of his truck and headed around to the back for his tools. Paulie slung them over his shoulder and then made his way back up to the Blue Boy Inn.\n\nHe didn't usually take jobs the same day. But Annabel had given him a check, payment in full, plus a fifty-dollar tip. How could he refuse?\n\nHe knocked on the door.\n\nAnnabel opened it quickly. She was very happy to see him. Welcoming him inside, she asked him if he wanted some coffee. Paulie declined.\n\n\"Thank you,\" he said, \"but I never drink on the job.\"\n\nThey both laughed.\n\nPaulie got down to work.\n\nFirst, he covered all the furniture in the parlor with drop cloths. Then he pulled on a pair of leather gloves and slipped some eye protection over his face. Finally, he got down to work with his chisel and his hammer. He began chipping away at the mortar.\n39\n\nUpstairs, Cordelia could hear him start to work.\n\nChip, chip, chip.\n\n\"No,\" she moaned.\n\nBut she couldn't move.\n\nShe couldn't stop him.\n\n\"No,\" she moaned again.\n\nBehind her came the sound of soft laughter.\n40\n\n\"I'm running to the market quickly,\" Annabel told Paulie. \"We've run out of coffee, and our guests will be awake soon. I'll be back in a few minutes.\"\n\nHe lifted his eye protection to look over at her. \"Sure thing,\" he said.\n\nAnnabel smiled. \"Wow,\" she said. \"You've already made progress.\"\n\nPaulie stepped back from his work. He'd chiseled out a two-foot-by-three-foot opening so far. The removed bricks were stacked neatly off to the side. \"I can feel the air from the flue,\" Paulie told her. \"I might have this baby blazing in a couple of hours.\"\n\n\"Thank you so much,\" Annabel said. She gave him a big smile before heading out the door.\n\nPaulie watched her leave. As soon as her car disappeared down the driveway, he stepped over the bricks and headed to the restroom.\n\nA little more weed would make the rest of the job go by very pleasantly.\n\nSafe inside the restroom, he lit up his pipe, making sure to crack the window. Just a few puffs was all he needed to feel nice and happy.\n\nHe returned to the parlor.\n\nAnd the first thing he noticed was that the bricks he had stacked so neatly were now knocked over. That was odd. He supposed he had disturbed them with his foot.\n\nHe got back to work. Another brick, and then another. The fireplace opening was gradually revealing itself. He chipped away at the bricks, stacking them up carefully at his side. Now the space was three feet by four feet. Once he'd removed all the bricks from the opening, he could see if any repairs were needed to the flue.\n\nPaulie reached inside the opening, feeling for the chute to the ash dump in the basement.\n\nHis hand brushed against something warm and soft.\n\nHe yanked his hand out of the opening.\n\n\"Great,\" he mumbled. \"A mouse or a rat.\"\n\nHe rummaged around in his tool bag for his flashlight. Switching it on, he shone the light into the opening.\n\nA little face looked back at him.\n\nA terrible little blue face, with a mouth full of fangs.\n\n\"Jesus!\" Paulie shouted, stumbling backwards, the flashlight falling from his hands.\n\nWhat was that?\n\nIt looked like a freaking little elf.\n\nBut maybe it was some kind of possum.\n\nCalming his fluttering heart, Paulie grabbed ahold of the flashlight again and got down on his hands and knees in front of the fireplace. He got as close as he dared\u2014he didn't want some mean old possum jumping out at him\u2014and peered once more into the fireplace.\n\nJust blackness now. There was nothing there.\n\nWhat was in that weed he'd been smoking?\n\nPaulie moved the flashlight around to examine the inside the fireplace. It was difficult to see, so he slowly, tentatively, stuck his face into the opening he'd made, the beam of the flashlight at his cheek.\n\nThat was when everything went red.\n\nExcruciating pain filled Paulie's eyes.\n\nThe flashlight dropped from his hand, clattering onto the floor.\n\nPaulie could feel sharp claws gripping his eyeballs like acorns, and then yanking them right out of their sockets. At the same time, other claws were clamping down onto his shoulders, easily slicing through his flesh and grabbing onto his collarbone.\n\nPaulie screamed.\n\nWith uncanny swiftness, his body was pulled through the opening in the fireplace and down into the darkness.\n\nIf someone had been standing in the parlor watching, the last they would have seen of Paulie were his sneakers disappearing down an extraordinarily large ash dump. His muffled screams could be heard for a fleeting few seconds.\n\nThen everything was silent.\n41\n\nMillie Westerbrook looked up as the little bell over the door tinkled. The woman who'd just moved into the Blue Boy Inn\u2014what was her name again?\u2014stepped inside.\n\n\"Good day,\" Millie called over to her.\n\n\"Good day,\" the woman called back, giving Millie a smile.\n\nAnnabel. That was her name. Millie didn't think her last name was Devlin, though. She had said something else. Something short and simple. Wells? No, it was something more whimsical than that. Mille thought it was amusing how so many of these young girls today didn't take their husband's last names. That was a good thing, Mille thought.\n\nIf she had ever have gotten married, Millie told herself, she would have kept her own name, too. But Millie hadn't gotten married. She'd never been asked. She'd waited and hoped, and finally given up. And back in Millie's day, women didn't ask men to marry them. So here she was, sixty-one and single. Millie supposed there were worse fates.\n\nShe was putting away some stock\u2014canned vegetables\u2014but she was also watching Annabel-from-the-Blue-Boy meander down the aisles. She was an awfully pretty girl. Nice figure. Lots of wavy, shiny auburn hair.\n\nMillie sure felt sorry for her, living in such a place.\n\nMillie had played cards with Agnes Daley a few nights ago. They'd gotten to talking about the Blue Boy, and all the terrible things that had taken place there. Agnes was the town historian, so she knew the inn's history. She told Millie that the first owner of the place had been a priest\u2014no, not a priest, Millie, thought, trying to remember. It wouldn't have been a priest back then. The house was built around the time of the Civil War, and Millie didn't think there were all that many Catholics in Woodfield back then. She supposed Episcopalians had priests, too, but she didn't imagine a great big Episcopalian church out there in the middle of the woods. No, the first owner had to have been a minister, of some long-forgotten Protestant church.\n\nBut what Agnes told Millie about this minister\u2014well, Millie just couldn't believe it.\n\nSeems he was a very bad man. Not a man of God at all. This minister, Agnes said, was hanged for witchcraft!\n\n\"Now, that's just plain crazy,\" Millie had said to Agnes.\n\n\"Read the history books,\" Agnes had replied.\n\n\"I don't know much about history,\" Millie had countered, \"but I do know they weren't hanging men for witchcraft at the time of the Civil War.\"\n\n\"They found other reasons to hang him,\" Agnes had insisted. \"But the whole town knew what kind of witchcraft he practiced.\"\n\nMillie had snorted. Agnes liked to act so superior, knowing everything about the town, all its past and its history. But maybe, in fact, there was something to the story, since a curse did seem to cling to the place.\n\nAll those murders. All those people seemingly swallowed up into nothingness up at that house.\n\n\"May I pay for this?\"\n\nMillie looked up as she heard Annabel calling to her. The pretty young woman was standing up by the cash register, holding a packet of coffee.\n\n\"Oh, yes, of course,\" Millie said, hurrying over to assist her.\n\nThat poor girl, she was thinking. That poor girl up in that frightening house....\n\n\"Did you speak with Charlie Appleby?\" Millie asked when she got behind the cash register, ringing up the coffee beans.\n\n\"Yes, indeed, he sent over his son Chad,\" Annabel told her. \"We've got a man there making renovations now.\"\n\nMillie raised an eyebrow. \"And Cordelia's okay with that?\"\n\nThe clerk remembered one of the few times old Cordelia Devlin had ever stepped into this market. She'd come in with that old handyman of hers, looking for duct tape to fix a leaking pipe. She had frowned deeply when Millie had asked if she ever thought about updating her plumbing. \"It's got to be plenty old,\" Millie had said.\n\n\"The house is fine as it is,\" Cordelia had grumbled. \"Nobody's touching it.\"\n\nAnnabel smiled. \"Well,\" she admitted, \"we did have to insist. She's very sentimental about the old place. My husband and I had to assure her that we plan to do nothing that will hurt the integrity of the house. We really respect the architecture. We just want to make it more modern, more inviting to guests.\"\n\nMillie dropped the coffee into a paper bag. \"Have you had any inquiries about guests?\"\n\n\"We have two guests right now!\" Annabel said happily. \"Please spread the word that we are open under new management and that soon the place will be a wonderful getaway, complete with all-modern luxuries and amenities.\"\n\nMillie smiled tightly. \"I'll let people know,\" she said.\n\n\"Thank you,\" Annabel replied, and then, with a little smile and wave, left with her coffee, heading back to her car.\n\nMillie returned to stocking her cans. Why did she feel so worried for that poor child? Surely the stories that the townspeople told about the place were just old wives' tales\u2014myths, legends, and rumors. There was nothing to them. Even if Agnes was right about the first owner being hanged\u2014even if he had done some terrible things\u2014that was a hundred and fifty years ago. Nothing that had happened up there since was in any way connected. It was just a series of unfortunate, random events.\n\nStill, Millie worried for that poor, pretty girl.\n42\n\nNeville came staggering down the stairs. His head was pounding. Why on earth did he drink so much last night?\n\nHe noticed the drop cloths covering the furniture as he passed through the parlor. The fireplace was now open. Bricks were stacked alongside. A flashlight was on the floor, rolling slightly back and forth, shining its light toward the opening. But no one was around.\n\nNeville made his way into the kitchen. Just as he entered, Annabel came through the back door, a bag in her hands.\n\n\"Well, good morning,\" she said, smiling. \"Just went out for more coffee. I figured everybody was going to need it today.\"\n\nNeville sat down at the table. \"Yes, coffee might help,\" he said, rubbing his forehead.\n\n\"I was wondering when you'd get up,\" Annabel said, starting the coffee immediately. \"I was going to wake you. You have a plane to catch soon.\"\n\n\"Oh, yes,\" Neville said, still massaging his head. \"Florida awaits. Thank God.\"\n\n\"Give yourself at least an hour to get to Hartford,\" she told him.\n\n\"Yes,\" Neville replied. \"I'll have a little coffee, then jump in the shower and then we're out of here.\" He looked around. \"Has Priscilla already had her coffee?\"\n\n\"No,\" Annabel said. \"She hasn't been down yet.\"\n\n\"Well, she must have,\" Neville told her. \"She wasn't in the room.\"\n\n\"She wasn't?\" Annabel looked over at him oddly as the coffee began to drip. Its aroma made Neville feel a little better already. \"That's odd, because I haven't seen her. I slept a little later this morning myself, but she hasn't been around for a least the past couple of hours. Could she have gotten up much earlier?\"\n\n\"Not likely, given how much she had to drink,\" Neville said. \"But come to think of it, I don't remember her coming to bed. I was pretty drunk, though. Maybe I just slept through it.\"\n\nAnnabel poured him some coffee. \"Maybe she slept elsewhere in the house,\" she offered. \"I haven't looked in the other rooms.\"\n\n\"Why would she do that?\"\n\n\"Maybe you can tell me,\" said Annabel, sitting opposite him.\n\nNeville looked at her. The coffee was reviving him, but he didn't know what Annabel was implying. \"What do you mean?\" he asked.\n\n\"Do you think . . .\" She struggled with her words. \"Do you think Jack was at all inappropriate last night? Could she have taken offense at anything he said? If so, I do apologize for him.\"\n\nNeville sighed and took another sip of coffee. \"Oh, you mean the way he was flirting with her? I don't think she would have been offended. From what I can remember, she seemed to enjoy it.\"\n\n\"It didn't bother you?\" asked Annabel.\n\nNeville shrugged. \"Priscilla's a pretty girl. Men seem to go for the pretty, bookish types. The ones who look quiet on the outside. I've gotten used to it. I'm not much of a looker myself, so if some handsome bloke like Jack can give Priscilla a little attention, I don't mind.\" He leaned in toward Annabel. \"But did it bother you?\"\n\n\"A little,\" she said. \"But Jack was right beside me all night, snoring like a bear.\"\n\n\"All night?\" Neville asked.\n\nAnnabel sat back in her chair. \"I assume so. He's up there now.\"\n\nNeville shrugged again. \"I'm not suggesting anything. But it's just curious that Priscilla isn't in our room.\"\n\n\"I'll go look for her,\" Annabel said.\n\nNeville just nodded.\n43\n\nAs Annabel passed through the parlor, she saw that Paulie was gone. She walked over to the fireplace and looked down. He'd gotten it opened, however. His flashlight was on the floor, its light still shining. Annabel reached down and shut it off. No need to waste the battery.\n\nShe glanced out the window. Paulie's truck was still in the driveway, as she'd observed when she'd driven up a few minutes earlier. So where was Paulie? Maybe out back, taking a break, smoking a cigarette? Or smoking something else, Annabel thought. She hadn't missed the fragrance of marijuana that clung to him.\n\nDid she go looking for Paulie or for Priscilla? She figured it was more urgent to find Priscilla. If they didn't leave soon, they'd miss their flight.\n\nBut Priscilla was nowhere to be found. Annabel searched every room of the house and she wasn't there. She even opened the door to her own room again and all she saw was Jack, still sound asleep like a bear in hibernation.\n\nShe noticed the small narrow steps at the end of the hall that led up to the attic.\n\nShe hadn't been up there yet. Zeke had told her it was dangerous. Annabel was sure it was. The rafters were probably so rotted that they'd snap underfoot. But still, she should check. What if Priscilla had been so drunk she'd gone up there for some reason?\n\nMaybe to get away from Jack?\n\nOr maybe . . .\n\nMaybe she and Jack had gone up there for a tryst. Jack had come down, but Priscilla had spent the night up there, passed out.\n\nThat was the thought going through Annabel's mind as she climbed the steep, narrow stairs. At the top was a door. She turned the handle.\n\nBut it was locked.\n\nWell, if she couldn't get in there, then Priscilla wouldn't have been able to, either. At least that ruled out the attic.\n\nAnnabel came back down to the second floor. She had looked everywhere! Where could Priscilla be? Had she gone outside?\n\nBut her coat was still hanging on the hook beside the front door.\n\nAnnabel thought of something.\n\nShe hadn't looked everywhere. She hadn't looked in Cordelia's room.\n\nAnnabel paused outside the old woman's room. She knocked.\n\n\"Cordelia?\" she asked softly.\n\nThere was no answer.\n\nHad the two of them gone off together?\n\nShe knocked again and called the old woman's name once more.\n\nStill no reply.\n\nAnnabel hesitated, and then turned the doorknob. The door was open. She went inside.\n\nCordelia was lying on her back on the floor. Her head was propped awkwardly against an old cast-iron figurine of a hawk, used as a doorstop.\n\n\"Cordelia!\" Annabel cried, rushing to her fallen grandmother-in-law and kneeling beside her. She noticed the small pool of blood behind the old woman's head.\n\nAnnabel grabbed her by the shoulders.\n\n\"Cordelia!\" she shouted. \"Are you all right?\"\n\nThe old woman's eyes flickered open. One clawlike hand clutched at Annabel's blouse.\n\n\"The fireplace,\" Cordelia croaked.\n\n\"What?\" Annabel asked. \"What are you saying?\"\n\nBut the old woman said nothing more. Her eyes closed and her head fell back.\n\nAnnabel rushed off to call an ambulance.\n44\n\nChief Richard Carlson watched the people of the house carefully as the body of Cordelia Devlin was carried out the front door on a stretcher.\n\nHere he'd been thinking of coming by the Blue Boy Inn to ask some questions about the cold cases of a generation ago and now, here again, was another mysterious death at the old bed-and-breakfast. Examining the body of the old woman, the coroner had declared it might have been accident. She was frail, and she might well have fallen, hitting her head against the iron doorstop. But until he had a chance to better examine the body, the coroner was reserving judgment as to cause of death.\n\nThat was wise, Carlson thought, as there were some other mysterious developments that might end up having some bearing on the case.\n\nThree people had disappeared that morning as well. Paulie Stueckel, whom Richard would see every morning at Deb's Diner, sipping coffee and eating a doughnut, looking as if he'd smoked a half-pound of weed as soon as he woke up. Priscilla Morton, a British tourist. And old Zeke, the caretaker of the place.\n\nAny one of them might have slipped upstairs and whacked the old woman on the head, then taken off.\n\nChad Appleby was pulling up in his truck.\n\n\"What the hell happened?\" he was asking as he hurried across the parking lot.\n\n\"Morning, Chad,\" Richard said. \"Or I guess I should say, afternoon.\"\n\nThe sun was directly above them now, weakly shining down on the van as Cordelia Devlin's body was loaded inside.\n\n\"Where's Paulie?\" Chad asked. \"I left him here just a little while ago.\"\n\n\"We don't know where Paulie is,\" Richard told him. \"That's why we asked you to come down here.\"\n\nChad looked absolutely befuddled. \"Last I saw him, I dropped him back at his truck. He was planning on heading back here to start work on the fireplace.\"\n\nThe chief nodded. \"And he did just that. He was hard at work when Ms. Wish left for the store, but he was nowhere to be found when she got back. She was gone less than fifteen minutes.\"\n\n\"And the old woman was dead,\" Chad said.\n\nRichard nodded. \"Tell me something,\" he said. \"Was Paulie high this morning?\"\n\n\"Chief,\" Chad said, looking at him as if he'd just asked the most absurd question of all time. \"You know Paulie's always high.\"\n\nRichard shrugged.\n\n\"Come on, chief,\" Chad said. \"You know Paulie. He's harmless. A stoner, sure, but a pussycat. He swerves to avoid hitting squirrels. He wouldn't kill an old lady.\"\n\n\"I have to ask questions, Chad.\"\n\nThe young contractor seemed to think of something. \"But, you know . . .\"\n\nRichard looked over at him. \"What is it, Chad?\"\n\n\"Have you spoken with Annabel?\"\n\nThe chief nodded. \"Yes, she's given a statement.\"\n\n\"Did she tell you what the old man told us?\"\n\n\"What old man?\"\n\n\"Zeke. The caretaker.\"\n\nRichard's ears perked up. Chad didn't yet know that Zeke was missing as well. \"No,\" he said. \"What did Zeke tell you?\"\n\n\"He told Paulie and me that Mrs. Devlin would pay us double of whatever we quoted Annabel to not to do any work on the house.\"\n\nRichard raised his eyebrows. \"No kidding. Why would she do that?\"\n\n\"Beats me. And I told Annabel about it. Boy, was she pissed. That's why she had Paulie start the work today. She said she wanted the old lady to come down the stairs and see the work being started.\"\n\n\"Really now?\"\n\n\"Yup. Crazy.\"\n\n\"So, what you're telling me is, Annabel Wish was very angry at her grandmother-in-law this morning.\"\n\nChad seemed to be uncomfortable with the implication Richard was making, but he couldn't deny the truth. \"Yeah,\" he said. \"She was angry.\"\n\nThe chief looked back at the house.\n\nNow he didn't have just three suspects anymore.\n\nHe had four.\n45\n\nJack sat at the kitchen table, blinking frequently, unable to fully comprehend what had happened here this morning.\n\n\"Gran,\" he kept saying. \"Gone. And I slept right through it.\"\n\n\"Jack,\" Annabel said, pouring him more coffee, \"there was nothing you could have done. She fell and hit her head. She didn't suffer long.\"\n\nHis eyes shot up at her. \"The police chief seems to think there might have been more to it than that.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" Neville said, sitting across from him, \"he was questioning all of us as if we'd killed her.\" He paused. \"Or rather, as if Priscilla had killed her, and taken off.\"\n\n\"That's crazy,\" Annabel said. \"Why would Priscilla kill Cordelia?\"\n\nNeville fixed her with his eyes. \"It does seem crazy. But then where is Priscilla? She's nowhere in the house!\"\n\n\"Her coat is still hanging in the foyer, and it's too cold to go outside without it.\" Annabel turned to Jack. \"Where is the key to the attic?\"\n\nHer husband looked at her without comprehension. \"The attic?\"\n\n\"It's the only place I wasn't able to check. It's locked.\" She met Jack's eyes and held them. \"Did you and Priscilla go up there last night?\"\n\n\"Me . . . and Priscilla?\" he asked.\n\nNeville stood. \"Yes,\" he said. \"Come on, man. This is no time for games. Whatever happened last night happened. For now, who cares? Just tell us what you know about Priscilla!\"\n\n\"Indeed,\" came another voice. \"I'd like to know that, too.\"\n\nThey all looked up. Chief Richard Carlson had just walked into the kitchen.\n\n\"I let myself back in through the front door,\" he said. His deputy was behind him, and behind him was Chad Appleby. \"I'd like your permission to search the house,\" the chief said. \"I'd like to see if we can find some clue to the three missing persons.\"\n\nJack, still sitting at the table, glowered.\n\n\"Do you have a search warrant?\" he asked.\n\n\"Jack!\" Annabel was horrified. \"We have nothing to hide! If they can find something to explain where Priscilla and Paulie and Zeke went, then let them search!\"\n\n\"I'd have to add my encouragement to that as well,\" Neville said. \"It seems highly unlikely right now, but if they can find Priscilla up in that attic, she and I might still make a plane bound for the sunny skies of Florida later this afternoon.\"\n\nJack just shrugged. \"Sure, go ahead. Search the place.\"\n\nRichard Carlson stood looking at him. \"When I came in, you were being asked what you knew about Priscilla Morton. Is there anything you can tell us?\"\n\nJack covered his face with his hands. \"Why is everyone badgering me? My head is killing me!\"\n\n\"Mr. Devlin,\" the chief said, \"we are just trying to understand what happened here this morning, and to locate three missing people.\"\n\nJack stood. His hands were running through his hair. \"Okay, so maybe Priscilla and I had a little too much to drink last night. That's not a crime, is it?\"\n\n\"No, it's not,\" the chief assured him.\n\n\"But then she went one way and I went another,\" Jack said, not looking at any of them. Instead, he stood at the back door, gazing out into the woods.\n\n\"You didn't take her up to the attic?\" the chief asked.\n\nJack spun around, his face furious. \"I don't even know how to unlock the goddamn attic door!\"\n\n\"Zeke usually carries the keys,\" Annabel said. \"But it's the one place I was unable to check this morning.\"\n\n\"We've got to get in there,\" Neville said. \"Maybe Priscilla is in there.\"\n\n\"And Paulie, too,\" Chad Appleby said from behind the chief.\n\n\"We might have to break the door in,\" the chief told Annabel.\n\nShe nodded.\n\n\"Go right the fuck ahead!\" Jack shouted, turning around to look out the back door again.\n\n\"All right, let's go,\" Chief Carlson said, and the five of them, minus Jack, made their way across the parlor toward the steps to the attic.\n\nNo one thought to examine the fireplace further, or to look down its ash dump.\n46\n\nRichard found everyone in this whole house suspicious.\n\nAs they climbed the steep narrow stairs to the attic, all sorts of thoughts were running through the chief's mind.\n\nJack Devlin was sure acting questionably. He seemed to know more than he was telling about the missing Priscilla Morton. And it appeared that both his wife and Priscilla's boyfriend suspected something had happened between the two of them the night before.\n\nBut that meant that both Annabel and Neville might be suspects as well. They would both have had a motive for doing harm to Priscilla, if indeed they had discovered she'd been fooling around with Jack.\n\nJust why they would have followed that with an attack on the old woman, however, did not make any sense.\n\nAnd where the hapless Paulie Stueckel fit into all of this, Richard as yet had no idea.\n\nBut he did know that Annabel had been very angry at both Cordelia and Zeke. Had she killed both of them, but only had time to hide Zeke's body?\n\nIf that was the case, her enthusiasm for searching the house didn't make any sense at all.\n\nThe chief had to admit he was stumped.\n\nHe reached the attic door and gripped hold of the knob. It was locked, all right.\n\n\"Adam,\" he said to his deputy. \"Give me a hand.\"\n\nThe two policemen pressed their shoulders up against the door.\n\n\"Stand back,\" Richard shouted down to the others on the steps behind him. He turned to Adam. \"Okay, on the count of three.\"\n\nAdam nodded.\n\n\"One, two, three!\"\n\nThey both rammed their shoulders against the door. It rattled but did not pop open. Strange, for such fragile old wood.\n\n\"Again!\" Richard shouted.\n\nThey positioned their shoulders once more.\n\n\"One, two\u2014\"\n\nBut just at that moment, the door opened. And there, standing in the doorway, grinning up at them, was Zeke.\n47\n\n\"What's going on here?\" the old man asked.\n\nAnnabel pushed forward on the stairs. \"Zeke! Where have you been? We've been looking all over!\"\n\nThe wizened little caretaker shrugged. \"There was all that noise coming from the parlor and I couldn't sleep.\" His eyes twinkled as he looked around at all of them. \"I often come up here when I need some quiet for my nap.\"\n\nStepping out of the room, he closed the door carefully behind him.\n\n\"Now,\" Zeke asked, \"what are all these people doing here?\"\n\nChief Carlson looked at him intently. \"We're trying to find out what happened here this morning,\" he said, \"and locate a couple of people. We thought maybe they might be in the attic. We've checked everywhere else.\"\n\nZeke looked from him over to Annabel. \"Seems a lot has happened since I went in to take a nap,\" he said.\n\n\"Zeke, Cordelia's dead,\" Annabel told him.\n\nShe watched his reaction. He placed a hand over his chest and declared, \"It can't be!\"\n\nQuickly, Annabel detailed how the old woman had been found. Zeke kept shaking his head in surprise and grief, but Annabel didn't believe him. She thought he'd already known that Cordelia was dead before he went into that attic.\n\n\"But that's not all,\" Chief Carlson added. \"A guest in this house and a young man doing work down in the parlor can't be found. I'd like to go up into the attic and look around.\"\n\n\"Oh,\" Zeke said, \"I was just up there. I can assure you no one is there. It's just an empty, dusty, old attic.\"\n\n\"Still, I'd like to see for myself,\" the chief said.\n\nAnnabel watched Zeke. She saw the unease in his old yellow eyes.\n\n\"Well,\" the caretaker said finally. \"If you insist.\"\n\nHe turned around, opened the door, and led the group inside.\n\n\"Maybe the rest of you should stay back,\" Carlson said, turning around to the others.\n\n\"No way,\" Annabel told him. \"This is my house now. I'd like to see what's in here.\"\n\nThe chief shrugged his consent.\n\nAnnabel followed him into the dark, musty space. The deputy was close at her heels, and Neville came last. The room was fit into the point of the roof, so that it was impossible to walk up straight except in the very center. Moving off to the far ends of the room necessitated lowering one's head as the slant of the roof decreased. The place stunk of mold and something else\u2014sweat, Annabel thought. There was only one dim, unshaded lightbulb hanging from the ceiling, which cast a pale amber light over the room. Annabel scanned the darkness, allowing her eyes to adjust.\n\nThe first thing she discerned was a small cot tucked into the far corner. Everywhere there were boxes and chests. An old dressmaker's dummy gave her small fright when she looked at it, thinking it for a second to be a person. And then her eyes alit on something very strange. A small, cracked toilet in plain view.\n\nShe looked over at Chief Carlson. She saw that he was taking it all in as well.\n\n\"My little hideaway,\" Zeke told them. \"Sometimes, when all our guest rooms are booked, I'll give up my own room and come up here to sleep. Or when there's too much noise downstairs, I'll retreat up here to nap.\"\n\nThe chief and deputy were looking around the place, lifting boxes, moving crates. It was clear that there was nowhere to hide, and that no one was up here.\n\nSo where were Priscilla and Paulie?\n\nIf Zeke was telling the truth, and he'd retreated up here to nap after confronting Chad and Paulie in the driveway, then he wouldn't have seen anything. But why did Annabel feel certain he wasn't surprised when she told him about Cordelia's death?\n\nFrom the way Chief Carlson was looking at Zeke, it seemed he shared Annabel's suspicions.\n\n\"All right,\" Carlson said. \"I'm going to have my men search the woods surrounding the house for any signs of Paulie and Ms. Morton.\"\n\n\"I'll help,\" Chad volunteered.\n\n\"So will I,\" Neville echoed.\n\n\"As will I,\" Zeke added.\n\n\"Just a moment,\" Annabel interjected. \"I think Zeke needs to explain why he accosted Chad and Paulie in the driveway and tried to bribe them into not taking the renovation job.\"\n\n\"Ms. Wish,\" the chief said, \"I'll question Zeke on my own about that.\"\n\n\"Well, I have nothing to hide,\" the old man added. \"Cordelia is\u2014was, I mean\u2014very sentimentally attached to this house. She felt very strongly that it shouldn't be changed and butchered up.\"\n\n\"But she asked Mr. Devlin and Ms. Wish to come up from New York and take the place over,\" Carlson said, eyeing him. \"Wouldn't she have expected them to make some changes?\"\n\n\"She felt they were moving too fast,\" Zeke said simply.\n\n\"You and I will talk more about that,\" the chief said. \"For now, it could very well be that Mrs. Devlin's death was a tragic accident and that Paulie and Ms. Morton had nothing to do with it, and that their disappearances have a logical explanation.\"\n\n\"Maybe they're off in the woods enjoying a little romp,\" Zeke offered.\n\n\"It's twenty-one degrees outside,\" the chief said. \"And Ms. Morton's coat is still on the hook.\"\n\nThe old caretaker just shrugged.\n\n\"Come on,\" Carlson said to Deputy Burrell. \"Call into the station and get a couple of other men down here. We'll divide up the woods.\"\n\nThe men began trooping back down the stairs. Annabel hung back, so she could say something in private to Zeke.\n\n\"Are you telling everything you know?\" she whispered.\n\n\"Honest to goodness, Miz Wish.\"\n\nShe held his eyes for a long time. Then she, too, made her way back down the stairs.\n48\n\nNeville's mind was racing.\n\nAs he clomped across the frozen earth, brittle twigs snapping under his feet, he struggled to make sense of how much everything had changed in the course of just a few hours. Yesterday he'd been thrilled that they'd soon be on their way to Florida. He'd only made this pit stop because Priscilla had wanted to see some ghosts. She had, and she was happy and satisfied, and Neville looked forward to a good, relaxing, fun time in Disney World, riding Space Mountain, and lying around the pool.\n\nNow Priscilla was gone, and no one knew where she was.\n\nSome worker was gone, too.\n\nHad they run off together?\n\nIt was possible. After watching Priscilla flirt with Jack last night, Neville supposed it was possible that Priscilla was bored with him and might take up with another man she deemed more exciting. Ever since they'd started dating, Neville had known Priscilla was out of his league. She was far too pretty for a plain, acne-scarred guy with a gut who was nearly ten years older than she was. It had been three years, but Neville had fully expected Priscilla to throw him over for some hotter guy at some point.\n\nThat she had not done so, Neville figured, had less to do with any feelings she had for him than for the simple reason that she just simply couldn't be bothered. Priscilla was never man-hungry. She didn't really like sex all that much\u2014which was a shame, Neville thought, with that killer body of hers. Priscilla would have much rather been out kayaking, or bird-watching, or hunting for her stupid ghosts. Neville had a feeling that she stayed with him only because he grudgingly went along with her quirky interests, not because she much cared about him, or the whole concept of having a boyfriend.\n\nBut maybe there were times she longed for something more. Maybe she secretly ached for a big, strong, virile man to come after her\u2014which hardly described Neville. But it did describe Jack Devlin, and maybe he had awoken a passion in Priscilla that she herself had never known was there.\n\nOnly one thing didn't fit. She hadn't disappeared with Jack.\n\nJack was very much in evidence. He insisted that they'd gone their separate ways after doing whatever they did last night.\n\nThe person who'd gone missing with Priscilla was a mason, this Paulie Stueckel guy, who, from the descriptions Neville had heard, was hardly what one would call virile. He was pudgy and kind of goofy-looking, and perennially stoned on pot.\n\nThat didn't sound like the sort of man who could turn Priscilla's head. Still, both of them were missing.\n\nBut the man's truck was still there. If Priscilla had left with him, they'd gone by foot, or somebody else\u2014a taxi?\u2014had picked them up. But why wouldn't she have taken her coat? Her wallet? Her money? Her passport?\n\nIt was all very strange.\n\nLooking behind bushes and clumps of cold, hard, bare trees, Neville had a sense that something terrible had happened. Priscilla wasn't going to be found. At least, she wasn't going to be found alive.\n\nHe dreaded calling her mum and dad. They'd never liked Neville all that much. Thought he was too old, and not good looking enough, for their daughter. They'd sneered at the idea of this holiday to America.\n\nSuddenly, his thoughts were shattered by the sound of voices up ahead.\n\nIt was Deputy Burrell. He was calling to the chief.\n\n\"Come here! Quick! I've found something!\"\n\nNeville ran.\n49\n\nRichard Carlson knew what he was looking at the moment he peered down into the box of firewood on the side of the house.\n\nThe gray, splotchy thing lying on top of the wood that looked like a deflated balloon was in fact Roger Askew's right hand.\n\n\"Call forensics back here,\" Richard shouted over at Adam. The deputy immediately began pressing keys on his phone.\n\nStaring down at the hand in the wood box, Richard considered the fact that Roger's entire arm, not just his hand, had been hacked off. So if this was indeed Roger's hand, someone had also taken the trouble, at some unknown point, to sever the arm at the wrist.\n\nRichard didn't know for sure that this was Roger's hand. But it likely wasn't from one of the two missing people. The thing in front of him was a few days old, and starting to decay. Richard's gut told him that this was Roger's hand, and that he'd been right to wonder if Roger's death was somehow connected to the cold murder cases at the Blue Boy Inn.\n\nAnnabel came around the corner and peered down inside the wood box. She let out a gasp and covered her face with her hands.\n\nIt was that little gesture that told Richard that Annabel was guiltless in all this. She was genuinely horrified. Sometimes Richard experienced what he called \"psychic moments,\" in which he seemed to get a direct line into people's thoughts. He figured lots of cops would know what he was talking about, the moment it becomes obvious some witness is either innocent or guilty. His training as a police officer had left him sensitive to the slightest tic in a person's expression, or a gesture of their hands, or the way they said a word. Sometimes he couldn't put his finger on exactly what had swayed him one way or another. It was just as if, in that moment, he saw inside their heart and knew their truth.\n\nOf course, he'd never base an arrest or an acquittal on such intuition. He would continue to gather hard, direct evidence before making any kind of final decision. But he'd never known his gut to be wrong when he experienced one of his \"psychic moments.\" And what his gut was telling him right now was that Annabel Wish had nothing to do with Cordelia Devlin's death and knew nothing about the locations of Paulie Stueckel and Priscilla Morton.\n\nShe was looking up at him, distress and revulsion and despair written on her face.\n\n\"This will just bring all the stories about murder and death back to the Blue Boy,\" she said, near tears. \"We were trying so hard to put all that behind us. . . .\"\n\n\"I'm sorry, Ms. Wish.\"\n\nShe looked in again at the hand and shuddered. \"Whose hand is it?\"\n\n\"I . . . I don't know.\" Richard closed the lid of the wood box until the county forensics team could get there. \"But I think it's safe to say it's neither of our missing persons.\"\n\nNeville had arrived and seen the hand for himself. \"Well, thank God for that,\" he said.\n\n\"Find anything else in the woods?\" Richard asked the Englishman.\n\nNeville shook his head. \"Not a thing.\" He furrowed his brow as he looked at the police chief. \"I don't have a good feeling about any of this.\"\n\nRichard didn't reply. But he didn't, either.\n\nIn fact, he had a very bad feeling. A very bad feeling indeed.\n50\n\n\"Mr. Jack?\"\n\nThe new master of the house was standing at the window, looking out at the people gathered around the wood box. He barely lifted an eyebrow as Zeke approached him.\n\n\"Mr. Jack, may I speak with you a moment?\" the caretaker asked.\n\nJack turned around to look at him. Zeke watched him carefully. Jack seemed distracted, angry. Of course, that might have been grief. His grandmother had just died. But it seemed to Zeke to be something more, too.\n\n\"What is it?\" Jack asked, his voice cold and hard and small.\n\nZeke steadied himself. He had long anticipated that this conversation would be led by Cordelia, that it would have been Cordelia to tell Jack what he needed to know. But now Cordelia was gone. Zeke was on his own.\n\n\"Now that you're in charge here,\" the caretaker began, \"now that the house belongs to you . . .\"\n\nHe stopped. He couldn't go on speaking.\n\n\"Out with it, you old fool,\" Jack said impatiently. It was almost as if Cordelia was now inhabiting her grandson's body.\n\n\"I've lived here a long time,\" Zeke said. \"I've seen many things\u2014\"\n\n\"I expect you have,\" Jack said, cutting him off. \"And I expect that you will assist my wife in everything she wants to do to fix this place up. Do you understand?\"\n\n\"But that's what I need to talk to you about, Mr. Jack. . . .\"\n\nJack pushed past him and headed into the parlor. \"There's nothing to talk about! I want this place to be a destination that people seek out from all over the world! Do you understand, Zeke? I want to be a success!\"\n\nHe jabbed a finger against the old man's chest, his eyes wide and wild.\n\n\"But you will be, Mr. Jack,\" Zeke said. \"I'm sure of it.\"\n\nJack looked away from him. His gaze fell onto the fireplace with all the bricks piled around it.\n\n\"You've just got to hear what I have to tell you,\" Zeke went on. \"There's things you need to understand. Things you need to do. Your grandmother was going to explain them all to you, but now it's up to me.\"\n\nJack turned back to look at him. He was scowling.\n\n\"What are you talking about?\" he asked.\n\n\"After everybody is gone from outside, after you and I are all alone, there are things I need to show you, Mr. Jack.\"\n\n\"What kinds of things?\"\n\n\"I can't show you now, not with people still in and out of the house. But you need to know, Mr. Jack.\"\n\nJack looked at him suspiciously. \"Why the great mystery, Zeke?\"\n\n\"For now, please, just trust me.\" He drew closer to Jack. \"Help me put the bricks back into the fireplace.\"\n\nJack grimaced. \"You mean seal it back up?\"\n\nZeke nodded.\n\n\"But why? Didn't you hear what I said, Zeke? I want my wife's renovations to go forward. I want this place to become a popular resort.\" He leaned down close to Zeke so as to make himself clear. \"I want to make a lot of money,\" Jack enunciated.\n\n\"That's good, but we need to brick up the fireplace. . . .\"\n\nJack laughed at him. \"My grandmother is dead! I don't have to worry about her foolish sentiment anymore! We need a fireplace, Zeke! This is a goddamn New England bed-and-breakfast! Guests expect fireplaces!\"\n\n\"But, Mr. Jack, you've got to listen to me!\"\n\nJust then, Zeke heard the back door open and the sound of people coming inside the house. Chief Carlson was speaking with Annabel.\n\n\"Please, Mr. Jack,\" Zeke whispered, \"will you let me speak with you privately later?\"\n\nJack glared at him. \"Yes,\" he said finally. \"All right. But don't you dare touch those bricks in the meantime.\"\n\nHe strode off toward the kitchen.\n\nZeke turned around and looked at the fireplace.\n\nHe heard the scurrying down below.\n51\n\nThat night, Annabel slipped under the sheets beside Jack. What a terrible day it had been. They hadn't had much time to talk about anything with the cops and the forensics team in and out of the house. Neville had decided he couldn't leave without knowing what had happened to Priscilla, so he was staying on at the house. Around five o'clock, Paulie's brother had arrived with spare keys to Paulie's truck and drove it off the property, but not before insisting he look around the house himself for any clue as to what had happened to his brother. And Richard Carlson had been there until the sun went down, scouring the place with his eyes, seeming to commit every inch of the house to memory.\n\nAnnabel just wanted the day to be over, hoping that when she woke up the next morning she'd realize it had all been a bad dream.\n\nJack lay there beside her, eyes open, just staring up at the ceiling.\n\n\"Oh, Jack,\" Annabel said. \"I worry now that the Blue Boy will never shake its reputation of being cursed and haunted.\"\n\n\"Don't you worry, sugar babe,\" her husband told her, still staring at the ceiling. \"We are going to do just fine.\"\n\n\"What were you and Zeke talking about earlier? After the chief finally left?\"\n\nJack didn't take his eyes off the ceiling. \"Just a few things that needed to be done around the house.\"\n\n\"You seemed to be very intent. And when I came in, you both stopped speaking.\" She pulled closer to Jack. \"Is there anything going on that I need to know?\"\n\nHe turned his eyes abruptly to meet hers.\n\n\"No,\" he said. \"Nothing you need to know.\"\n\n\"I feel so badly about Neville,\" Annabel said. \"Not knowing about Priscilla, whether he should stay here or go back home. . . .\"\n\n\"He's paying for his extra night here, isn't he?\"\n\nAnnabel spun on her husband. \"Jack! How unfeeling of you! Of course, he's not paying. He offered, but I said he could stay here as our guest.\"\n\nJack grunted.\n\nAnnabel settled back against her pillows. \"I know it was uncomfortable when the police chief kept asking you about Priscilla,\" she said. \"But that was just his job. He had to ask those questions. Now hopefully he can find out what happened and we can move forward.\"\n\n\"You'll keep going on with the renovations?\" Jack asked.\n\nAnnabel looked over at him. \"Do you think I should?\"\n\n\"Yes.\" He smiled at her. \"In fact, I'm going to help finish the fireplace myself.\"\n\nShe returned his smile.\n\n\"Where do you think they went?\" Annabel asked him.\n\n\"Who?\"\n\n\"What do you mean, who? Priscilla and Paulie.\"\n\nJack shrugged. \"They ran off together. She was kind of trampy, wasn't she?\"\n\nAnnabel frowned. \"Not at all. How can you say that?\" She thought Jack was being awfully cavalier and insensitive.\n\n\"Besides,\" she said, \"Paulie's truck was still in the driveway . . . and Priscilla left her things.... Jack, something bad happened here today. The chief speculated that whoever killed Roger Askew may have come by here, disposed of the hand, and then taken Paulie and Priscilla away, maybe at gunpoint or something.\"\n\n\"So he was certain that the hand in the wood box was this guy Askew's?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" Annabel replied. \"There was a tattoo or something that clinched it.\"\n\n\"Well,\" Jack said. \"It's as good a theory as any.\"\n\nAnnabel shuddered. \"If I hadn't run to the market at that particular moment, he might have taken me, too.\"\n\nJack reached over and stroked her hair. \"It's okay, baby,\" he said.\n\n\"But Jack,\" Annabel went on, \"I worry about the publicity. I mean, with everything . . . the hand in the wood box, Cordelia's death, the missing people . . . We'll never break free of the macabre reputation the Blue Boy has had for so long.\"\n\n\"Well, I wouldn't worry your sweet little head about it, angel baby,\" Jack said, rolling over toward Annabel. \"We are going to be a huge success. Trust me.\"\n\n\"I hope you're right.\"\n\n\"I know I'm right.\"\n\nHe began to kiss her. Annabel tensed. She didn't feel like making love. Not after everything that had happened today.\n\nBut unlike last time, Jack was rock hard.\n\nShe couldn't stop him. She felt him grab hold of her pajamas and yank them down. He mounted her, and without any foreplay at all, he clamped his lips onto hers and entered her, roughly and abruptly. Annabel shuddered. She surmised that Jack was acting as quickly as he could, before he went limp again like last time. He thrust into her four or five times, then reached orgasm. He withdrew and rolled over onto his back again, breathing heavily.\n\nAnnabel just lay there. She felt dirty and violated. Their sex life hadn't been good in some time, but it had never been like that, so quick and so rough. Soon Jack's breathing turned into snores. Annabel slipped out of bed and took a long, hot shower.\n\nMore than ever, she wanted to run. Run as fast as she could and as far as she could, far, far away from this strange old house and these dark, cold woods, until she was safely back among the skyscrapers, bright lights, and taxicabs of New York.\n52\n\n\"Thanks very much,\" Neville said, accepting the mug of coffee and gratefully bringing it to his lips.\n\nThe morning sun was streaming into the kitchen. The Englishman watched as Annabel sat opposite him. Neither had said more than a few words since getting up. Neville had been unable to sleep much. He'd tossed and turned all night, and one glance in the mirror had shown him just how tired he looked.\n\n\"What will you do?\" Annabel asked. \"I mean, how long will you wait?\"\n\n\"Well, the chief wants me to stick around for a while. He said he might have to ask me more questions.\" Neville grinned sheepishly. \"I guess I'm a suspect.\"\n\n\"We all are,\" Annabel said, \"but there's no evidence any crime was committed.\"\n\nNeville sighed. \"Well, I'm not scheduled to fly back home to England for another week, but Florida is certainly no longer in the game plan. I'll stay here a few more days, if that's okay. I'll be glad to pay for my room\u2014\"\n\n\"No,\" Annabel said. \"I wouldn't hear of it.\"\n\n\"Please, I can't stay for free.\"\n\nAnnabel shook her head. \"After all we've been through, I insist you stay as our guest.\"\n\n\"You're very kind,\" Neville told her.\n\nThey exchanged small smiles.\n\n\"It must be so hard for you,\" Annabel said after a pause. \"Worrying about Priscilla. We've got to just continue to hope that she's okay.\"\n\nNeville frowned. \"I suppose that's the way to look at it, but I must be honest and tell you, I think she's gone for good. Whatever madman stabbed that man on the trail in the woods has taken her, as well as that man who was here working on the fireplace. And given how he butchered his first victim in the woods, I don't suspect he's going to go any easier on these two.\"\n\n\"But if he has taken them, as the chief suggests,\" Annabel said, \"then maybe he's using them as hostages. Maybe he'll release them unharmed. This Roger Askew was occasionally a drug dealer. It was probably a revenge killing, and the murderer will try to use his hostages to negotiate with police. We've got to keep believing that Priscilla and Paulie will be returned safe and unharmed.\"\n\n\"I like your optimism,\" Neville said, taking another sip of his coffee and then setting it down on the table in front of him.\n\nSilence resumed. Nobody had mentioned breakfast.\n\n\"Is Jack still sleep\u2014\" Neville began to ask, but at the same moment his coffee mug flew off the table, shattering on the floor and spraying the hot brown liquid everywhere.\n\n\"Oh!\" Annabel exclaimed.\n\nNeville jumped up. \"Dear Lord, did I do that?\" he asked, flustered and surprised. \"My arm wasn't anywhere near it, I swear! It just fell off on its own!\"\n\n\"It doesn't matter,\" Annabel said. She had sprung to her feet and grabbed a dish towel and was now soaking up the spilled coffee. \"We're all jittery this morning.\"\n\nNeville was squatting down beside her, collecting the shards of pottery from his mug. \"But, really, I didn't do it. It was the strangest sensation. It almost seemed as if a child ran by and knocked the mug from the table. A child\u2014a little person.\"\n\nAnnabel stopped what she was doing and looked over at Neville. Their eyes met just a few inches apart.\n\n\"A little person? What do you mean? Did you see something?\"\n\nNeville stood, carrying the shards over to the trash and dropping them inside. \"No, not really. It was just how you sometimes have a sense\u2014see something very briefly in your peripheral vision, maybe, and you get a sense of something. It felt like someone ran by the table and knocked the coffee to the floor deliberately. Someone small.\"\n\nAnnabel stood, dropping the coffee-soaked dish towel into the sink. She seemed struck mute by what Neville was saying.\n\nHe tried to smile. \"Well, don't I sound like a lunatic. I suppose you're right. We're just jittery. I'm sure I did it myself, and I apologize.\"\n\n\"No need . . . to apologize,\" said Annabel, though she continued to seem very distracted.\n\nNeville watched her as she walked out of the kitchen toward the parlor. She seemed to be looking for something. He poured himself more coffee into a new mug and sat back down at the table. Annabel returned in a matter of minutes.\n\n\"Everything all right?\" he asked her.\n\n\"Yes. I was just . . . listening for Jack.\"\n\n\"He's still asleep then?\"\n\n\"No,\" Annabel told him, sitting back down. \"When I awoke, he was already up and getting dressed. He said he was going to work with Zeke this morning repairing some broken eaves in the attic. He said we were losing a lot of heat through there.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" Neville said. \"I think I heard them banging around up there this morning.\"\n\n\"I'm sorry if they disturbed you.\"\n\n\"Not at all.\" He cupped his mug in his hands, careful to keep it away from the edge of the table. \"So no more guests arriving?\"\n\n\"No,\" Annabel replied. \"There had been a couple scheduled for next week, but I called and canceled, refunding their money. Until all of this is over\u2014in fact, until the renovation is done\u2014I think it's best not to have anyone staying here.\"\n\n\"That's smart,\" Neville said.\n\nSuddenly he felt compelled to say something.\n\n\"You know, I'm not sure why I need to tell you this, but here goes.\" He paused for just a second. \"I don't think I'm in love with Priscilla. I think maybe that's why her behavior toward Jack the other night didn't really bother me.\"\n\nAnnabel lifted her eyebrows. \"I see,\" she said.\n\n\"Of course, I want her to be found,\" Neville went on, \"and to be safe and unharmed and all of that. But I'm not in love with her. If I were, her behavior would have been very troubling to me.\"\n\nAnnabel gave him a tight smile. \"I think what you're telling me is that I ought to have found Jack's behavior troubling.\"\n\n\"No, I would never presume to suggest\u2014\"\n\n\"It's okay,\" Annabel said. \"I did find it troubling. Jack was the aggressor, not Priscilla. But, you know, I'm not nearly as troubled by it as I might have been.\"\n\nThey shared a small smile again.\n\nNeville liked Annabel. He suspected her marriage was not very good. Almost as if he were reading her mind, he saw the Blue Boy Inn as their last, best try to make things work. And now, to be hit with all this . . .\n\nAnnabel excused herself. She needed to call Chad Appleby. She was determined to press on with the renovation, and she hoped Chad would be as well.\n\nNeville sat at the table looking across the room, staring out the window into the gray winter day. Where was Priscilla? What had happened to her? Would she come back?\n\nAnd if she did, would he tell her what he had just told Annabel?\n53\n\n\"No trace of anyone or anything,\" Adam told the chief. \"We've scoured those woods. Except for Roger's hand in the wood box, there's been no evidence of anything suspicious. Certainly no sign of the two missing persons.\"\n\nRichard sat back in his chair, propping his feet up on his desk.\n\n\"This just doesn't make sense,\" he told his deputy. \"How could whoever killed Roger Askew force his\u2014or her\u2014way into the Blue Boy Inn, take off with two hostages, likely on foot, and not leave a single trace?\"\n\n\"Are you certain they made off on foot?\" Adam asked. \"I mean, a car could have pulled in there during the time Ms. Wish was out at the market. . . .\"\n\n\"Didn't you read the report, Adam?\" Richard asked him.\n\nThe deputy stiffened. \"I glanced at it. I've been out interviewing so many people . . .\"\n\nRichard smiled. \"It's all right. Well, when you do get around to reading it, you'll see that I interviewed Ted Cassidy, from the Department of Public Works. He was filling in a pothole around the corner from the inn. He saw Annabel go to the market, and he saw her come back. He was certain no other car came by in that time.\"\n\n\"Jeez,\" Adam said.\n\n\"We've searched the house, we've searched the grounds, and nothing,\" Richard said.\n\n\"It just doesn't make sense how three people could disappear so completely.\"\n\n\"And you still think whoever killed Roger also killed the old lady?\"\n\n\"It's a working theory. Maybe he wanted to hide out at the inn, Cordelia gave him a hard time, and he whacked her over the head.\"\n\n\"But why would they be in her bedroom?\" Adam asked.\n\nThe chief shook his head. \"Good question. That's what I mean. None of this adds up.\"\n\n\"Well, here's another monkey wrench to throw into your theories,\" said Richard's secretary, Betty, walking into the room and placing a sheet of paper on the chief's desk.\n\n\"What's this?\" he asked.\n\n\"Fax just came in from the county coroner's office,\" Betty told him.\n\nRichard snatched it up and read it quickly.\n\n\"Christ,\" he grumbled.\n\n\"What is it?\" Adam asked.\n\nRichard laughed. \"The coroner is ruling Cordelia's death an accident. Her head injury is entirely consistent with a fall, during which she struck her head on the iron doorstop.\"\n\n\"So then we don't have a murder investigation,\" Adam said. \"Just a couple of missing persons.\"\n\n\"I don't buy it,\" Richard said. \"The old woman's skull was cracked. She'd have to have come down to the floor at a superhuman rate to hit that doorstop and crack her head that severely.\"\n\n\"Can you contest the finding?\" Betty asked.\n\nRichard sighed. \"Sure, I can. But it'll take time.\" He pounded his fist on his desk. \"That coroner is old and out of it. This isn't the first ruling of his I've disagreed with. But there's not much I can do at the moment.\"\n\nHe hesitated.\n\n\"I'm going to have to tell Neville Clarkson he's free to go back to England.\" The chief picked up the phone. \"If he takes off immediately, that would be a sign he knew more than he was saying. If he sticks around, waiting for news of his girlfriend, then he's innocent of anything. Let's keep close tabs on the place, okay?\"\n\nAdam told him he'd visit the Blue Boy twice a day for the next week. The chief gave him the thumbs-up as the phone started to ring at the inn.\n54\n\n\"Thank you for coming back,\" Annabel said, greeting Chad Appleby at the door.\n\nThe young contractor offered her a small, sad smile as he stepped inside. \"I could either listen to the village idiots at Deb's Diner bleating about the curse of the Blue Boy, or I could say, hey, I've got a job to do,\" Chad told her. \"And if I didn't come back here, I'd be forever branded a chicken all around town.\"\n\n\"I'm sorry to have put you in this position,\" Annabel said.\n\n\"It's okay,\" Chad told her.\n\nAnnabel looked genuinely unhappy that her inn had such a sordid reputation. \"You do know that the chief called yesterday and told us that the coroner had ruled Cordelia's death to be an accident, don't you?\"\n\nChad nodded. \"Seems a strange coincidence, though, given Roger Askew's hand being found out back and Paulie and your guest disappearing at the exact same time.\"\n\n\"I know,\" Annabel said, \"but we have to believe it. Who knows? Maybe Cordelia saw something from her window, and in her hurry to call the police, she tripped and fell. That's what Chief Carlson suggested as a possibility.\"\n\nChad shrugged. \"I guess it is a possibility.\"\n\nAnnabel smiled. \"Yes,\" she said, \"it is.\"\n\n\"Well, let's move on,\" Chad said. \"Like I said, I have a job that I was hired to do. And we were planning to start in the parlor, right?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" Annabel said, leading him inside. They stood in the center of the room. The bricks Paulie had removed from the fireplace were still piled off to the side. \"Tell me what I need to do to prepare for you to start.\"\n\n\"Well, we'll have to move all this furniture out of here.\"\n\n\"I can do that. Jack will help me put it in the basement.\"\n\n\"Then you and I need to pick out some tiles, and some paint. You said you want that wall knocked down there, correct?\"\n\nAnnabel was nodding. \"That's right. It will open the room up into the dining room. Make the flow a lot smoother.\"\n\nChad walked over and knocked on the wall. \"That should be easy enough. But that's the only structural change you want, right?\"\n\n\"Right. Well, except for the windows.\"\n\nHe walked over to the windows and inspected the wood. \"That's not really structural, though you do want to make them a little bit bigger.\"\n\n\"Yes, to bring in more sun.\"\n\n\"We can do that.\" He peeled off a piece of wood that was flaking off the sill. \"Okay, so new windows, the wall removed, and we'll sand the floor and the moldings. . . really restore everything.\"\n\n\"And the fireplace,\" Annabel added. \"We'll need to finish it.\"\n\nChad was nodding. He approached the fireplace and looked down. \"Paulie said the chimney was sound. I can finish removing any last bricks that are needed, then we can paint the rest white, as you suggested.\"\n\n\"I think that will brighten up the room,\" Annabel said.\n\n\"You might want to clean out the ash dump down in the basement,\" Chad told her. \"There should be a door on the chimney underneath the fireplace. You can hire a chimney sweep, or maybe just have your caretaker do it, if he's familiar with it.\"\n\n\"I'll ask him,\" Annabel said.\n\nChad smiled at her. He liked Annabel. He felt sorry for her, too, trying to get this place in shape, battling its reputation and now confronted by the inn's latest streak of bad luck. He didn't blame her for whatever happened to Paulie. Chad still hoped his friend would turn up alive, but he didn't have a good feeling about it.\n\n\"I can start the actual work in a couple of days,\" Chad told Annabel. \"But I'll be back tomorrow to take measurements. Maybe later in the week we can take a drive up to Great Barrington to pick out some tiles and paint.\"\n\n\"That sounds like fun,\" Annabel replied. \"I'd like nothing more than to take a drive out of town.\"\n\nChad smiled. \"Then it's a plan.\" He shook her hand. \"I'll be here tomorrow afternoon with my measuring tape.\"\n\n\"Thank you for sticking with the project,\" Annabel said.\n\n\"Don't mention it,\" Chad told her, as she escorted him back to the door.\n55\n\nAnnabel watched from the window as Chad drove away. She was glad he'd be coming back. If he had backed out of the renovation, Annabel would have been devastated. The renovation was her reason for staying here.\n\nIt certainly wasn't Jack.\n\nIf Chad had not agreed to continue fixing up the place, Annabel really thought she would have called a taxi to take her to the nearest bus terminal and returned to New York. She had no idea where she would have stayed in the city, but she would have had found something. If it had meant continuing to live in this stark, musty house without any hope for change, Annabel would have bolted.\n\nBecause she had never felt so alone. Not even during those harrowing days in rehab, when at least she'd had doctors and therapists rooting for her, surrounding her with support.\n\nHere, she felt increasingly she was on her own.\n\nJack had been distant and strange these past two days. Thankfully, he hadn't tried to force himself on her again. Annabel would have kneed him in the groin if he did that again. In fact, when they slept, they stayed to their own sides of the bed. That was fine with Annabel.\n\nShe tried to keep hope alive, however. This was just a bad stretch. They could either give in to the tragedy of Priscilla and Paulie's disappearance, or they could move forward. Richard Carlson had been by and told her that he was having his deputy come by at least twice a day, just to make sure the kidnapper had not returned, and that made Annabel breathe easier. She liked seeing the police car come up the driveway in the mornings and the afternoons, and Officer Burrell get out and look around. She knew that a patrol car came by at night, too.\n\nThey could get through this. And she hoped that as the house started taking shape, Jack would start acting more normal again. This was a stress on all of them. If they could survive this, they could survive anything.\n\nAnnabel was pleased that Neville had stuck around. His warm, calm presence made things easier. Annabel could talk to him in ways she couldn't talk to Jack at the moment. In fact, she could talk to Neville in ways she'd never been able to talk to Jack. She knew he'd be returning to England soon; the chief had said he was free to go. But he said he didn't feel right leaving without knowing anything about Priscilla. He told Annabel he'd wait until at least the week was out. And she was glad about that.\n\nAt the moment, Neville was out, taking a ride to clear his head. Annabel wished she'd been able to go with him, but she'd had to wait for Chad.\n\nAnd Chad had asked her to have the ash dump cleaned. Zeke must know how to do it. He'd lived in the house so long.\n\nBut Zeke was upstairs again, working with Jack in the attic. Annabel would go up and ask him, and take a look around at the work they'd done.\n\nOne by one, she climbed the steep, narrow steps to the attic.\n\nAt the door at the top of the stairs, she turned the knob. But just like the other day, the door was locked.\n\nShe could hear them inside, muffled voices and the occasional pounding of a hammer.\n\nAnnabel rapped on the door. \"Jack! Zeke!\" she called.\n\nNo answer.\n\nShe knocked harder. \"Jack! Why is the door locked?\"\n\nThe muffled voices inside fell silent.\n\nAnnabel knocked again. \"Jack! Zeke!\"\n\nThe door suddenly opened without warning, with Annabel's hand still poised in the air. She gasped a little in surprise.\n\nHer husband glared at her.\n\n\"We're in the middle of patching the roof,\" he grumbled.\n\n\"Why was the door locked?\"\n\n\"For your own safety,\" Jack told her. \"We've had to tear up some of the floorboards. You could have tripped.\"\n\n\"Okay,\" Annabel said, miffed at his tone of voice. \"Sorry to have bothered you.\"\n\n\"What did you want?\"\n\nShe was already turning to leave, heading back down the stairs. \"Never mind,\" she said.\n\nJack grabbed her by the shoulder. \"Wait, honey babe,\" he said, stepping out of the attic room and closing the door behind him. \"I didn't mean to be gruff. I just had to get down from a ladder. I'm sorry.\"\n\n\"It's okay,\" Annabel said, extricating herself from his grip and continuing down the stairs.\n\n\"Did Chad come by?\" Jack asked.\n\n\"Yes. He'll get started on the renovation the day after tomorrow.\"\n\n\"Great,\" Jack said. \"I'll be down shortly.\"\n\n\"Okay,\" Annabel said.\n\nShe didn't turn around. She heard him go back inside the attic and shut the door. And then she heard the faint click of the lock being slid back into place.\n\nHe's different, she thought. Ever since the night when he came on to Priscilla . . . and even more since his grandmother died....\n\nAnnabel recalled Neville's admission that he wasn't in love with Priscilla.\n\nWas she in love with Jack?\n\nShe wasn't sure. She thought her feelings for him might return\u2014she hoped they would\u2014but at the moment, she was just not sure how she felt about her husband. All that she could detect was numbness when she thought of him.\n\nOnce again, Annabel felt like running.\n\nShe wanted to run out the front door and down the driveway and down the road to Millie's store. She'd call the taxi from there. She just needed to get out of this dark, stuffy house. She felt closed in. She felt as if she couldn't breathe. She was trapped. She couldn't get out! She would die in here!\n\nAnnabel gripped the post at the bottom of the stairs.\n\n\"Stop it,\" she scolded herself.\n\nAs Dr. Adler, her therapist, had trained her to do, she took three long breaths, feeling the air as it filled up her lungs, then as it flowed back out through her nostrils.\n\n\"I'm going to turn this house into a showcase,\" she said out loud.\n\nShe didn't need Zeke. She could clean out the ash dump herself.\n\nAnnabel made her way around to the stairs that led down into the basement. Since moving in, she'd managed to avoid the place pretty much. She and Chad and Paulie had taken one quick peek the other day, but Annabel had let them go ahead of her, and she hadn't stayed long, leaving them to do their inspection. The basement was dark and cobwebby and the ceiling was very low. It smelled of dank earth and mold and mice. For someone with claustrophobia, the Blue Boy's cramped basement was a place to be avoided at all costs. But Annabel pushed on. She was determined to ignore her fears.\n\nReaching the bottom of the stairs, she moved her hand upward, feeling around in the darkness above her for the string that hung from the light. Her fingers brushed through sticky cobwebs and she recoiled. When she found the string, she pulled hard, and suddenly the dark basement was illuminated by a pale white light.\n\nUnlike the attic, which was littered with junk, the basement was mostly empty. Letting her eyes adjust, Annabel glanced around to find the base of the chimney.\n\nIt stood some feet away, directly underneath the fireplace in the parlor. The chimney base squatted in the middle of the room, looking like an old man hunched over under a blanket of old bricks. Annabel approached. A black iron door, about two feet by three feet and even with Annabel's waist, had been cut into the brick. As she got closer, Annabel noticed an old, rusted padlock had been secured onto the door.\n\nShe lifted the padlock in her hands. It was an old thing, but it still held the door shut. A key was needed to unlock it.\n\nWhy on earth would someone padlock the door of a fireplace ash dump?\n\nAnnabel tugged at the lock. As old and rusted as it was, it still wasn't going to budge. She'd have to ask Zeke for the key. Until they had cleaned out God-only-knew how many decades of ashes that had collected inside, they wouldn't be able to get the fireplace blazing again. And Annabel felt that until the fireplace was crackling with wood, she wouldn't be able to call the Blue Boy her home.\n\nHer eyes glanced up the length of the chimney that protruded through the floor above. There, on a small nail blasted into the mortar, hung a key.\n\nIt had to be the key for the padlock. But it was out of reach. Why was it hung so high? She really wanted to get a look inside the ash dump to see how much work cleaning it out would entail. If it was packed with ash and debris, she might have to call someone to clean it for her. But if there wasn't so much, she could maybe brush it out herself, into a pail, and dump it in the woods.\n\nBut that damn key was so high that not even Jack, who was six feet tall, could have reached it easily.\n\nAnnabel looked around the basement for something to stand on. Her eyes fell on an old wooden chest, one of the few items in the vast dark space. She hurried over to it, grabbed ahold of its sides, and pulled it back toward the chimney. The chest was surprisingly light. When she'd gotten it to where she wanted it, she decided to peek inside.\n\nShe discovered moth-eaten little girl's clothes and a couple of moldy plastic dolls.\n\nThese must have been Cynthia's, Annabel thought, her heart breaking for Jack's little sister who'd been killed by some wild animal, her body never found.\n\nCarefully replacing the clothes and the dolls, Annabel set the lid back down on the chest. Now she needed something else. A rusted old rake, leaning against the wall, would do the trick. Holding the rake in one hand, Annabel climbed up on top of the chest. Then she lifted the rake over her head and knocked the key off its nail. It went flying through the air, landing somewhere on the earthen floor in the dark.\n\n\"Oh, great,\" Annabel grumbled, getting down off the chest and dropping to her hands and knees, feeling around for the key.\n\nShe found something else instead.\n\nA furry mouse\u2014or maybe a rat\u2014squeaked as Annabel's hand closed around it. She heard it skittle away. She let out a gasp and felt the gooseflesh crawl up her arms. She was about to go upstairs and find a flashlight when, miracle of miracles, her fingers touched metal. It was the key.\n\nGripping the key tightly in her hands, Annabel stood. She returned to the padlock on the door of the ash dump. Bending down, she inserted the key. It fit perfectly. With a slight turn, the padlock fell open.\n\nAnnabel hoped there was enough light. The one bulb on the ceiling was directly behind her. She thought she'd be able to get a good sense of what was inside.\n\nShe opened the door of the ash dump.\n\nAnd immediately a dark brown liquid dripped off from the inside of the door.\n\nSome kind of oil?\n\nHunched down, peering through the door, Annabel tried to make out what was inside. She couldn't see much. But it was clear there wasn't a surplus of ashes. What was inside seemed more solid. With great reluctance, Annabel reached her hand inside.\n\nWhat she felt was soft and pulpy.\n\nShe let out another short gasp and withdrew her hand.\n\nIt was covered in the same dark liquid that dripped off the door.\n\nWith a growing sense of horror, she walked slowly backwards, coming to a stop directly underneath the lightbulb hanging from the ceiling. Stretching her hand up overhead, she brought it as close to the light as possible.\n\nOne look told her what was on her hand.\n\nBlood!\n\nAnnabel screamed.\n56\n\nNeville heard Annabel screaming as he came through the front door. He bolted toward the sound.\n\n\"Annabel!\" he called. \"Are you all right?\"\n\nShe came bounding up the cellar steps. \"Blood!\" she shrieked. \"Blood!\"\n\nAnd she held up her hand, coated in a thick, purplish goo, for him to see.\n\n\"Dear God, are you hurt?\" Neville asked.\n\n\"The chimney!\" Annabel was shuddering. \"The chimney!\"\n\nShe wasn't making any sense.\n\n\"I've got to wash this off my hand!\" Annabel cried, hurrying toward the kitchen. Neville followed.\n\nAnnabel had already plunged her hand under the hot water at the sink by the time Neville made it through the kitchen door.\n\n\"Did you cut yourself?\" he asked.\n\n\"No!\" Annabel's eyes were wild. \"There's blood in the ash dump! At the base of the chimney!\"\n\nShe was scrubbing furiously, squeezing gobs of dish detergent all over her hand. The steam that rose from the gushing water from the faucet revealed just how hot it was.\n\n\"Careful you don't scald your hand now,\" Neville told her.\n\n\"I don't care,\" Annabel said, near panic. \"I want to get all of that off me!\"\n\nNeville heard movement behind him. Jack had come through the kitchen door.\n\n\"What's going on?\" he asked. \"We could hear you shouting all the way in the attic.\"\n\n\"There's blood in the chimney,\" Annabel told him.\n\nJack looked at her as if she were crazy.\n\n\"Go downstairs to the basement and see for yourself,\" Annabel said. \"I'm never going down there again!\"\n\n\"Zeke's down there now,\" Jack told her. \"We saw the door was open and the light was on, so he went down there to check.\"\n\nSomething in the way Jack spoke seemed to unnerve Annabel.\n\n\"Go down there!\" she shouted. \"Please, Jack, see for yourself.\"\n\nHe gave her a small smile. \"I'm sure Zeke will be able to tell us what it was you thought you saw.\"\n\nNeville saw the sudden fear in Annabel's eyes. It was a different fear, not the panicky terror that had sent her rushing to the sink to wash her hands. This was very different. She turned her terrified eyes to Neville.\n\n\"You go down!\" she begged him. \"Please! See for yourself.\"\n\n\"You want me to go down to the basement?\" Neville asked.\n\n\"Yes! There's blood! I think that's where the killer put Priscilla's and Paulie's bodies!\"\n\n\"Oh, dear God,\" Neville muttered, horrified now himself, turning and heading out of the kitchen.\n\nBut before he could make it through the door, he ran smack-dab into the old caretaker Zeke.\n\n\"What's all this shouting for?\" Zeke asked.\n\n\"Annabel thinks she saw blood in the chimney downstairs,\" Jack said.\n\n\"Blood?\" Zeke displayed his hand. \"It's just wet soot.\"\n\nHis hand was indeed black with soot. He walked calmly past Annabel over to the sink, where he washed his hands just as she had done, but without any of the mania that had gripped her.\n\n\"I saw the door to the ash dump was open, so I closed it,\" Zeke said.\n\n\"There was blood inside!\" Annabel insisted.\n\n\"Wet soot can look like blood,\" Zeke told her, not looking around.\n\n\"But it was on my hand,\" Annabel said, lifting her now pristinely clean hand in front of her face. \"I know what I saw. . . .\"\n\n\"Sugar cakes,\" Jack said, \"you know sometimes you see things that aren't there. . . .\"\n\n\"You saw my hand,\" Annabel said to Neville. \"You saw it was blood!\"\n\n\"Well, I . . .\" Neville tried to think. He'd seen Annabel's hand covered in something. But was it blood, or wet soot as Zeke claimed? \"I didn't really get a close look at it. You washed your hands so fast.\"\n\n\"Anyway,\" Zeke was saying, drying his hands with a dish towel, \"I looked inside and there wasn't much of an ash buildup. I'll clean it out later today so you can continue on with your renovations, Miz Wish.\"\n\n\"No, don't clean it out,\" Annabel said. \"I want the police chief here to inspect the chimney. . . .\"\n\n\"Sweetheart,\" Jack said taking her by the shoulders, \"you're getting hysterical. You know your doctors told you that you might have flashbacks. . . .\"\n\nShe shoved him away. \"I'm not hysterical!\"\n\nBut her face, so contorted and upset, made Neville think she might be.\n\n\"Annabel,\" Jack told her firmly, \"I think you should go lie down.\"\n\nShe glared at him. She seemed to accept that she was beaten.\n\n\"All right,\" she said, her voice quiet now. \"Maybe I will go lie down.\"\n\n\"That's a good girl,\" her husband said.\n\nHe moved over to the refrigerator and popped it open. \"Think this bowl of Gran's rabbit stew is still good?\" he called over to Zeke.\n\n\"Sure it is,\" the old caretaker said. \"I'll heat some for both of us.\"\n\nAs they were distracted by the stew, Annabel turned to leave. Neville watched her with fascination. As she passed him, she paused for just a second, and spoke in a whisper that he could barely make out.\n\nBut he heard her.\n\n\"Go down there,\" she said. \"Key on a nail up above.\"\n\nThen she was gone.\n\nZeke was pouring the stew into a pan on the stove. Jack had settled down at the table, reading a newspaper.\n\nNeville slipped out of the kitchen.\n\nEvery nerve in his body trembling, he found the door to the basement steps. He opened it slowly, hoping it didn't creak. Then he scampered down into the darkness. Yanking the string to light the bulb overhead, he saw the base of the chimney. A chest and a rake were positioned in front of it. Right away Neville knew this was how Annabel had gotten the key that was on \"a nail up above.\"\n\nBut the door to the ash dump was securely padlocked.\n\nAnd while Neville could see the nail protruding from the bricks above, there was no key hanging from it.\n\nSomehow that fact confirmed for him that Annabel had been right.\n\nThere was indeed blood in that chimney.\n\nBehind that small iron door, Neville was convinced, lay Priscilla's body.\n57\n\n\"You're really going to keep working at that scary old place?\" Tammy asked, sliding Chad's scrambled eggs and home fries in front of him on the diner counter.\n\n\"I was hired to do a job,\" Chad told her, \"and I'm gonna do it.\" He brought a fry to his mouth and took a bite. \"My way of paying tribute to Paulie.\"\n\n\"Well, I think that's pretty brave of you,\" Tammy said. \"I feel bad for that couple that just arrived to fix up the place. Now they're forever haunted by Roger's hand.\" She shuddered.\n\nChad smiled up at her. \"How you doing with that, Tam? You dealing with his death okay?\"\n\n\"I made a resolution when I got up this morning,\" the pretty, dark-eyed waitress told him. \"I was moving on with my life. I'm going to be just fine on my own.\"\n\n\"Hear, hear!\" Chad said.\n\n\"I'm going back to school, and I'm going to get a degree,\" Tammy told him, before smirking. \"If I can afford it on my tips from this place.\"\n\nChad thought a moment. \"You know, if I recall, you fixed your place up pretty nice. Refinished the floor yourself. Laid down some new tile.\"\n\nTammy beamed. \"That I did. With good advice from you.\"\n\n\"I could use an assistant like you,\" Chad told her. \"It would mean going out to the Blue Boy Inn, but I could help you make a few extra bucks.\"\n\n\"What would I do?\" Tammy asked.\n\n\"Help me with painting and sanding, to start,\" Chad told her, bringing a forkful of eggs to his mouth and afterward wiping his lips with the paper napkin. \"Would it creep you out too much, going to a place where Roger's hand was found?\"\n\n\"Not at all,\" Tammy answered. \"When do I start?\"\n\n\"Come with me this afternoon when you get off here,\" he said.\n\n\"All right. I'll have my mom pick Jessica up at school and watch her until I get home. She's been after me to get a better job anyway. She'll be happy to do it.\"\n\n\"Then welcome to Appleby Contracting, Ms. Morelli,\" Chad said, extending his hand across the counter.\n\nThey shook.\n58\n\nAnnabel lay in bed. She hadn't left her bed since coming up here yesterday afternoon, shaken by her discovery of blood in the chimney.\n\nShe was certain the blood wasn't there anymore, however.\n\nZeke had cleaned it out. She knew that in her gut. That was why he'd locked it back up and taken the key, as Neville had reported to her late last night, so he could go back later and clean it all out. He would destroy the evidence of any body ever being stuffed into the chimney.\n\nSince Annabel's cell phone didn't have reception, and she didn't dare use the house phone, Neville had promised that he would drive into town this morning and tell the police chief what Annabel had found.\n\nShe realized the significance of the fact that she didn't dare use the house phone.\n\nIt was because she was afraid of being overheard.\n\nJack and Zeke knew something. They were hiding something. Somehow, they were covering up the murders.\n\nMight they\u2014Annabel trembled to think it\u2014have committed them?\n\nShe'd thought Jack was sound asleep that morning. But had he snuck out while she was at the store? Zeke had claimed to be in the attic. But he, too, could have come downstairs while Annabel was gone.\n\nBut why?\n\nAnnabel felt frozen. She lay there immobile on the bed. All night, she had been awake, listening as Jack breathed beside her. When he'd come in the night before, she'd pretended to be asleep. They hadn't spoken a word. All through the night, Annabel had had the sense that Jack, too, was awake, lying beside her, waiting and listening for her to make a move. So Annabel had kept as still as she could, breathing shallowly but regularly, hoping he believed her to be asleep. In the morning, when Jack had finally risen and left the room, Annabel had let out a long, relieved breath.\n\nIt was unbelievable.\n\nShe was frightened of her husband.\n\nJack\u2014who had stood with her through all her trials in the past.\n\nAnnabel felt as if she was going mad.\n\nShe smelled coffee brewing downstairs. She had yet to hear a car crunch across the gravel driveway, so Neville had not yet left for the police station. If he didn't leave soon, she would jump up when she heard Officer Burrell make his daily drive-through checking on the place. She'd scream from the window for him to come in and arrest Jack and Zeke!\n\nBut for what?\n\nMaybe she was going mad.\n\nAnnabel tried to focus, to make sense of what was happening. She was fearful that Jack was involved in murder\u2014or that he was covering it up. But such an idea was crazy! She couldn't think straight. Jack and Zeke were hiding something in the attic. That much Annabel knew. And then they had prevented her from exposing the blood in the basement.\n\nSugar cakes, you know sometimes you see things that aren't there....\n\nWas that it? Was she was just imagining things?\n\nMaybe Jack and Zeke really had been fixing the rafters and the floorboards in the attic. Maybe that really had been wet soot in the chimney.\n\nAnnabel heard a sound.\n\nShe sat up on her bed. Looking across the room, she watched in disbelief as the panel on the far wall slid back. The same panel where she had found those terrible books. Zeke had never nailed it shut.\n\nFrom the darkness behind the wall within emerged two little blue feet.\n\n\"No,\" Annabel murmured, pulling her legs under her and wrapping her arms around her body.\n\nTommy Tricky crept out of the hole in the wall.\n\nHe looked up at her, his blue eyes shining.\n\nHe gnashed his sharp little teeth.\n\nBut then\u2014even worse\u2014his twin emerged from the dark space, following him out into the room.\n\nThe two little creatures stood there looking up at Annabel. She was so terrified she couldn't make a sound.\n\nThen they gave a little laugh and dashed across the room, under her bed.\n\nAnnabel screamed at the top of her lungs.\n\nHer fear turned everything white. Blindingly white. The next thing she knew Jack was standing over her, trying to hold her down on the bed, telling her to calm down and stop screaming. Zeke was there, looming over her as well. And Neville, too! They were all in on it! They were all out to get her!\n\nAnnabel passed out.\n59\n\nNeville left Annabel's room completely mystified.\n\n\"What happened to her?\" he asked Jack and Zeke. \"She seemed fine earlier.\"\n\n\"She has a history of hallucinations, of histrionics,\" Jack said, peering in at her one last time, making sure she was resting comfortably before he shut the door. She had seemed to calm down, but Neville thought she might start thrashing about again anytime, so great had been her distress. \"Her doctors told us she could occasionally have relapses,\" Jack continued, and he looked sincerely worried about his wife.\n\nIf that was so, Neville thought, perhaps he'd been wrong to believe Annabel's story about blood in the chimney.\n\nHe would wait for a while before talking with the police. Jack seemed perfectly reasonable; it was Annabel who was the raving lunatic at the moment. Neville didn't want to start trouble.\n\nIn fact, all he wanted to do was leave. He was certain now that Priscilla wasn't coming back. He just wanted to get on an airplane and go home, get back to work, visit his parents and his brother and his nieces and nephews. Neville just wanted some normalcy in his life again. The past few days were enough fear and confusion and chaos to last a lifetime.\n\nBut he couldn't leave. Not quite yet. He liked Annabel, and he wanted to make sure she was all right. Tomorrow, he figured. If she was up and about tomorrow, talking sensibly, he'd leave tomorrow.\n\n\"I'm going to the store,\" Jack announced. \"Not Millie's market, but the supermarket in Great Barrington. I want to get some real groceries. Frankly, I need some meat. Some steak and potatoes, since all that's in the fridge are Annabel's vegetables.\" He smiled over at Neville. \"Can I get you anything, buddy?\"\n\n\"No, thank you,\" Neville told him. \"I've come to quite enjoy carrot and cucumber sandwiches.\"\n\n\"Have it your way,\" Jack said. He turned to Zeke. \"You'll look in on Annabel? If she wakes up, tell her I'll be back in about an hour.\"\n\n\"Will do,\" the old man replied.\n\nNeville watched from the window as Jack drove off.\n\n\"I'm going to finish some work in the attic,\" Zeke told him. \"If the telephone rings, you can let it go to the answering machine.\"\n\n\"I'm happy to answer it and take a message for you,\" Neville said. \"I'm just going to settle down here in the parlor and read a book.\"\n\n\"Very good.\"\n\nNeville took a chair opposite the fireplace. How he wished there was a fire crackling in front of him, sending off waves of heat across the room. The day was so terribly cold. Neville shivered a little, buttoning his wool cardigan sweater all the way down. Opening his book, he began to read.\n60\n\nUpstairs, Annabel was awake. She lay rock still, listening to Tommy Tricky and his twin whisper under her bed.\n\n\"Let's get her.\"\n\n\"No, not yet.\"\n\n\"But I want her.\"\n\n\"Leave her!\"\n\nI'm going mad, Annabel thought. Stark raving mad.\n\nThere was no such thing as Tommy Tricky. But here she was, listening to his voice. And there were two of him.\n\nKnowing that she had gone insane gave her a weird sense of peace. She just lay there, not moving, listening to the little men scuttle around under her bed.\n61\n\n\"Hello?\"\n\nA man's voice startled Neville awake. He had fallen asleep reading his book. His head was down on his chest. He leapt from his chair.\n\n\"Hello?\" the man called again.\n\nTwo people had let themselves in and were now standing in the foyer. The man who'd been calling was Chad Appleby, the contractor. The other was a pretty, dark-haired woman Neville had never seen before.\n\n\"I'm sorry to just barge in on you,\" Chad said, \"but we knocked and no one answered the door.\"\n\n\"Oh, it's quite all right,\" Neville told him. \"But I'm afraid Jack has gone up to Great Barrington and Annabel is . . . taking a nap. She wasn't feeling so well, you see.\"\n\n\"No problem,\" Chad replied. \"I'm just here to take some measurements. This is my assistant, Tammy Morelli.\"\n\n\"How do you do?\" Neville asked, smiling over at the woman, who nodded hello.\n\n\"I'll need to go down into the basement,\" Chad said. \"I need to make sure the floorboards are going to be strong enough for when we take out that wall.\"\n\n\"I'll walk down with you,\" Neville offered. \"I know where the string for the light is.\"\n\n\"Thanks.\" Chad turned to Tammy and tossed her a measuring tape. She caught it expertly. \"In the meantime, start measuring the windows and moldings like I told you, okay? Not just the ones on the first floor, but on the second floor, too. We're going to order all the new windows at the same time.\"\n\n\"Aye, aye, captain,\" Tammy said.\n\nThe two men set off down the stairs into the basement.\n\n\"Here's the light, right here,\" Neville said, when they reached the bottom. He pulled the string.\n\n\"Thanks,\" Chad said. \"I can find my way from here.\" He switched on his flashlight. \"I just want to inspect the floorboards.\"\n\n\"Actually,\" Neville went on, \"I came down so I might ask you a question.\"\n\n\"What's that?\"\n\n\"Annabel was a bit concerned earlier when she found a dark, brownish-purplish substance inside the chimney down here. Apparently, when she opened the ash dump, it was full of the stuff.\"\n\n\"Brownish and purplish?\"\n\nNeville nodded. \"She thought it looked like blood.\"\n\n\"Oh, Jesus.\"\n\n\"Given everything that happened here, to your friend and my girlfriend, well, I thought you ought to know. And if there was any way you could take a look at it . . .\"\n\nChad swung his flashlight over to the door to the ash dump. \"Why the hell is it padlocked?\" he asked.\n\n\"I don't know,\" Neville said. \"And the key has been missing ever since Annabel looked inside. Zeke said what she saw was wet soot.\"\n\nChad made a face. \"Who ever heard of purple wet soot?\"\n\n\"Well, I guess that's right. I was going to mention it to the police . . .\"\n\nThey had reached the base of the fireplace. \"I'd say that would be a good idea,\" Chad said. \"I mean, if it's a clue to what happened\u2014\" He stopped speaking abruptly. \"Hey,\" he said. \"Listen.\"\n\nThey put their ears close to the ash dump door.\n\n\"Something's in there,\" Chad said.\n\nNeville listened. There was indeed something in there.\n\nAnd it was eating!\n\nThe sound of chomping and chewing came from inside the old brick chimney.\n62\n\nTammy stretched the measuring tape across the windowsill on the second-floor landing. She noted the length and jotted it down in a little pad. Then she did the same for the height.\n\nThis place wasn't so creepy. All her life Tammy had heard stories about the Blue Boy Inn. There had been lots of deaths and disappearances up here. Kids in school called it a haunted house. Her mother used to say the place was \"cursed.\" She hadn't even liked to drive by on the road on the way to Millie's market.\n\nBut the English guy who'd greeted them had been pleasant enough. And once Chad was through with his renovation, the place was going to be real bright and sunny. It would be like a modern showplace, according to the plans Tammy had seen. She was excited to be in on it. This would be good for her. A real change, and Tammy needed a\u2014\n\n\"I told you, no more!\"\n\nAn old man's voice suddenly cut through the stillness of the upstairs corridor.\n\nTammy tried to ignore it, but the voice came again.\n\n\"Get back here!\"\n\nThe voice was coming from the steep, narrow stairs at the end of the corridor. Tammy assumed they led to the attic. She took a few steps in that direction, pausing at the foot of the stairs to listen.\n\nShe could hear people moving about. There was some kind of struggle, it seemed. The old man spoke again, but softer this time.\n\n\"Stop this,\" he urged. \"There are people in the house.\" And then he added, insistently, \"Shhh!\"\n\nNow Tammy was distracted by a sound behind her. She turned away from the stairs and looked back down the hallway. A woman was emerging from one of the rooms. She was dressed in blue jeans and a wrinkled oversized T-shirt. She looked a wreck, as if she hadn't slept in days. Her long auburn hair was all mussed up. Her eyes caught Tammy's.\n\n\"Who are you?\" the woman asked.\n\n\"Tammy Morelli. I'm working with Chad, the contractor.\"\n\nThe woman's eyes softened. \"Then you're real,\" she said, a small smile fluttering across her face. \"Good. That's good.\"\n\nShe made her way down the stairs.\n\nHow very strange.\n\nTammy thought she might have to revise her earlier impression of the Blue Boy. It was indeed pretty creepy after all.\n63\n\n\"Annabel!\" Neville exclaimed. \"You're up! Are you all right, my dear?\"\n\n\"I need to take a walk,\" she said. \"Clear my head.\"\n\nHe thought she looked terrible. \"It's very cold out,\" he told her.\n\nShe didn't reply, just yanked on her coat. Behind Neville, Chad now appeared, emerging from the basement stairwell.\n\n\"Hello, Annabel,\" the contractor said.\n\nShe grunted a reply.\n\n\"Are we still on for tomorrow morning?\" Chad asked. \"To take a drive up to Great Barrington and pick out some tile and paint?\"\n\nNeville watched as Annabel turned to look at him. Her eyes seemed dull and gray. It seemed almost that she didn't recognize Chad. She stared at him for several seconds, as if she was trying to process what he was asking her.\n\n\"Yes,\" she said at last. \"Take a drive. Get away from here. Yes, we're still on.\"\n\n\"Great,\" Chad said. \"You know, I should tell you that we were just down in the basement\u2014\"\n\nNeville quickly and subtly moved his foot over to the other man, whacking his shin.\n\nChad stopped speaking. He exchanged a look with Neville.\n\n\"Do whatever you need to do,\" Annabel said softly. \"I need to take a walk. Get some air.\"\n\n\"All right,\" Chad said. \"See you tomorrow then. I want to get an early start. The weather report says we might get a pretty big snowstorm tomorrow afternoon.\"\n\nAnnabel didn't answer. She just headed outside.\n\nChad looked over at Neville once she was gone. \"Why did you stop me from telling her about what we heard in the chimney?\" he asked. \"If she's got raccoons living in there, she's going to need an exterminator before we can finish repairing the fireplace.\"\n\n\"She's had a rough day,\" Neville replied. \"She doesn't need to start worrying about raccoons.\"\n\nChad wasn't satisfied with that answer. \"But that might explain the blood she found in there. If those coons have been eating squirrels and mice . . .\"\n\nNeville gave him a cold look. \"I doubt it's squirrels and mice they're eating.\"\n\nChad shivered. \"Wait. Are you . . . ?\" His face blanched. \"Are you thinking that the killer stuffed Paulie's and Priscilla's bodies inside the chimney, and that's what we heard the raccoons chomping on?\"\n\n\"It did cross my mind.\"\n\n\"That's just too freaky.\" Chad looked back down the stairs. \"But you just may be on to something. That's one really wide chimney. You could fit a body in there, sure.\"\n\n\"Especially if the killer was adept with a butcher knife, as the hand in the wood box would seem to indicate,\" Neville added.\n\n\"Jesus.\" Chad shuddered. \"We need to tell Annabel, or her husband.\"\n\n\"I promised Annabel last night that I would tell the chief of police. She did not, for her own reasons, want her husband to know.\"\n\n\"Why the hell not?\"\n\n\"It doesn't matter.\" Neville headed toward the door, grabbing his coat from the hook on the wall. \"All I know is I need to fulfill the promise I made to Annabel. I'm going down to the chief's office now.\"\n\n\"I'll go with you,\" Chad said. \"He'll want a statement from me, too, about what I heard.\"\n\n\"All right.\"\n\nTammy had come down the stairs. \"What's going on?\" she asked.\n\n\"Listen, Tam,\" Chad said, \"I'm going to run Neville here into town for a moment. I'll be back in two shakes. You almost done?\"\n\n\"I've measured every window upstairs,\" she said, \"except for the attic. It's locked. There's somebody in there.\"\n\n\"It's Zeke, the caretaker,\" Neville told her.\n\n\"He seemed a little upset.\"\n\n\"That's just Zeke,\" Neville assured her.\n\n\"Okay, listen, Tam,\" Chad said. \"Get the windows in the kitchen and dining room measured. We might as well plan for everything now. We're going to be replacing all the windows eventually.\"\n\n\"All right, boss.\"\n\nChad turned to leave, and then looked back at Tammy. \"You going to be okay by yourself? I'm just going to be gone a little bit.\"\n\n\"Well,\" Tammy said, \"I've discovered there's some weird people in this house, but I haven't seen any ghosts yet.\"\n\nNeville saw the smile the two of them exchanged.\n\nOperative word being yet, he thought, as he and Chad left by the front door.\n64\n\nIt was the thought of driving up to Great Barrington that revived Annabel. The thought of getting away from here, on the road, driving miles and miles away. The idea appealed to Annabel almost as much as a Caribbean vacation.\n\nThe cold afternoon air rushed into her nostrils. It functioned as she had hoped. Her mind felt clearer, more alive.\n\nAs she walked into the woods, leaves and twigs crunching under her feet, Annabel told herself she had allowed her imagination to run amok. It had happened before, when she was in the hospital, when sometimes she hadn't known where she was, when the orderlies had looked like deformed monsters and her room like a dungeon. Jack was right. Her doctors had warned her she might have flashbacks. The delirium that had set in as her body withdrew from the drugs had been intense. It was still there, buried deep down in her brain.\n\nIt had taken being raped by Jack to bring it out again.\n\nHe wouldn't call it that, of course. He'd say they had just made love. Annabel hadn't fought him. She hadn't resisted. But still she felt raped just the same.\n\nHe had just tried to do it as fast as possible, fearful he'd lose his erection again, she argued with herself. It wasn't rape. That's not fair to Jack.\n\nBut what about fair to her? She couldn't deny how she felt.\n\nAnd that horrible feeling had led to some horrible hallucinations. Annabel had to find a way to deal with it, to get it all out of her head\u2014the anger, the fear, the sense of violation. Otherwise, she wouldn't be able to go on. She would always feel unsafe here.\n\nAnnabel paused at the little white stone marker. She looked down at the words carved across its surface.\n\nCINDY DEVLIN\n\nPoor little girl. How had she died? Her death must have been terrible, given how much blood was found.\n\nAnnabel wondered what kind of memorial Jack would want for his grandmother. They'd been notified that her body had been taken from the morgue to be cremated. Jack had told her that his grandfather's ashes had been scattered in these woods; Annabel assumed that was what he'd want to do with Cordelia's as well. They should have a little service, she thought. Maybe ask a minister to come in and say a prayer. Annabel could get some fresh flowers from Millie's store and carry them as the old woman's ashes were scattered. Afterward, they'd put the flowers on the mantel over the fireplace.\n\nAnnabel walked on into the woods.\n\nHow she wished she was walking down Fifth Avenue, or through busy Times Square, taxicabs honking, sirens wailing, lights flashing. She yearned to be surrounded by masses of people\u2014thousands of them, all moving past her, rubbing shoulders\u2014and away from this stark, gray, silent place. Some claustrophobics hated being in the city, and longed for the empty countryside. Annabel was different. The city made her blood race. It filled her up.\n\nShe missed New York like an old, comforting friend.\n\nAbove her, a crow cawed. She heard the flapping of its wings, but could not spot it through the network of interlacing, bare, blue limbs.\n\nAnnabel didn't want to get lost. She kept turning around, making sure she could still see the outline of the house.\n\nWhat had she been thinking? Had she really been so angry at Jack that she believed him capable of murder? How crazy was that? What motive did Jack have to kill those two people? Even if something had happened between him and Priscilla that night, Jack had had absolutely no interaction with Paulie that mattered. It was just crazy. In her confused state of mind, subconsciously blaming Jack for hurting her\u2014violating her\u2014Annabel had seen sinister motivations behind every action Jack took, every statement that he made.\n\nShe'd been seeing other things as well.\n\nLike blood in the chimney, when it was clearly just old soot and debris.\n\nLike a pair of Tommy Trickies, whom she had stopped believing in a long time ago.\n\nI've been decompensating, as Dr. Adler would say. She still remembered the definition he'd given her of the term after he'd used it to describe what was happening to her. The failure to generate effective psychological coping mechanisms in response to stress, resulting in personality disturbance or disintegration.\n\nThat was what she had felt. That she was disintegrating.\n\nShe had to get it together. She was stronger than this.\n\nShe stopped and sat down on a log, breathing in the cold air. She could see her breath in front of her.\n\nOff in the woods, she heard the snap of a twig.\n\nShe wondered what kind of animals might be out here. Jack had said they'd feared little Cindy had been killed by a bear all those years ago. Were there still bears prowling these woods? There were also coyotes and foxes and bobcats, Zeke had told her. The bobcats could be particularly vicious.\n\nAnd they'd seen that big, terrifying moose on the ride up, too.\n\nShe laughed a little then, remembering the moment. Annabel felt as if she had tumbled down the rabbit hole into a very strange, topsy-turvy world.\n\nAnother snap of another twig, closer this time.\n\nAnnabel stood. She shouldn't have come out this far. What if what she heard moving out there was a bear or a bobcat?\n\nShe looked around. She couldn't see the house. Damn it!\n\nBut she could hear something approaching, crunching through the leaves.\n\n\"Okay, Annabel,\" she whispered to herself. \"It's time to go home.\"\n\nShe started walking back in the direction she'd come. At least, she thought it was the same direction.\n\nAll at once she heard something.\n\nThe tweet of a bird?\n\nBut it sounded different than that....\n\nShe paused.\n\nThe sound came again.\n\nAnnabel's blood ran cold.\n\nIt was no bird.\n\nIt was also not a bear or a bobcat, either.\n\nWhat Annabel heard was a short, two-note whistle, made, she was certain, by human lips.\n\nIt sounded again.\n\nAs did the crunching of the leaves, very close to her now.\n\nSo maybe it's a hiker, Annabel thought. Or a hunter.\n\nA hunter with a gun. Who might mistake her movements among the trees for a deer, and shoot to kill.\n\nI've got to get home.\n\nAnnabel began to walk faster. And as she did, the sound of whoever was crunching through the leaves toward her accelerated at the same pace.\n\nThis was no hunter, no hiker, she told herself. It was also not a wild animal.\n\nShe walked even faster. The sound behind her also sped up.\n\nAnnabel realized she was being pursued.\n\nShe started to run.\n65\n\nTammy stretched her measuring tape across the windowsill in the kitchen. But before she could make a note of the length, she suddenly had the distinct sense someone was behind her. With a start, she looked over her shoulder.\n\nShe was right. There was a man there. A tall, handsome man with two paper bags full of groceries in his hands.\n\n\"Oh, hello, I wasn't aware someone came in,\" Tammy said, turning to the man.\n\nHe set the groceries on the counter. \"It's always a pleasant surprise to come home and find a beautiful woman in your house.\"\n\nShe blushed. \"I'm Tammy,\" she said. \"I'm working with Chad, taking some measurements of the windows.\"\n\n\"I didn't see Chad's truck out front,\" the man said, taking some steaks out of the bags and putting them in the refrigerator.\n\nTammy shook her head. \"He took the Englishman who's staying here into town.\"\n\nTo this, the man lifted his eyebrows. \"Did he now? Why couldn't Neville have driven himself? He has a car.\"\n\n\"I'm not sure. I don't know what their errand was. But Chad said he'd be back shortly.\"\n\nThe man nodded. \"I'm sorry, I've been impolite,\" he said. \"I haven't introduced myself.\" He walked across the room and extended his hand. \"I'm Jack Devlin. The owner of the place.\"\n\n\"Hello, Mr. Devlin,\" Tammy said, accepting his greeting.\n\nTo her surprise, he brought her hand to his lips and kissed it. \"It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Tammy. A very fine pleasure indeed.\"\n\nHe didn't let go of her hand.\n\n\"Have you seen my wife?\" Mr. Devlin asked.\n\nTammy felt uncomfortable that he was still holding her hand. He was also standing a little too close for comfort. She could smell him. Man sweat and aftershave.\n\n\"Um, I actually didn't meet your wife yet, but I saw her,\" Tammy said awkwardly. \"I believe she went out to take a walk.\"\n\n\"I see.\" Mr. Devlin smiled and took a step even closer to her. His grip on Tammy's hand tightened. \"That means we have the house to ourselves.\"\n\n\"No,\" Tammy said quickly. \"I heard a man in the attic. . . .\"\n\n\"Oh, that's just Zeke,\" said Mr. Devlin. His eyes seemed strange to Tammy. His pupils were dilated. \"He won't bother us.\"\n\nMr. Devlin leaned down toward her as if he was about to kiss her.\n\n\"No!\" Tammy shrieked, yanking her hand away from him and hurrying across the kitchen. \"You had no right to do that!\"\n\n\"To do what?\" Mr. Devlin asked her with a smirk. \"I didn't do anything.\"\n\n\"I have a job to do, Mr. Devlin,\" Tammy told him.\n\nHis smirk stretched into a wide smile. \"Then by all means,\" he said, \"don't let me keep you from it.\" He winked at her, and then headed out of the kitchen.\n\nTammy had to sit down, she was shaking so much.\n\nHurry up, Chad, she thought. Get me out of here.\n66\n\nAnnabel ran.\n\nBlood raced through her veins. She could feel it pulsing in her ears. She caught sight of the house up ahead, still too far away for comfort. She ran as fast as she could.\n\nA broken branch on the ground proved her undoing. She tripped over it and fell facedown in the leaves.\n\nA hand was gripping her arm. Whoever had been pursuing her had caught up to her.\n\n\"Annabel, are you all right?\"\n\nShe looked up. It was Richard Carlson.\n\n\"Oh, Chief Carlson,\" she said, nearly bursting into tears. \"I thought . . .\"\n\nHe helped her to her feet. \"You thought what?\"\n\n\"I don't know,\" she said, brushing leaves off her coat. \"A bear, maybe. I guess I thought you might be a bear.\"\n\nHe smiled. \"Why would you think that?\"\n\n\"Well, the way you were coming after me.\"\n\nHis face creased in puzzlement. \"I wasn't coming after you. I just spotted you a few moments ago. I saw you from the parking lot, running through the woods. I was concerned.\"\n\nAnnabel looked at him. \"You didn't whistle? A little two-note sound, like this?\" She demonstrated what she had heard.\n\n\"No, that wasn't me,\" Richard told her.\n\n\"Then somebody was chasing me,\" Annabel said, looking back out into the woods and shivering.\n\n\"Are you certain?\"\n\nShe moved her eyes back to the police chief's. \"No,\" she admitted. \"I'm not certain about a lot these days.\"\n\n\"Do you want to talk about it?\" he asked.\n\nAnnabel thought his eyes looked kind. A little tired, and there was sadness in there, too, but they were kind.\n\n\"I didn't want to come here,\" she said, surprised at herself. The words just tumbled out; she hadn't planned to say them. \"Jack thought it would be a good idea to leave New York and start over here at the Blue Boy Inn when his grandmother called and asked him to take over. So I came along.\"\n\n\"Have you changed your mind since arriving?\" Richard asked.\n\nShe shrugged. \"I was hoping the project of restoring the place would give me some purpose, something to focus on. But then Priscilla and Paulie went missing, and that hand was found out back. . . .\" She shuddered. \"It makes me long for the safe streets of Manhattan.\"\n\nThey both laughed and started walking slowly back to the house.\n\n\"If it's any consolation,\" the chief said, \"I believe the killer is long gone. I don't know why he came through this way, or why he either killed or kidnapped Priscilla and Paulie. But I don't think he stuck around. We've been through here several times a day. I've had officers searching these woods half a dozen times. There's been no trace. I think you're safe here.\"\n\n\"Do you?\" Annabel asked. \"Honestly?\"\n\n\"Safe from whoever killed Roger and possibly the other two,\" Richard told her. \"Whether there are other dangers here for you, only you can know that.\"\n\nShe thought of Jack, and for a second, she wanted to tell Richard all of her doubts about him, but then realized how ridiculous that would sound. The chief of police was not a marriage counselor.\n\nBut he should know about the chimney....\n\n\"Did Neville speak with you?\" Annabel asked. \"About what I found . . . ?\"\n\nRichard was nodding. \"That's why I'm here. I came out right away. He and Chad came to my office and told me about the blood.\"\n\n\"Maybe it wasn't blood,\" Annabel admitted. \"I may be getting a little hysterical.\"\n\n\"Well, it's worth a look, anyway,\" the chief said. \"Especially after what else they told me.\"\n\n\"What was that?\"\n\n\"They said that they heard some sounds down there today. Chad described it as a pack of raccoons eating very noisily.\"\n\n\"Raccoons?\"\n\nRichard's face became serious. \"If the killer dismembered Paulie and Priscilla and disposed of their remains in the chimney, it could be that animals smelled their decaying flesh and decided to creep down the chimney for a meal.\"\n\n\"Oh, dear God!\" Annabel was repulsed.\n\n\"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to upset you.\"\n\n\"It's okay, chief. I just . . . well, it's hard to imagine.\"\n\nHe placed a hand on her shoulder. \"You can call me Richard.\"\n\nHer eyes flickered up to his. \"Oh, well, thank you.\"\n\n\"Tell me something. Has anyone else looked into the ash dump since you discovered the blood?\"\n\nAnnabel found herself shuddering. Richard tightened his grip on her shoulder.\n\n\"Zeke and my husband both, I think,\" Annabel told him. \"Zeke locked it up again.\"\n\n\"Do you know if he looked inside before doing so?\"\n\n\"I don't.\"\n\nRichard nodded. \"I've got a forensics team on its way. But we ought to go down there ourselves first and take a look.\"\n\n\"Of course,\" Annabel said.\n\nThe chief removed his hand from her shoulder and they started walking back toward the house. \"I'm sure this isn't how you imagined your new life in Woodfield would be.\"\n\n\"You know,\" she told him, \"I had no idea what it would be like. I'm not a country girl. I've got the city in my blood. Born and raised in Manhattan. I miss the sounds of the city, the rush, the hustle, the constant energy.. . .\"\n\nHe smiled. \"My wife was originally from Manhattan. She loved the city as well.\"\n\nAnnabel paused. \"Richard, I can't help but notice you speak of her in the past tense.\"\n\nHe nodded sadly. \"She died. I've been on my own for a while.\"\n\n\"You miss her a great deal,\" Annabel observed. \"I can tell.\"\n\n\"Every moment of every day,\" Richard admitted.\n\n\"How hard that must be for you.\" She looked over at him. \"But how very wonderful it must be to have loved someone that much, and for her to have loved you as much in return.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" acknowledged the chief. \"Yes, indeed it was.\"\n\nThey were close enough now to the house that they could see the driveway. Chad's truck was just at that moment pulling in.\n\n\"Chad and Neville didn't come back with you?\" Annabel asked.\n\nRichard shook his head. \"Chad had to pick up some things at his office. But I came out straight away after they told me what they knew.\"\n\nHe pointed out another vehicle in the driveway.\n\n\"I see your husband is at home,\" Richard said.\n\n\"Yes,\" Annabel replied. \"And for some reason, I don't think Jack is going to be very pleased that I'm taking you down into the basement to look at the chimney.\"\n67\n\nTammy headed down the basement steps. Chad had said to measure every window, and she assumed that to mean the basement as well.\n\nBesides, she wanted to get away from that horrible Jack Devlin, who was lurking around the parlor and dining room. Every time she cast a glance in his direction, he was looking at her.\n\nOf course, Tammy thought, as she pulled the string to illuminate the overhead bulb, he could corner me down here more easily. But if he tried that, he'd have quite the surprise. Before making her way down the steps, she'd slung her purse over her shoulder. And inside, she carried a can of Mace. Being involved with a man as volatile as Roger, Tammy had learned to take precautions. And that prick Devlin would get a faceful of it if he tried anything again.\n\nOnce in the basement, Tammy saw that the windows were too high for her to easily reach. She realized she'd need something to stand on.\n\nOver by the chimney, she spotted a small chest. She could pull that over.\n\nBut as she approached, the dim light above revealed something leaning against the chest.\n\nA large doll of some sort, she thought. Propped in a sitting position.\n\nBut then\u2014the doll's head moved.\n\nTammy gasped. She heard sounds. Teeth gnashing.\n\nAll at once, the thing sitting against the chest turned its face to look at her. It was a little man\u2014and in his hands he held a bloody arm. He was gnawing at the bones of the fingers as if he were chewing on a chicken drumstick. Catching sight of Tammy, the little man hissed at her like a cat, baring a mouthful of bloody fangs.\n\nTammy screamed.\n68\n\nAnnabel had just come inside the house with Richard when she heard the scream from the basement. It seemed to rise up like a physical thing, pushing itself through the slats in the floorboards, causing the whole house to tremble. It caused Annabel and Richard to stop cold in their tracks.\n\nChad and Neville were likewise frozen for that split second of time, standing a little ahead of them in the foyer. The two men hadn't even yet taken off their coats when the scream cut through the quiet afternoon.\n\nRichard was the first to burst forward, heading toward the basement stairs, his hand on his gun. But he didn't have to go far. The young woman whom Annabel had seen earlier\u2014Tammy something, she thought, Chad's helper\u2014suddenly came bounding up the stairs.\n\nShe was as white as if covered in flour.\n\nShe bypassed Richard to run straight into Chad's arms.\n\n\"Get me out of here!\" she said in the highest pitched voice Annabel had ever heard. The poor woman was shaking so badly it looked as if she had epilepsy.\n\n\"What happened, Tammy?\" Chad asked.\n\n\"Down there!\" was all she could say, burying her face against his chest. \"Down there!\" Then she broke free of Chad's embrace and bolted outside, Chad following.\n\n\"I'm going down,\" Richard announced, gun drawn, heading down the stairs.\n\n\"I'm coming, too,\" Annabel said.\n\nThe chief turned to her. \"Stay up here,\" he barked.\n\n\"I've got to see whatever is down there,\" Annabel said.\n\nRichard made a face. \"Then stay well behind me,\" he told her.\n\nThey made their way down the creaky old stairs.\n\nThe light was still burning. They saw nothing. Annabel lifted the flashlight from the floor and shone it around the near-empty basement. Still nothing. All they could see was the chest near the chimney. The door to the ash dump was still padlocked, and the key was nowhere in sight.\n\n\"I've got to go out and interview Tammy about what it was she saw down here,\" Richard told Annabel. \"Whatever it was appears to be gone now. In the meantime, I'll need your permission to search this place, to pry open that ash dump door. . . .\"\n\n\"What the hell is going on here?\"\n\nThey spun around.\n\nJack had come down the stairs. He was angry, eyes blazing. \"What was all that screaming about? And exactly why do you need to search this house?\"\n\nRichard looked at him. Annabel tensed.\n\n\"Mr. Devlin,\" the chief explained, \"Tammy Morelli just ran out of this basement a terrified wreck. She saw something down here. I'm going out to interview her now. I don't know what she saw, but there have been enough reports about this house to warrant a complete search.\"\n\nThe chief pushed past Jack to head back up the stairs. Annabel attempted to follow him, but Jack grabbed her arm.\n\n\"I'm not letting anyone search this house,\" her husband growled.\n\n\"Jack, we have to cooperate with the police.\"\n\n\"Yeah, I think you've been cooperating a little too closely with that guy,\" he grumbled. \"I saw you out walking with him, taking a little romantic stroll through the woods.\"\n\n\"Jack!\" Annabel was nearly flabbergasted. \"You are talking crazy!\"\n\n\"I'm not letting him search this house. You said yourself that we needed to stand up against this reputation as being haunted and all that.\"\n\n\"Jack, this is no time to argue,\" Annabel said, hurrying up the basement stairs. In truth, she had become afraid of him, and didn't want to be in the basement alone with him.\n\nUpstairs, she found Neville sitting forlornly in the parlor. \"They're outside,\" he told Annabel, gesturing with his head toward the front door.\n\nShe stepped outside onto the porch. She could see Tammy sitting in the passenger's side of Chad's truck, her arms wrapped around herself. Richard was speaking with her intensely through the open door. Annabel headed toward them.\n\nChad stopped her halfway. \"Look,\" he said. \"Tammy's always been a bit hysterical. You know Roger Askew was her boyfriend.\"\n\nAnnabel was stunned. \"The guy whose hand was found in the wood box?\"\n\n\"Yeah. So she's easily spooked. She's had a hard time the past few years, and I was trying to help her out. But I wouldn't necessarily take what she says as gospel. I think she's clean now, but she used to do a lot of drugs. . . .\"\n\nAnnabel bristled. \"Just because someone once had an addiction shouldn't mean we discount their intelligence or reliability.\"\n\n\"No, no, of course not, I just meant\u2014\"\n\nAnnabel cut him off. \"What has she been saying?\"\n\n\"It's crazy talk, Annabel. She says she saw a little man in the basement\u2014like an elf\u2014eating a human arm.\"\n\nAnnabel couldn't speak for a moment. \"A . . . little man?\" she finally asked.\n\n\"Yeah. I think she was upset about something else, though.\" Chad looked over his shoulder, and then drew closer to her. \"You should know about this. She might be making a complaint. She claims your husband sexually harassed her earlier.\"\n\nThis was all too much for Annabel to take in. She felt light-headed, as if she might pass out.\n\n\"I'm sorry to have to tell you that,\" Chad said. \"But it's what Tammy is saying. And like I said, she can get hysterical at times.\"\n\n\"She's not hysterical,\" Annabel managed to say.\n\nRichard had left Tammy's side and was now approaching them. \"Take her home, Chad. She's very upset.\" The chief looked at Annabel. \"I'd like to get a team out here this afternoon to inspect that chimney,\" he told her.\n\nAnnabel glanced over at the front porch. Jack stood there, legs spread apart, arms crossed over his chest. He was scowling.\n\n\"I don't think he's going to let you,\" Annabel said sadly.\n\n\"Then I'll have to get a court order, and that could take a couple of days.\"\n\n\"I'll try talking to him,\" Annabel said, looking over at Jack, \"but he's . . . different.\"\n\n\"What do you mean?\"\n\n\"I'm not sure,\" she replied, as she headed back toward the house. \"I'm not sure of anything anymore.\"\n69\n\nNeville didn't think he should be listening to Annabel and Jack argue on the front porch. He stood up from the couch in the parlor and started to head up to his room, but then decided on a different destination.\n\nWhat had Tammy seen down in the basement?\n\nPerhaps he was being foolish to go back down there by himself. If there was some mad killer loose, the same one who'd cut off that bloke's hand and kidnapped and\/or killed Priscilla, Neville might run smack into him down in that dark, dusty space.\n\nBut he had to go down there. He had to find some answer to give Priscilla's parents.\n\nHer mum's voice still rang in Neville's ear. How upset she'd been when he'd finally called to give them the news of Priscilla's disappearance. She had blamed Neville, saying her poor darling daughter must have run off because of something he had said or done. It was the only way the distraught woman could make sense of the whole thing. Neville hadn't had many facts to give her to refute her theory. He was scheduled to return to England in a few days, and he didn't want to fly back over the pond without some understanding of what had happened to Priscilla.\n\nHe made his way down the stairs.\n\nHe saw nothing. What could possibly have spooked that poor girl so terribly? Neville tried to yank open the ash dump, but the padlock held firm. He hoped the police could get in there soon and inspect what was inside.\n\nHe was moving away from the chimney when he stepped on something on the floor. In the darkness he hadn't seen it. Evidently no one had.\n\nHe stepped down and scooped up the small object in his hand.\n\nIt was a ring.\n\nPriscilla's opal ring. The one she used to attract ghosts.\n\nHe slipped the ring into his pocket.\n\nGiven the tension between Annabel and Jack, he wasn't going to bring the ring to them. He didn't trust what might happen. Instead, he was going straight to the police station and give the ring to Chief Carlson.\n70\n\nRichard pulled up in front of Millie's store, turned off the ignition, and just sat there for a while. Such strangeness at the Blue Boy Inn. He had no idea what to make of it.\n\nIn his head, he was running through all those cold case files again. What was it about that place that had resulted in so many deaths and disappearances?\n\nThe first strange death had occurred more than a hundred years ago at the place. And they had kept coming. Richard had been especially repulsed by the story of poor old Andrew McGurk, whose body had been found up there decades ago, but not his head.\n\nAnd the most heartbreaking story was the little baby whose arm was found. The child's poor mother had been so distraught. That case, too, had remained unsolved for decades.\n\nRichard got out of the car and headed inside Millie's. The little bell over the door jingled.\n\n\"Well, if it isn't our hardest working public servant,\" Millie sang out from behind the counter. \"What can I do for you today, Richard?\"\n\n\"Just come to pick up some supper, Mil,\" he told her. \"It's going to be a late night at the station tonight.\"\n\nHe headed down the cereal aisle.\n\n\"Hey, chief,\" Millie called over to him. \"Do yourself a favor and at least buy some ground beef. Enough with the Cheerios.\"\n\n\"There's nowhere to grill a burger at the station, Millie,\" Richard said. \"I'll stick with my cereal and milk.\"\n\n\"How about some ham and cheese at least? I've got some nice hard rolls. . . .\"\n\n\"Too much trouble,\" Richard said, the box of Cheerios under his arm as he headed over to the coolers to fetch a half-liter of milk.\n\n\"You must have a microwave there,\" the clerk said. \"How about a nice Lean Cuisine? They've got some new ones. The salmon's pretty good. I've had it myself.\"\n\nRichard lifted the milk out of the freezer. \"Thanks, Millie, but my taste buds are in kind of a rut.\"\n\nShe shook her head. \"What you need is a good woman to cook for you.\"\n\nHe smiled as he set the milk and cereal down on the counter. \"Like I've said, you keep turning me down.\" He winked at her.\n\nMillie smirked as she rang up the items. \"How are things out at the Blue Boy?\"\n\nThe chief shrugged. \"Not sure. Lots of questions.\"\n\n\"What is it about that place?\" She accepted Richard's ten and gave him back his change. \"I've been here since I was fourteen, and that was a long time ago. And ever since, there's always been something weird up there.\"\n\n\"That's true, Millie. We're looking into it.\"\n\nShe placed the milk and box of Cheerios into a paper bag. \"I sure feel bad for that sweet girl who came all the way up here from New York to live at the place. Annabel. That was her name, right?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" Richard said. \"That's her name.\"\n\n\"What kind of husband doesn't tell his wife about the unsavory history of the place he's taking her to live?\"\n\n\"I don't know, Mil,\" Richard said, taking his dinner.\n\n\"I mean, that Jack Devlin had to remember how his poor little sister disappeared, and how his father went crazy. . . .\"\n\nRichard lifted an eyebrow. \"His father went crazy?\"\n\n\"Well, that was the rumor. He'd come up here, too, just like Jack is doing now, to take over the place after his father died. I remember he was a very nice man. But then he changed. Started acting all weird and secretive. Then, of course, when his wife died from breast cancer and his daughter disappeared\u2014well, people who saw him said he went completely off his rocker.\"\n\n\"That can happen, Millie,\" Richard said, \"when you lose someone you love.\"\n\nHe waved good-bye to her and headed back out to his car.\n\nDriving to the station, Richard didn't think there was anything unusual about Jack Devlin's father \"going crazy\" after his wife died.\n\nAfter all, Richard had almost gone crazy after Amy died.\n\nSo many specialists he'd sought out. So many second, third, fourth, and fifth opinions. And still Amy had died. Richard was a police officer, sworn to defend the public, to protect lives\u2014but he had been unable to find a way to save the woman he loved.\n\nFor a while after Amy's death, Richard had blamed himself. He had thought he might go mad. He understood exactly what Jack Devlin's father must have gone through.\n\nHow very much Richard still loved his dead wife. He still physically ached for her presence beside him in bed at night. He could still smell the fragrance of her hair on his pillow, could sense her energy in the rooms of his house\u2014even though Amy had never lived here in Woodfield with him. Even though she had been gone for so many years.\n\nCould he ever love another woman? Could he ever allow another woman in his life again?\n\nHis mind flickered to Annabel Wish.\n\nRichard couldn't deny that he'd been attracted to her. The first woman he'd felt that way toward in a very long time. She had looked so pretty, so vulnerable and yet so strong, too, standing there in the sunlight in the woods. Those were qualities Amy had had as well. Strength with vulnerability. Richard had found Annabel extremely attractive as he'd walked beside her, crunching through those fallen leaves. He had been filled, in fact, with the desire to kiss her. He had resisted the urge, of course.\n\nBut a momentary attraction to a woman did not mean he could love another woman. It did not mean he was ready to fall in love again. It only meant he was still alive, still a man, still with very natural desires. The chemistry, in other words, still worked.\n\nHe couldn't deny that he'd found Annabel Wish a very beautiful woman.\n\nHe thought of her up at that house. She was going to need his help, and Richard would be glad to offer it. That husband of hers was not to be trusted.\n\nRichard had been extremely frustrated by Tammy Morelli's refusal to bring harassment charges against Devlin. \"No, Richard, no,\" she'd kept repeating. \"I can't do that. Already half this town thinks I'm a slut. They'll blame me.\"\n\n\"That's crazy talk, Tammy,\" Richard had told her. \"You did nothing wrong! That man tried to take advantage of you. He shouldn't get away with it.\"\n\nBut Tammy had kept shaking her head. \"I just want to start living my life. I don't want anything dragging me down. Roger is gone and I'm starting new. Me and Jessica. I don't want any court cases or newspaper headlines. I just want to get on with things.\"\n\nHer eyes had narrowed as she had looked at Richard.\n\n\"And I don't want anything more to do with that place. The legends are true, Richard. After what I saw, I believe them!\"\n\nAnd what had Tammy seen?\n\nRichard pulled his car into the station lot. The reason any case Tammy might bring against Devlin might fail was because she also said some other things had happened at the Blue Boy. And if people questioned her about those things, they'd question her claims about Devlin as well.\n\nTammy had claimed she'd seen a little man eating a human arm.\n\nRichard had dutifully taken all the details down in his report. The little man, Tammy estimated, was no more than three feet tall, maybe less. He was slender, and had a bluish tint to his skin. Kind of like the blue boy on the sign out front. Richard understood the power of suggestion when under distress. Clearly, that was the explanation for Tammy's little blue man. She was upset and anxious after the harassment from Devlin and imagined she'd something horrifying. Richard thought psychologists called it \"counterprojection.\"\n\nStill, he worried about Annabel in that house.\n\nHe got out of the car and headed inside. He'd been right when he'd told Millie he had a long night ahead. He needed to get the ball moving on a search warrant. If he had to drive up to see the judge personally tonight, he'd do it. He needed to arrange a forensics team to check out that chimney. And he needed to finish going through all the cold case files relating to the Blue Boy Inn.\n\nThere was something very odd about that place, and Richard aimed to figure out what it was.\n\nHe was surprised to find the Blue Boy's English guest waiting for him when he reached his desk.\n\n\"Chief,\" Neville said, \"I have something very important to tell you. And show you.\"\n\nHe opened his hand to reveal an opal ring.\n71\n\n\"Maybe I'm crazy to be going out with you to the tile store, as if everything back home is all peachy keen,\" Annabel told Chad, sitting beside him in his truck as they rattled north on Route 7. \"But after yesterday, I just had to get out of that house.\"\n\n\"I don't blame you,\" Chad said, looking over at her. \"A little time away will do you a world of good.\"\n\nShe smiled over at him.\n\n\"Seriously,\" Chad continued. \"Think to the future. Someday this crap will all be over. They will have caught the guy who killed Roger and maybe killed Paulie and Priscilla, and you can go back to making the Blue Boy a first-class destination.\"\n\nThat was what she needed to do, Annabel thought, watching from the window as the countryside flew past her. She needed to focus on the renovation. She needed to throw herself into it\u2014transforming that house from its gruesome past to something new, something she could call her own. She had to think ahead, and not dwell in the past, or wallow in her delusions.\n\nAnnabel ran the risk of decompensating again. She couldn't let that happen. During her time in rehab, she had been told over and over again how important it was to stay strong in her mind. She had a tendency to retreat when things became difficult. It was sort of like the way some people curled into the fetal position to take shelter from the hard realities of the world. Annabel called it her \"black hole.\" She'd sink down into it and her mind would go berserk. She'd imagine things. She'd hallucinate. She'd fall into a world that wasn't real, that existed only in her mind. She'd believe nothing was safe.\n\nShe supposed it had started all those years ago when she was a little girl, locked in the closet by Daddy Ron. The young Annabel would fall down into a rabbit's hole of illusion, imagining Tommy Tricky and all the terrible things he would do to her. This had been her tendency ever since, when she became afraid or anxious. She'd withdraw, decompensate\u2014tumble down into her black hole where nothing made sense.\n\nBut she could no longer allow that to happen in her life.\n\nDespite what Tammy Morelli claimed to have seen, Tommy Tricky did not live at the Blue Boy Inn. Annabel had to believe that. Tommy Tricky was a childhood fantasy, told to her by Daddy Ron to frighten her. Tammy had been frightened by Jack, and then she had hallucinated, much as Annabel had done herself. To believe anything else, Annabel was convinced, would have been to admit madness.\n\nAnd she was not going to do that.\n\nLast night, Jack had been conciliatory. He'd taken Annabel in his arms and kissed her tenderly, explaining how much he, too, wanted to start over, to make the Blue Boy theirs, to free it from its lurid past. That was why he was so resistant to the police searching the place. Annabel was cool and reserved, remembering what Chad had told her about Tammy. Once again, she chose not to confront Jack. She planned to do so\u2014she wasn't going to just let this slip by\u2014but not just yet. Annabel wasn't sure she could trust her husband anymore. In fact, she'd become a little bit afraid of him. She worried that Jack would blow up at her, or try to control what she did, and if Annabel had learned anything during her time in rehab, it was how to stay safe. Nothing was more important than that. So until she felt safe with Jack again, she was not going to bring anything up with him that might set him off.\n\nOf course, things couldn't stay this way. This was no kind of marriage. Annabel knew she and Jack were at a breaking point. Either they got through this, or they didn't. Not for much longer would she live with Jack's volatility, or stand for his continued flirtation\u2014and maybe more than that\u2014with other women. She would see how the next few weeks went. If things only got worse\u2014if Jack remained hostile to a police investigation, for example, or if he continued to seem angry and distant\u2014Annabel would suggest they needed some time apart. She had no family other than Jack, so she had no idea where she'd go. But surely there must be some old friend in New York who would take her in. Or, if necessary, she'd go deeper into debt and stay at a hotel. If she needed to get out of here, she'd find a way.\n\nBut Annabel wasn't running just yet. For the moment, she would stay on course. One of the other things she'd learned in rehab was to resist the urge to flee. She learned that she was strong enough to face anything. So she would persevere for the next few weeks, keeping her mind clear, resisting the hallucinations, rejecting the fear. She would resist feelings of paranoia. She was safe here. Safe!\n\nAnd so she would push on with the renovation, the plan to make the house her own. She had no other choice. Otherwise, she might decompensate again and wind up nearly catatonic, as had happened yesterday morning. Annabel would not go down that road again.\n\n\"Kind of lost in thought over there, aren't you?\" Chad asked, interrupting her reverie.\n\n\"Oh, I'm sorry,\" Annabel said.\n\n\"No need.\" He smiled over at her, revealing dimples in his cheeks. \"I know you've got a lot on your mind.\"\n\n\"Well, maybe it's time I put some of it out of my mind.\" She returned his smile. \"So, tell me, Chad. Do you plan someday on taking over your father's business?\"\n\n\"That's the goal. My brothers aren't into it. But for me, I've loved remodeling houses ever since I built a loft in my bedroom when I was nine.\"\n\n\"Nine!\"\n\nChad nodded, his eyes on the road ahead of him. \"I've always been good with my hands.\"\n\nAnnabel laughed. \"I'm sure your girlfriend appreciates that.\"\n\nChad looked over at her and smirked. \"Annabel, was that a double entendre?\"\n\nShe blushed suddenly. \"I guess it did sound that way. But not what I meant. I just meant a woman likes to have a handyman around the house.\"\n\n\"Still sounds dirty,\" Chad said, laughing. \"But the point is moot. I don't have a girlfriend. Not anymore.\"\n\n\"What happened?\"\n\n\"Not really sure. I was dating this girl Claire ever since junior year of high school. I guess she just got tired of waiting for me to marry her, and she gave me the old heave-ho a few months ago.\"\n\n\"Oh, I'm sorry.'\n\n\"It's okay, really. If I'd have really been in love with her, like she said, I would have asked her to marry me a long time before that.\"\n\nAnnabel frowned. \"Well, did she ever ask you to marry her?\"\n\n\"Oh, plenty of times.\" Chad switched on his turn signal. \"I'm just not the marrying type, I guess.\"\n\nThey headed off the highway.\n\n\"That's okay,\" Annabel said, looking off into the miles of bare, shivering trees on the side of the road. \"Marriage isn't for everybody.\"\n\nChad looked over at her. \"Is it for you?\" he asked, and then quickly added, \"I'm sorry. That was too personal.\"\n\n\"No, it's okay,\" she said. \"To be honest, I'm not sure.\"\n\nThey were silent after that.\n\n\"Here we are,\" Chad announced a short time later, steering the truck into the lot outside a shop called BERKSHIRE TILE & PAINT. \"Let's go in and let our imaginations run wild, shall we?\"\n\nAnnabel smiled.\n\nBut as she headed into the shop, her own imagination was already racing far ahead of either of them. It was something Neville had said to her, late last night.\n\n\"I suspect this will all be cleared up in the next few days,\" he'd whispered, out of earshot from Jack, after he came back into the house from some trip into town.\n\nAnnabel had asked him what he meant, but he'd just smiled enigmatically, his finger to his lip.\n\nWhat had he meant? He'd appeared so certain. He'd still been asleep when Annabel left with Chad this morning, so there had been no chance to question him further.\n\nBut Annabel prayed he was right. All be cleared up in the next few days.\n\nPassing through the lot, Annabel noticed a few tiny snowflakes swirling through the air.\n\n\"We're supposed to get a big storm tonight,\" Chad said, sticking out his tongue to collect some of the flakes. \"Guess these are the first arrivals.\"\n\nLaughing, they made their way inside the well-lit shop. With music playing and cash registers jangling, people laughing and cell phones ringing, Annabel felt her anxieties evaporate. She was comforted that, at least for the moment, she was back in the real world, far away from the dark warrens of the Blue Boy Inn.\n72\n\n\"I told you,\" Jack Devlin growled, standing at the front door of the inn, blocking their way, \"I won't have you tramping through this place, making us any more notorious around town than we already are.\"\n\nRichard Carlson had anticipated this. Calmly, he reached into his jacket pocket and withdrew the court order that he'd just gotten from the judge. After Neville had paid him a visit last night, revealing the ring he'd found on the basement floor\u2014the ring Priscilla Morton never, ever removed from her finger\u2014Richard had made a special request of the judge to issue an immediate warrant for a search of the Blue Boy Inn. He had picked it up this morning, and showed it now to Jack Devlin.\n\n\"You'll see that this is a court order signed by a judge,\" he told Devlin.\n\nThe man's face darkened as he read the document. Behind Richard, Adam Burrell and two other deputies stood ready as backup, in case Devlin resisted. They would arrest him if they needed to.\n\nJack's dark eyes lifted from the paper to meet Richard's.\n\n\"Well, then,\" he said, his voice even. \"I guess I'll have to let you come in then.\"\n\n\"Thank you for being reasonable, Mr. Devlin,\" Richard told him.\n\nJack stepped aside to allow the officers to enter the house.\n\n\"You two start in the attic,\" Richard directed two of his deputies, \"while Adam and I will start in the cellar.\"\n\nThe chief looked around to see that the old caretaker, Zeke, had come into the parlor. Richard did not miss the look he exchanged with Devlin.\n\n\"Do you have the bolt cutters?\" Richard asked Adam.\n\n\"That I do,\" the deputy replied, producing them from his pocket.\n\nRichard nodded. With a flashlight showing the way ahead of him, he started down the basement stairs.\n\nThe padlock was easily dispatched with the bolt cutters. It fell to the earthen floor with a thud.\n\nRichard opened the old iron door of the ash dump. It creaked in the stillness of the basement. Pointing the beam of the flashlight through the door, he looked inside.\n\n\"This thing has been recently cleaned,\" he said.\n\n\"How can you tell?\" Adam asked.\n\n\"I can see the marks of whatever sort of brush that was used,\" the chief said, snapping photographs of the interior of the chimney. \"Wind and condensation would have dissolved them after a few days. But now they're plain as day. This was just cleaned this morning, in my opinion.\"\n\nHe brought the light closer to the floor of the ash dump.\n\n\"But there's still some residue that doesn't look like soot,\" he pointed out. \"You see?\"\n\nAdam peered inside and nodded. \"It's a different color,\" he offered.\n\n\"That it is.\" Richard swung the beam of the flashlight out of the ash dump. \"When forensics gets here, make sure they take a sample of that stuff.\"\n\n\"Will do, chief.\"\n\nRichard made his way around the rest of the basement. He saw nothing. He was hoping to find something else besides the ring that had belonged to one of the two missing persons. But there was nothing in the basement other than an old chest, which, when Richard opened it, turned out to be completely empty.\n\nHe hoped his deputies in the attic were having more luck.\n73\n\nNeville was steaming mad. He stomped down the stairs behind the two officers who had let him out of his room\u2014rescued him, in his opinion! He was bursting to give someone a piece of his mind\u2014and he expected it would be Jack Devlin.\n\nBut in the parlor he found the Blue Boy's owner speaking with Police Chief Carlson. Well, that was convenient!\n\n\"I want to report an assault!\" Neville shouted, rushing into the room and interrupting the two men's conversation.\n\nThe chief turned to look at him. Neville noticed the cagey expression that crossed Jack's face.\n\n\"An assault?\" the chief asked.\n\n\"Yes, indeed,\" Neville replied. \"I consider it an assault to be locked in one's room, unable to get out! What if there had been a fire?\"\n\n\"You were locked in your room?\" the chief inquired, looking from Neville back over at Jack.\n\nNeville nodded. \"That I was! I have been trying to get out for the past two hours, banging on the door and calling, but no one came to my assistance until these two officers here.\"\n\n\"We heard him calling on our way back down from the attic,\" one of the two deputies told Carlson.\n\nJack's face turned compassionate. \"Oh, Neville, I'm sorry to hear this. Zeke and I were shoveling snow off the walk and must not have heard you. Annabel is up in Great Barrington with the contractor, so none of us were here to respond. I'm so sorry.\"\n\n\"There was a key in the lock outside the room!\" Neville shrilled. \"I was deliberately locked in there!\"\n\n\"No one here would do such a thing,\" Jack assured him.\n\nNeville swung his eyes to Chief Carlson. \"He's lying!\"\n\nThe chief said nothing, just studied both men.\n\n\"Look, Neville,\" Jack said, trying to sound reasonable, \"you must have left your key in the lock last night. The doors are old. Sometimes if you don't remove the key, the door will lock again when it's closed.\"\n\n\"That's not true, chief,\" Neville said. \"Someone came into my room while I was sleeping, found the key, and then locked me in there!\"\n\n\"For what purpose would someone have done this?\" Carlson asked.\n\n\"I don't know,\" Neville admitted. He looked over at Jack. \"To be free to hide evidence, perhaps? Or look for it?\" He opened his fist, which until now had been tightly clenched at his side. \"Were you looking for this, Jack?\" Neville asked, revealing Priscilla's ring.\n\n\"I don't know what that is,\" Jack said calmly.\n\n\"The night before Priscilla disappeared,\" Neville told the chief, \"Jack was putting the moves on her. He was very aggressively getting her drunk. I don't know what happened, because I was too drunk myself.\"\n\nThe chief's eyebrows lifted. \"How come you didn't tell us this before?\"\n\nNeville frowned. \"I didn't think it had any relevance. But mostly because I didn't want to offend Annabel, who has been very kind to me.\"\n\nJack was smiling. \"We all had a little too much to drink. I told you that, chief. But I was certainly not putting the moves on Priscilla, as Neville says. I think he might just be a little jealous because Priscilla clearly was coming on to me.\"\n\nNeville saw the way the chief looked at Jack, the deep suspicion in his eyes. \"Just like Tammy Morelli was putting the moves on you, too?\" He smirked. \"Seems every woman who comes into this house gets the Jack Devlin treatment.\"\n\n\"I don't think that's fair, chief,\" Jack told him, looking wounded.\n\n\"Look,\" Carlson said, turning his attention back to Neville. \"You may well have locked yourself in by mistake. There's no way to prove otherwise. I'd just suggest you pack your things and leave. But before you do, I'd like you to come down to the station and give us an amended statement. Tell us everything you left out the first time.\"\n\n\"Gladly,\" Neville sniffed. \"I leave tomorrow for England, but I think I'll head down to Hartford this afternoon and stay at a hotel outside the airport tonight.\"\n\n\"If flights are taking off,\" the chief commented, and they all looked up at the window. The snow was coming down heavier now. \"We're supposed to be getting a nor'easter tonight.\"\n\n\"Well,\" Neville said, \"I'd rather brave snowy roads than spend another night in this place.\"\n\nHe turned and headed back up the stairs. He could feel Jack's eyes on the back on his head until he was out of sight.\n74\n\n\"Surely, you don't think I'd lock him in his room, do you?\" Jack asked Richard once Neville was gone.\n\n\"I don't know what to think,\" Richard replied. \"All I know is . . .\"\n\nHe was distracted by the sound of people coming through the front door.\n\n\"The forensics team is here,\" Adam announced.\n\n\"What's that for?\" Jack asked, his eyes narrowing as he watched Adam direct the two women and one man down the basement stairs.\n\n\"Just taking some samples,\" Richard told him. \"I'm sure you want to find out what happened to Priscilla and Paulie as much as anyone, don't you, Mr. Devlin?\"\n\nThe man's eyes darkened. \"Did you find any sign of them at all? Your men have been crawling all over this place from top to bottom for the last hour.\"\n\n\"Not yet,\" Richard admitted. \"But we'll keep looking.\"\n\nIn his mind, he cursed the snow. It could obscure or obliterate any clues outside. Thankfully, they'd already searched most of the surroundings.\n\n\"How much longer will you be here?\" Jack asked. \"Not that I'm trying to hurry you. I want to be completely cooperative.\" He smiled insincerely. \"I'm just curious.\"\n\n\"We'll be out of here in a few minutes, I'd think,\" Richard told him. \"Just long enough for the team downstairs to scrape a little gunk out of the ash dump.\" He smiled. \"But the court order allows us to return if need be.\"\n\n\"I ought to just give you a key to the front door,\" Jack said, smirking.\n\n\"No, we're happy to knock,\" Richard assured him.\n\nOne of the two deputies who had searched the attic came up behind the chief. \"We did find one thing that we can't account for,\" he said.\n\n\"What was that?\" Richard asked.\n\nThe deputy held up a plastic Baggie. Inside was a tampon. Used, slightly pink.\n\n\"The old man says he sleeps up there from time to time,\" the deputy explained. \"But I doubt this is his.\"\n\nRichard turned to Jack. \"Any ideas?\"\n\nJack sneered. \"Well, it certainly isn't mine, either.\"\n\n\"Have it analyzed,\" Richard told the deputy. \"See if it matches the DNA we took from Priscilla's hairbrush.\"\n\n\"Maybe it's my wife's,\" Jack offered helpfully, though the insincerity was still evident in his voice. \"It looks a little too fresh to have been my grandmother's.\"\n\n\"When is your wife back?\" Richard asked.\n\n\"Who knows, with this storm?\"\n\nThe two men locked eyes for several seconds.\n\n\"Okay, chief,\" Adam said. \"Forensics got what you wanted.\"\n\n\"All right, then,\" Richard said, nodding in Jack's direction. \"We'll leave you alone for now, Mr. Devlin.\"\n\n\"Be careful on those roads,\" Jack said, walking with the officers to the door, doing little to disguise his contempt for them. \"Looks like it's getting slippery out there.\"\n75\n\nFor the past hour, Annabel had managed the impossible. She had forgotten all about the nightmares back at the inn. Just as she used to do when she was working in New York\u2014on a magazine photo shoot, maybe, or organizing a fashion show\u2014she had focused in, laserlike, on the task at hand. Looking at tiles, comparing paint colors, she allowed herself to shift into creative mode. In her mind, she could see the parlor designed as a sleek, contemporary room, with lots of glass and exposed brick and mirrors on the walls. The kitchen would sparkle with new appliances and the bedrooms would be painted throughout with a soft, comforting blue. The bathrooms would be lined with brilliant Italian tiles.\n\n\"I'm really into bringing out the brick,\" Annabel said, looking at a sandblaster. \"If we offset the brick with some glass and metal . . .\"\n\n\"Sounds good to me,\" Chad agreed. \"Maybe even knock some of the brick out and replace it with glass blocks to bring the light through.\"\n\n\"Oh, excellent idea!\" Annabel beamed. \"This place will make Architectural Digest. I know people there.\"\n\n\"Here are some of the paint samples you requested,\" said a stocky clerk with thick glasses, worn low on his nose.\n\n\"I like the blue,\" Annabel said, examining them, \"but the yellow is a bit too bright. Can you subtle that a little more?\"\n\n\"Sure thing,\" the clerk said, returning to his paint mixer.\n\n\"This is so much fun,\" Annabel gushed to Chad.\n\n\"It's nice to see you smile,\" the contractor told her.\n\nAnnabel felt herself blush. Chad was awfully sweet, and cute, too. \"Well,\" she said, \"I must admit it feels good to smile.\"\n\nAt that moment, her phone buzzed in her purse.\n\nIt had been so long since her phone had worked\u2014the cell reception at the Blue Boy was the next problem they needed to address\u2014that she almost didn't recognize the sound. She dug the phone out from among the lipsticks and tissue and tampons in her purse. The number was that of the inn. It had to be Jack. Oh, God, what was he going to say?\n\n\"Hello?\" Annabel said into the phone, walking over to a quiet corner of the store.\n\n\"Annabel. It's Neville.\"\n\nHe was whispering.\n\n\"Neville. Is there anything wrong?\"\n\n\"I had to call you from the house phone because my mobile doesn't work here.\" He sounded anxious. \"I don't want anyone to hear me.\"\n\n\"What's wrong?\"\n\n\"I wanted to let you know I'll be gone by the time you get back. Someone locked me in my room this morning. I expect it was Zeke, on Jack's orders.\"\n\n\"Why would they do that?\"\n\n\"Because they were cleaning the house of evidence. I'm sure of it. Chief Carlson was here, searching the place.\"\n\nAnnabel was stunned. \"So he got a warrant?\"\n\n\"Yes. And he found nothing. That's why I expect Jack and Zeke cleaned things up.\"\n\n\"The ash dump?\"\n\n\"They opened it, and it was as dry as a whistle.\"\n\n\"None of that wet soot?\" Annabel asked.\n\n\"Nope. Though they did scrape out something from the bottom for analysis, but it wasn't very much.\" Annabel could hear Neville shudder at the other end of the line. \"I've never been happier to leave a place, no offense to you.\"\n\n\"None taken.\"\n\n\"I'm leaving now, heading down to Hartford before the snow gets too bad. Even if my flight's canceled tomorrow and I'm stranded at Bradley Airport overnight, it'll be better than spending another night here.\"\n\n\"I understand.\"\n\nNeville sighed. \"I'm supposed to fly to New York to catch a connecting flight to London. Pray that I make the connection. I'll be in touch, Annabel. I may have to return to testify if they find whoever took Priscilla.\"\n\n\"So you spoke with the chief?\"\n\n\"I'm heading there now to give him a final statement before I head out.\"\n\n\"Oh, Neville . . .\" Annabel thought she might cry.\n\n\"Thank you for your kindness, my dear,\" he said, \"and good luck with everything.\"\n\n\"Yes, Neville, good luck to you, too.\"\n\n\"If you don't mind me saying so,\" the Englishman said, \"I think there's something very sinister going on in this house. Take care of yourself.\"\n\n\"I will, Neville.\"\n\n\"Good-bye.\"\n\n\"Good-bye.\"\n\nAnnabel clicked END on her phone. She suddenly felt endlessly sad.\n\n\"Everything okay?\"\n\nShe looked up. Chad had approached her.\n\n\"I don't know,\" she said. \"Neville just called to say good-bye. He's leaving. But he told me the police had been by with a warrant and searched the place.\"\n\n\"Did they find anything?\"\n\n\"Apparently not,\" Annabel replied. \"But who knows? They took a sample from the ash dump. Otherwise it was clean.\"\n\n\"That's odd,\" said Chad. \"Hard to imagine that thing being very clean after all the chomping I heard in there. Raccoons aren't the neatest eaters.\"\n\n\"It was clean,\" Annabel said, her mind suddenly very far away.\n\n\"Look,\" Chad said. \"The snow is getting heavier. I've put everything on order. We should head back.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" Annabel agreed. \"We should.\"\n\nThe happiness she'd felt just a few moments earlier had now completely evaporated. The idea of going back to that place depressed her thoroughly.\n\nI've got to hold on, she told herself. I can't allow myself to fall down into a black hole again. I have to stay clearheaded. Strong. Resist my tendency to hallucinate and catastrophize. I have to keep my head, not lose it.\n\nBut Neville's words kept echoing in her mind.\n\nI think there's something very sinister going on in this house.\n\nAnnabel followed Chad out to his truck.\n76\n\nNeville hung up the phone. Glancing around to make sure that neither Jack nor Zeke was around, he hurried from the kitchen.\n\nIn the foyer, his bag was packed and waiting by the door. A hush had settled over the house. Outside, giant snowflakes were floating down from the gray sky, blanketing everything in white. Neville realized he was going to have to brush off his car. He wished he had brought gloves.\n\n\"I'm not packing any gloves,\" he'd announced to Priscilla with a smirk, as they'd left their flat for Heathrow\u2014which now seemed an eternity ago. \"I am packing as if we are not making any ridiculous ghost-hunting side trips and going straight to Florida.\"\n\nFlorida. Neville had always wanted to go there. He'd been looking so very much forward to those sandy beaches, that warm water, that cool margarita in his hand. Maybe another time, Neville consoled himself with a sigh.\n\n\"Neville.\"\n\nHis name came from the parlor in a whisper. He didn't recognize the voice. But it might have been Jack or Zeke, speaking very softly.\n\n\"Neville,\" the whisper came again.\n\nHe stepped around the corner and peeked into the room. He saw no one. The house seemed so quiet, as if every sound ceased. No hum from the electricity, no ticking of any clock, no wind from the eaves.\n\n\"Hello?\" Neville called.\n\nHe walked into the parlor and paused in front of the fireplace. Had he imagined what he'd heard? No, that hadn't been his imagination. He had heard someone whisper his name. Twice. And the only people in the house were Jack and Zeke.\n\n\"Neville.\"\n\nHe spun around. \"Who is there?\"\n\nSuddenly, Neville felt afraid. There was a killer loose, after all. Someone who had chopped off a man's hand, and who had surely killed Priscilla as well, if her ring was any indication. Was it the killer who called to Neville now?\n\nHe bolted for the door, planning to grab his suitcase and his coat and hurry off into the snowstorm outside.\n\nHe was almost to the door when he tripped. Just what he tripped over, he wasn't sure. But he went toppling over face-first to the floor.\n\nHe braced his fall with his elbows and forearms. The pain shot up through his shoulders. He might have broken something.\n\nBut he didn't have time to check. He looked around and saw what had caused him to fall.\n\nA little man, no more than three feet tall, with a little blue face wearing rags for clothes.\n\n\"Can I get him?\" the little man asked in a soft, whispery voice.\n\n\"Yes, you can get him,\" came another voice, and before the startled Neville could react, another little man, looking nearly identical, came hurrying around the corner. And then another little man appeared, and another and another, until five of the loathsome creatures had piled on top of Neville, grabbing at the back of his shirt and up and down his arms with their very sharp hands.\n\n\"Get off me!\" Neville managed to shout, trying to shake them off.\n\nBut the little men were incredibly strong. They kept him from standing by clamping their clawlike fingers into his calves, ripping through his pants and puncturing his skin. Neville screamed.\n\n\"Help me!\" he shouted, hoping that Jack or Zeke would hear. \"Help me!\"\n\nThe little men began pulling him across the floor. As much as Neville tried to fight them, he found he was powerless to escape their clutches. Three of them were at his feet, clawing and biting his calves and shins. The two others were positioned at each shoulder, grabbing ahold painfully and dragging him back into the parlor.\n\nThis can't be happening! This can't be real!\n\nNeville could see the creatures on either side of him. They were laughing, thoroughly enjoying their task.\n\nTwisting from side to side, still unable to break free of them, Neville looked up ahead. What he saw was even more unbelievable.\n\nTwo more of the creatures had popped their heads up from the ash dump panel at the bottom of the fireplace. They were waving their sharp little fingers\u2014they looked like squirrel claws\u2014motioning to their comrades to bring Neville closer.\n\n\"Nooo!\" Neville screamed.\n\nBut he couldn't fight back. All he could manage to do was writhe from side to side. The creatures seemed to have complete power over him. Neville began to whimper.\n\nThis was how he would die, he realized.\n\nThe little men thrust his head into the fireplace. The creatures waiting inside the ash dump suddenly clamped their claws into his neck and Neville shrieked out in pain. The others behind him were pushing his butt and legs now. With one final thrust, Neville's head and shoulders were crammed down through the trapdoor into the chimney.\n\nThis is what happened to the others! This was how they died!\n\nThe creatures behind him kept pushing and shoving, while the creatures ahead of him kept pulling him down. Neville's body was now wedged halfway down the chimney.\n\nThat's one really wide chimney, Chad had said. You could fit a body in there, sure.\n\nNeville felt his feet pass through the opening in the fireplace and he fell about a foot, becoming lodged in the darkness of the chimney.\n\nBelow him came the sound of gnashing teeth.\n\nI doubt it's squirrels and mice they're eating, Neville had told Chad.\n\nHe was about to learn just how right he was.\n77\n\nThe scream from inside the chimney echoed through the house. Suddenly it was cut short, and Zeke knew the man was dead.\n\nThe old caretaker stood in the parlor, staring at the fireplace. He was crying.\n\n\"How many more?\" he asked the quiet house. \"How long will this go on?\"\n\nNo answer came, of course. There had never been an answer, for as long as he had lived at the Blue Boy Inn.\n\nDamn that woman for opening up the fireplace. They had had it contained. They had had it under control.\n\nHe wiped his tears with the back of his hand. He knew what he needed to do.\n\nHe grabbed Neville's suitcase and headed outside. He'd hide the dead man's car in the woods. The police would think that he'd left for the airport in the midst of this blizzard in order to try to make it home.\n\nBut Zeke neglected to take Neville's coat. It remained hanging there on the hook.\n78\n\nChad drove his truck back toward Woodfield, Annabel seated beside him. The snow was still light, but it was starting to stick to the roads. The state trucks were already out, spraying salt and sand from side to side.\n\n\"Could be a nor'easter,\" Chad said. \"You're in for quite the experience, if the storm turns out to be as big as they're predicting it might be.\"\n\nAnnabel visibly shivered. \"I've been worrying about being snowbound at the inn ever since we decided to move up here.\"\n\nChad smiled over at her. \"But you've had big snowstorms in the city, too. I remember reading about that big one a few years ago where days later they found people in cars that had been piled over by snowplows.\"\n\n\"Oh, sure,\" Annabel told him. \"But you see, in New York, you have other people in your building. You can go next door, talk to someone. You're not isolated. You can go down to the sidewalk and you can crunch through the snow to a market that's managed to open. Even in the worst storms, some enterprising shopkeeper always manages to open his doors.\"\n\nChad sighed. \"Okay, I hear you. That's certainly not the case here. In Woodfield\u2014in a lot of western Mass, in fact\u2014things just shut down during a nor'easter. Power can go out and stay out for a week.\"\n\nAnnabel groaned. \"Oh, great.\"\n\n\"You ought to maybe think about getting a generator as part of your renovations,\" Chad suggested.\n\n\"Yes. That's a good idea. A very good idea.\"\n\nThey were quiet for a few moments as they drove.\n\n\"You know, Annabel,\" Chad said, breaking the silence, \"whatever's going down back at the inn, if you need my help . . .\"\n\nShe looked away, out the window. \"Of course, I need your help, Chad. I can't rewire electricity and knock down walls myself.\"\n\n\"No, what I mean is . . .\" Chad struggled to find the words. \"With everything that's happened, you know, with the police being there and conducting a search, well, if I can do anything . . .\"\n\nAnnabel turned back and looked at him. She offered him a small smile.\n\n\"Thank you, Chad,\" she said softly.\n\nHe liked her. He found himself really liking her a lot. Chad had never been attracted to a married woman before. He wasn't quite sure what to do with his feelings. Since the breakup with Claire, he hadn't had much interest in dating. He hadn't had much interest in women, period. A really gorgeous woman could walk right by him and Chad would barely notice. He remembered not so long ago, Paulie\u2014poor old Paulie\u2014looking at him as if he were crazy. Chad had been reading the newspaper, oblivious to anything around him. \"Dude,\" Paulie had said. \"That was a major babe who just passed by and you couldn't even pull your nose away from the Patriots' score long enough to notice.\"\n\nBut he sure noticed Annabel.\n\nShe was hot, no doubt about that. Her shiny auburn hair, her tiny waist, her perfect figure. And she was married to a major-league asshole, if Tammy's story was true\u2014and Chad believed it was. What if Jack Devlin had something to do with Paulie's disappearance, and the disappearance of that English lady? Annabel could be in real trouble in that house.\n\n\"Listen,\" Chad said, as he switched on the blinker to take the exit toward Woodfield, \"I'm serious. You have no idea what you're dealing with up at that old house. Too much weird shit has gone down there over the years. I'd like to be around to take care of you if\u2014\"\n\n\"You are very sweet,\" Annabel said, cutting him off, \"and more than chivalric. I appreciate your offer, Chad. I really do.\" She looked away again, back out the window. \"But I think I've got to learn how to take care of myself.\"\n\n\"Well, sure, but if things get rough . . .\"\n\nHe could see that she was smiling, though she didn't look back at him.\n\n\"Oh,\" Annabel said, \"things have been rough for a while. Jack said they'd get easier here, but they haven't. I'm not surprised.\" Finally, she looked back at him, giving him a smile and a flash of her pretty eyes. \"So I'm used to things being rough.\"\n\n\"As rough as all this?\" Chad asked, as the truck rattled onto the main road leading into Woodfield. \"A dead man's hand being found on your property? Two people going missing from your house? The cops searching the place? Can you handle all that?\"\n\nAnnabel's smiled faded and she looked away again. \"We shall see,\" she said softly. \"We shall see.\"\n79\n\nFrom his desk, Richard could hear the special weather bulletin on the television warning of an impending major winter storm. \"Snowfalls possible of up to four to five feet,\" the woman in the bright pink jacket was saying, doing her best to look suitably concerned.\n\nRichard was worried, but not about snow. He turned another page in the collection of cold case files on his desk. His predecessor as chief of police, Thad Arnette, had been on the job when Jack Devlin's father had \"gone mad,\" as Millie described it. Arnette had left a fascinating note about the episode.\n\nI questioned Devlin at length, both about his wife and his daughter, because some things just did not add up. Investigating the little Devlin girl's disappearance, we discovered the mother had also recently died, reportedly of breast cancer. But no death certificate could be located for her, and no hospital in the state had records of her being a patient. Devlin explained this by saying that there was a paperwork mix-up and that the death certificate would be issued shortly. He seemed very uneasy, easily distracted, and sometimes did not make complete sense. We need to follow up with him, and see when that death certificate is filed.\n\nRichard ran his hand across his short-cropped hair. Arnette suspected Devlin's father of something, he realized. Perhaps some complicity in, or knowledge of his wife's death and daughter's disappearance.\n\nBut soon after that note came another.\n\nDevlin has left town, returning to New York with his son. Have not received death certificate for Mrs. Devlin.\n\nAnd then that was it. Most likely, other cases took precedence and after a while, with Devlin gone, Arnette forgot about him. Out of sight, out of mind. Not the best way to run a police department, Richard acknowledged, but it happened. The questions Arnette had about the death of Mrs. Devlin and the disappearance of the little girl\u2014Cindy, her name was\u2014were filed away among the rest of the cold case files.\n\nWhat had happened to Jack Devlin's mother if she didn't die of cancer?\n\nRichard buzzed for his secretary. \"Betty,\" he said, \"could you come here in a moment?\"\n\nShe was promptly bustling through the door. Betty was a good scout. Utterly devoted to the department. She'd been there twenty-one years. She'd started right out of high school as a file clerk, working her way up to secretary to the chief. She was thirty-nine years old, a little plump, with short bronze-colored hair. She was always smiling, or smirking.\n\n\"You rang, master?\" she quipped.\n\n\"Betty, tell me what you remember about Jack Devlin's parents.\"\n\nShe was biting the end of a pencil. \"The parents? Didn't really know them. They weren't here very long. The grandparents, of course, were here for decades. . . .\"\n\n\"Yes, but do you remember when his parents came to Woodfield? His father was going to take over the inn, I believe, just as Jack is doing now.\"\n\nBetty was nodding. \"Yes, that's right. I do remember when they came, but they were gone in a flash, it seemed, right after the little girl got eaten by a bear.\"\n\n\"That was never proven.\"\n\n\"It wasn't?\"\n\nRichard shook his head. \"No, it wasn't. Do you remember that the mother died of breast cancer?\"\n\n\"Oh, that's right, I do remember that. Poor thing. I saw her at the market a few times. Seemed very pretty, full of life. Then all of a sudden she was gone.\"\n\nRichard pursed his lips. \"So,\" he said, \"she didn't ever appear sickly?\"\n\n\"No. I remember being real surprised hearing that she'd died, especially of cancer. It surprised everyone. One day, she was just gone.\"\n\nRichard sat back in his chair. \"According to the official story, she was taken to a hospital and died there.\"\n\nBetty grinned. \"And you don't believe it.\"\n\n\"I'm just questioning it.\"\n\n\"What does that have to do with what's happening at the Blue Boy today?\"\n\nRichard shrugged. \"Maybe nothing. I'm just trying to get a history of everything that's gone down there. It's had more than its share of tragedy and mystery.\"\n\n\"That's for sure. You know who would know a lot about the Blue Boy?\"\n\n\"No, who?\"\n\n\"Agnes Daley. She's at the library. She's the town historian, but really she's the town gossip. Knows everything about everyone.\" Betty shuddered. \"Probably knows a few secrets of mine, too. I wouldn't get on Agnes's bad side.\"\n\n\"How long has she lived in town?\"\n\n\"All her life. And she's got to be seventy-five, at least. She can take you way back.\"\n\n\"Thanks,\" Richard said. \"I think I'll give her a call.\"\n\n\"I'll get you the number for the library,\" Betty told him.\n\nWithin a few minutes, Richard was punching in buttons for the Woodfield Public Library. As the line rang, the chief's eyes glanced off toward the window. The snow was coming down lightly, little spirals of white. He hoped the accumulation wouldn't be too heavy. That always meant a nightmare for police work, with people snowed in on their streets, businesses unable to open, and fender benders all over town.\n\n\"Public library, Agnes Daley,\" a raspy, efficient voice suddenly announced.\n\nRichard introduced himself.\n\n\"Chief Carlson!\" the town historian exclaimed. \"It's not every day that the chief of police calls me. What can I do for you?\" Her ragged voice bore the unmistakable sound of someone who had smoked cigarettes all her life.\n\n\"I'd like to talk to you about what you know about the history of the Blue Boy Inn,\" Richard told her.\n\n\"The Blue Boy Inn?\" Agnes snorted. \"Oh, not you, too, chief.\"\n\n\"What do you mean, not me, too?\"\n\n\"At least once a week the library gets a call from some far-flung corner of the world\u2014Arkansas or Oregon or New Zealand or East Timbukistan\u2014asking about that place. Ghost hunters, you know. They want details and pictures and otherworldly accounts.\"\n\nRichard laughed. \"Well, I'm interested in the history of this world, Ms. Daley.\"\n\n\"Call me Agnes, or we'll never get along.\"\n\n\"All right, Agnes.\"\n\n\"Is this about the latest disappearances?\" she rasped. \"And Roger Askew's hand? Because if so, I don't have any idea how\u2014\"\n\n\"Well, that's what has prompted my investigation,\" Richard said, interrupting her. \"But I'm more interested at the moment in the inn's previous history. How well did you know Cordelia Devlin?\"\n\nAgnes chortled. \"As well as anyone could know her. She was a recluse. Barely ever left that house since her husband died. She always sent that strange old man, Zeke, she had working for her on errands into town.\"\n\n\"Was she more social when her husband was alive?\"\n\n\"I suppose she was. Then the husband died, and the son came up to take over the place . . .\" Agnes's voice faded off as she spoke.\n\n\"Did you know the son?\" Richard asked. \"That would be the current owner's father.\"\n\n\"I met him a few times. Seemed a nice enough man. Until the tragedies with his wife and daughter.\"\n\nIt appeared Agnes knew little more about Jack's father than Betty had. Richard tried a different tack.\n\n\"What about Cordelia's husband?\" he asked. \"What kind of man was he?\"\n\n\"Well, he was kind of an ambitious sort, as I remember, when he first took over the place from his father. But after that little baby died up there, he, too, became a recluse.\"\n\n\"The one whose arm was the only thing found?\"\n\n\"Oh, yes,\" Agnes said. \"How sad that was. Poor little thing. They said the child must have been eaten by a bear, just like what was supposed to have happened to little Cindy Devlin years later, though they found nothing of her.\"\n\n\"Sounds like you don't believe these were bear attacks.\"\n\nAgnes snorted again. \"Well, they fit so well into the haunted house narrative\u2014you know, the curse of the Blue Boy Inn. So many deaths up there.\"\n\n\"Do you remember any others?\"\n\n\"I remember that man McGurk. I was a little girl then. Freaked me out, as the kids say today. They found a body with no head. How outrageous is that? In the middle of the parlor yet! Never found the killer, either.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" Richard said. \"I've been reading up on that case. The investigators eventually closed the case. Everyone in the house had an alibi, and the head was never found, so they never made an arrest.\"\n\n\"There have been other deaths and disappearances, too,\" said Agnes.\n\n\"I have them all here in my files,\" Richard told her. \"How far do the stories of a curse go back?\"\n\n\"Well, right back to the beginning,\" she replied.\n\n\"And when was the beginning?\"\n\n\"Well,\" Agnes said, thinking, \"the Blue Boy was built around 1865, I think. Right after the Civil War. It's been extensively remodeled several times, and the integrity of its original architecture is gone, but I think you can still see some of the original structure. I haven't been up there in an awfully long time, so I can't say for sure.\"\n\n\"Was it always an inn?\"\n\n\"Oh, no. In the beginning it was a pastor's house. That's where the stories of the curse began.\"\n\n\"Care to fill me in?\" Richard asked.\n\n\"Its original owner was the Reverend John Fall. He was the head of a little church that once stood on the property as well. But in 1869, John Fall was hanged.\"\n\n\"Hanged?\" Richard asked. \"For what?\"\n\n\"Murder,\" Agnes replied. \"One of his pretty young parishioners was found with her throat slit from ear to ear. But word around town was that the deeper crime of Reverend Fall was witchcraft. According to the rumor, he'd killed the poor girl in some kind of satanic ritual. His church, these stories insisted, was merely a cover for his black arts.\"\n\n\"Any proof of that?\"\n\n\"Nope. Just the legends that persisted for decades after his death. The official line was that Fall had killed her because she was going to tell his wife they were having an affair.\"\n\nRichard sighed. \"I can see why stories of a curse would begin, if the original owner had been suspected of witchcraft.\"\n\n\"But there's no denying, chief, that ever since, lots of people have died or disappeared up there,\" Agnes told him.\n\n\"No,\" he agreed. \"There's no denying that.\"\n\n\"The church was torn down, and the house sat vacant for many years, until someone got the idea to open it up as an inn. Soon after the turn of the twentieth century, the Devlin family bought it, and they've owned it ever since.\"\n\n\"The current owner is the fourth generation of the family then,\" Richard said.\n\n\"Yes, sir. And he's already seeing the curse at work.\"\n\nRichard laughed. \"Surely you don't believe in it, Agnes.\"\n\n\"I'm a confirmed agnostic in all areas of my life. That doesn't mean I don't believe. It means that I neither believe nor disbelieve.\" She laughed. \"It's the only path for a historian, unless you want to bring your own biases to your study of history.\"\n\n\"That sounds like the smart approach,\" Richard told her.\n\n\"I hope I've been of some help to you, chief.\"\n\nRichard told her she had, and thanked her for her time.\n\n\"No problem,\" Agnes replied. \"If you want to show your appreciation, you can make sure my street is plowed first thing in the morning, before anyone else's when this blasted blizzard simmers down.\"\n\nRichard laughed. \"I'll speak with public works,\" he told her.\n\n\"Much obliged,\" Agnes said.\n\nAfter he had had hung up the phone, Richard thought he could hardly base an investigation on rumors of a nearly two-hundred-year-old charge of witchcraft. How foolish people were. Maybe they just couldn't believe a man of the cloth could succumb to the desires of the flesh and cheat on his wife, so they had concocted a tale about satanic rituals to account for it. He had learned little of use, it seemed, from town historian Agnes Daley.\n\nBut there's no denying, chief, that ever since, lots of people have died or disappeared up there.\n\nNope. There was no denying that.\n\nRichard stared out the window. The snow was coming down heavier now. The snow made him think of Amy. But everything made him think of Amy.\n80\n\nAnnabel and Chad came through the front door shaking snow off their coats and boots. \"Gosh, it's really coming down!\" Annabel exclaimed.\n\n\"Sure is,\" Chad agreed. \"In another hour those roads won't be passable. The storm has come earlier than they were predicting. We got back just in time.\"\n\n\"I'll make some hot tea,\" Annabel offered, \"if you don't have to rush right off.\"\n\nChad nodded. \"I want to take a look at the fireplace to make sure the flue isn't damaged. When you've got this bad of a storm, you should really keep the flue closed.\"\n\n\"Oh, good idea, thank you.\"\n\nChad headed off into the parlor while Annabel made her way to the kitchen.\n\nShe turned the corner and walked straight into someone standing there. She gasped out loud.\n\n\"Jack!\" she cried.\n\nHer husband smiled down at her. \"I heard you say you wanted tea. I've already got some ready, baby cakes. I figured you'd come in chilled to the bone.\"\n\n\"Oh.\" Annabel was flustered for a moment. \"Great, thanks.\"\n\n\"Shall I pour you a cup?\" he asked.\n\n\"Yes, please, Jack, thanks. And pour a cup for Chad, too. He's just checking the fireplace.\"\n\nJack smiled as he lifted the steaming pot off the stove. \"The fireplace?\" he asked.\n\n\"Yes. He's making sure the flue closes. With the storm coming, we'll want to make sure.\"\n\n\"Of course. Smart thinking.\"\n\nHe handed Annabel a mug, the steam rising from it in waves.\n\n\"Careful, sweetie pie. Don't burn your tongue.\"\n\nShe accepted the mug and held it in her hands.\n\n\"I'll pour one for Chad and set it here on the table for him,\" Jack said. \"Let it cool off just a little bit.\"\n\nAnnabel cupped her mug between her two hands and stared at her husband. How sweet he seemed all of a sudden. He reminded her of the caring man he'd been during her hospitalization, how supportive he had been, how thoughtful. Jack had stuck by her through the worst of times. She had been so grateful to him.\n\nThis was the real Jack, she wanted to believe. The Jack of the past few days\u2014mysterious and defensive\u2014had been simply the product of stress and fear. And grief, over losing his grandmother. And worry, over the disappearances of Priscilla and Paulie and what that might mean to their business venture.\n\n\"Have a sip of tea, sugar babe,\" Jack said. \"Take the chill off.\"\n\n\"Still too hot,\" she said, blowing on the mug. \"I sure hope we don't get snowbound. I don't like the idea of being trapped.\"\n\nJack smiled. \"Your old claustrophobia. Don't worry, angel heart. I'll dig a path from the front door to the street. You won't be trapped.\"\n\nA smile bloomed on her face despite her misgivings. \"Thanks, Jack. So, Neville's gone? I didn't see his car.\"\n\n\"Neville's gone,\" Jack told her. \"Drink your tea, baby doll.\"\n\nShe blew on the mug again. \"He called me, you know, before he left.\"\n\n\"Neville did?\"\n\n\"Yes.\" She locked eyes on Jack. \"He said he'd been locked in his room.\"\n\nJack frowned. \"Yes, he told the police chief that, too. Sweetheart, the key was in his door outside. He must have left it there himself, and then the door locked again when he closed it. It's a problem of these old doors.\"\n\n\"You don't think he had any cause to say he was locked in?\"\n\nJack laughed. \"Who would have locked him in, and why?\"\n\nAnnabel sighed. \"I don't know, Jack. But we need to talk. Some very strange things have been happening. I understand when the police searched the chimney downstairs, they found none of the gunk that I put my hands into the other day. How did that all that get cleaned out?\"\n\nJack looked mystified. \"I don't know. Maybe . . . Zeke cleaned it out?\"\n\n\"I'm wondering that myself.\"\n\n\"I'll ask him.\" Jack appeared as if a light suddenly went off in his head. \"That could explain why the police found nothing.\" He smiled over at Annabel. \"You know, I was very cooperative with them. I figured it was better to show that we had nothing to hide than to act as if we did.\"\n\n\"Oh, I'm glad, Jack.\"\n\nHis smile broadened. \"Drink your tea, honey. You're still shivering.\"\n\nAnnabel returned his smile. Then she lifted the mug to her lips and drank.\n81\n\n\"Christ,\" Chad said in a low voice, checking the fireplace one more time to be sure.\n\nThat's blood, he thought to himself.\n\nHe was squatting down, inspecting the floor of the fireplace, specifically the ash dump opening. It was a big panel, a good three feet by two feet, and all around its edges there was a sticky brownish-red liquid. When Chad touched his finger to it, he felt certain it was blood. Still fresh. Not dried.\n\nChad stood. He could hear Annabel and Jack talking in the kitchen. His first thought was to rush in and tell them what he found, but something stopped him. He didn't trust Jack. He was better off finding out what he could and taking the information directly to Chief Carlson.\n\nHe glanced over at the basement stairs.\n\nAnnabel said that the police had been here this morning and checked the ash dump downstairs. They'd found nothing.\n\nBut that blood's fresh. . . .\n\nChad surmised that the door to the ash dump at the base of the chimney would still be open. The cops surely didn't lock it up again.\n\nHe needed to take a look. Then, depending on what he found, he'd hightail it out of this creepy old place straight down to the police headquarters. And he might just take Annabel with him, just to be safe. He liked her. He wasn't going to abandon her if, as he was starting to think, somebody in this house was a murderer.\n\nAnd that somebody was very likely her creepy husband.\n\nListening as Annabel and Jack continued to talk in the kitchen, Chad made his way stealthily across the parlor and out into the hallway.\n\nHe paused, listening. He didn't want that weird old guy Zeke to spot him.\n\nChad made a dash for the basement stairs. He hurried down as quickly as he could without making too much noise.\n\nHe yanked the overhead light on.\n\nHe could see the chimney across the room, hunched over like a crippled Atlas, the sagging floorboards of the first floor the world on his shoulders.\n\nChad approached slowly. The dim light overhead outlined the small metal door on the side of the chimney. He could see that the door was shut tight. But there was no longer any padlock dangling from its handle.\n\nHe reached over to pull the door open, but then stopped. His hand hovered in midair.\n\nWhat are you afraid of? he asked himself.\n\nHe wasn't sure. But suddenly Chad was very, very afraid.\n\nHe forced his hand forward and gripped the door.\n\nHe tried to pull it open, but the old metal was stuck. Chad shook it a bit, and then gave it a good hard yank, and all at once the door swung open in his hand.\n\nHe had uncorked a river.\n\nA cascade of blood burst forward, splashing out from the chimney onto the floor, wetting Chad's shoes and turning them red. The flow only stopped when the doorframe became wedged with pale white human flesh.\n\nNeville's head, in fact, severed from his shoulders.\n\nHe stared out at Chad with wide, terrified eyes, his dead mouth in an eternal silent scream.\n\nChad, however, wasn't nearly so silent.\n\nHe let out a scream and turned to run, only to be met on the staircase by a woman.\n\nA woman he'd never seen before.\n\nA beautiful woman with long gray hair, dressed in a long, flowing white dress.\n\n\"Hello,\" the woman said calmly.\n\nChad opened his mouth to ask her to please get out of his way, to run as fast as she could out of this house, when he felt the pain in his abdomen. He cried out, then looked down and saw blood collecting behind his shirt.\n\nThe woman had just stabbed him with a knife.\n82\n\nAnnabel heard the scream below her and spun around.\n\n\"What was that?\" she called out.\n\nJack just smiled. \"Don't be so jumpy, baby cakes.\"\n\n\"Didn't you hear\u2014?\" She turned to run out of the kitchen toward the basement stairs, but suddenly her knees buckled. Her legs were too weak to hold her. She started to fall, but grabbed the table to steady herself.\n\n\"You okay, sweetheart?\" Jack asked, his voice eerily calm.\n\n\"My head,\" Annabel murmured.\n\nThe room was spinning. She was passing out. Something was happening in the basement, and she was losing consciousness....\n\nDrink your tea, honey.\n\nAnnabel looked over at Jack. He was watching her compassionately, but not moving a muscle to help her.\n\n\"You . . . drugged the tea,\" she managed to say.\n\nShe heard a second scream from the basement.\n\n\"Chad,\" said Annabel, just as she crumpled to the floor and blacked out.\n83\n\nThe light was different when Annabel woke up. She had the feeling that she'd been out for a long time. She realized she was in bed, in her room. She was alone.\n\nShe tried to stir, to sit up, but found her body was numb. She could barely move her hands or feet. What did he give me? That monster!\n\nA monster she had once loved\u2014and who, until a very short time ago, she had still been willing to give the benefit of the doubt.\n\nJack drugged me. He may be trying to kill me.\n\nJust as he may have killed Priscilla and Paulie.\n\nAnnabel's mind was racing. She thought she could see things clearly now. Jack had killed Priscilla the night they got drunk. He had stashed her body somewhere\u2014the fireplace!\u2014and Paulie had found it the next morning. That was why he'd had to kill Paulie, too. Jack had stuffed both their bodies into the chimney. Annabel had gotten their blood on her hands! And maybe\u2014the idea hit her like a lightning bolt\u2014maybe Jack had killed Cordelia as well. Richard had seemed to doubt the coroner's ruling of accidental death. Had his grandmother discovered his crime as well?\n\nAnother memory suddenly struck Annabel. She gasped out loud.\n\nChad! Right before she'd blacked out, she'd heard Chad scream.\n\n\"Oh, no,\" she moaned.\n\nPlease don't let Chad be dead, too.\n\nAt least Neville had gotten away.\n\nShe had to get out of there. She had to run. She had to get Richard.\n\nWith great effort, Annabel managed to sit up in bed. It was morning. That much she knew. Although they'd lost power, leaving the electric clock on one side of the bed dark, the batteries in the clock on the other side had kept it ticking. The time was 10:15. Annabel realized she had been unconscious all night.\n\nShe needed to move. But she doubted she had the strength to swing her legs off the bed, let alone stand and walk. She was breathing heavily from the exertion. She looked helplessly across the room. Through the window she could see the storm was still raging outside. While she'd slept, the snow had piled up at least three feet. The whole world outside her window looked white. She could barely see the trees. Everything was just a washout of glaring whiteness.\n\n\"That means I'm trapped here,\" Annabel said out loud. \"I can't get out and nobody can get in.\" She shuddered. \"It's just me and Jack.\"\n\nAnd Zeke. Unless Jack had killed him, too.\n\nBut even if he was alive, was Zeke friend or foe?\n\nAnnabel began to sweat. She wasn't sure what scared her more. Jack\u2014or the claustrophobia of being snowbound in this house. The two together threatened to push her back over the edge.\n\nDon't worry, angel heart. I'll dig a path from the front door to the street. You won't be trapped.\n\nHe'd been lying to her. Playing her. He'd known what he was doing. Lulling her into a false sense of security. Then he'd drugged her.\n\nBut why? What was Jack's plan?\n\nWhat had turned him so insane?\n\n\"I've got to get out,\" Annabel said, and summoned every fiber of her being to move her legs off the bed and touch her bare feet against the cold wood floor.\n\nHe undressed me, she realized. Jack took off my clothes and put me in my nightgown.\n\nHad he done other things to her?\n\nShe shuddered, remembering the night he had raped her. Yes, that was what it was. Her husband had raped her. She had tried to deny it to herself, but no more.\n\nJack was a monster.\n\nBut why? How? What had turned him into something Annabel no longer recognized?\n\nShe grabbed hold of the bedpost and pulled herself to her feet. She let out a groan doing so. Whatever she'd been drugged with still had a heavy grip on her body.\n\nStanding, she had a better view of the outside. The snow had covered Jack's car in the driveway. She couldn't even make out its outline in the parking lot. The driveway was completely inaccessible. She had thought earlier that there were at least three feet of snow out there. Now that she could see the ground better, she revised that estimate up to five feet. From her second-floor vantage point, Annabel could see that the snow had drifted across the front porch, completely covering the front door. If she tried to leave by that route, she would be faced with a solid wall of snow. There was no way she could walk out of this house, even if she got her legs to move more freely than they did at the moment.\n\nThe snow was still coming down, too.\n\nAnnabel realized with a cold certainty that she was trapped.\n\nHer palms started to sweat again. She began to shake uncontrollably. Stiffly, she wrapped her arms around herself.\n\n\"I've got to try,\" she said out loud. \"Maybe I can go out the back door.\"\n\nBut what then? Maybe, despite the drifts and the blowing snow, she could make her way to Millie's store, the closest inhabited place to the Blue Boy Inn. Annabel thought she had cell reception there. Even if not, she could just hide out there until someone came by, as she didn't imagine the store was open in this blizzard.\n\nShe'd need to be dressed more warmly if she was going to try walking through that snow. With great effort she shuffled over to her dresser. With even greater effort, she pulled open the drawers. She let out a gasp. All her clothes were gone.\n\n\"No,\" Annabel cried.\n\nHer cell phone. Her gaze swung around the room. She didn't see it.\n\nIt's in my purse downstairs, she remembered. Jack surely has it.\n\nIf she could get downstairs without Jack stopping her, she could call 911 on the house phone. It was an old model, with no cordless handsets that required electricity. If the phone lines weren't down, it should still be working.\n\nShe took a deep breath. With superhuman exertion, she put one foot in front of the other and walked. Steadying herself against the dresser, she made her way to the door.\n\nShe tried the handle. Of course it was locked.\n\nHe locked Neville in. Of course, he'd lock me in, too.\n\nBut at least Neville had managed to escape. Annabel suddenly felt she wouldn't be as lucky.\n\nShe began to hyperventilate. Her knees threatened to buckle, dropping her to the floor. She leaned up against the door to keep herself upright. She began to cry.\n\n\"You'll stay in there until you learn to be a good girl,\" came a voice through the door.\n\nAnnabel pulled back.\n\nIt was Daddy Ron.\n\n\"Look around, Annabel. Look around and see who's in there with you.\"\n\n\"No,\" she whimpered.\n\n\"Go ahead. Turn around. He's right behind you. Can you hear him?\"\n\nAnnabel listened. Yes, there he was. She could hear Tommy Tricky behind her, gnashing his sharp teeth.\n\n\"He's not real,\" Annabel cried in a terribly small voice.\n\n\"Oh, don't say that,\" hissed Daddy Ron through the door. \"That gets him mad. He doesn't like it when little girls don't believe in him.\"\n\nShe was crying like mad now, her body heaving.\n\nThis is crazy, Annabel thought, trying to get ahold of herself, to stop her plunge over the edge. This can't be happening. I'm an adult, not a little girl locked in a closet.\n\nThere is no such thing as Tommy Tricky!\n\nShe turned and looked over her shoulder, just in time to see something scurry under the bed.\n\n\"No!\" she screamed.\n\nShe was hallucinating again. That was the only explanation. She had to get out of this house! Even if it meant trudging through the blizzard. She'd rather freeze to death out there than go mad inside this house!\n\nShe walked slowly, awkwardly, over to the bed. Summoning all her strength, she grabbed hold of the side of the bed and shoved. It took a second, but then the bed slid across the floor.\n\nAnd sitting there, underneath, his blue face alive with a mouthful of teeth, was Tommy Tricky.\n\nAnnabel screamed.\n84\n\nRichard Carlson stood at the window of the police station staring out into the snow. It had been snowing like this the day Amy had died. His wife had looked like a little rag doll in her bed at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, weighing just eighty-odd pounds. Richard had stood by the window, watching the snow blanket the city, looking back every now and then over at Amy. Her breathing was so shallow. The thin white sheet drawn up to her neck barely moved. Richard had known Amy was dead even before the nurses came in to examine her. There was no dramatic ending to sweet Amy's life. She never opened her eyes. There was no last look between her and her husband. Her faint breathing just stopped and she was gone. Richard had sat at her bedside for three hours after she was gone, just holding her rapidly cooling hand.\n\n\"All the roads are blocked throughout the county,\" Adam told him, coming into his office behind him. \"There's no way the plows can get through this.\"\n\n\"I've lived in these parts all my life,\" said Betty, the police secretary, \"and I've never seen a snowfall like this.\"\n\n\"We've got reports of drifts up to nine feet,\" Adam said.\n\nRichard looked back out into the swirling white. Why was he thinking of Amy? Maybe because of how badly he had wanted to save her. Maybe because he'd vowed to her that he wouldn't let her die, and he had. He could stop a bank robber in his tracks, but Richard and all his police training had been no match against cancer.\n\nAnd now he was worried that another woman's life was in danger, and he might not be able to do a thing about that, either.\n\n\"Have you gotten an answer out at the Blue Boy Inn?\" Richard asked Adam.\n\n\"Negative on that, chief. I suspect the phone lines are down. Power's out all over the western part of the state.\"\n\nThe station was being powered by a generator. Richard sat down at his desk and turned on his lamp as he looked again at the report that had come back from forensics late last night.\n\nThe substance they'd scraped from the base of the chimney at the Blue Boy Inn was definitely dried blood. The DNA tests weren't yet back, and they'd likely be delayed due to the storm, so Richard didn't know if the blood belonged to Priscilla or Paulie, or if maybe there was some from both. But the very fact that there was blood in the chimney warranted him to take Jack Devlin in for questioning.\n\n\"There are lots of logical explanations as to why we might have found blood in there,\" Adam said, seeming to read Richard's mind.\n\n\"Name one.\"\n\n\"Somebody could have been cleaning out the ash dump and cut their hand.\"\n\n\"According to Annabel, there was enough blood in there to coat her own hand with it. If somebody had bled that much cleaning the damn thing, wouldn't we have been told about that? And this blood was recent. Seems to me somebody would have mentioned it if it was just a simple case of cutting their hand.\"\n\nAdam smiled. \"I don't doubt you're right, chief. I'm just playing devil's advocate. Because you know the lawyers are going to jump all over you if you try to arrest Jack Devlin on such flimsy evidence.\"\n\nRichard stood, returning Adam's smile with a smirk of his own. \"You younguns, all fresh from the police academy, think you know all the answers, don't you? Well, I'll tell you something, Adam. When you've been a cop as long as I have, you listen to your gut. And my gut tells me that Annabel is in danger out there.\"\n\n\"But we have no real evidence that her husband committed any murder.\"\n\n\"Nope, we do not. But you see, Adam, my gut also tells me that Jack Devlin is not our culprit.\" He smiled again as he saw his deputy lift his eyebrows in surprise. \"In fact, I think Devlin might be in almost as much danger as his wife.\"\n\n\"From who? That old geezer the caretaker?\"\n\n\"No, I don't think Zeke's our culprit, either. You see, this is where I'm stumped. To make any sense of this, I need to go over there. I need to get a plow to make a path for me.\"\n\nBetty laughed. \"Chief, even the county's biggest plows can't get through this stuff. All the roads are closed throughout the county.\"\n\nRichard frowned. \"Well, we've got to find a way as soon as we can.\"\n\n\"You could call in the National Guard,\" Adam suggested, not entirely seriously.\n\n\"Well, there's where your analysis would be right, Adam. The Guard would take a look at the evidence and say, 'We're supposed to send tanks out to the Blue Boy Inn because you found a little blood at the bottom of its chimney?'\" He laughed. \"No, we have to find a way to get over there ourselves.\"\n\n\"Do you really think it's that urgent, chief?\" Betty asked.\n\nRichard sighed. \"We probably have a little time. But even if Devlin isn't the killer, he seems to be covering up for somebody. He may suspect we found blood in the chimney, and he may be waiting for us to respond. But he knows that we can't respond right away, due to the storm, so he's likely waiting this thing out as much as we are. He doesn't expect we'll get there until the storm lets up, so if we could get there sooner, we could take him by surprise.\"\n\n\"But you just said he wasn't the culprit,\" Adam said, \"and that he might be in as much danger as his wife.\"\n\n\"Right. Whoever committed these murders is not rational. He or she could strike out at Jack as easily as Annabel.\" Richard sighed. \"And as we saw when we discovered Roger's body, our killer is pretty handy with a knife.\"\n\nBetty shuddered. \"Do we know for certain that Annabel is there at the house?\"\n\n\"Well, I think it's a fairly safe bet to assume she is,\" Richard replied. \"I saw her in Chad Appleby's truck yesterday as the storm was just starting. They were heading up toward the Blue Boy. I presume he was driving her back after picking out supplies for the contracting job.\"\n\n\"Have you spoken with Chad?\" Adam asked.\n\nRichard shook his head. \"No, but I've left him three voice mails. I presume in a storm like this, he's out trying to clear driveways. He's got a plow on his truck.\"\n\nBetty snorted. \"Chad's truck isn't big enough to make it through this.\"\n\n\"That's true,\" Richard said. A thought struck him. \"Adam, did our English friend ever come by yesterday on his way out of town to give another statement?\"\n\n\"Nope,\" the deputy replied. \"Never saw him.\"\n\n\"That's odd,\" Richard said.\n\n\"Maybe he wanted to beat the storm,\" Adam suggested. \"The snow had already started falling, and he wanted to get to the airport.\"\n\n\"Well, there's no way he's flying out in this,\" Richard said.\n\nHe settled back down at his desk. This whole situation was very difficult to figure out. If Roger's killer was somehow holed up at the Blue Boy\u2014despite their apparently thorough searches\u2014how did he get such a hold over Jack Devlin? Jack wouldn't have been so adamant about keeping the police from searching if he wasn't trying to hide something. That seemed to indicate Jack was somehow involved.\n\nYet Richard didn't think Devlin was the killer himself. Jack had an alibi for the night Roger was killed, and the chief believed that he really was sleeping when Paulie and Priscilla went missing. Annabel was out of the house at the time\u2014Millie vouched for her\u2014and Zeke was simply too frail to kill three people (Richard still believed Cordelia had been murdered) and dispose of two bodies in such a short time. The old caretaker certainly didn't have the strength to shove them down into the chimney, which now seemed to be the case.\n\nSo their culprit had to be someone else. But had it been the killer who had cleaned out the chimney and disposed of the remains? Or had Jack and Zeke done that much themselves? If so, why were they colluding with a killer?\n\nRichard could see no motive that linked the deaths of Roger, Cordelia, Priscilla, and Paulie. None. It seemed entirely random. The act of an insane person. A serial killer who killed for no reason whatsoever.\n\nOr for a reason none of them yet understood.\n\n\"Chief,\" Betty called over to him. \"I've got Charlie Appleby on the line. He's asking about Chad.\"\n\nRichard picked up the phone. \"Charlie,\" he asked, \"how you faring in this storm?\"\n\n\"My boys and I have been out there trying to break through it with our plows, but we can't do a thing,\" Appleby told him. \"We've given up. Staying home with some coffee and a shot of Jack Daniel's.\"\n\n\"Good for you. Chad with you?\"\n\n\"Nope, and that's why I'm calling you. He didn't come around with the other boys and he doesn't answer his phone. My eldest made it through the snow over to Chad's apartment on Green Street and he reports Chad isn't there. As far as he can tell, his truck isn't, either, though it's hard to tell with the snow drifted so high.\"\n\n\"Any idea where he might be?\" Richard asked.\n\n\"Well, last I knew he was going up to Great Barrington with that woman from the Blue Boy. I've been calling over there, too, and getting no answer.\"\n\n\"I know they made it back,\" Richard assured Chad's father. \"I saw them yesterday afternoon.\"\n\n\"But where's he been since?\"\n\n\"That I don't know.\"\n\nRichard could hear Charlie shudder over the phone. \"I had reservations when he told me he'd taken that job. That place is cursed. The people are no good. Something bad happens to whoever steps foot up there.\"\n\n\"As soon as we can get out there, Charlie, I'll inquire about Chad. For now, don't worry. He's probably out trying to make his way through this. Nobody's getting through.\"\n\n\"But why doesn't he answer his damn phone? It's one thing for a landline to be down, but far as I know, cell phones are still working.\"\n\n\"Cell reception can be affected by storms like this,\" Richard told the man honestly.\n\n\"I'm talking on a cell now, Richard, and it's working fine. All my other boys, their cells are fine, too.\"\n\n\"You know I'll do what I can to find him, Charlie.\"\n\n\"I know that. Keep me posted.\"\n\n\"Will do.\"\n\nRichard hung up the phone. This was not good news. Now he had Chad to worry about as well.\n\nAnd what about Neville? Had he skipped out on giving them a statement?\n\nOr had something happened to him that had prevented him from getting here?\n\nRichard needed to find a way to get out to the Blue Boy Inn. But how? He stood once more, returning to the window, which was now more than half covered with accumulating snow. There had to be seven feet, maybe eight, outside the station, and reports were coming in that drifts were sometimes double that.\n\nHe closed his eyes and saw Amy's face. When he opened them, it was Annabel he was seeing. Richard knew she was in danger. He had to find a way to get to her.\n85\n\nZeke unlocked the door to the attic and stepped inside. He placed the tray he was carrying down on a table and let out a long sigh.\n\n\"I'm so disappointed in you,\" he said, looking across the room at the figure hunched down in the corner. \"So very, very disappointed in you.\"\n\nThe figure didn't make a sound, nor did it move.\n\n\"I'm an old man,\" Zeke said. \"I've done what I could. This can't go on. You need to understand that. It just can't go on.\"\n\nStill the figure was quiet and still.\n\nZeke walked over to the little round attic window and peered out. The snow blew furiously. The whole first floor of the house was buried by now. The windows in the kitchen and the parlor were solidly white. It was getting cold, bitterly cold, in the house. The heat was off. And, of course, they couldn't build a fire in the fireplace to warm them.\n\nBehind Zeke came the sound of scurrying across the floor, then the sound of eating and drinking, as if the partaker were famished.\n\n\"You just need to understand,\" Zeke said, turning around, \"that I'm not doing this anymore. I just can't. I'm an old man. You need to understand that.\"\n\nHe said nothing more, just turned and left the attic, locking the door behind him.\n86\n\nAnnabel sat in the corner, her arms wrapped around herself. Where did Tommy Tricky go? He had scampered away. He was hiding in the room somewhere. He was watching her, waiting to jump out and eat her.\n\nTommy Tricky eats bad little girls.\n\nThat was what Daddy Ron told her, and Annabel believed him. She started to cry.\n\nThe door opened. Annabel's mother came into the room, looking down at her daughter with sad, defeated eyes.\n\n\"Oh, Annabel,\" her mother said, \"you got Daddy Ron angry again.\"\n\n\"Mommy, Mommy, you've got to save me from Tommy Tricky,\" Annabel cried, running to her mother, throwing her arms around her neck.\n\n\"Oh, baby,\" her mother told her. \"Tommy Tricky isn't real. He's just something Daddy Ron tells you about so you'll behave.\"\n\n\"No, Mommy, Daddy Ron says Tommy Tricky gets very, very angry when you don't believe in him.\"\n\nHer mother stroked Annabel's hair. \"Oh, baby, I'm so sorry he does this to you. But I don't know how to make him stop.\"\n\nAnnabel realized her mother wasn't really there. She was sitting by herself, in a corner of her room at the Blue Boy Inn.\n\nMy mother failed me, Annabel realized. She let that monster torment me because she was too scared to stand up to him.\n\nAnnabel began to cry harder.\n\nBut then she wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her nightgown. She had to get ahold of herself. She wasn't back in her childhood home; she wasn't a little girl. She was an adult, and she was in the Blue Boy Inn, and she had to find a way out. She was hallucinating again. She'd thought she'd seen Tommy Tricky. But Tommy Tricky wasn't real.\n\nExcept\u2014except\u2014\n\nAnnabel thought of Tammy Morelli.\n\nShe says she saw a little man in the basement\u2014like an elf\u2014eating a human arm.\n\nTommy Tricky eats bad little girls.\n\nAll Annabel knew was that she had to get out of there.\n\nShe stood. Her legs were moving better now, more easily, with less pain. Whatever drug Jack had given her appeared to be wearing off. Annabel glanced across the room. The clock now read 11:30. She must have been huddled in that corner for about an hour. Her eyes shot over to the window. She couldn't see anything outside. The snow had collected against the windowpanes. Annabel shuddered. She felt more closed in than ever.\n\n\"I can't give in to my fear,\" she whispered. \"I have to keep moving.\"\n\nCarefully, she walked toward the door. These old doors were flimsy. She could maybe rattle it enough that it would pop open. It was a slim chance, perhaps, but it was all she had.\n\nShe tried the knob. And to her great surprise and gratitude, it was no longer locked.\n\nMaybe I'd only imagined it was locked before, she told herself.\n\nAnnabel opened the door and stepped gingerly out into the hallway.\n\nThe house was eerily quiet. The muffled sound of the storm outside was the only thing she heard. Annabel made her way to the top of the stairs. She had no idea what her plan was. She was barefoot and wearing only a nightgown. But she could think of only one thing to do. Make a mad dash for the front door and\u2014\n\nAnd what? She had seen the drifting earlier. It came up halfway over the door. Even if she could reach the front door without Jack stopping her, she would run straight into a solid wall of snow on the other side.\n\nShe really was trapped.\n\nNo. She wouldn't accept that.\n\nAll right then. She'd still make a mad dash down the stairs. But she'd run to the kitchen. Maybe Jack would be in there, waiting for her. But maybe he wouldn't be. She had to take that chance. Because the phone was in the kitchen. She could call 911. Even if he caught her, if she could just press those three numbers and have the call go through, they'd send someone out. Annabel had to pray that the phone was still working.\n\nShe took a deep breath and started down the stairs.\n\nHer bare feet flew over the steps. She seemed to make no sound at all. It was almost as if she were running on air. She made it to the bottom of the stairs. But that was only half the challenge. She continued on without stopping to the kitchen. She could see as she rounded the corner that the kitchen was empty. Yes! Maybe Jack had left. Maybe she was alone in the house after all. She would call the police and\u2014\n\nBut when she turned to lift the phone off the hook she saw something terrible.\n\nThe phone was no longer there.\n\nIt had been taken clean off the wall. All that remained was an empty jack.\n\n\"No,\" Annabel moaned, and then put her hand to her mouth. She didn't want to make a sound.\n\nFace it, she heard Daddy Ron's voice tell her. You're trapped in there.\n\nTrapped.\n\nExcept\u2014\n\nAnnabel could almost hear the gears in her mind turning.\n\nExcept\u2014she might not be able to get out of the house from the first floor, but the snow had not reached the second. She could jump from a second-floor window. The snow would cushion her fall. If it was packed hard enough, she wouldn't sink completely into it, and she could, she hoped, trudge through it into town.\n\nRight. With bare feet. With winds that seemed to want to rip the roof off the house.\n\nBut what other choice did she have? Wait for Jack to come back and kill her the way he'd killed Priscilla and Paulie? That much Annabel was certain she didn't hallucinate. She firmly believed she was right about that.\n\nShe hurried back into the hallway. Hanging on the hook beside the door she spotted a coat. It was Neville's, she realized.\n\nOh, no, Annabel thought. I had thought Neville escaped. But why would he leave his coat?\n\nHis car had been gone. That much Annabel was sure of. But he wouldn't have left in a blizzard without taking his coat.\n\nNot knowing what to think, she grabbed Neville's coat and slipped it on. She'd need it if she was going to take a plunge into the snow. She could smell her friend's scent on the coat. It both comforted her and saddened her. Was he alive? What about Chad?\n\nAnnabel had never felt so alone, or so frightened.\n\nShe made her way back upstairs.\n\nShe decided she would go out the window in Cordelia's room. That was over the small roof that covered the front porch. Annabel could hop to the roof, and then take her leap into the snow. But she needed something on her feet. She'd never make it even as far as Millie's store if she had to do it barefoot.\n\nShe realized that although her own clothes were gone, Jack's clothes might still be in his closet.\n\nBack inside their room, Annabel paused, looking over at the bed, now pushed aside at an angle. Was Tommy Tricky under there?\n\nStop it, she scolded herself.\n\nShe took a deep breath and pulled open Jack's closet door.\n\nYes! His clothes were still there. And a pair of work boots! They would be big on Annabel, but if she tied the long laces several times around her foot, she should be able to keep the boots on during her trek through the blizzard. She sat down on a chair as she pulled the boots onto her feet. For the first time, a real sense of hope filled her. She would get away from here! She would not be trapped!\n\nBut then she sensed someone was watching her.\n\nShe spun her head around.\n\nJack stood there, leaning in the doorway, looking down at her with his arms folded over his chest and an enormous smile on his face.\n\n\"Where you goin', baby cakes?\"\n87\n\nChad woke up, only gradually becoming aware of his surroundings.\n\nHe was in the basement of the Blue Boy Inn. And he'd been stabbed.\n\nHe looked down at his body. He was drenched in blood. He'd lost a great deal. But his shirt and heavy sweater had acted to stanch the flow, becoming wedged in the open wound in his abdomen almost like a bandage. Chad knew that if he pulled his shirt and sweater off, he'd release the dammed-up blood again. He couldn't let that happen. He had to keep pressing against the wound until he could get to a doctor.\n\nWho was the woman who had stabbed him? He'd never seen her before. Another guest at the inn? Chad didn't think they'd taken in any other guests after all the trouble began. But who she was didn't matter right now. He had to get out of there.\n\nHow long he'd been out cold, Chad couldn't be sure. His head ached. From the throbbing he felt at his right temple, he guessed he'd hit his head after being stabbed. Probably when he'd fallen, he'd hit the bottom rung of the basement stairs. Yeah, that must have been what happened. Chad was lying in a heap at the bottom of the stairs.\n\nWas the woman with the knife still around?\n\nCarefully, Chad managed to sit up. He didn't know if he could walk. But he had to try. That woman might well have been the killer of Paulie and Priscilla, and she could come back to finish him off. Who knew if she had killed the others in the house? Last Chad knew, Annabel and Jack had been talking in the kitchen. Were they dead or alive?\n\nHe made it to his feet. His head began to spin, and he had to lean against the concrete basement wall to keep from falling down.\n\nHe had to get up those stairs and out of the house, but he couldn't do anything until his head stopped spinning.\n\nAbove him, he thought he heard laughter. A man's laughter, from far away. Probably from the second floor.\n\nHe recognized the voice as that of Jack Devlin.\n88\n\n\"Look at you!\" Jack guffawed. \"New York fashionista! Style arbiter of Orbit magazine! Wearing a ratty old corduroy coat and my scuffed-up work boots!\"\n\nAnnabel said nothing, just sat there staring up at her husband.\n\n\"Really, sweet baby angel, you could do better than that,\" Jack said, laughing.\n\n\"My clothes are all gone,\" Annabel said. \"I didn't have much of a choice.\"\n\n\"Yes, my darling, I took all your clothes.\" Jack's smile faded and his voice fell into a paternal, scolding quality. \"Because I wanted to discourage you from going outside. I just knew you'd want to go out and play in the snow. But it's too nasty outside for little girls.\"\n\n\"I'm not a little girl,\" Annabel said.\n\nJack ignored the comment. \"Come on, now, pumpkin pie, take off that coat.\"\n\n\"No,\" she said.\n\nJack took hold of her hands and forced her up from the chair. He walked her over to the bed and sat her down. He took a seat next to her.\n\n\"Listen to me, Annabel. We're about to have something very wonderful happen here in our new home. You have to cooperate.\"\n\nShe just looked at him. His eyes were wide, the pupils dilated. She thought Jack had gone certifiably mad.\n\n\"We are going to be so successful here at the Blue Boy,\" he told her, still holding her hands in a tight grip. \"And that's what we want, isn't it? That's what we came here to be, right? Successful? At long last? After all our disappointments?\"\n\nAnnabel remained silent.\n\n\"You have no idea how hard it was for me, sweetie babe, when my novel tanked. I really thought I was a literary wunderkind.\" He laughed out loud, a strange, unhinged sound that seemed to bounce up to the ceiling and ricochet through the house. \"But I was a fool. I let myself get so depressed over that, but in fact, I just missed my calling.\" He smiled, showing his straight, even teeth. \"I've found it here, Annabel. Here I can really be a great, great success. The money is just going to come rolling in.\"\n\n\"Why do you think that, Jack?\" she asked.\n\nAnnabel thought if she could engage him, ask him questions, appear to be interested in what he was saying, she could prevent him from hurting her.\n\n\"When my grandmother died,\" Jack said, \"Zeke told me the secret of this house. I'd always known it, really. But I had blocked it out of my mind. But Zeke brought it all back. If we are good to the house, the house will be very, very good to us. It will make us rich.\"\n\nAnnabel studied his crazy eyes. \"But, Jack,\" she said, softly, not wanting to upset him, \"your grandmother wasn't rich. The inn had been losing money for years. She was one step from bankruptcy when we took over.\"\n\nJack smiled, nodding his head. \"That was because Gran stopped being good to the house.\"\n\n\"What do you mean?\"\n\nJack sighed. \"A long time ago, my grandparents ran a very successful inn. They had learned the secret from those who had owned it before, and they carried on, doing what was right and good for the house. But then\u2014\"\n\nHis face darkened.\n\n\"But then what, Jack?\"\n\n\"Then my father came. After that, they stopped being good to the house.\"\n\n\"Your father?\"\n\n\"Yes. You see, darling baby angel cakes, that was what I had forgotten. How my father changed things during that short period when we were here.\"\n\n\"The period when your mother and your sister died?\"\n\nJack frowned. \"My father let his emotions overrule his better judgment. He gave in to his heart and didn't listen to his head.\" He smiled. \"Now, my mother had the right idea, only she never lived to see it. You had the right idea, too, my darling Annabel, but unlike my mother, you can live to enjoy the fruits of your labors.\"\n\n\"I can . . . live?\" Annabel asked.\n\n\"Of course, baby cakes. But not if you go out into that terrible storm.\"\n\nAnnabel allowed him to slip his boots off her feet. \"So you're saying,\" she asked Jack, \"that the house will make us successful because of some idea I had?\"\n\n\"Yes, honey baby lover.\" Jack tossed the boots, one by one, across the floor. \"You wanted to do the place over!\"\n\nHe gripped her by the shoulders and stared at her with his insane eyes.\n\n\"You removed the bricks!\" he said triumphantly.\n\n\"The bricks,\" Annabel repeated, \"from the fireplace.\"\n\n\"That's the secret of the house, baby. Where all its wondrous power comes from.\"\n\n\"And . . . removing the bricks will make us rich?\"\n\n\"Yes.\" Jack beamed. \"Annabel, my dearest love, I know what a terrible year you've had. You want success as much as I do. You want to be able to show those assholes back in New York that no one can keep Annabel Wish down for long. Annabel Wish is going to come back, better than ever! She's going to run the most popular, successful inn in New England! No\u2014in America! Maybe even the world!\"\n\n\"I don't understand, Jack.\"\n\nHe laughed. \"What don't you understand? Didn't we envision making this place a success? Didn't we see it as a first-class destination?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" Annabel said. \"That was what we talked about. . . .\"\n\n\"Well, it can be.\" He narrowed his eyes at her. \"So long as we are good to the house.\"\n\n\"And how can we be good to the house?\"\n\nHe smiled again. \"We give it what it needs!\"\n\n\"And what does it need?\"\n\n\"I'll take care of that part, Annabel,\" Jack said, standing now, apparently assured that he had gotten through to his wife, convinced her to do things his way. \"You needn't worry yourself about that.\"\n\n\"Jack,\" Annabel asked, \"did you kill Priscilla? Paulie? Your grandmother?\"\n\nHe looked at her with a kooky grin on his face. \"Me? Of course not, angel pie. Why would I kill them?\"\n\n\"Who did, then?\"\n\nHe sighed. \"The house killed them.\"\n\n\"The house?\"\n\nHe nodded. \"It had to. Because we weren't giving it what it needed. We could have handled it on our own. But now that I understand what we need to do, I'll take care of things. We won't have any more guests going missing.\" He laughed again, that terrifying yelp that sounded like a fox caught in a trap in the woods. \"That wouldn't do very well for business, would it?\"\n\nHe's mad. Insane. No question about it. He killed them, and he's blaming it on the house. I've got to get away from him.\n\nBut...\n\nAnnabel realized she was safer if she just went along with Jack for now. He saw some kind of life together in this crazy house. She needed to act as if she shared his hopes and dreams. She needed to patronize him, placate him, get him to trust her again. And then, when the storm subsided, maybe she could find a moment to make a run for it.\n\n\"So, I'll take care of the house,\" Jack was saying, stepping over to the window to look outside at the still roiling storm, \"but you'll have your own responsibilities, sweetheart.\"\n\n\"Whatever I need to do, Jack, I'm willing,\" she told him. \"You know that.\"\n\n\"I do know that, angel cake.\" He smiled over at her before returning his gaze out the window. \"You've had as bad a time as I have. We both need a new start.\"\n\n\"That's why we came here,\" she said.\n\n\"Yes, it is. But I had no idea the kind of success we could have here, if we were willing to do what was necessary.\" He frowned, looking back over at her. \"I'm not sure if we'll be able to trust Zeke for much longer, sweetheart. So you'll have to take over from him. Your job will be the attic.\"\n\n\"The attic?\" Annabel asked.\n\n\"Yes. Sweetheart, it's time you learned about the attic. You see\u2014\"\n\nSuddenly a voice from downstairs interrupted him.\n\n\"Annabel!\"\n\nShe recognized the voice. It was Chad.\n\n\"Annabel!\" he was calling. \"Are you here?\"\n\nAnnabel saw Jack's eyes change. They had calmed, become almost sane. Now they were suddenly wide with rage. Her husband spun on her.\n\n\"You've been fooling around with him, too, haven't you?\" he snarled.\n\n\"No, no, Jack, I\u2014\"\n\nHe leapt at her, clamping his hand over her mouth. Dragging her off the bed, he brought her back to his closet and shoved her inside.\n\n\"You stay in there, you bad girl,\" he spat. \"I'll deal with your lover!\"\n\n\"No, Jack, no!\" As the door closed against her, Annabel screamed, in a last desperate warning and call for help, \"Chad!\"\n\nThe closet door slammed shut, leaving her in darkness. She heard Jack turn the lock.\n\n\"No, Jack, no, please, don't lock me in here\u2014\"\n\n\"Turn around,\" came the voice of Daddy Ron, seeping through the door. \"Turn around and see who's behind you.\"\n\nAnnabel screamed.\n89\n\n\"Annabel!\" Chad shouted.\n\nShe'd called his name. She was somewhere upstairs.\n\nPerhaps he'd been a fool to call for her. But the house had been so deathly quiet when he'd finally made it up to the top of the basement stairs. Chad had assumed he was the only one here. Maybe they'd all left, not knowing he was wounded in the basement. He could have tried going out into the storm on his own, trudging to a spot where he might have better cell reception, and calling his father or Chief Carlson. But he couldn't have left without calling to Annabel, just in case she was still in the house.\n\nAnd, it appeared, she was. She had called back to him. But now she was silent.\n\n\"Annabel!\" Chad called again.\n\nThe trip up the basement stairs had disturbed the makeshift bandage his shirt and sweater had provided over his wound, and he was bleeding again, pretty profusely. Chad didn't think he'd make it up the stairs to the second floor, where Annabel's voice had appeared to come from. He should just take his chances going outside and making his way through the snow, calling the cops as soon as he could. He'd already seen that the phone was gone from the kitchen wall. The only hope to get help was to get out of the house.\n\nBut as he neared the front door, Chad clearly saw there was no way he could get out. The snow was packed solid against the door and all the windows.\n\nThe only way out would be through a second-floor window.\n\nAnd he couldn't leave without checking on Annabel. Maybe she'd been wounded, too, and had passed out after trying to call to him.\n\nHe had no choice. He had to go upstairs, or he'd stay here on the first floor, bleed out, and die.\n\nBut first, he ripped off a tablecloth from a hall table and wrapped it around himself as best as could, making a tourniquet to stanch the bleeding once again. It wasn't going to last long, but it would have to do for now. Chad didn't have a lot of options.\n\nHe began making his way up the stairs.\n90\n\n\"Sorry, chief,\" Adam told him, hanging up the phone.\n\n\"The county has none of its largest plows to spare. They said they'll get down here as soon as they can, but that might be days. The storm has completely immobilized everyone.\"\n\n\"This is crazy,\" Richard grumbled. \"When this is over, I'm demanding bigger plows at the town meeting. The selectmen better go along with it. I don't want to hear any noise about money. Winters are just going to keep getting worse around here, and we need to be prepared.\"\n\n\"Hey, chief,\" Betty called. \"Were you expecting a fax from the town library?\"\n\n\"No,\" he said, barely hearing her.\n\n\"Well,\" the secretary said, approaching him with a thick stack of papers, \"they just sent you over twenty-seven pages of town history.\"\n\n\"Just put it in my in-box,\" Richard told her.\n\nBetty complied.\n\nRichard was trying to think of an excuse to convince state officials to send them one of the massive snowplows they kept up at Great Barrington. But even if he said somebody up at the Blue Boy had some major health issue and needed help right away, they'd no doubt insist there were people all over western Massachusetts in the same position. If only he could\u2014\n\nTwenty-seven pages of town history.\n\nAll of a sudden he remembered his conversation with Agnes Daley.\n\nBut there's no denying, chief, that ever since, lots of people have died or disappeared up there.\n\nRichard reached over and grabbed hold of the stack of papers Betty had placed in his in-box. Sure enough, they were from Agnes Daley.\n\nMaking use of being snowbound here in the library, Agnes had written in her careful penmanship on the cover sheet. So glad the board of directors installed a generator. You were asking about the history of the Blue Boy the other day. You seemed dismissive of what I told you. Here's some newspaper coverage from back in the day, chief. Give it a read. A.D.\n\nRichard glanced over what Agnes had sent. They were microfilm printouts of old newspaper pages. The date on the first was from 1869.\n\nREV. FALL HANGED FOR MURDER, the headline read.\n\nThere was an illustration of a man dressed all in black dangling from the end of a noose.\n\nRichard looked at the next page. It was from a year later.\n\nWOMAN FOUND DEAD, DISMEMBERED\n\nNEAR FALL'S CHURCH\n\nThe murders up at that place really did stretch back a long time.\n\nAnother headline:\n\nFORMER CONGREGANTS CLAIM \nREV. FALL PRACTICED \nBLACK ARTS, SATANIC RITUALS\n\nThe piece seemed like bad gothic horror fiction to Richard, but he read it anyway.\n\nFormer congregants of the late Rev. John Fall, hanged here three years ago for murder, now claim that the disgraced pastor forced them to participate in the black arts. Fall's goal, these congregants insist, was to cast a spell that would open a portal into the netherworld, where he could harness the daemonic beings within to do his bidding. He possessed books filled with spells and incantations for such a nefarious purpose.\n\n\"Ridiculous,\" Richard murmured.\n\nThe rest of the pages were more recent\u2014coverage of the deaths of the various people at the Blue Boy Inn, including the reports of Jack Devlin's missing sister.\n\nBut at the very end of the pile was another piece, dated December 26, 1915. It was one of those humorous little items newspaper editors often used as fillers. Agnes's neat, precise handwriting ran across the top of it.\n\nThis little item wasn't about Rev. Fall or any mysterious death, but the headline jumped out at me. What do you think?\n\nRichard looked down at the article.\n\nCHILD CLAIMS TO HAVE SEEN BLUE ELVES\n\nRichard read the piece.\n\nLittle Millicent Collins of Bangor, Maine, five years old, visiting the Blue Boy Inn in Woodfield with her parents, claimed to have seen \"three little elves with blue faces\" poking their heads out of the parlor fireplace. Could Santa have left behind some of his helpers on Christmas Eve?\n\nSomehow the image of those three blue faces looking out of the fireplace unnerved him even more than tales of opening portals to the netherworld. All of this talk of witchcraft and spells and demonic rituals was absurd, of course. But, nonetheless, Richard was even more disturbed and anxious after reading it.\n\n\"I've got to get over to the Blue Boy,\" Richard said, banging his fist on his desk. \"There's got to be a way!\"\n\n\"I've got a pair of snowshoes,\" Adam said, shrugging.\n\n\"I'd give it a try,\" Richard said, \"but I doubt I'd get very far.\"\n\n\"What you need,\" Betty said, poking her head around the corner from her outer office, \"is a snowmobile.\"\n\n\"Of course!\" Richard said. \"Where can I get one?\"\n\n\"Well, my son has one, but it's at our house.\"\n\nRichard jumped to his feet. \"Have him ride it over here!\"\n\n\"In this storm?\" the secretary asked.\n\n\"Betty, that's what snowmobiles are for!\"\n\nShe scowled. \"Maybe the kind the Navy uses in the Arctic, but Richard, my kid uses his just for fun.\"\n\n\"Then find me a better one,\" the chief barked. \"Why doesn't the department have snowmobiles for our regular use anyway? We're living in the goddamn Berkshire mountains, aren't we?\"\n\n\"I'll make some calls,\" Betty said.\n\n\"You, too,\" Richard ordered Adam.\n\n\"Yes, sir!\" his deputy said, picking up his phone.\n\nRichard looked out the window. It was becoming increasingly difficult to see outside. The snow had nearly walled them in. Only at the very top of the window could Richard see a bit of sky, and that was just a furious flurry of white.\n\nI have to get over there. He had never felt so sure about anything. His gut was telling him something terrible was taking place. I've got to get over there or Annabel is going to die.\n\nHe couldn't get the image of those three little blue elves in the fireplace out of his head.\n91\n\nIn the darkness of the locked closet, Annabel tried to keep her wits about her, but this was too much. She tried to hang on to the reality of the present, but she was fast sliding down a very slippery chute into the past. She was a little girl, locked in the closet by Daddy Ron, and Tommy Tricky was somewhere in the darkness behind her, waiting to devour her with his sharp blue teeth.\n\nShe saw a little man in the basement eating a human arm.\n\n\"No, no, no,\" Annabel moaned, and commenced banging on the door. \"Jack! Let me out! Let me out! Oh, please, let me out!\"\n\nBehind her, she heard something scurrying in the darkness among her husband's shoes.\n\n\"He's not real,\" she said out loud.\n\n\"Don't get him mad,\" came Daddy Ron's voice through the door.\n\nThe closet seemed to be getting smaller. It was closing in on her. It was like that time she'd been trapped in the elevator. The walls had been moving in on her from all sides, and Annabel had feared she would be squeezed to death. She had utterly decompensated then, ending up in a puddle on the floor. She needed to fight that\u2014stay clear in her mind\u2014if she was to survive this. Because being locked in the closet wasn't the worst horror. Beyond the door her husband had become a madman, and surely he would kill her like the others.\n\nBut it was hard to resist panic when she heard the scuttling behind her.\n\nThe closet was almost completely dark. Annabel could not even see her hands in front of her face. The only light came from the small space between the door and the floor. She got down as close to the space as she could, irrationally terrified that she'd breathe up all the air in the closet and suffocate. She could see out into the room through the space. She could see one of the boots on the floor that Jack had removed from her feet. She could see the bottom of the dresser.\n\nAnnabel leaned in close to the space to gulp in some air.\n\nWhat was Jack going to do to Chad? Maybe Chad had gotten away. Maybe he'd gone to get help.\n\nThat wasn't likely. Not in this storm.\n\nAnnabel heard the scuttling again. Except this time it wasn't behind her. It was right beside her. Right beside her face as she pressed it to the bottom of the door, gulping in air.\n\nShe moved her eyes.\n\nBeside her own hand was another. A very small hand, with fingers that resembled the claws of a squirrel or a raccoon. It was hard to say for sure in this darkness, but Annabel thought the hand was blue.\n\nShe screamed.\n92\n\nRichard slammed down the phone. \"Nothing,\" he grumbled over at Adam. \"The town doesn't have any snowmobiles and the county can't get any to us until the storm lets up. We won't need them then!\"\n\nAdam shook his head. \"I haven't had any luck, either. A friend of mine has one, but I can't reach him.\"\n\n\"Do you even know how to ride one?\" Betty asked the chief.\n\n\"I've been on one,\" he told her.\n\nShe smirked. \"That doesn't mean you know to steer it.\"\n\n\"We didn't have much need of them in Boston. But several years ago we were helping search for a missing girl up in New Hampshire. I . . . I rode a snowmobile then.\"\n\nBetty's smirk deepened. \"You rode one?\"\n\n\"Yeah.\" Richard sighed. \"Right into a tree.\"\n\nBetty laughed. \"Our great hero to the rescue.\"\n\n\"Is your son good with his?\" Richard asked her.\n\n\"Sure. But as I said, it's just a beginner's model. Frank and I bought it for Danny last Christmas. It's just a small Ski-Doo.\"\n\n\"Ask him if he knows who else might have one in town,\" Richard said.\n\n\"I'm one ahead of you there, chief,\" Betty told him. \"I already called him, and he's trying to find you a good-size one.\"\n\n\"Thanks, Betty.\"\n\nThe window of the police station was now completely covered with snow. A couple of officers were out front, digging a passage out the front door. It felt as if they were inside an igloo.\n\n\"Have you tried the Blue Boy's phone again?\" Richard asked Adam.\n\n\"Yup. Still no answer, chief.\"\n\n\"The phone at Millie's store still works. I just called her. So why wouldn't the Blue Boy's still be working?\"\n\n\"Beats me, chief.\"\n\n\"He's disconnected it,\" Richard said.\n\nAdam looked up at him. \"Who has?\"\n\n\"Jack Devlin. I feel certain of it.\"\n\nIn his mind's eye he saw Amy, so small in her hospital bed. The snow had been piling up outside the hospital much as it was accumulating outside the station now. Richard couldn't shake the feeling of d\u00e9j\u00e0 vu helplessness. The longer he remained trapped in the station, the greater likelihood that he would let Annabel die.\n\nOutside, he heard the whirr of an engine. It sounded like a buzz saw at first, then like the spinning of tires in snow. He hurried over to the front door, Betty at his side.\n\n\"It's Danny!\" the secretary exclaimed.\n\nA teenage boy in a bright green wool hat and orange parka riding a yellow snowmobile was stuck in a snowbank in the station lot. The officers who'd been shoveling out the front entrance were rushing over to assist him.\n\n\"That boy,\" Betty said, shaking her head. \"He's so impulsive. When I told him you needed a snowmobile, he offered to come over. I told him under no circumstances did I want him venturing out in this storm. But he came anyway.\"\n\nRichard was grinning. \"I'm glad he's a disobedient child.\"\n\nBetty looked up at him. \"But take a glance out there, chief, will you? He's stuck! That's not a very powerful machine. If Danny got stuck in our parking lot, how are you going to make it all the way out to the Blue Boy Inn?\"\n\n\"Danny made it all the way out here from your house, didn't he?\" Richard asked, his eyes on the boy.\n\nWith a shove from the officers, Danny was able to maneuver the snowmobile out of the bank, then hopped back onboard and steered it over toward the front door, where he brought the machine to a stop. He waved a big blue-mittened hand when he noticed the chief and his mother watching from the glass door.\n\n\"I'm giving that boy a medal,\" Richard said, beaming.\n\n\"If he wasn't so tall,\" Danny's mother said, \"I'd give him a spanking.\"\n93\n\nChad climbed the stairs to the second floor.\n\nHe'd thought he'd heard Jack's voice, and then someone walking toward the stairs. But no one had come down, and now the house had fallen silent once more. Chad didn't like going up the stairs. He was afraid of what he might find. He was also afraid the exertion would cause him to lose more blood. But he had no choice, really.\n\nThe only possible way out of this house was from a second-floor window. And besides, in all good conscience, he couldn't just leave Annabel up here after he'd heard her call his name.\n\nHe reached the top of the stairs.\n\nChad looked around. There was no one. But peering down the hallway, he could see the door to Annabel's room was open. He had to go in there and look for her. If she wasn't there, then he was throwing open the window and making a jump for it. The snow was so high out there, Chad figured he might actually be able to just step out onto it, if it was packed hard enough.\n\nHe took his first step down the corridor. Under his foot, the old floorboards creaked.\n\nChad paused, listening. He heard nothing, so he continued on down the hall.\n\nAt Annabel's door, he paused again.\n\n\"Annabel?\" he whispered, looking inside.\n\nHe heard the sound of crying. It was coming from the closet. He hurried to the closet door.\n\n\"Annabel!\" he called.\n\nIf that was her behind the door, she was sobbing uncontrollably. She couldn't speak.\n\n\"Hang on, Annabel,\" Chad said, grabbing the closet door handle and finding it locked. \"I'll get you out of there. I'll get you out and then we are getting out of this house.\"\n\nHe began to shake the door handle as hard as he could.\n94\n\nAnnabel heard Chad's voice as if from a very far distance.\n\n\"Hang on, Annabel,\" he was saying. \"I'll get you out of there if I have to break this door down.\"\n\nShe focused. She brought herself back to the present. She yanked herself out of her childhood, where she was a tiny girl, curled up in a ball in the closet, crying her heart out. Now she was back here, an adult woman, and she was going to get through this.\n\nThe door in front of her suddenly shuddered as Chad, outside, threw his weight at it.\n\nThrough the space at the bottom of the door, Annabel could see his feet. The black rubber soles of his boots.\n\n\"Oh, Chad!' she cried. \"Oh, Chad, get me out of here!\"\n\n\"I will, Annabel,\" he called in to her. \"Just hang on.\"\n\nThe door shuddered again.\n\nThrough the space, Annabel saw droplets of blood raining onto the floor all around Chad's boots.\n\nShe turned her eyes. The little hand that had been beside her was still there. And now a little face emerged from the darkness to join her in peering out through the space under the door.\n\nAnnabel was face-to-face with Tommy Tricky.\n\nHe licked his blue lips with a snaky blue tongue.\n\n\"You're not real,\" Annabel told him.\n\nTommy just smiled, and then withdrew back into the darkness.\n\nFor a third time Chad threw himself against the door. It shook in its frame, and Annabel heard something crack. But still it did not open.\n\nShe could hear Chad breathing heavily outside. And she could see now another pair of feet. They appeared to be a woman's feet, in fuzzy pink house slippers. They had come in behind Chad. Facing the closet door, he wouldn't have seen whoever it was come into the room.\n\nAnnabel had to warn him.\n\n\"Chad!\" she screamed. \"Behind you!\"\n\n\"Annabel, I'm\u2014\"\n\nBut whatever he was about to tell her became a scream.\n\nAnnabel watched as the pink fuzzy slippers came up right behind Chad's boots. She heard the sound of a knife plunging into flesh. Chad screamed again, and then dropped to his knees. Annabel could hear the knife, plunging in and out of him, making a horrible suction sound each time. Chad was screaming. Suddenly, as Annabel peered through the space, she saw a river of blood rushing across the floor toward her. Her hands, pressed close to the space, were quickly covered in it. Annabel leapt to her feet and screamed.\n\nThe sound of stabbing\u2014suction in, suction out\u2014continued for the next several minutes. Annabel covered her ears, but she could still hear the terrible noise. Chad's screams softened into moans. Finally, after agonizing minutes, he was silent.\n\nAnnabel dropped her hands from her ears. She heard the sound of slippers scuffing out of the room.\n\n\"Oh, Chad,\" Annabel cried, the tears dropping off her cheeks as she leaned against the door. The young man's blood continued to flow into the closet all over her bare feet. Annabel realized she had just listened to Chad's murder.\n\nAnd now she was certain that hers would be next.\n95\n\n\"Okay, so you grab the handlebar like this,\" Danny was shouting over the wind, as Richard watched him closely. The seventeen-year-old's hands closed over the bar tightly and he pushed it up to demonstrate. \"Once the key is in the position, you pull the cord out and push the handlebar up. You follow?\"\n\n\"I think so,\" Richard said. \"Seems easy enough.\"\n\n\"It's more than easy. This is a really light-footed sled. You should be able to glide over ungroomed snow without any problem. Just watch out for trees or bushes or anything that's covered that you can't see.\"\n\n\"That could send me flying, I guess,\" Richard said.\n\n\"Well, maybe not flying, but it could get you stuck.\" Danny turned his red-cheeked face to him. \"That's what happened to me on the way in here, when I got stuck. I was fine all the way to the station from my house because I stayed on the roads. The minute I came over the station's yard I didn't know there was a hedge underneath me, and I ran smack into it. If you stay to the roads, you should be okay, because all that's under you is six or seven feet of snow.\"\n\n\"That should be easy then,\" Richard said, his breath freezing in front of his face.\n\nDanny shook his head. \"You haven't seen it out there, chief. Sometimes you can't tell where the road starts and yards begin. And not everyone got their cars off the street in time. There are lots of cars buried under drifts of snow. You don't want to run into one of them.\"\n\n\"No,\" Richard said. \"I sure don't.\"\n\n\"How far you got to take this?\" Danny asked.\n\n\"Up to the Blue Boy Inn.\"\n\nThe teenager grinned. \"That haunted house? What's going on up there now?\"\n\n\"That's what I aim to find out.\" Richard put his gloved hand out and Danny grabbed it. \"I can't thank you enough for bringing this over, Danny. If I cause any damage to it, the department will pay for a new snowmobile for you.\"\n\n\"It's cool, man,\" Danny said, getting up off the seat and gesturing to Richard to take his place. \"If you crack this one up, I've got my eye on a more advanced model.\"\n\n\"I think the department may be buying a few of those,\" Richard said, straddling the snowmobile and grabbing the handlebars. \"If we're going to have more snowstorms like this, we need to have them in store.\"\n\n\"Oh, we're going to have a lot more of these kind of storms. Lots of extreme weather ahead of us. The climate's changing, chief. Hope you're not a denier.\"\n\nRichard smiled at him. \"Nope, no denier here, Danny. I've learned that we deny reality at our own peril.\"\n\nHe checked that his gun was safely secured at his side, and then he revved the motor as Danny had showed him.\n\nBehind him, Adam was shouting over the noise. \"As soon as I can round up some more machines, we'll be up to join you, chief!\"\n\nRichard gave his deputy a thumbs-up with his right hand. Then he pulled on his goggles, tightened his scarf around his neck, gripped the handlebars, said a little prayer, and took off across the snow.\n96\n\nAnnabel sobbed against the closet door. Chad was dead. The poor man . . . he had come into this house on her request. He had come up here, trying to rescue her. And now he was dead.\n\nThe door shifted as she leaned against it.\n\nAnnabel pushed. The door creaked open. Chad had succeeded in breaking the lock.\n\nSlowly, fearfully, Annabel stepped out of the closet. She had no idea who might lunge at her as she did so. Tommy Tricky? Daddy Ron? The woman in the pink slippers who had killed Chad?\n\nHis body lay crumpled on the floor in front of her. She tried not to look at it. She feared she would start to cry so hard she'd never be able to stop. Poor Chad. She thought of him at the tile store, telling her it was nice to see her smile. Oh, poor, poor Chad.\n\nShe couldn't afford to break down. Not yet. She had to find a way out of the house.\n\nShe had no idea where Jack had gone to. Or the woman who had stabbed Chad. Who was she? Annabel thought she knew. She was the same woman she'd seen her first day at the inn. The woman in the woods. Perhaps she had been the killer all along.\n\nBut even if so, Jack was helping her. Jack was somehow under her sway.\n\nAnnabel knew she didn't have much time. At any moment, one of them could come back into this room. She had to get out.\n\nBut first she had the presence of mind to reclaim Jack's boots. If she was going out in that snow, she'd need them.\n\nTo get them, however, she had to step over Chad's body. The very act of doing so nearly sent her over the edge again. She was shaking uncontrollably as she pulled on the boots, both of them sticky with Chad's blood. It was all over the floor, coating the soles of Annabel's feet.\n\nShe then headed for the door. Zipping up Neville's coat, which she still wore, she hurried into the hallway, pausing only briefly to make sure the coast was clear.\n\nThen she ran down the corridor toward Cordelia's room.\n\nHer plan was the same as before. She would go out the window onto the small roof over the front porch. The snow was at least as high as that. From there she would trudge off, as best she could, hoping the snow was hard enough that she wouldn't sink too far. Hoping, too, that she could brave the cold and the wind until she got to Millie's.\n\nShe made it to Cordelia's room. Once again she had the presence of mind to close the door behind her. She didn't want Jack to come walking past and spot her as she went out the window.\n\nAnnabel's heart was thudding in her chest. She could see the window. She could see freedom!\n\nBut then she heard a two-note whistle. The same sound she'd heard that day in the woods.\n\nAnnabel stopped and looked frantically around the room.\n\nAnd all at once, the woman who had killed Chad, crouching behind Cordelia's bed, stood up.\n\nThey locked eyes. The woman had long gray hair and was wearing a diaphanous white dress and fuzzy pink slippers. Her dress and hands were splattered with blood.\n\n\"Hello,\" the woman said, emotionlessly.\n\nAnnabel turned to run, but was stopped in her tracks when, directly in front of her, two little blue men suddenly ran past, scurrying under the bed.\n\nAnnabel screamed. This couldn't be happening!\n\nThe woman was now directly behind her. Annabel felt the cold blade of the knife pressed against the back of her neck. She didn't dare breathe.\n\n\"Where are you going?\" the woman asked in Annabel's ear. Her voice didn't sound angry or threatening, just curious. \"It's really bad outside.\"\n\nAnnabel didn't answer.\n\n\"You have to stay here,\" the woman told her. \"You have to take care of the house.\"\n\n\"Who are you?\" Annabel asked in a little voice.\n\nShe felt the knife move away from her neck and she breathed a little easier.\n\n\"Zeke is very angry with me,\" the woman said. \"I can't find him. Have you seen him?\"\n\nShe moved away from Annabel, but not very far. She still held the knife upright in her hands. Annabel saw that, despite her long, stringy, unkempt gray hair, the woman was not that old. She was quite pretty, in fact. Her skin was pale but very smooth.\n\n\"I haven't seen Zeke, either,\" Annabel said, latching on to an idea. \"Maybe we can go out looking for him.\"\n\nThe woman smiled. \"No. You'll try to run away.\"\n\n\"No, I won't.\"\n\n\"Yes, you will.\" The woman touched her fingertip to the blade of the knife. \"I don't want to have to do to you what I did to that young man.\"\n\n\"No, no, please don't,\" Annabel said, shrinking back. \"I won't run away.\"\n\n\"I had to kill him, you know.\"\n\n\"I know,\" Annabel said, desperate to appear cooperative and understanding. \"You had to, because he was trying to run away and take me with him.\"\n\n\"That's not why I had to kill him.\"\n\n\"No?\"\n\nThe woman shook her head, her long gray hair swinging from side to side. \"I had to kill him to feed the house.\"\n\n\"Feed . . . the house?\"\n\nNow the woman nodded vigorously. \"That's my job.\" She looked intently at Annabel. \"It was supposed to be yours, as well.\"\n\n\"Mine?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" the woman insisted. \"You have to feed the house for me, because no one is supposed to see me.\"\n\n\"Okay, okay,\" Annabel said. \"I'll do whatever you say.\"\n\nThe woman's eyes narrowed as they studied her. \"You're afraid of the house, though, aren't you?\"\n\n\"No,\" Annabel lied. \"I'm not afraid of the house.\"\n\n\"Then crawl under the bed.\"\n\nUnder the bed. The little men had run under there.\n\n\"No,\" Annabel muttered.\n\n\"Prove to me that you aren't afraid of the house.\" The woman thrust the knife in Annabel's direction.\n\n\"Please, don't make me go under there. I know . . . I know what's under there!\"\n\n\"Do it!\" the woman commanded, waving the knife back and forth in the air.\n\nI've got to overpower her. I've got to jump her, wrestle the knife away from her, Annabel thought.\n\nBut the blade was suddenly at her throat. Annabel had no choice but to drop to her knees.\n\n\"Good,\" the woman said. \"Now crawl under the bed. They're waiting for you.\"\n\nAnnabel looked under the bed. Two pairs of eyes blinked in the darkness.\n\n\"No,\" Annabel cried, trembling uncontrollably.\n\n\"Come join us, Annabel,\" a little voice called to her. \"It's time you learned that we are real.\"\n97\n\nRichard thought he had the hang of this. He was cruising pretty easily along Main Street on Danny's Ski-Doo, taking the kid's advice and staying strictly to the middle of the street. It was easy for Richard to do that here, since the buildings of the town center were on either side of him and it was clear exactly where he was. But when he had veer off and follow Route 7A up into the woods, it became increasingly difficult, with all these mountainous drifts of snow, to know what was road and what was not.\n\nThe chief did the best he could, squinting to see through his goggles, occasionally having to reach up and wipe the snow off them with the back of his glove.\n\nThe weather report had said the blizzard was winding down, but it sure didn't feel that way to Richard. Even in his thermals and heavy parka, he shivered against the deep chill. And the snow was blowing and drifting as fiercely as ever.\n\nHe needed to get to the Blue Boy before it got dark. After nightfall, it would become impossible to make it through these woods. On the back of the Ski-Doo, there was room for one other person. If Annabel wasn't the only one in need of help\u2014if, as Richard feared, Chad was trapped there as well\u2014then they might have to make several trips back and forth, and that could take the rest of the afternoon. Richard hoped Adam could scrounge up some other snowmobiles fast.\n\nHe glided over the snow. What would he find at the Blue Boy?\n\nWhat he knew for a fact was that human blood had been found in the chimney. Chad reported that he'd heard animals eating something at the base of the chimney. But the space had been nearly cleaned out when Richard inspected it. Neville had reported that he'd been locked in his room shortly before that inspection, suggesting that someone in the house didn't want him to witness the cleaning of the chimney. And the only two people in the house, as far as Richard knew, were Jack Devlin and the caretaker, Zeke.\n\nDevlin, of course, had been desperate to prevent a search of the house. The scenario had all the hallmarks of Devlin being guilty, of at least covering up a crime.\n\nBut he was very possibly guilty of much, much more.\n\nHe could be using this storm to finish what he started, Richard reasoned. He thinks we can't get to him, so he's free to continue killing the rest of the people in the house.\n\nHe prayed that Annabel would still be alive when he got there.\n\nRichard turned the handlebars, steering the snowmobile up the narrow, wooded road that led to the Blue Boy Inn. He thought he was safely in the middle of the road. But apparently he had strayed off the path.\n\nHe felt the machine suddenly shudder beneath him. The snowmobile stopped, churning up a geyser of snow and throwing Richard clear over the handlebars.\n\nPlop! The chief found himself head-and-shoulders deep in cold, fluffy snow.\n\nMoving his arms as if swimming, he managed to pull himself upright. He stood, with some difficulty, as the snow was not packed all that hard. In this case, that was a good thing. The snow had cushioned his fall. If it had been hardened with ice, Richard might have cracked his head open. His goggles had stayed in place, but he'd lost a glove as he'd flown through the air, and his scarf was askew, allowing a cold draft to slip down his sweater.\n\nBreathing heavily, Richard assessed the situation. The Ski-Doo was about four feet away, no longer spitting snow. Caught on some bush below the snow, it appeared to have stalled out. Richard said a silent prayer that he could get it started again.\n\nJust getting back over to it was a chore. Every step he took, he sunk to his knees, and sometimes up to his hips. The wind was blowing so fast and furiously that even his goggles couldn't keep his eyes from welling up. His exposed left hand was freezing. There was no way he'd ever be able to walk the rest of the way to the Blue Boy. He had to get that snowmobile moving again!\n\nFinally, he reached the machine. The first thing he needed to do was push it away from the spot, so it wouldn't get stuck on the branches of the bush again. It took some muscle, but finally Richard shoved the snowmobile farther out into the clearing, where he was certain that the only thing beneath him, some five or six feet, was the dirt road. Hopping onboard, Richard started the ignition as Danny had showed him. But the Ski-Doo was unresponsive. No matter how many times Richard tried, the motor remained silent.\n\n\"Goddamn it!\" he shouted into the wind.\n\nHad it been damaged in the accident? Had Richard damaged it pushing it off the bush? What could he do to fix it? He had his cell phone, carefully stowed in an inner pocket of his coat. But what was he going to do? Ask Danny to trudge on out here? Even if he made it, it would take hours. And hours Richard did not have.\n\nHis mind was racing, trying to calculate the risks and the possibilities of heading up to the Blue Boy on foot. He'd have to try. He couldn't just give up. He'd have to walk. If there was danger up there, however, he wasn't sure how he and Annabel or anyone else might escape it without the snowmobile.\n\nRichard was ready to slide his leg back over the machine and start on his trek when he decided to try the ignition one more time.\n\nBelow him, the Ski-Doo hummed back to life.\n\n\"Hallelujah!\" Richard shouted into the blowing wind.\n\nIn moments, he was back to gliding over the snow, heading up into the hills toward the Blue Boy Inn.\n98\n\n\"Please don't make me go under there!\" Annabel cried, as the little eyes under the bed blinked at her in the dark.\n\n\"Get up off your knees, Miz Wish.\"\n\nAnnabel's head snapped up. The woman with the long gray hair was gone. Standing in her place was Zeke, looking very weary and sad.\n\n\"Zeke!\" Annabel jumped to her feet. \"Please let me go! Please don't keep me here!\"\n\nHe placed his finger to his lips, a sign for her to keep quiet. Looking over his shoulder, he said, \"Keep your voice down. I'll take care of things.\"\n\n\"That woman,\" Annabel whispered. \"She killed Chad.\"\n\nThe old man nodded with great sadness. He looked as if he might cry.\n\n\"Where did she go?\" Annabel asked, terrified she'd come back with her knife.\n\n\"I sent her away,\" Zeke told her. \"For now, you're safe. I'll see to that.\"\n\nAnnabel pulled back from him. \"How do I know I can trust you?\"\n\n\"You don't. But you don't have any other choice.\" Zeke looked at her coat and boots. \"If you were thinking of going out there, forget it. You'd get swallowed up alive by this nor'easter. I've seen many of these storms in my day, and this is by the far the worst.\"\n\n\"But I can't stay here,\" Annabel said, wrapping her arms around herself. \"Where is Jack?\"\n\n\"Walking through the house, muttering to himself.\" Zeke shuddered. \"The house has gotten to him. Just as it did his father and his grandfather.\"\n\n\"What do you mean?\"\n\n\"His grandfather fed the house for years in exchange for great success. Cordelia finally made him stop, but then young Mrs. Devlin showed up\u2014Jack's mother\u2014and like you, she had grand visions for the house. Even her death wasn't enough to keep Jack's father from falling under the spell of the house. But when they came for Miz Cindy . . .\"\n\n\"Who came for her?\"\n\nZeke looked at her. \"The house. And when Mr. Devlin saw what happened to his precious little girl, he finally woke up, and sealed over the fireplace once again. It stayed that way for many, many years.\" The caretaker's ancient yellowed eyes found Annabel's. \"Until you arrived, Miz Wish.\"\n\n\"The . . . fireplace?\"\n\nZeke suddenly held up his hand, as if he'd just heard a sound. \"I will be back,\" he told Annabel. \"Stay here. I will lock the door so no one can get in.\"\n\n\"No, please, don't lock me in again. I can't bear it! Not with that thing under the bed.\"\n\nZeke looked at her uneasily. With great difficulty, he bent down. \"There's nothing under there now,\" he reported as he stood back up, breathing heavily.\n\n\"I don't believe you,\" Annabel said.\n\n\"Then don't. I don't really care if you do. But if you want to be safe, stay in this room. If you go out the window, that's your choice. But you'll never make it off the hill.\"\n\nZeke hobbled out of the room. Annabel heard him turn the key in the lock.\n\nShe hurried over to the window. She could see the way the snow was blowing. Ten-foot drifts were forming right before her eyes. Zeke was right. She'd never make it down the hill to the road, let alone all the way to Millie's. The snow was too soft, too unsettled. It would swallow her up alive, as Zeke had said.\n\nBut stay here? Out in the storm, she risked death from cold and exposure. Here in this house, she risked death from an insane woman roaming the halls with a knife.\n\nOr worse\u2014she risked death from her worst childhood nightmare.\n\nShe would be eaten alive by Tommy Tricky.\n99\n\nThe soles of his shoes making sticking sounds as he walked through the blood on the floor, Zeke draped a sheet over Chad's dead body.\n\nThe poor man. But he was a fool, too, Zeke thought. He should have accepted the offer Zeke and Cordelia had made him. They might not have been able to make good on the offer, but Chad would be alive today, sitting at home with a mug of coffee, riding out this storm.\n\nZeke stood looking down at the body. He'd draped many sheets in his years in this house. The first had been over the headless corpse of Andrew McGurk. Zeke had been just a teenager then. He and old Mr. Devlin had managed to pull McGurk back out of the fireplace, but the house had already gotten his head.\n\nIt was that episode that had finally convinced old man Devlin to brick over the fireplace. But eventually his son, Cordelia's husband, had unbricked it. The pattern repeated itself every generation.\n\nThe worst had been the baby. That poor woman, hiding out here from her rich father's goons, had thought she was safe. From her father, yes. From the house, no.\n\nZeke had found the baby's arm in the ash dump. That was all that was left of her.\n\nAll his adult life he'd been covering up corpses, wiping up blood. Ever since he'd taken this infernal job, he'd been enslaved to this house, a prisoner of its terrible secrets. No more. He wanted an end to this before he died.\n\nAnd bricking up the fireplace was no longer enough.\n\nHe sighed and turned to leave the room.\n\nAnd walked directly into Jack, who had been standing there in the doorway, unknown to Zeke, watching him.\n\n\"What are you doing in here?\" Jack asked him.\n\n\"Giving the dead a little respect,\" Zeke replied, his voice surly.\n\nJack grabbed the old man by the front of his shirt. \"Don't interfere, Zeke. You must give the house what it needs.\"\n\nZeke struggled, but couldn't break free of Jack's grip. \"Oh, Mr. Jack, please try to see things as they are! We can't do it anymore! The house will take us all. Don't you care?\"\n\n\"The house will make us successful,\" Jack told him, tightening his hold on Zeke's shirt. \"That's what they've promised. My father, my grandfather, my great-grandfather\u2014they all understood that!\"\n\n\"Until they died broken men, the ones they loved destroyed around them!\"\n\nJack's hand loosened its grip, and Zeke took the opportunity to move away from him.\n\n\"Your mother, Jack! Don't you remember?\"\n\nJack's eyes clouded over.\n\n\"The house took your mother! She didn't die of cancer. She didn't die in a hospital. Your father lied to you, Jack. She died here\u2014horribly\u2014\"\n\nJack's arm suddenly swung out. The back of his hand connected with Zeke's face, and the frail old man went flying across the room, hitting his head against the wall. He slid down into a clump on the floor.\n\n\"Think of your wife,\" Zeke managed to whimper, as his head throbbed and the room around him began to spin. \"Think of Annabel.\"\n\nBut Jack just stalked out of the room.\n\nZeke put his face in his hands and cried. Eventually, everything went dark.\n100\n\nAnnabel thought she heard shouting from another room. She steadied herself, bracing for the worst. Then she heard footsteps clomping down the hall. Jack's footsteps, she thought. Hard, heavy, angry. Was he coming in here? Was he going to kill her? Annabel began to tremble violently. But the footsteps went right past the door and up the steps to the attic. Annabel heard the door to the attic open and close.\n\nFor the moment, she let out a sigh of relief.\n\nBut she was not out of danger. Far from it. Zeke had told her to wait for him, but she was no longer willing to wait. For all she knew, the shouting she heard from the other room had been an altercation between Jack and the old man, and Zeke was never going to emerge the winner from a fight like that. He might even be dead.\n\nAnnabel had to get out of the house. She'd take her chances outside. Better to freeze to death than get hacked up like Chad.\n\nOr worse.\n\nShe flew to the window. But when she tried to lift it, the stubborn thing wouldn't budge.\n\nShe tried again. Still it didn't move.\n\nIt hadn't been opened in years, Annabel figured. It was painted shut decades ago. Cordelia had never brought fresh air into this room. Suddenly, Annabel panicked. Her palms got sweaty again. She was trapped.\n\n\"No!\" she screamed.\n\nShe looked around for something with which to smash the window. The iron doorstop would have worked, but the cops had claimed it as evidence after Cordelia's death. There wasn't anything in the room that looked strong enough. Finally, Annabel ran over to the bed, hoping the little man would not leap out from under it and grab her ankle. She snatched the pillows off the bed and removed their cases. Then she opened Cordelia's drawer and yanked out one of the dead woman's lacy old slips. Annabel proceeded to wrap the slip around her right hand, and then pulled both pillowcases over that. Balling her hand into a fist, she walked back to the window.\n\nShe whacked the pane of glass as hard as she could.\n\n\"Oww!\" she yelled.\n\nBut still it didn't break.\n\nShe tried once more. The glass in the old window didn't shatter, but it did pop out of the pane, tumbling down into the snow as a gust of cold air rushed into the room. But that wasn't good enough. The window had twelve panes, each separated by wooden frames. Annabel couldn't fit through the one pane that she'd removed. She'd have to pop out at least four of them, and she'd have to also break the wooden frames.\n\nAnd try as she might, that old wood was impervious to her blows.\n\n\"Owwww!\" Annabel cried out on her fifth attempt to break the wood. Even a second pane remained resistant to her assaults. She was making a great deal of noise. Jack would hear her. Or he'd be attracted by the sound of the wind gusting through the open space in the window. Snow was swirling into the room, encrusting the wall and the floor.\n\nBut she had to try. It was her only chance.\n\nAnnabel pulled her hand back to swing it once more against the window. But just as she did so, she spotted a sight she could not believe\u2014something she hadn't dared let herself hope for.\n\nA man was barreling up through the trees on a snowmobile.\n\nIt was Richard Carlson!\n101\n\nIn the other room, Zeke was struggling to regain consciousness.\n\nHe dreamt. He was fifteen years old again, standing on the front porch, asking old Mr. Devlin for a job.\n\nIt was 1949. Back in those days, the Devlins maintained a farm out in back of the inn. A brood of hens clucked all around the place, and a rooster crowed from somewhere out in back. Old Mr. Devlin told Zeke he'd hire him to feed the chickens and cut the corn.\n\nThe young man ended up doing a lot more than that.\n\n\"Where is my baby?\" the woman was screaming at him.\n\nIn his hands Zeke held the bloody pink arm. It looked as if it had come from a doll. The woman fainted dead away.\n\n\"Help me! Help me!\" McGurk shrieked, as he was carried toward the fireplace.\n\nZeke grabbed hold of one leg, Mr. Devlin the other, but they were too late.\n\nThe sound of those creatures munching on McGurk's head haunted Zeke's dreams for the rest of his life.\n\nBut the worst, for him, was the attic.\n\nIn his dream, he walked those stairs, just as he had every day for the past twenty-three years. Everything that had come before had been terrible enough. But the attic these last two decades had been even more wicked.\n\nShe had been beautiful once.\n\nUntil the house had gotten to her.\n\nThe craziest thing of all, she loved the house. She would do anything for the house. The house that had tried to kill her.\n\nIn his dream, Zeke saw her as she once was. So beautiful. So innocent.\n\nAnd then he saw her as she was today.\n\nThe knife\u2014slashing Chad over and over, the way she had slashed others.\n\nAll for the house.\n\nZeke opened his eyes.\n\n\"No more,\" he said to himself.\n\nHe would end this. He would do what successive generations of Devlins had failed to do. He would destroy the Blue Boy Inn.\n102\n\n\"Richard! Oh, thank, God, Richard!\"\n\nHe heard Annabel's voice as soon as he switched off the engine of the Ski-Doo. He lifted his goggles and looked up at the inn. There she was, shouting from a second-floor window over the front door. She had popped out a pane of glass, and was waving what looked like a pillowcase to get his attention.\n\n\"Annabel!\" he shouted through the wind in response.\n\nThe snow had covered nearly the entire first floor of the house. From the second-floor window, it was only a matter of a few feet to jump to the little roof over the front porch, and then another couple of feet to the surface of the snow.\n\nBut given the wind, the cold, the softness of the snow, and the instability of the snowdrifts, Richard knew it was still going to be very difficult to get up there to Annabel and then get her back here to the Ski-Doo.\n\nHe started off across the snow.\n\n\"Annabel!\" he called again.\n\nHer face appeared at the open pane in the window. She placed her finger to her mouth, telling Richard to be quiet. He figured she was in danger. She didn't want someone else in the house to know that he was coming. He nodded and kept on approaching.\n\nThe snow, thankfully, was somewhat harder here. Richard sunk only to just below his knee with each step. He made it to the front porch, mostly buried in snow. By grabbing on to the trellis that was attached to the side of the porch, he was able to haul himself up onto the little roof, dislodging a couple of feet of snow as he went. His gloveless hand was freezing. He was pretty certain he'd end up with frostbite.\n\nHe was just grateful that it was his left hand. He'd need his right for shooting his gun, if necessary.\n\nStanding on top of the porch roof, Richard could see Annabel's face much more clearly. She looked terrified. Her hair was disheveled, and Richard believed he could discern blood on her hands and clothes. She was wearing a coat. Apparently, she'd been thinking of going out the window herself.\n\nHe grabbed hold of the ledge that ran above the porch and out under the windows of the second floor. It was only about six inches wide, but once he'd knocked the snow off it, Richard figured the ledge would be sufficient to get him over to Annabel's window. He hoisted himself up. For a second, his bare hand slipped, and he dangled precariously over the snow. But he steadied himself, and scrambled up onto the ledge. He took a deep breath, and then began inching his way toward Annabel.\n\n\"Can you break the window frame?\" she was asking him in a desperate whisper as he got closer. \"Break it and we can get out of here.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" he told her. \"I think so.\"\n\nHe positioned himself outside the window and tried to punch it in. The wood was too strong. He would have thought such an old house would buckle easily under his fist.\n\n\"Oh, please,\" Annabel was begging. \"Jack's in here! He's gone mad! And there's a woman\u2014with a knife!\"\n\nRichard tried punching through the window again, but still it held firm. Finally, he reached down and grabbed his gun. It wasn't easy to do. His gun had been encased in a protective pouch to shield it from the snow. He should have unsnapped it before climbing up here. Richard cursed himself for being too hasty. He had to get the gun out of the pouch while managing to remain balanced on the six-inch ledge outside the window.\n\nHe was successful. He gripped the gun by its barrel and used the grip to whack the window. On his second try, he heard the wood crack. On the third, it smashed inward, the glass panes popping out, one of them smashing onto the floor inside.\n\nRichard swung himself inside. It was the only way he could help Annabel out.\n\nShe threw her arms around him. \"Thank God!\"\n\n\"Anyone else in the house that needs help?\" he asked. \"Is Chad\u2014?\"\n\nAnnabel began to cry. \"He's dead. The woman killed him.\"\n\n\"No one else then?\"\n\n\"Well, there's Zeke,\" she said. \"He tried to help me. I don't know what's happened to him. Last I heard, he was in the room down the hall.\"\n\n\"Stand by the window,\" Richard said. \"Be prepared to jump onto the porch roof, then follow the tracks I made back to the snowmobile. Do you know how to ride one?\"\n\n\"Me?\" Even under such distress, Annabel seemed to find the idea humorous. \"No, not at all!\"\n\nRichard frowned. \"If Zeke needs our help, I can't just leave him. If something happens to me, I want you to be able to escape on your own.\" He handed her the keys. \"I'll be right back. Just hold these, just in case.\"\n\n\"I'll never be able to drive it . . .\" Annabel said, but she zipped them inside the pocket of Neville's coat nonetheless.\n\n\"I can't just abandon a man who might be in danger here,\" Richard said, looking over toward the door. \"Tell me. Does Jack have a gun?\"\n\n\"No, there's no gun in the house,\" Annabel said. \"But that woman has a knife\u2014\"\n\n\"Who is this woman? Do you know?\"\n\nAnnabel shook her head. \"I've never seen her before. But I think she's been living in the attic.\"\n\nRichard approached the door and listened intently through it. \"I've got to go out there and see if I can spot Zeke. If he's not within sight, we'll beat it. But I have to at least give him a chance.\" He turned the knob carefully.\n\n\"The door's locked,\" Annabel told him.\n\nBut it wasn't. The door creaked open under Richard's grip. \"Stay by the window!\" he ordered Annabel, as he stepped out into the hallway, his gun held high. \"And use the keys to get away on the snowmobile if you need to.\"\n\nThe corridor was empty. Richard took three large steps down toward the only other room with an open door and glanced inside. All he could see was a tremendous amount of blood on the floor. A bloody sheet was crumpled in one corner, as if someone had tried to mop up the blood.\n\nHe couldn't go searching the house for Zeke. He might risk Annabel's life if he did so. He ran back down the hallway, throwing open doors as he went. The rooms were all empty. He'd done what he could\n\n\"Come on,\" Richard said, holstering his gun and hurrying back into the room where Annabel awaited. \"Let's get out of here. I'll send in reinforcements as soon as I can.\"\n\nAnnabel gripped him by the shoulders. \"I can't believe you made it here,\" she said. \"I really thought I was going to die.\"\n\nRichard gave her a small smile. \"You can buy me a cup of coffee later to thank me. For now, let's just get the hell\u2014\"\n103\n\nAnnabel screamed as Richard suddenly went flying against the wall.\n\nJack had come charging into the room through the open door, shoving Richard hard, taking him by complete surprise.\n\n\"No!\" Annabel screamed again.\n\nRichard was quickly back up on his feet, hauling off and landing a hard punch against Jack's jaw. Annabel's husband staggered backwards, but regained his balance quickly. He lunged at Richard, just as the chief was going for his gun.\n\n\"You're not going to destroy my success!\" Jack shouted.\n\nWith superhuman swiftness, he lunged at Richard, sending him toppling out of the open window. The gun in his hands went flying through the air, clattering across the floor and coming to a stop under the bed.\n\nRunning to the window, Annabel watched in horror and disbelief as Richard plunged to the ground, smashing headfirst into the snow. Only his feet remained sticking out from the surface.\n\n\"Nooo!\" Annabel screamed into the wind.\n\nShe saw Richard's feet twitch once, and then go still. The snow around him slowly turned pink.\n\nAnnabel turned around to face her husband. \"You killed him,\" she said in a low voice.\n\n\"I had to,\" Jack said. \"He was going to destroy everything we've built up here, sugar cakes. He was going to prevent us from getting the success we deserve!\"\n\n\"You're insane!\" Annabel shouted, running over to him and beating her fists on his chest. \"You have gone completely insane!\"\n\nShe didn't care anymore what he might do to her. In that instant, Annabel lost control, giving vent to all her fear and despair. Richard had been her last hope. No one was going to save her now. She dissolved into tears, covering her face with her hands.\n\nJack grabbed her by her arms and forced her to look up at him. \"It's up to you, Annabel,\" he said, his voice calm but firm. \"You can join me in a successful life, or you can turn your back on all the house has to offer us. I'll forgive you for your indiscretions with these other men\u2014\"\n\nShe yanked away from him. \"There have been no indiscretions, Jack! Why do you talk that way?\"\n\nHe arched an eyebrow at her. \"That policeman\u2014he meant nothing to you?\"\n\nAnnabel started to cry harder. \"He was trying to save me.\"\n\n\"Save you from what? From a glorious life here, with me, at the Blue Boy, where everything we touch will turn into gold?\"\n\nAnnabel wanted to scream. \"Who told you that, Jack? Why do you believe that?\"\n\nHe smiled. It was a terrible, frightening smile. \"The house told me,\" he said simply. \"Once I learned the secret, I could listen to the house. I could understand what it was telling me.\"\n\n\"You're mad,\" Annabel spat out.\n\nShe just couldn't pretend anymore. She couldn't make it seem that she was going along with Jack's demented plans. She just had to get out of there. She had to find a way. Her mind started to race, to calculate.\n\nShe'd make a run for it. Yes, that was what she'd do. She'd go out the window in her room. It was a longer drop from there, but Annabel had seen how Richard had trudged through the snow. It was passable, not so soft that she'd sink. And the window in her room opened easily. Annabel began to believe that she could run in there, throw open the window, and be outside in less than a minute. She had to believe she could. It was her only hope.\n\nAnd in her pocket she had the keys to the snowmobile. She would have to believe that she could drive it. She would have to believe that she could save herself.\n\nBut for her plan to work, she'd need to incapacitate Jack, even temporarily, just to give her enough time to get out the window and run\u2014or, rather, trudge\u2014to the snowmobile. Otherwise, he'd be out the window right after her, and there was no question he'd be able to catch her. Annabel had just witnessed how strong Jack had become, sending Richard flying through the window with very little effort. Her husband was a tall, well-built man, but in recent years he'd grown a bit squishy from too much time on his hands, watching sports on television, and drinking too much beer. Where had this sudden burst of power come from?\n\nThe house, Annabel realized.\n\nThe house was making him strong.\n\nNow I'm thinking crazy like Jack, Annabel admonished herself. What we have here is one very deranged man\u2014nothing supernatural about that. Those visions of little men, Annabel told herself, were just her mind playing tricks, her hallucinations coming back under stress.\n\nBut then how to explain the woman with the knife? Annabel was certain she was very much real, after watching what she did to Chad.\n\nFor the moment, what was real and what was illusion didn't matter. Annabel just needed to get out of there. She needed to gain some kind of power over Jack so she could get away.\n\nThe gun. Richard's gun. It was under the bed. She needed to get it.\n\nBut Tommy Tricky was under there.\n\nNo, stop it, he's not real.\n\nHe doesn't like it when you say he's not real.\n\nAnnabel was suddenly overwhelmed with the feeling that if she reached under the bed, a little blue clawed hand would grab her.\n\nShe tried to calm herself. What she needed to do, she knew, was buy a little time from Jack. She took a deep breath and looked over at him.\n\n\"All right, Jack,\" Annabel said, wiping her eyes and looking over at him. \"I have no choice but to go along with you. I don't understand what you mean about the house, but maybe . . . maybe you'll teach me.\"\n\n\"That's it, baby cakes. That's the spirit!\" He wrapped his arms around her and squeezed her tightly. \"We're going to be very successful here, you and I.\"\n\nShe gently extricated herself from Jack's grip. \"I feel so light-headed,\" she said. \"All this blood . . . this death, Jack . . . I don't know how to deal with it.\"\n\n\"You've never known how to deal with bad stuff, angel sweets,\" Jack said. \"Sit down. Take a few breaths.\"\n\nThat was just what Annabel wanted him to say. She sat down on the bed.\n\nPlease let the gun be within reach, she prayed.\n\n\"I feel like I might faint,\" Annabel said.\n\n\"Bend down and put your head between your legs,\" Jack told her, as he walked over to the window with a blanket, trying to find a way to block the snow blowing into the room. \"Let the blood run to your head. That will bring you out of it.\"\n\nPerfect. This was perfect. He had just told her to do exactly what she needed to do to be able to look under the bed. And his back was to her. Perfect. This was working perfectly.\n\nAnnabel leaned over. She peered into the darkness. What she saw made her gasp, though she retained enough presence of mind to suppress it.\n\nThe gun was right there, all right. Within reach.\n\nBut lying right next to it, on his stomach, his chin in his sharp little hands, was Tommy Tricky. He smiled at Annabel, licking his lips with his blue tongue.\n\nShe steeled herself.\n\nYou little fucker, she thought. You're not going to keep me from getting this gun.\n\nShe reached under the bed. The imp's eyes followed her hand.\n\nHe's going to bite you, Annabel heard Daddy Ron tell her in her mind.\n\nBut she didn't pull back. She closed her fingers around the gun. Tommy Tricky watched her. His eyes were all that moved.\n\nAnnabel sat up all at once, the gun in her hand.\n\nTo her great relief, Jack was still at the window, trying to stuff the blanket into the space between the broken wood frames and shards of glass.\n\n\"I've got to get a piece of plywood and patch this thing,\" he was saying. \"Else we will have a foot of snow in here before long.\"\n\nHe turned around. Annabel saw the surprise and disbelief on his face when he saw her standing there, pointing the gun at him.\n\nHe knew she could use it, too. In New York, she'd taken a self-defense class. She'd learned how to fire a gun.\n\nHe stood there, mouth open, staring at her.\n\n\"You threatened to kill me, Jack, but I'm not going to kill you,\" Annabel told him. \"At least, I don't want to kill you. I will if I have to. I could as easily aim this at your head or your heart as your leg. So come on along with me. Put up your hands.\"\n\nHer husband sneered at her, but he obeyed.\n\n\"Come on,\" she said. \"Walk in front of me.\"\n\n\"Where are we going?\"\n\nAnnabel smirked. \"Let's see how you like being locked in a closet.\"\n\n\"If you lock me up,\" Jack asked, \"you won't have to shoot me, too, will you?\" He shuffled slowly across the room, Annabel behind him, the gun pressing against the small of his back.\n\n\"Sorry, Jack,\" she replied, \"but I'm not taking any chances. You've got an accomplice running around here somewhere, and she could let you out. So unfortunately you'll have two legs full of gunshot wounds in addition to being locked in the closet. But don't worry. I'm heading back to town, and I'll send an ambulance for you.\" She shoved him toward Cordelia's closet. \"As soon as the storm lets up, that is.\"\n\n\"Annabel,\" Jack said, \"don't so this. We can be so happy\u2014\"\n\nAt that moment, a wail came from above them. From the attic. It was a terrible sound, a cry of grief and despair. It was enough to distract Annabel for half a second\u2014which was just enough time for Jack to spin around with that superhuman speed he now possessed and knock the gun out of her hands. It fell to the floor with a thud.\n\nAnnabel saw the rage that suddenly filled Jack's eyes.\n\nShe ran. She bolted out into the hallway, but Jack was fast on her heels. She'd have to go past him if she were to try jumping from the window or running downstairs. There was only one option for her, and she took it without even consciously realizing she'd done so.\n\nShe ran up the stairs to the attic.\n\nThe door was open. She bolted inside, no longer thinking, just reacting, driven solely by an instinct to survive.\n\nShe didn't even realize that Jack had not pursued her up the stairs.\n\nYet despite her desperation to get away, Annabel came to a skidding halt when she came upon the scene in the attic.\n\nThe woman with the long gray hair stood there. Her white dress was now soaked with blood. In front of her various body parts were scattered around the room. Legs and arms, a portion of a torso, with the rib cage sticking out. And Chad's head, looking up at Annabel with lifeless eyes. At the moment, the woman was sawing an arm off a shoulder.\n\nAnnabel screamed, and then got sick, before fainting this time for real.\n104\n\nZeke heard Annabel's scream from the attic and, with a heavy heart, started up the stairs. He was unprepared for the gore that he found there.\n\n\"Oh, what have you done, Cindy?\" he asked, in utter despair and horror, looking around at the carnage. \"I have told you and told you that you must not do this. . . .\"\n\n\"But I must,\" the woman in the bloody dress told him. \"I promised them. You know I promised them.\"\n\n\"It is too much,\" Zeke said, his face a mask of anguish and grief. \"We can't go on.\"\n\nHe saw Annabel slumped on the floor.\n\n\"I must get her out,\" he said. \"And then . . .\" He looked back at the woman. \"Then we must all pay the price for what we have done.\"\n\n\"I promised them,\" the woman said, sulking now. \"They let me go, because I promised them.\"\n\nZeke walked over to her, cupped her face in the palm of his hand.\n\n\"It's not your fault, Cindy. You were just a little girl. It destroyed your mind. You poor sweet little girl.\"\n\n\"I promised them,\" she said, a broken record.\n\n\"They get nothing more,\" Zeke said, angry now. \"Nothing more.\"\n\nHe bent down to Annabel. \"Wake up, Miz Wish. Come with me. Can you walk?\"\n\nShe stirred.\n\n\"Get to your feet,\" Zeke said. \"It's all a bad dream. You'll wake up in the morning and it will all be gone. But come with me now. Walk with me.\"\n\n\"What\u2014?\" Annabel mumbled, as she got to her feet.\n\n\"Don't look over there,\" Zeke told her. \"It's just a bad dream. Come with me. You'll be safe with me. Walk with me down the stairs.\"\n\nAnnabel, like a zombie, obeyed.\n\nHe took her all the way down to the first floor, into the kitchen. He sat her down at the table.\n\n\"Listen to me, Miz Wish,\" Zeke said. \"I've cleared a path from the back door. You can get out that way. I've also cleared the way to your car. Here are your keys.\"\n\nAnnabel looked at him. The old caretaker could see that her mind had shut down. It was a defense mechanism against the horrors she'd seen upstairs.\n\n\"Listen to me, Miz Wish. Annabel. Here are your keys.\"\n\nHe pressed them into her hand.\n\n\"You are to walk out and get into your car. Do you understand? The snow is stopping, but you still can't drive out. But I've cleared the snow off it, and you can start it. You can keep warm there. Keep the window cracked, as I left it for you. That will keep you safe from any fumes. But just a crack.\"\n\nAnnabel said nothing.\n\n\"Do you understand? You will be safe there until someone comes for you. Someone will be coming. The police will come looking for the chief, and they'll find you.\"\n\nAnnabel stared at him blankly.\n\n\"Do you understand, Annabel?\" Zeke asked, growing concerned.\n\n\"I . . . understand,\" she finally said. \"I can go to the car . . . and wait there . . . be safe . . . someone will be coming soon.\"\n\n\"Yes, yes, that's right. And Annabel. Do not come back inside the house, under any circumstances.\" He shivered. \"No matter what happens. I think, when you see it, you'll know it's for the best.\"\n\nAnnabel's eyes moved around the kitchen. She seemed to smell something.\n\n\"Yes, that's gasoline you smell,\" Zeke told her. \"I've sprinkled it all over the house. Upstairs and downstairs. Every room.\"\n\nHe walked across the room and lifted the can, shook some more of the liquid onto the floor.\n\n\"It's the only way,\" he told Annabel.\n\n\"The only way,\" she echoed dully.\n\nHe heard the scuttling then. The sound of dozens of little feet running toward him.\n\n\"No!\" Zeke shouted, frantically running across the kitchen for the box of matches.\n\nBut the old man couldn't run very fast, and he slipped on the floor, falling flat onto his stomach, knocking the wind out of him\u2014just as thirteen little men came scurrying around the corner from the parlor and crawled all over him.\n\n\"Nooo!\" Zeke screamed.\n\nBut it was too late.\n105\n\nAnnabel watched the events unfold as if from some faraway place.\n\nThe little men\u2014so many Tommy Trickies everywhere all of a sudden\u2014grabbed on to the old man on the floor. With uncanny strength for their small size, they lifted him and carried him off. Zeke writhed and kicked, but the little men paid him no mind as they carted him out of the kitchen and back in toward the parlor.\n\nAnnabel stood. She followed them, as if in a daze.\n\n\"No, no, please, no!\" Zeke was screaming.\n\nThe little men marched him in front of the fireplace.\n\n\"Nooo!\" Zeke shouted.\n\nThey pressed his feet into the ash dump door.\n\nAnnabel watched. Only gradually did she come back to her senses, and begin to comprehend what was happening.\n\nWhen she finally understood fully, she screamed.\n\nBut her scream was drowned out by Zeke's, as the old man was pulled down inside the fireplace by several sharp tiny blue hands sticking up out of the ash dump.\n\nThe last to disappear were Zeke's outstretched arms and hands, frantically twisting and opening and closing as the creatures below ravenously consumed his body.\n\nWhen finally he was completely gone, the thirteen little men who had delivered him leapt into the air, cheering and laughing over a job well done.\n\nThey'll come for me next, Annabel realized.\n\nShe also realized that she still had the keys to the car in her hand. She turned and bolted out of the parlor, back into the kitchen.\n\nAnd ran right into the arms of Jack.\n106\n\n\"I really appreciate this,\" Deputy Adam Burrell said as Danny's friend Melvin started the snowmobile for him. \"You guys are the best.\"\n\nMelvin gave him a freckle-faced smile. \"Hey, dude, anything to help out the Woodfield finest. When Danny called me to say the cops needed a snowmobile, I didn't hesitate to hop on mine and zip right over here.\" The teenager leapt up off the seat so that Adam could slide on. \"Remember that, okay, next time you catch me with a little weed.\"\n\n\"I'll look the other way one time only,\" Adam said, taking the handlebars, \"and then we're even.\"\n\nMelvin gave him a little salute.\n\nUnlike the chief, Adam knew how to handle a snowmobile. Growing up in these parts, he'd been riding the machines since he was a kid. Adam wished Richard had let him go in his place. He would have been able to handle the Ski-Doo with ease. As it was, they were all wondering if maybe the chief had had an accident. It had been a couple of hours now since they'd heard from him, and Adam was beginning to worry. Had he crashed?\n\nBut maybe a snowmobile crack-up was the least they should be concerned about.\n\nSetting off down the road, Adam didn't know what he'd find at the Blue Boy.\n\nThe snow had stopped, but it was still blowing pretty fiercely. It would be days before everything was plowed. The department was definitely going to need to invest in its own snowmobiles, if storms like this were getting more frequent. As it was, their call to various private citizens had rounded up three more Ski-Doos. Their owners were riding them in even as Adam headed across town. They were coming from a bit farther out in the woods than either Danny or Melvin, so it would still take some time for them to get to the police station. But at least Adam knew he'd have some backup of more officers at the Blue Boy eventually, if it turned out he needed it.\n\nAnd need it, he might. He'd gone over everything they'd learned about what had been taking place at the inn. The disappearances, the blood in the chimney, the sounds that had been heard, the fact that the Englishman had been locked in his room. Something really weird was going down at that place. The fact that there had been no word from the chief unnerved Adam the most.\n\nHe sped on across the snow.\n107\n\n\"Give me the keys to the car, Annabel,\" Jack said, Gholding out his hand.\n\nAnnabel had no choice but to obey.\n\n\"What am I going to do with you?\" he asked, stuffing the keys down into his jeans pocket. \"First you threaten to shoot me and lock me in a closet, and then you try to run off.\"\n\n\"Those things\u2014\" Annabel could barely speak. \"Those things that took Zeke\u2014\"\n\nJack smiled. \"They're real, Annabel. And they don't like it when you say they aren't.\"\n\nHe was deliberately mocking her. She had told him all about Daddy Ron.\n\n\"How is it possible?\" Annabel asked, gripping the back of a kitchen chair to keep herself from falling down. Her head was throbbing. She couldn't make sense of all that she had witnessed this afternoon.\n\n\"Sit down, angel cakes,\" Jack told her. \"Take a load off. I'll make you some tea.\"\n\n\"No,\" Annabel said.\n\nJack laughed. \"Afraid I'll poison you? I suppose you should worry. You've been a very bad girl.\"\n\nAnnabel thought she might faint. She pulled out the chair and sat down in it, holding her head in her hands.\n\nShe was going to die here. Jack was going to kill her.\n\nOr worse\u2014he was going to put her down the fireplace. She would die crammed into a tiny space, unable to move, eaten by a dozen Tommy Trickies.\n\nHer childhood nightmare come true.\n\n\"Please, Jack,\" she cried.\n\n\"I should take no pity on you after everything you've done,\" Jack said, and Annabel could hear the teakettle whistling on the stove. \"I should really punish you, you know.\"\n\n\"No,\" Annabel sobbed.\n\n\"But success would be no fun on my own,\" Jack continued. His wife could hear him pouring some hot water in a mug. \"Do you want chamomile or Earl Grey?\"\n\n\"No, no, no,\" she muttered.\n\n\"I guess I'll give you chamomile. It's more soothing. And you need to calm down.\"\n\nHe placed a steaming mug in front of her, the tab of a tea bag dangling from its side. Annabel didn't touch it.\n\nJack sat opposite her at the kitchen table. \"Sweetie, I want to do this together with you. The only reason my father didn't have the heart to go on was because he lost my mother. If they'd been a team, they would have had so much success here.\"\n\nAnnabel wouldn't look at him.\n\n\"I want you to remake this place into a grand destination, just as we planned. You'll redo this kitchen, make it all sparkling and modern.\" He leaned toward her. \"And maybe you could learn how to make Gran's rabbit stew. You don't have to eat it, sweetie, but it could become the inn's signature dish. Carry on a little tradition, you know, for our guests.\"\n\nFinally, she snapped her eyes up to look at him. \"Our guests? Who'd be picked off, one by one, dragged down screaming into that pit of hell?\"\n\n\"No, you see, sweetheart, that's why I need your help. We can control the house.\" He chuckled. \"I admit, right now, it's a bit out of control. But if we give it only what it needs, it will take care of us. It will make us successful. That was the promise given to my great-grandfather when he bought the house over a hundred years ago.\"\n\n\"By whom?\" Annabel asked.\n\n\"By the house.\" Jack looked at her as if she was being thickheaded. \"And the house keeps its promises.\"\n\n\"And kills those who live here.\" Annabel's eyes hardened. \"Or it does worse things to them. Like your sister.\" She spat the word, watching Jack's face to see how he reacted. \"Look what it's done to her.\"\n\n\"My sister,\" Jack said softly. \"Yes, you're right, Annabel, Cindy's a problem we have to deal with. Again, this is why I need your help.\"\n\nAnnabel saw an opening, maybe a way to appeal to whatever reason and sanity Jack might have left. \"Cindy needs help, Jack. We need to get her help.\"\n\nHe stood and began pacing the kitchen. \"Gran thought she had everything under control. With the fireplace bricked over, the only way to feed the house was through the door in the chimney in the basement. She kept it padlocked, but Cindy\u2014well, she's very strong. And she kept breaking the lock, and feeding the house through the door.\"\n\n\"Feeding it with what?\" Annabel asked.\n\nJack shrugged. \"Whatever she could find. Rabbits, mice, dead raccoons, skunks.\" He made a face of disgust. \"But the house was starving for something better than that. Cindy understood this, and of course, she would do anything to please the house. The house had spared her, and she was grateful.\"\n\n\"Spared . . . her?\" Annabel asked.\n\n\"Yes, sweetheart. Drink your tea. And I'll tell you the story.\"\n108\n\nJack was just a little boy, he told Annabel, when he came down the stairs to find his father sitting in the parlor, his head in his hands, sobbing.\n\n\"They took her,\" his father was saying.\n\nHis grandmother had been standing over him.\n\n\"Brick it up,\" she was telling him. \"Brick it up now!\"\n\nJack had been so young he couldn't understand everything that was happening. He had just stood there watching and listening.\n\nCordelia had approached the fireplace. \"You filthy monsters! Do you think we haven't read the books? Do you think we don't know how to put an end to this?\"\n\nJack's father stood. \"Don't, Mother. Don't provoke them. They'll come back. . . .\"\n\n\"Brick it up!\" Cordelia shrieked.\n\n\"Stop, Mother! They'll hear you! They've taken my wife and they've taken Cindy! They'll come back\u2014for us\u2014for Jack!\"\n\nJack had shrunk back at hearing his name, suddenly terrified.\n\nHis father had rushed to the fireplace then, speaking into it.\n\n\"Give her back if it's not too late,\" he pleaded. \"Give Cindy back and I will make sure we give you what you need, always! We had a bargain! You would make me successful if I gave you what you needed. I will keep my end of that bargain. Just give me back Cindy!\"\n\nJack had watched from around the corner of the parlor.\n\nHe had heard a rustling sound. Scratching.\n\nAnd then he had seen a small pink hand reach up from the ash dump in the fireplace. . . .\n109\n\n\"They . . . they let her go?\" Annabel asked, unable to truly comprehend what she was hearing.\n\n\"Yes,\" Jack told her. \"They made the bargain with my father\u2014which he failed to keep. But I intend to make up for what he did wrong!\"\n\n\"Jack, all of this is madness!\"\n\nHe still seemed miles away, lost in his memory. \"I had blocked it all out. Because, you see, when Cindy came back to us, she wasn't the same. She was wild, uncontrollable. My grandmother decided to keep her here when my father and I left. She bricked up the fireplace because the house was very angry at being deceived.\" He smiled over at Annabel. \"And it's no good to have the house angry at us, as you have witnessed.\"\n\n\"Jack, please, listen to what you're saying. . . .\"\n\nHe sighed. \"Poor Cindy. The house had let her go, but it still had her mind. If my father had reneged on his promise, she was determined to make it up to the house. She fed the house, gave it what it needed. . . .\" He looked over at Annabel sadly. \"Until recently. She kept sneaking out of the attic\u2014Zeke was getting far too old to control her, and Cindy had become far too cunning\u2014and finally she went out and killed that man, chopped him up, fed him piece by piece to the house.\"\n\nAnnabel thought she might be sick again.\n\n\"Jack,\" she said, when she was finally able to form words, \"this is crazy talk. Can't you see that? It makes no sense!\"\n\n\"It makes perfect sense, Annabel, if you let it make sense.\"\n\nShe struggled to show him how absurd his words were. \"If Cindy could open up the door in the basement, then why didn't those things get out that way? Why did they have to wait until the fireplace was unbricked?\"\n\n\"That's just the way it is, Annabel. That's what it says in the books. They can only come out through the fireplace.\"\n\n\"What books?\" But then suddenly she remembered. The books she'd found\u2014those books about demons and witchcraft hidden in that secret panel\u2014the same sort of panel that must exist all through the house, Annabel realized, allowing the creatures free rein. \"No,\" she mumbled. \"It can't be possible.\"\n\nJack remained calm. \"You only think it can't be, because you don't believe in the house.\"\n\nAnnabel ran her hands through her hair. \"You think this house\u2014those terrible things\u2014those creatures\u2014they can somehow make you successful? Why do you think that?\" She thought of those hideous books once more. \"Is it like some terrible pact with the devil?\"\n\n\"Call it what you like, Annabel.\"\n\nShe shook her head. \"And success comes through feeding the house?\"\n\n\"Yes, now you're getting it.\" Jack sighed. \"But here's the dilemma. Cindy is determined to keep giving the house what it craves, yet the truth is, she doesn't need to, anymore.\" He laughed. \"The house has been freed to take what it wants all by itself!\" He smiled broadly over at her. \"You freed it, Annabel.\"\n\nThe tears were running down her cheeks.\n\n\"But you're right, angel cakes.\" Jack was nodding, as if he were thinking things over. \"We're going to need to find a way to control Cindy. We can't allow her to disturb our guests. We need to find something productive for her to occupy her time with.\"\n\nThis was utter madness. Annabel put her head down on the table and cried.\n\nJack wandered across the kitchen, lost in thought. \"She was such a sweet little girl,\" he said dreamily. \"You know, I had blocked all of it out . . . all of what happened to her. I was so young and my father told me that I was mistaken. I hadn't seen Cindy climbing out of the fireplace, all bloody and sooty. Dad insisted that she'd wandered off into the woods.\"\n\nAnnabel looked up at him. \"Jack, you have to help your sister. All these years, the way your grandmother hid her in this house, it wasn't fair to her.\"\n\n\"But Cindy wants to be here,\" Jack insisted. \"She belongs here. So do I.\" He took a step toward Annabel. \"So do you.\"\n\n\"Jack, please\u2014\"\n\nThey heard the sound of a motor out in front of the house.\n\nJack rushed to the window.\n\n\"Another cop on a snowmobile,\" he seethed.\n\n\"Jack,\" Annabel pleaded, \"let me talk to him. I'll tell him that none of this was your fault, or Cindy's. Please, just let me talk to him\u2014\"\n\n\"You think I'm a fool?\" Jack growled. He grabbed Annabel, pulled her up from the chair, and clamped his hand over her mouth. \"You'll say nothing, you hear? You won't make a sound, baby cakes, or I'll have to break your neck. I won't like doing it, but I will.\"\n\nHe dragged her across the kitchen toward the pantry.\n\n\"Cindeeee!\" he called.\n\nThen he banged open the door to the pantry with his shoulder and took Annabel inside.\n110\n\nPulling into the snow-covered driveway of the Blue Boy Inn, Adam could see Richard's snowmobile, already nearly covered by drifting snow. He could also see a path that had been dug out from around the side of the house, leading to an SUV, which had also been cleared of snow. That's convenient, Adam, thought, as otherwise, he'd have to try to gain access to the house by crawling up the side and going through a second-floor window. The first floor was almost completely covered in snow.\n\nI'll bet the chief shoveled out this path, Adam thought, steering the snowmobile over to the clearing. I'll bet I'll find him inside, having coffee with Annabel. Everything's going to be fine. The only reason we haven't heard from him is because there's no cell reception out here.\n\nFor some reason, the shoveled path reassured Adam. He thought he'd find everything peaceful inside. They'd been wrong to worry.\n\nHe didn't look too closely at the front of the house, or the pink snow near the front door.\n\nAdam brought the snowmobile to a stop. He dismounted and headed over to the path that led to the kitchen door.\n\n\"Chief?\" he called as he approached the house.\n\nHe peered through the one window that had been cleared of snow. He looked into the kitchen. He didn't see anyone. But there was a steaming mug of what looked like tea on the table. Things couldn't be too bad if they were sitting around drinking tea.\n\nAdam rapped on the door.\n\nThere was no sound, no movement, from inside.\n\nHe rapped again. \"Hello!\" he called. \"Chief! Are you there? Mr. Devlin! Ms. Wish!\"\n\nWhy wasn't anyone answering?\n\nAdam tried the door. It was open. He let himself in.\n\nSomething wasn't right. He felt it as soon as he stepped inside the kitchen.\n\nHe held his gun in front of him with both hands.\n\n\"Chief!\" Adam called. \"Hello! Anyone here?\"\n\nA woman suddenly appeared in the doorway that led to the parlor. She was pretty, but her hair was long and gray. She was wearing a long blue dress.\n\n\"Hello,\" the woman said.\n\nAdam lowered his gun. \"I'm Officer Burrell. I'm looking for Chief Carlson.\"\n\nThe woman looked at him as if she didn't understand.\n\n\"Who are you?\" Adam asked her.\n\nShe just smiled and took a step into the room.\n111\n\nIn the pantry, Annabel and Jack watched from a crack in the door.\n\n\"Mmm,\" Annabel moaned, Jack's hand still pressed over her mouth.\n\n\"Shh,\" he growled at her.\n\nAnnabel watched in despair as Cindy approached the policeman. She could see the knife she carried behind her back, even if the poor man did not. How Annabel wanted to warn him. But Jack would break her neck if she made a sound. She truly believed he would.\n\nBut the policeman had a gun. He could shoot Cindy if she tried to attack him. Jack, too. He could put an end to all of this madness.\n\nWhat did it matter if Annabel died? She was going to die in this house anyway. If she made some kind of a sound, there was a chance that the policeman could shoot Jack before he had a chance to kill her. Staying silent simply prolonged her misery. Making noise gave her a chance\u2014a slim chance, but a chance nonetheless. And if she died, so be it.\n\nShe couldn't live in this hellhole much longer.\n\nJack held Annabel in a vise grip in front of him, preventing her from moving her arms. His hand was secured over her mouth.\n\nBut he hadn't counted on her feet.\n\nShe was still wearing his clunky boots. They were loose. If she could shake one off . . .\n\nAnnabel lifted her right foot up to the side. She kicked.\n\nThe boot remained on her foot. If she tried again, Jack might notice.\n\nBut she had to try. She lifted her foot again. And kicked doubly hard.\n\nThe boot flew off her foot and crashed into a low shelf of glass jars containing Cordelia's preserves. Apricots and strawberries smashed all onto the floor.\n112\n\nAdam heard the sound and swung his gun around in the direction of the pantry. As he did so, the woman in front of him lunged at him with a knife.\n\nHe fired wildly, pumping the kitchen ceiling full of lead.\n\nThe woman's knife made contact with his arm, cutting through his coat and slicing into his flesh.\n\nAdam spun back around, slugging the woman, sending her flying and the knife skittering across the floor.\n\nHe kicked open the door to the pantry.\n\n\"Ms. Wish!\" he exclaimed.\n\nJack let her go.\n\n\"Mr. Devlin,\" Adam said, trying to make sense of things. \"Come on out of there, please. I'd like to know what's going on here.\"\n113\n\nAnnabel's relief and gratitude were short-lived. Behind Adam she saw Cindy stand up. Dear God, what kind of strength did she have? Adam had just knocked her out cold.\n\nWhat kind of power did this house give to people?\n\nAnnabel saw Cindy stand and grab her knife off the floor....\n114\n\n\"No!\" Ms. Wish suddenly screamed, looking be-Nhind him.\n\nAdam turned in time to see the woman back on her feet, coming at him with the knife. He swung his gun around\u2014\n\nBut it was too late.\n\nThe knife plunged deep into Adam's gut. He gasped and buckled forward.\n\nDevlin began punching him. Adam fell to the ground. The last thing he saw was the knife above him, coming down at his throat.\n115\n\nAnnabel saw Cindy bring the knife down onto the policeman, then pull it up again, then plunge it down again, repeating this several times, each time dripping more blood.\n\n\"Okay, honey, enough now,\" Jack was saying to her gently.\n\n\"I have to cut him up,\" Cindy said, like an eager child.\n\nJack tenderly lifted her off the twitching, bloody corpse. \"No, Cindy, you don't have to do that. From now on, I'll take care of feeding the house. Do you understand, baby?\"\n\nCindy looked up at him with sad eyes. \"They don't need me anymore,\" she whimpered.\n\n\"Oh, honey baby, the house will always need you.\" Jack pulled her into an embrace, stroking her stringy gray hair.\n\n\"They're my only friends,\" Cindy cried against his chest.\n\n\"No, baby, I'm your friend, too. And Annabel\u2014\"\n\nBut Annabel had just bolted.\n\nShe ran out of the kitchen into the parlor. She couldn't have gone out the back way. Jack would have gotten her. Her only hope was to go out through her window upstairs, as she'd originally planned. She still had the snowmobile keys zipped in her pocket. Even if she couldn't get very far on it, Annabel was certain now more policemen were on their way. She just had to get out of the house before Jack or Cindy could get her.\n\nOr worse\u2014she could be caught by Tommy Tricky and his brothers.\n\nShe ran up the stairs and turned the corner into the corridor.\n\nBut she didn't get very far.\n\nA hand suddenly reached out and clamped itself over her mouth. Before she knew what was happening, she was pulled into a dark closet by a very strong pair of arms.\n116\n\nRichard kissed her to make sure she didn't scream out.\n\nAnnabel shuddered in his arms, still full of terror. He moved his lips off her.\n\n\"It's okay,\" he whispered in her ear. \"It's going to be okay.\"\n\nIn the very dim light of the linen closet, Richard saw Annabel's eyes sparkle with sudden surprise and relief. \"Richard,\" she said, as the tenseness in her body relaxed. \"You're alive!\"\n\nHe grunted. \"Well, my face is never going to be the same, and I think I broke my ankle, and I can't feel my left hand, but yes, I'm alive.\"\n\nHe smiled.\n\n\"Thank God,\" Annabel said, looking up at his face. \"Oh, Richard, you're all cut and swollen.\"\n\nShe tried to touch him and he flinched. The pain was quite severe now. Only as his body had warmed did he begin to feel just how injured he was.\n\nHe had come to under the snow. How very peaceful it had been down there. On some primal level, Richard had wanted to stay right where he was. He was fading in and out of consciousness, and he wasn't unhappy. He wasn't uncomfortable. But he would die if he stayed where he was. He was, in fact, slowly freezing to death. The thought had startled him back to full consciousness, and Richard had begun to scrape his way out of the snow.\n\nIt hadn't been easy. The snow was hardening, and he was stuck headfirst in it. At first, it had been almost impossible to move his arms. He pushed and elbowed as best he could, and kicked as hard as he could muster with his legs. Finally, he created enough space around him to move, to shift his position. He swallowed a lot of snow in the process.\n\nHe was bleeding from his face and neck. The impact had cut and scraped him pretty badly, but he hadn't felt much pain at first. He was too cold. He was too numb. Clawing his way out of the snowbank, he had stood up and looked around. That was when he felt the first pain\u2014in his ankle. He didn't think it was the fall that had done it, but rather the way Devlin had slammed him into the wall.\n\nThe man was going to pay.\n\nRichard noticed another snowmobile was now parked out in front. Could it be one of his officers, come looking for him? Or was it someone else?\n\nHe could take no chances. Knowing that Devlin might be watching him, Richard crunched through the snow to the back of the house, where he spotted a rainspout. He tested it, determined it was strong enough, and he began to climb. The angle made it impossible to be seen from any window of the house. Once he was close enough to a window, Richard used the butt of his gun to smash his way in.\n\nHe always traveled with a spare gun.\n\nStepping through the broken window, aware that the sound could bring Devlin running, Richard steadied himself, his weapon in both hands, raised in front of him. He was aware that Devlin might have his other gun, the one he'd lost when he'd been taken unawares. That had never happened before to Richard, ever, in his career. He was known for being very swift, very agile, able to turn on a dime. But Devlin seemed to possess some kind of strength that Richard had not expected.\n\nSo he was extra cautious as he made his way down the hall.\n\nThat was when he had heard the screaming and crying from downstairs and the scampering of feet. He'd backed into the open linen closet so he wouldn't be seen. In seconds, Annabel had come running by. Now he held her, trembling in his arms.\n\n\"Does he have the gun?\" Richard whispered in her ear.\n\n\"Not at the moment,\" Annabel told him. \"But I'm sure he'll get it.\"\n\n\"Where is it?\" he asked. \"Do you know?\"\n\n\"I had it for a while, but he knocked it away from me. It was on the floor in the bedroom.\"\n\n\"Let's go,\" Richard said. \"If it's there, we'll get it. If not, well, he can keep it. Shoot himself with it, for all I care. Either way, you and I are going out the window.\" He looked down at her. \"You still have the keys to the snowmobile?\"\n\n\"Yes.\" Annabel gripped his coat and looked up at him. \"But Richard, you need to know what's happened here. Terrible things.\"\n\n\"What kind of terrible things?\" he asked.\n\nShe shuddered. \"Adam's dead.\"\n\n\"Adam\u2014?\"\n\n\"Cindy killed him.\"\n\n\"Cindy?\" Richard looked down at the terrified woman in his arms. \"That was the name of Devlin's sister, the little girl who died. . . .\"\n\n\"She's alive. She's the woman I told you about. She's been living here. Completely insane.\"\n\n\"So she's the killer.\"\n\nAnnabel looked as if she'd cry. \"Yes, but no . . .\"\n\n\"Annabel, what do you mean?\"\n\n\"Oh, Richard, it's the house. There are things that live in this house . . . creatures who come up through the fireplace. . . .\"\n\nShe was delirious. And who wouldn't be, after everything she'd been through?\n\n\"Come on, Annabel,\" he said. \"We're getting out of here.\"\n\n\"They'll get us, Richard! The little men! Tommy Tricky and his friends!\"\n\n\"Calm down, Annabel. Stay behind me at all times.\" He nudged the door of the closet open just a crack, getting a look down the corridor. \"We're just going across the way and into the bedroom, then out the window.\"\n\n\"But Richard . . .\"\n\n\"Listen to me. We're going out the window and then onto the little roof over the porch. From there it's an easy jump to the snow, and at that point we can move pretty quickly to the snowmobile in the tracks that I made getting here.\"\n\n\"Richard, they're not going to let us leave. . . .\"\n\n\"You mean Jack and his sister?\"\n\n\"No. The little men.\"\n\nRichard looked at her. It was best not to argue with her at this point.\n\n\"Come on, Annabel,\" he said, pushing open the door. \"Let's go.\"\n117\n\nAnnabel followed Richard out of the closet.\n\nWhere were Jack and Cindy? Lurking somewhere, Annabel was certain. They would pounce on them. But even worse\u2014\n\nThe little men.\n\nThey'll put us down the fireplace!\n\n\"Come on,\" Richard urged in a harsh whisper, and they ran across the hall.\n\nAs they rushed into the bedroom, they could see the window. There was no gun in sight, but all that really mattered was that they reach the window. The window meant freedom. For half of a second, Annabel's spirits leapt. She believed they would escape.\n\nBut then Tommy Tricky dropped from the ceiling onto Richard's back.\n\nHe must have been sitting on the top of the opened door, waiting, watching.\n\nHe plunged his long sharp claws into Richard's neck. Richard screamed.\n\n\"I don't like it when you don't believe in me, Richard,\" the little imp said in his high-pitched doll's voice.\n\nAnnabel screamed at the same time Richard did. Blood squirted from the chief's neck like water from a leaky pipe.\n\nRichard grabbed his neck and in doing so, he knocked the little man from his shoulders. Tommy had only a second to look up at him and hiss through his sharp, clenched teeth when Richard aimed his gun at him and fired.\n\nThe little man exploded in a mess of blue blood and plasma.\n\n\"Richard, are you all right?\" Annabel said, rushing to him.\n\n\"I think so,\" he said, more dazed and shocked by the creature than the attack itself. He kept looking down at the bubbling ooze on the floor.\n\n\"It's not possible,\" he said. \"That thing\u2014\"\n\nFinally, he pulled his eyes away and grabbed Annabel by the wrist.\n\n\"Come on, let's go!\"\n\nBut when they looked toward the window they saw little men were now crawling all over it. The creatures were coming out of the woodwork. Literally. Floorboards raised. Panels in the walls opened. And the little men stepped out, their fierce blue eyes trained on Annabel and Richard.\n\n\"Through the other window!\" Richard shouted, pulling Annabel out of the room and into the corridor.\n\nThe moment they stepped out of the room, however, every door along the hall slammed shut. They were left in semidarkness. Richard tried the door to his left. It was locked. Annabel tried the one opposite. That one, too, wouldn't budge.\n\n\"Look, Richard!\" Annabel suddenly shouted.\n\nMarching up the stairs and into the hallway was an army of six more little men. They all looked nearly identical, with little blue pinched faces and blue teeth and blue rags as clothes. They were all gnashing their teeth.\n\n\"Shoot them, Richard!\" Annabel screamed.\n\nHe was firing even before the words were out of her mouth. The first two creatures exploded like their fallen comrade, but those in the back suddenly leapt to the walls, crawling like spiders, still coming toward their prey. Richard fired again, but the creatures easily darted away, and the bullet simply tore open a portion of the wall. Another of the little men was now on the ceiling, and as Annabel looked up at it, it dropped down on her.\n\nClinging to her shoulders, face-to-face with her, Tommy Tricky laughed. \"I like eating bad little girls,\" he hissed.\n\nAnnabel screamed.\n\nRichard knocked the thing to the floor with the butt of his gun, and then shot it. Once more, Annabel watched it bubble into a blue goo.\n\nBut the other three were now clawing up Richard's leg. He shook one off, sending it flying through the air. He shot it before it hit the wall, a messy blue explosion in mid-flight.\n\nBut the other one was now crawling up his torso. And the final little man had jumped off Richard and onto Annabel's arm.\n\nSuddenly she got angry.\n\n\"You filthy bastard!\" she bellowed, and whipped her arm around, crashing the creature into the wall. She took delight in seeing the way its blue teeth smashed on impact. The thing fell in a dazed lump to the floor.\n\nRichard swatted the thing off his torso, shot it, and then did the same to the creature Annabel had dispatched.\n\n\"What are these fucking things?\" he asked.\n\n\"I told you. They're the\u2014\"\n\n\"Yes,\" he said, finishing her thought. \"From the fireplace.\" He looked over at her. \"Do you think this is all of them?\"\n\n\"No,\" Annabel said. \"There are more. I don't know how many, but there are definitely more.\"\n\n\"Well, at least we know they can be killed,\" Richard said. He seemed to realize something. \"So the stories of old Reverend Fall were apparently true after all. He found his portal.\"\n\n\"What?\" Annabel asked.\n\n\"No time now to explain,\" Richard replied, before taking hold of her arm. \"All right, let's get out of here before we encounter any more of those hell spawn.\"\n\nThey ran back to Cordelia's room. The door was no longer locked. The sheet Jack had used as a makeshift barrier at the window had fallen off, and a couple of feet of snow had drifted into the room.\n\n\"Same plan as before,\" Richard told Annabel, and she nodded.\n\nThey bolted toward the window.\n118\n\nFor Richard, it was almost as if time stood still. There he was, running for his very life, away from things he never believed existed just moments before, and yet, despite all those dangers, he was thinking of Amy.\n\nHe was thinking about how very much he had loved her. And how much he missed her. And how he would never love any woman ever again the way he had loved Amy, no matter how long he lived.\n\nHe had failed to save Amy. How he had tried. He had never accepted her diagnosis. Richard had taken his wife to see specialist after specialist. He'd investigated every new drug, every alternative treatment. But still Amy had died. Still she'd left him alone.\n\nHe'd saved Annabel, however. Richard felt confident that was true.\n\nAs he positioned her by the window so she could jump out onto the front porch roof, he realized something.\n\nHe hadn't saved Annabel. She had saved herself.\n\nHe had seen how she'd bashed that creature against the wall. Annabel had survived this house of horrors. Her escape was entirely due to her. Richard was just driving the getaway car.\n\nAnnabel could survive anything.\n\nJust like Amy. Richard hadn't failed her, because there was nothing to fail: Amy had been entirely in control the whole time. It was Richard who'd used terms like \"beating this.\" Amy had always said, \"I will face whatever I need to face with grace and purpose.\" And she had, right up until the end. Before she had fallen into her coma, she had looked up at Richard from her hospital bed, told him she loved him, and said she looked forward to the time they would meet again.\n\nHow very much he had loved Amy.\n\n\"Richard!\" Annabel suddenly screamed, looking back from the window. \"Look out!\"\n\nHe only had a momentary flash of the gray-haired woman\u2014Cindy\u2014coming into the room behind him with a knife. He never had time to reach for his gun or feel the knife pierce his heart.\n\nHe was already with Amy.\n119\n\n\"Noo!\" Annabel shouted, leaping down from the window to shove Cindy off Richard's fallen body. \"Noooo!\"\n\nCindy pulled back, hissing like an affronted swan. Annabel knelt down beside Richard's body.\n\n\"Don't die,\" she begged. \"Don't leave me alone.... I can't get out of here without you. I can't, I can't, I can't. . . .\"\n\nHer tears dripped onto Richard's face. But his glassy eyes stared up at her. He was dead. This time, he wasn't coming back.\n\nAnnabel felt herself falling. She was tumbling back into her black hole, unable to move, unable to think. Once more, it was the only way she could handle the terrible things happening outside her. She shut down. She was like a turtle pulling into its shell, only her shell was soft and vulnerable, and would not protect her.\n\n\"You stay inside there, you bad little girl,\" Daddy Ron's voice shouted through the closet door. \"You stay in there in the dark because you're bad. Very bad.\"\n\n\"I'm not bad,\" Annabel replied, in a very small voice.\n\n\"Don't argue with me, you little bitch. You are bad!\"\n\n\"No, I'm not!\" Annabel suddenly shrieked, and she lashed out, kicking the closet door down with her feet.\n\nShe looked up. Cindy stood a few feet away from her, watching her with wild eyes.\n\nI can't shut down, Annabel thought. I shut down and I die.\n\nAnd if I'm going to die, she reasoned, I'll die fighting to live.\n\nShe turned and started to climb up onto the windowsill.\n\nBut Cindy leapt onto her back. Annabel tried to throw her off, but Cindy was so terribly strong. Her arms encircled Annabel in a vise grip, threatening to choke off her air. Annabel did the only thing she could do. She fell backwards, toppling down from the window with Cindy underneath her. It momentarily knocked the wind out of Cindy and the arms that had held Annabel so tightly suddenly opened.\n\nAnnabel jumped free and lunged for Richard's gun.\n\nBut Cindy was too fast for her. She nudged the gun away, out of Annabel's grip. Then she grabbed hold of Annabel's wrist, wrestling her down to the floor.\n\n\"Jack!\" Annabel screamed.\n\nHe might help her. He might at least call Cindy off her.\n\n\"Jack!\"\n\nCindy lifted the knife over her head, its point aimed at Annabel's chest.\n\nAnnabel looked up into the madwoman's face. She was a little girl once, a happy child, until coming to this place. Even in that moment, Annabel felt pity for her.\n\nSuddenly there came a shot.\n\nAnd Cindy's face, so tensed with rage just a moment before, suddenly relaxed. A look of peace filled her eyes just before her body slumped over to the right, the knife she'd been holding in her hand clattering to the floor.\n120\n\nAnnabel looked in the direction of the doorway into the eyes of her savior.\n\nJack stood there, holding Richard's first gun in his hand. The gun was smoking.\n\n\"I had to do it,\" he said sadly. \"I couldn't let her kill you, baby cakes.\"\n\n\"Oh, Jack . . .\" Annabel stood up, trembling terribly.\n\nJack approached his dead sister. \"I mean, she couldn't go on this way. Like I said, if she kept escaping from the attic to slash our guests, we'd never be successful.\"\n\nHe knelt down beside Cindy's body. He had shot her clean through the chest. The blood that now seeped through her clothes, turning her blue dress purple, was her own.\n\n\"She was such a sweet little girl,\" Jack said, stroking her hair. \"She used to have a real nice singing voice.\n\nShe loved to dance. We used to watch Sesame Street together.\"\n\nIn the midst of everything\u2014after all the horrors and all the abuse Jack had done to her\u2014Annabel felt sorry for him. They had loved each other once. It had been a long time ago, but they had loved each other. Back then, Jack had been kind and good. Whatever demonic forces controlled this house, they had taken Jack's mind and warped it.\n\n\"Jack,\" Annabel said, stooping down beside her husband, \"come with me. Let's get out of this house together. We'll go out through the window and ride back into town. I'll explain that you only shot Cindy to save me. No one will blame you for anything here. They'll come, they'll see what this house is, and they'll understand. . . they'll understand none of it was your fault.\"\n\nHer husband snapped his face up to look at her. \"Oh, but that's impossible,\" he said quickly. \"The house won't let us leave, Annabel.\"\n\nShe studied his eyes. She didn't know what he meant.\n\nBut then she looked around and his meaning became unmistakably clear.\n\nThe room was filled with little men.\n\nOnce again they were coming up through the floorboards and stepping out of sliding panels from the walls. There were dozens of them. The house was infested with them, like cockroaches or termites. Three of them even sat in the window, blocking the way if Annabel suddenly tried to make an escape.\n\n\"No,\" Annabel said. \"Please, no . . .\"\n\nThey were coming closer. Slowly, steadily, their little feet moved, closing in on Annabel and Jack.\n\nThe little men were muttering among themselves.\n\n\"It's Cindy,\" Annabel realized. \"They're angry about Cindy.\"\n\n\"She was their friend,\" Jack said, standing up now, facing them.\n\n\"Shoot them, Jack!\" Annabel shouted.\n\n\"No,\" Jack said. \"They're going to make me rich.\"\n\n\"No, they're not, Jack! They're going to put you down the fireplace!\"\n\nToo late he lifted the gun in their direction. Five or six of the creatures crawled up Jack's body, snatching the gun out of his hand and tossing it out the window. Then a dozen more covered him, knocking him to his knees. They were under him, trying to lift him and carry him away.\n\nAnnabel screamed in horror.\n\n\"No!\" Jack cried. \"I'm your friend! I will take care of you!\"\n\nThe little demons ignored his words.\n\n\"She's the one!\" Jack shrieked, managing to point over at Annabel. \"She's the one who wants to destroy you! She'll destroy the house!\"\n\nHis eyes met Annabel's.\n\nShe had just offered him a chance at salvation. He was offering the demons her life for his.\n\nAnnabel knew in that instant it wasn't the house that had warped Jack. He'd already been that way the day they arrived at this place. And probably for some time before that.\n\n\"Take her!\" Jack was screaming. \"Take Annabel instead!\"\n\nAll at once, the little men stopped moving. They looked at each other. Then they set Jack down on the floor and turned their terrible blue eyes at Annabel.\n\n\"No!\" she screamed.\n\nThe creatures marched toward her.\n121\n\nAnnabel backed up against the wall in a vain attempt to get away from the little men. But the creatures were dropping down from the ceiling now, and crawling up her legs.\n\nAnnabel tried to fight them off, but it was useless. There were too many.\n\nThey had her. Their little pincers sunk into her flesh and held her tightly. They knocked her off her feet and scrambled under her back, hoisting her off the floor and carrying her across the room.\n\nAnnabel screamed.\n\nJack had vanished. He had condemned her to death, and would do nothing to save her.\n\nAnnabel's only hope was the gun\u2014the one that Cindy had knocked from her hands and sent sliding across the floor. Annabel could see it as the creatures carried her past. She might be able to grab it\u2014\n\nShe stretched out her arm when they drew close to the gun, which was sitting undisturbed in the middle of the floor. The little men seemed to have no interest in it. Their tiny fingers\u2014claws\u2014would not have been able to pull the trigger. Annabel had to grab it. She had to shoot them as Richard had, and she would take such delight in watching them explode into filthy protoplasm.\n\nHer fingers touched metal. Yes! She closed her fingers around the barrel of the gun\u2014\n\nBut the creatures were moving her too quickly. Annabel was unable to grab hold of the weapon. It slipped past her hand as she was carried past.\n\n\"Noo!\" Annabel cried in frustration.\n\nThere was no more hope. She would die. She would be stuffed into a small, enclosed space and she would be eaten alive by dozens of Tommy Trickies.\n\nHer mind shut down as she was carried out of the room, through the corridor, and down the stairs.\n\nA series of images passed through her brain in those last few moments.\n\nA picture of her father. Her real father. Colonel Malcolm Wish, in his beige-and-white camouflage from the Gulf War.\n\nIf you had only lived, Daddy, if you had only lived . . .\n\nHer mother, her weary face at the end of the long day, her fear of Daddy Ron evident in the way her eyes flickered at the slightest sound....\n\nJack, on their wedding day . . .\n\nA party in New York, laughter, lights, music, the smell of cocaine in her nose . . .\n\nThe stultifying air of the hospital, the sense of being trapped, the sound of people crying down the hall . . .\n\nNeville's face.\n\nChad's.\n\nRichard's.\n\nYou can survive anything.\n\nHad Richard said that to her?\n\nSuddenly, Annabel opened her eyes. She was being carried through the parlor now. At any moment, the creatures were going to force her headfirst down the chimney. There were others, she knew, waiting inside to pull her down.\n\n\"No,\" she said quietly.\n\nShe thrashed her head from side to side. She spotted Jack across the room, watching from a dark corner, his eyes emotionless.\n\n\"No,\" Annabel said more loudly.\n\nSuch strength the house had given Jack, and Cindy, too.\n\nBut not as much as it's given me, Annabel thought.\n\n\"Get off of me, you filthy bastards!\" she screamed, and in one powerful move, she shook the things off her, sending several of them flying.\n\nThe surprise on their little faces was beautiful to see.\n\nThey tried scrambling back at her, but Annabel managed to stand up, crushing one of the things under her bare foot as she did so, hearing its loathsome neck snap. The little men began making chittering sounds like monkeys. A number of them kept lunging at her, their pincers clawing into her legs, but others were backing away from her, not sure what to make of this suddenly powerful creature who had the ability to resist them.\n\n\"You only think you're real,\" she spat at them. \"Mother told me you're not.\"\n\nShe shook the last of them off her legs.\n\n\"Grab her!\" Jack shouted. \"Grab her now or she'll get away.\"\n\nThe sound of Jack's voice drew their attention away from Annabel. A moment passed as all the little men turned to look at Jack.\n\nThen, instantaneously, as if some psychic command had passed among them, they all started running toward him.\n\n\"Get away from me!\" Jack cried. \"It's her you want! Take her!\"\n\nBut they overran him, knocking him to the floor.\n\nJack screamed.\n122\n\nAnnabel watched as the creatures lifted Jack and carried him across the floor toward the fireplace. He swung his arms and tried to kick his feet, crying hysterically.\n\n\"Annabel!\" he called to her. \"Help me, baby cakes!\"\n\nBut that wasn't going to happen.\n\nInstead, Annabel turned and walked out of the parlor at the moment Jack's head was pushed down into the fireplace. Heading into the kitchen, she could hear Jack's muffled scream as the creatures devoured him.\n\nShe knew what she had to do.\n\nThe first thing was practical. Annabel found the boots she had kicked off, one in the pantry and the other in the kitchen. She replaced them on her feet and tied them as tightly as possible. She worked deliberately, but also quickly. She had very little time. Whether the creatures would come back for her, she didn't know. Perhaps she had proven herself to them, and they would leave her alone now. But they might be back for another round.\n\nStill, if they did try, Annabel felt confident that she could beat them off again. But frankly, she didn't want to have to bother.\n\nHer boots on her feet, she walked over to the stove and grabbed the box of kitchen matches that were kept there.\n\nZeke had had the right idea.\n\nThose little men weren't real. Tommy Tricky had been used to torment her, manipulate her, frighten her, exploit her. But he hadn't been real.\n\nHer mother told her he wasn't.\n\nAnd Annabel intended to make sure it stayed that way.\n\nShe walked back into the parlor, clutching the box of matches in her hand.\n\nThe little creatures were dancing around, celebrating Jack's death. The house had been fed. They were pleased.\n\nNot for long.\n\nZeke had sprinkled gasoline all over the floor\u2014the rugs\u2014the drapes. Annabel could smell it.\n\nShe struck a match against the side of the box.\n\nA little flame sparked into life.\n\nThe creature nearest to her turned his face up to the match. Its flame reflected in his demonic little eyes.\n\n\"Good-bye, Tommy,\" Annabel told the creature, and dropped the match to the floor. The rug under the little man burst into flame, taking the terrified creature with it. Its face melted like wax in the conflagration.\n\nInstantly, the parlor was ablaze, the room Annabel had thought she would modernize, make pretty, turn into a home. The drapes caught. The sofa was obliterated. As Annabel turned to leave, she caught a glimpse of flames hopping like rabbits up the stairs. The little men were screaming.\n\nWalking out into the kitchen, Annabel kept striking more matches and dropping them to the floor. Little explosions followed in her wake.\n\nShe threw a lighted match into the pantry and listened to the roar. She placed a match on the center of the gas-soaked kitchen table, which burst into flames. Soon the whole room was an inferno. Annabel could hear the fire consuming the walls around her and ripping through the ceiling above her. But best of all, she could hear the high-pitched screams of the little men as the flames consumed their unholy blue flesh.\n\nCalmly, she walked out the back door.\n\nMaking her way across the path that Zeke had dug for her, Annabel noticed that the snow had stopped and that breaks of blue were appearing in the sky. By the time she had crunched across the yard to Richard's snowmobile, the house behind her was burning out of control, sending a giant plume of black smoke rising above the trees.\n\nAnnabel mounted the snowmobile. She unzipped her coat pocket and removed the keys. Inserting the larger of the two keys into the ignition, she turned it to the ON position.\n\nThe snowmobile didn't start.\n\nWas she going to be able to drive this thing?\n\nOf course, she was.\n\nShe figured she could do anything now.\n\nInstinctively, she pulled a cord in front of her and pushed the handlebars up, and the motor beneath her hummed into life.\n\nAnnabel sailed off across the snow.\nPINNACLE BOOKS are published by\n\nKensington Publishing Corp. \n119 West 40th Street \nNew York, NY 10018\n\nCopyright \u00a9 2015 William Patterson\n\nAll rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.\n\nIf you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as \"unsold and destroyed\" to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this \"stripped book.\"\n\nThis book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.\n\nPINNACLE BOOKS and the Pinnacle logo are Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.\n\nISBN: 978-0-7860-3323-2\n\nFirst electronic edition: January 2015\n\nISBN-13: 978-0-7860-3324-9 \nISBN-10: 0-7860-3324-X\n","meta":{"redpajama_set_name":"RedPajamaBook"}} +{"text":" \nThe author and publisher have provided this e-book to you without Digital Rights Management software (DRM) applied so that you can enjoy reading it on your personal devices. This e-book is for your personal use only. You may not print or post this e-book, or make this e-book publicly available in any way. You may not copy, reproduce, or upload this e-book, other than to read it on one of your personal devices.\n\nCopyright infringement is against the law. If you believe the copy of this e-book you are reading infringes on the author's copyright, please notify the publisher at: us.macmillanusa.com\/piracy.\nContents\n\nTitle Page\n\nCopyright Notice\n\nINTRODUCTION\n\nA STAINLESS STEEL RAT IS BORN\n\nChapter 1\n\nChapter 2\n\nChapter 3\n\nChapter 4\n\nChapter 5\n\nChapter 6\n\nChapter 7\n\nChapter 8\n\nChapter 9\n\nChapter 10\n\nChapter 11\n\nChapter 12\n\nChapter 13\n\nChapter 14\n\nChapter 15\n\nChapter 16\n\nChapter 17\n\nChapter 18\n\nChapter 19\n\nChapter 20\n\nChapter 21\n\nChapter 22\n\nChapter 23\n\nChapter 24\n\nChapter 25\n\nChapter 26\n\nChapter 27\n\nChapter 28\n\nChapter 29\n\nChapter 30\n\nTHE STAINLESS STEEL RAT GETS DRAFTED\n\nDedication\n\nChapter 1\n\nChapter 2\n\nChapter 3\n\nChapter 4\n\nChapter 5\n\nChapter 6\n\nChapter 7\n\nChapter 8\n\nChapter 9\n\nChapter 10\n\nChapter 11\n\nChapter 12\n\nChapter 13\n\nChapter 14\n\nChapter 15\n\nChapter 16\n\nChapter 17\n\nChapter 18\n\nChapter 19\n\nChapter 20\n\nChapter 21\n\nChapter 22\n\nChapter 23\n\nChapter 24\n\nChapter 25\n\nChapter 26\n\nChapter 27\n\nChapter 28\n\nChapter 29\n\nChapter 30\n\nTHE STAINLESS STEEL RAT SINGS THE BLUES\n\nChapter 1\n\nChapter 2\n\nChapter 3\n\nChapter 4\n\nChapter 5\n\nChapter 6\n\nChapter 7\n\nChapter 8\n\nChapter 9\n\nChapter 10\n\nChapter 11\n\nChapter 12\n\nChapter 13\n\nChapter 14\n\nChapter 15\n\nChapter 16\n\nChapter 17\n\nChapter 18\n\nChapter 19\n\nChapter 20\n\nChapter 21\n\nChapter 22\n\nChapter 23\n\nChapter 24\n\nChapter 25\n\nChapter 26\n\nChapter 27\n\nAnd You Will Sing the Blues Too...\n\nTor Books by Harry Harrison\n\nCopyright\nIntroduction\n\nIf you are new to the world of the Stainless Steel Rat, I bid you welcome. There are now ten novels that have been published in the series that features this protagonist. All this mighty effort, all the acres of trees turned to paper, all of the twenty-three translations into different languages, all of this can be dated back to a single short story that was published in Analog some years ago. This story, and another short story following the adventures of the same character, were eventually incorporated into a novel by the same name.\n\nWhat\u2014or who\u2014exactly is this rust-free rodent? He is a man, not a rat, although he firmly believes that just as there are flesh-and-blood rats in wooden houses today, so will there be stainless steel rats in the future, when the world will be all metal and concrete. In human terms, this means that there will always be individuals who are a part of society\u2014yet separated from it.\n\nWhen Kingsley Amis read the first Stainless Steel Rat novel, he said, \"Well, Harry, you have written the first picaresque science-fiction novel.\" I nodded sagaciously\u2014and at the first opportunity rushed to my dictionary.\n\nPicaresque 1. of or relating to a type of fiction in which the hero, a rogue, goes through a series of episodic adventures.\n\nWell, that is a fair enough description. My hero is alone against the universe, with every man's hand\u2014if not every woman's\u2014turned against him. He is without the law, verily a law unto himself, with a strict sense of morality. Aren't the two mutually incompatible? No, as you will soon discover.\n\nThis character first appeared in The Stainless Steel Rat. But you will not find that novel here. Instead, you will be introduced to James diGriz, sometimes called Slippery Jim, as a young man, perhaps even a callow youth, because I realized, as the number of these books grew, that I was intrigued as to where this brash and very successful character had come from. How had he grown up among peaceful, law-abiding citizens and become, what many might call, a crook?\n\nAs the author, I thought that I knew. But I wanted these thoughts amplified on paper, then expanded into a novel. After all, if I care, certainly the readers would be concerned as well. They were! They greeted the first prequel with happy cries.\n\nLet me explain the term \"prequel.\" We all know that a sequel is a novel that continues a previously related story. Well, a prequel takes the same idea\u2014only turns it the other way around. It takes place earlier in time in the character's life than the first novel\u2014even though it is written after the first novel. In my case, I wanted to flesh out my character, to know him a bit better. Therefore A Stainless Steel Rat Is Born. (A title that won a prize from the London Times Literary Supplement readers as the most incredible book title of the year.) And what jolly fun it was to explore my hero's youth! The only problem was that I could not get all the new material into one book.\n\nSo, The Stainless Steel Rat Gets Drafted followed soon after. The draft, a fate that befell me during World War II, filled me with a great deal of empathy for my character. That the future will re-create the past, I do not doubt. Nor that the military, as long as they are in existence, will be stupid, arrogant, bull-headed, wrong-headed, and all of the other wholesome adjectives. So Jim has survived birth, survived the army, and is ready to march into his picaresque future.\n\nWell... not quite. He still had not gained his complete rattish personality, was still a bit incomplete in certain ways. What was to be done? Fill in the gap, of course, with The Stainless Steel Rat Sings the Blues. Yes, he does sing, along with his friends. There was even a cassette recorded of the music he composed. Life imitates art. Art enriches life.\n\nSo here you are: three novels neatly bound inside a single cover so that, if the weather is bad, this volume will enable you to not leave the house for a week or more. Depending, of course, on how fast you read.\n\nRead and enjoy\u2014for you have set your feet upon the path of the righteous rat.\n\nLife will never be the same again.\n\nHARRY HARRISON\nA Stainless Steel Rat Is Born\nChapter 1\n\nAs I approached the front door of The First Bank of Bit O' Heaven, it sensed my presence and swung open with an automatic welcome. I stepped briskly through\u2014and stopped. But I was just far enough inside so that the door was unable to close behind me. While it was sliding shut I took the arc pen from my bag\u2014then spun about just as it had closed completely. I had stop-watched its mechanical reflex time on other trips to the bank, so I knew that I had just 1.67 seconds to do the necessary. Time enough.\n\nThe arc buzzed and flared and welded the door securely to its frame. After this all the door could do was buzz helplessly, immobile, until something in the mechanism shorted out and it produced some crackling sparks, then died.\n\n\"Destruction of bank property is a crime. You are under arrest.\"\n\nAs it was speaking, the robot bank guard reached out its large padded hands to seize and hold me until the police arrived.\n\n\"Not this time, you jangling junkpile,\" I snarled, and pushed it in the chest with the porcuswine prod. The two metal points produced 300 volts and plenty of amps. Enough to draw the attention of a one-tonne porcuswine. Enough to short the robot completely. Smoke spurted from all its joints and it hit the floor with a very satisfactory crash.\n\nBehind me. For I had already leapt forward, shouldering aside the old lady who stood at the teller's window. I pulled the large handgun from my bag and pointed it at the teller and growled out my command.\n\n\"Your money or your life, sister. Fill this bag with bucks.\"\n\nVery impressive, though my voice did break a bit so the last words came out in a squeak. The teller smiled at this and tried to brazen it out.\n\n\"Go home, sonny. This is not...\"\n\nI pulled the trigger and the .75 recoilless boomed next to her ear; the cloud of smoke blinded her. She wasn't hit but she might just as well have been. Her eyes rolled up in her head and she slid slowly from sight behind the till.\n\nYou don't foil Jimmy diGriz that easily! With a single bound I was over the counter and waving the gun at the rest of the wide-eyed employees.\n\n\"Step back\u2014all of you! Quick! I want no little pinkies pressing the silent alarm buttons. That's it. You, butterball\u2014\" I waved over the fat teller who had always ignored me in the past. He was all attention now. \"Fill this bag with bucks, large denominations, and do it now.\"\n\nHe did it, fumbling and sweating yet working as fast as he could. The customers and staff all stood around in odd poses, apparently paralyzed with fear. The door to the manager's office stayed closed, which meant that he probably wasn't there. Chubby had the bag filled with bills and was holding it out to me. The police had not appeared. There was a good chance I was getting away with it.\n\nI muttered what I hoped was a foul curse under my breath and pointed to one of the sacks that were filled with rolls of coins.\n\n\"Dump out the change and fill that too,\" I ordered, sneering and growling at the same time.\n\nHe obeyed with alacrity and soon had this bag stuffed full as well. And still no sign of the police. Could it be that not one of the moronic money employees had pressed the silent alarm button? It could be. Drastic measures would have to be taken.\n\nI reached out and grabbed up another bag of coins. \"Fill this one as well,\" I ordered, slinging it across to him.\n\nAs I did this I managed to get the alarm button with my elbow. There are some days when you have to do everything for yourself.\n\nThis had the desired effect. By the time the third bag was full, and I was staggering towards the door with my loot, the police began to appear. One groundcar managed to crash into another (police emergencies are pretty rare around these parts), but eventually they sorted themselves out and lined up outside, guns ready.\n\n\"Don't shoot,\" I squeaked. With real fear, because most of them didn't look too bright. They couldn't hear me through the windows but they could see me. \"It's a dummy,\" I called out. \"See!\"\n\nI put the muzzle of the gun to the side of my head and pulled the trigger. There was a satisfactory puff of smoke from the smoke generator and the sound effect of the shot was enough to make my ears ring. I dropped behind the counter, away from their horrified gaze. At least there would be no shooting now. I waited patiently while they shouted and cursed and finally broke down the door.\n\nNow, you might find all of this puzzling\u2014if so I do not blame you. It is one thing to hold up a bank, another thing still to do it in such a manner that you are sure to be caught. Why, you might ask, why be so foolish?\n\nI'll be happy to tell you. To understand my motives you have to understand what life is like on this planet\u2014what my life has been like. Let me explain.\n\nBit O' Heaven was founded some thousands of years ago by some exotic religious cult, which has happily since vanished completely. They came here from another planet; some say it was Dirt or Earth, the rumored home of all mankind, but I doubt it. In any case, things didn't work out too well. Maybe the endless labors were too much for them\u2014this was certainly no picnic-world in the early days. As the teachers at school remind us as often as they can, particularly when they tell us how spoiled the young folk are these days. We manage not to tell them that they must be spoiled as well because certainly nothing has changed here in the last thousand years.\n\nIn the beginning, sure, it must have been rough. All of the plant life was pure poison to human metabolisms and had to be cleared away so edible crops could be grown. The native fauna was just as poisonous, with teeth and claws to match. It was tough. So tough that ordinary cows and sheep had a shockingly short life expectancy. Selective gene manipulation took care of that and the first porcuswine were sent here. Imagine if you can\u2014and you will need a fertile imagination indeed\u2014a one-tonne angry boar hog with sharp tusks and a mean disposition. That's bad enough, but picture the creature covered with long quills like an insane porcupine. Odd as it sounds, the plan worked; since the farms are still breeding porcuswine in large numbers it had to have worked. Bit O' Heaven Smoked Porcuswine Hams are famed galaxy-wide.\n\nBut you won't find the galaxy rushing to visit this piggy planet. I grew up here, I know. This place is so boring even the porcuswine fall asleep.\n\nThe funny part is that I seem to be the only one who notices it. They all look at me funny. My Mom always thought that it was just growing pains and burnt porcuswine quills in my bedroom, a folk remedy for same. Dad was always afraid of incipient insanity and used to haul me off to the doctor about once a year. The doctor couldn't find anything wrong and theorized that I might be a throwback to the original settlers, a loser in the Mendelian crapshoot. But that was years ago. I haven't been bothered with parental attention since Dad threw me out of the house when I was fifteen. This was after he had gone through my pockets one night and discovered that I had more money than he did. Mom agreed fervently with him and even opened the door. I think they were glad to see the last of me. I was certainly too much of an irritation in their bovine existence.\n\nWhat do I think? I think it can be damn lonely at times, being an outcast. But I don't think I would have it any other way. It can have its problems\u2014but problems have solutions.\n\nFor example, one problem I licked was getting beat up all the time by the bigger kids. This began happening as soon as I went to school. I made the mistake at first of letting them know I was brighter than they were. Bam, a black eye. The school bullies liked it so much that they had to take turns to beat up on me. I only broke the punishment cycle by bribing a university physical education teacher to give me lessons in unarmed combat. I waited until I was really proficient before fighting back. Then I creamed my would-be creamer and went on to beat up three more of the thugs one after another. I can tell you, all the little kids were my friends after that and never tired of telling me how great it looked to see me chasing six of the worst ruffians down the block. Like I said, from problems come solutions\u2014not to say pleasures.\n\nAnd where did I get the money to bribe the teacher? Not from Dad, I can tell you. Three bucks a week was my allowance, enough to buy maybe two Gaspo-Fizzes and a small sized Get-Stuffed candy bar. Need, not greed, taught me my first economic lesson. Buy cheap and sell dear and keep the profits for yourself.\n\nOf course there was nothing I could buy, having no capital, so I resorted to not paying at all for the basic product. All kids shoplift. They go through the phase and usually get it beaten out of them when they are detected. I saw the unhappy and tear-stained results of failure and decided to do a market survey as well as a time and motion study before I entered on a career of very petty crime.\n\nFirst\u2014stay away from the small merchants. They know their stock and have a strong interest in keeping it intact. So do your shopping at the large multis. All you have to worry about then are the store detectives and alarm systems. Then careful study of how they operate will generate techniques to circumvent them.\n\nOne of my earliest and most primitive techniques\u2014I blush at revealing its simplicity\u2014I called the book-trap. I constructed a box that looked exactly like a book. Only it had a spring-loaded, hinged bottom. All I needed to do was to push it down on an unsuspecting Get-Stuffed bar to have the candy vanish from sight. This was a crude but workable device that I used for a good length of time. I was about to abandon it for a superior technique when I perceived an opportunity to finish it off in a most positive manner. I was going to take care of Smelly.\n\nHis name was Bedford Smillingham but Smelly was the only name we ever called him. As some are born dancers or painters, others are shaped for lesser tasks. Smelly was a born snitch. His only pleasure in life was ratting on his schoolmates. He peeked and watched and snitched. No juvenile peccadillo was too minor for him to note and report to the authorities. They loved him for this\u2014which will tell you a lot about the kind of teachers we had. Nor could he be beat up with impunity. His word was always believed and it was the beater-uppers who suffered the punishment.\n\nSmelly had done me some small ill, I forget exactly what, but it was enough to stir dark and brooding thought, to eventually produce a plan of action. Bragging is a thing all boys enjoy, and I achieved great status by revealing my book-shaped candy bar collector to my peer group. There were oohs and ahhs, made more ooh and ahhish by portioning out some of the loot free for the taking. Not only did this help my juvenile status\u2014but I made sure that it was done where Smelly could eavesdrop. It still feels like yesterday, and I glow warmly with the memory.\n\n\"Not only does it work\u2014but I'll show you just how! Come with me to Ming's Multistore!\"\n\n\"Can we, Jimmy\u2014can we really?\"\n\n\"You can. But not in a bunch. Drift over there a few at a time and stand where you can watch the Get-Stuffed counter. Be there at 1500 hours and you will really see something!\"\n\nSomething far better than they could possibly have imagined. I dismissed them and watched the Head's office. As soon as Smelly went through the door I nipped down and broke into his locker.\n\nIt worked like a charm. I take some pride in this since it was the first criminal scenario that I prepared for others to take part in. All unsuspecting of course. At the appointed time I drifted up to the candy counter at Ming's, working very hard to ignore the rentaflics, who were working equally hard pretending they weren't watching me. With relaxed motions I placed the book atop the candies and bent to fix my boot fastener.\n\n\"Nicked!\" the burlier of them shouted, seizing me by the coat collar. \"Gotcha!\" the other crowed, grabbing up the book.\n\n\"What are you doing,\" I croaked\u2014I had to croak because my coat was now pulled tight about my throat as I hung suspended from it. \"Thief\u2014give me back my seven-buck history book that my Mom bought with money earned weaving matts from porcuswine quills!\"\n\n\"Book?\" the great bully sneered. \"We know all about this book.\" He seized the ends and pulled. It opened and the look on his face as the pages flipped over was something sweet to behold.\n\n\"I have been framed,\" I squeaked, opening my coat and dropping free, rubbing at my sore throat. \"Framed by the criminal who bragged about using that same technique for his own nefarious ends. He stands there, one Smelly by name. Grab him, guys, before he runs away!\"\n\nSmelly could only stand and gape while the ready hands of his peers clutched tight. His schoolbooks fell to the floor and the imitation book burst open and disgorged its contents of Get-Stuffeds upon the floor.\n\nIt was beautiful. Tears and recriminations and shouting. A perfect distraction as well. Because this was the day that I field-tested my Mark II Get-Stuffed stuffer. I had worked hard on this device which was built around a silent vacuum pump\u2014with a tube down my sleeve. I brought the tube end close to the candy bars and\u2014zip!\u2014the first of them vanished from sight. It ended up in my trousers, or rather inside the hideous plus-fours we were forced to wear as a school uniform. These bagged out and were secured above the ankle by a sturdy elastic band. The candy bar dropped safely into it, to be followed by another and yet another.\n\nExcept I couldn't turn the damn thing off. Thank goodness for Smelly's screaming and struggling. All eyes were on him and not me as I struggled with the switch. Meanwhile the pump still pumped and the Get-Stuffeds shot up my sleeve and into my trousers. I turned it off eventually but if anyone had bothered to look my way, why the empty counter and my bulging-legged form would have been a might suspicious. But thankfully no one did. I exited with a rolling gait, as quickly as I could. As I said, a memory I will always cherish.\n\nWhich, of course, does not explain why I have now, on my birthday, made the major decision to hold up a bank. And get caught.\n\nThe police had finally broken down the door and were swarming in. I raised my hands over my head and prepared to welcome them with warm smiles.\n\nThe birthday, that is the final reason. My seventeenth birthday. Becoming seventeen here on Bit O' Heaven is a very important time in a young man's life.\nChapter 2\n\nThe judge leaned forward and looked down at me, not unkindly.\n\n\"Now come on, Jimmy, tell me what this tomfoolery is all about.\"\n\nJudge Nixon had a summer house on the river, not too far from our farm, and I had been there often enough with his youngest son for the judge to get to know me.\n\n\"My name is James diGriz, buster. Let us not get too familiar.\"\n\nThis heightened his color a good deal, as you might imagine. His big nose stuck out like a red ski slope and his nostrils flared. \"You will have more respect in this courtroom! You are faced with serious charges, my boy, and it might help your case to keep a civil tongue in your mouth. I am appointing Arnold Fortescue, the public defender, as your attorney....\"\n\n\"I don't need an attorney\u2014and I particularly don't need old Skewey who has been on the sauce so long there isn't a man alive who has seen him sober....\"\n\nThere was a ripple of laughter from the public seats, which infuriated the judge. \"Order in the court!\" he bellowed, hammering his gavel so hard that the handle broke. He threw the stub across the room and glared angrily at me. \"You are trying the patience of this court. Lawyer Fortescue has been appointed....\"\n\n\"Not by me he hasn't. Send him back to Mooney's Bar. I plead guilty to all charges and throw myself on the mercy of this merciless court.\"\n\nHe drew in his breath with a shuddering sigh and I decided to ease off a bit before he had a stroke and collapsed; then there would be a mistrial and more time would be wasted.\n\n\"I'm sorry, judge.\" I hung my head to hide an unrepressed smile. \"But I done wrong and I will have to pay the penalty.\"\n\n\"Well, that's more like it, Jimmy. You always were a smart lad and I hate to see all that intelligence going to waste. You will go to Juvenile Correction Hall for a term of not less than\u2014\"\n\n\"Sorry, your honor,\" I broke in. \"Not possible. Oh, if I only had committed my crimes last week or last month! The law is firm on this and I have no escape. Today is my birthday. My seventeenth birthday.\"\n\nThat slowed him down all right. The guards looked on patiently while he punched for information on his computer terminal. The reporter for the Bit O' Heaven Bugle working just as hard on the keys of his own portable terminal at the same time. He was filing quite a story. It didn't take the judge long to come up with the answers. He sighed.\n\n\"That is true enough. The records reveal that you are seventeen this day and have achieved your majority. You are no longer a juvenile and must be treated as an adult. This would mean a prison term for certain\u2014if I didn't allow for the circumstances. A first offense, the obvious youth of the defendant, his realization that he has done wrong. It is within the power of this bench to make exceptions, to suspend a sentence and bind a prisoner over. It is my decision...\"\n\nThe last thing I wanted to do was hear his decision now. Things were not going as I had planned, not at all. Action was required. I acted. My scream drowned out the judge's words. Still screaming I dived headlong from the prisoner's dock, shoulder-rolled neatly on the floor, and was across the room before my shocked audience could even consider moving.\n\n\"You will write no more scurrilous lies about me, you grubbing hack,\" I shouted. As I whipped the terminal from the reporter's hands and crashed it to the floor. Then stamped the six-hundred-buck machine into worthless junk. I dodged around him before he could grab me and pelted towards the door. The policeman there grabbed at me\u2014then folded when I planted my foot in his stomach.\n\nI could probably have escaped then, but escape at this point wasn't part of my plan. I fumbled with the door handle until someone grabbed me, then struggled on until I was overwhelmed.\n\nThis time I was manacled as I stood in the dock and there was no more Jimmy-my-boy talk from the judge. Someone had found him a new gavel and he waved it in my direction, as though wishing to brain me with it. I growled and tried to look surly.\n\n\"James Bolivar diGriz,\" he intoned. \"I sentence you to the maximum penalty for the crime that you have committed. Hard labor in the city jail until the arrival of the next League ship, whereupon you will be sent to the nearest place of correction for criminal therapy.\" The gavel banged. \"Take him away.\"\n\nThis was more like it. I struggled against my cuffs and spat curses at him so he wouldn't show any last moment weaknesses. He didn't. Two burly policemen grabbed me and hauled me bodily out of the courtroom and jammed me, not too gently, into the back of the black Maria. Only after the door had been slammed and sealed did I sit back and relax\u2014and allow myself a smile of victory.\n\nYes, victory, I mean that. The whole point of the operation was to get arrested and sent to prison. I needed some on-the-job training.\n\nThere is method in my madness. Very early in life, probably about the time of my Get-Stuffed successes, I began to seriously consider a life of crime. For a lot of reasons\u2014not the least of which was that I enjoyed being a criminal. The financial rewards were great; no other job paid more for less work. And, I must be truthful, I enjoyed the feeling of superiority when I made the rest of the world look like chumps. Some may say that is a juvenile emotion. Perhaps\u2014but it sure is a pleasurable one.\n\nAbout this same time I was faced with a serious problem. How was I to prepare myself for the future? There had to be more to crime than lifting Get-Stuffed bars. Some of the answers I saw clearly. Money was what I wanted. Other people's money. Money is locked away, so the more I knew about locks the more I would be able to get this money. For the first time in school I buckled down to work. My grades soared so high that my teachers began to feel there might be hope for me yet. I did so well that when I elected to study the trade of locksmith they were only too eager to oblige. It was supposed to be a three-year course, but I learned all there was to know in three months. I asked permission to take the final examination. And was refused.\n\nThings were just not done that way, they told me. I would proceed at the same stately pace as the others and in two years and nine months I would get my diploma, leave the school\u2014and enter the ranks of the wage slaves.\n\nNot very likely. I tried to change my course of study and was informed that this was impossible. I had locksmith stamped on my forehead, metaphorically speaking of course, and it would remain there for life. They thought.\n\nI began to cut classes and avoid the school for days at a time. There was little they could do about this, other than administer stern lectures, because I showed up for all the examinations and always scored the highest grades. I ought to, since I was making the most of my training in the field. I carefully spread my attentions around so the complacent citizens of the city had no idea they were being taken. A vending machine would yield a few bucks in silver one day, a till at the parking lot the next. Not only did this field work perfect my talents but it paid for my education. Not my school education of course\u2014by law I had to remain there until the age of seventeen\u2014but in my free time.\n\nSince I could find no guidelines to prepare myself for a life of crime, I studied all of the skills that might be of service. I found the word forgery in the dictionary, which encouraged me to learn photography and printing. Since unarmed combat had already stood me in good stead, I continued my studies until I earned a Black Belt. Nor was I ignoring the technical side of my chosen career. Before I was sixteen I knew just about all there was to know about computers\u2014while at the same time I had become a skilled microelectronic technician.\n\nAll of these were satisfying enough in themselves\u2014but where did I go from there? I really didn't know. That was when I decided to give myself a coming-of-age birthday present. A term in jail.\n\nCrazy? Like a fox! I had to find some criminals\u2014and where better than in jail? A keen line of reasoning, one has to admit. Going to jail would be like coming home, meeting my chosen peer group at last. I would listen and learn and when I felt I had learned enough the lockpick in the sole of my shoe would help me to make my exit. How I smiled and chortled with glee.\n\nMore the fool\u2014for it was not to be this way at all.\n\nMy hair was shorn, I was bathed in an antiseptic spray, prison clothes and boots were issued\u2014so unprofessionally that I had ample time to transfer the lockpick and my stock of coins\u2014I was thumbprinted and retinapixed, then led to my cell. To behold, to my great joy, that I had a cellmate. My education would begin at last. This was the first day of the rest of my criminal life.\n\n\"Good afternoon, sir,\" I said. \"My name is Jim diGriz.\"\n\nHe looked at me and snarled. \"Get knotted, kid.\" He went back to picking his toes, an operation which my entrance had interrupted.\n\nThat was my first lesson. The polite linguistic exchanges of life outside were not honored behind these walls. Life was tough\u2014and so was language. I twisted my lips into a sneer and spoke again. In far harsher tones this time.\n\n\"Get knotted yourself, toe-cheese. My monicker is Jim. What's yours?\"\n\nI wasn't sure about the slang, I had picked it up from old videos, but I surely had the tone of voice right because I had succeeded in capturing his attention this time. He looked up slowly and there was the glare of cold hatred in his eyes.\n\n\"Nobody\u2014and I mean nobody\u2014talks to Willy the Blade that way. I'm going to cut you, kid, cut you bad. I'm going to cut my initial into your face. A 'V' for Willy.\"\n\n\"A 'W,'\" I said. \"Willy is spelled with a 'W.'\"\n\nThis upset him even more. \"I know how to spell, I ain't no moron!\" He was blazing with rage now, digging furiously under the mattress on his bed. He produced a hacksaw blade that I could see had the back edge well sharpened. A deadly little weapon. He bounced it in his hand, sneered one last sneer\u2014then lunged at me.\n\nWell, needless to say, that is not the recommended way to approach a Black Belt. I moved aside, chopped his wrist as he went by\u2014then kicked the back of his ankle so that he ran headfirst into the wall.\n\nHe was knocked cold. When he came to I was sitting on my bunk and doing my nails with his knife. \"The name is Jim,\" I said, lip-curled and nasty. \"Now you try saying it. Jim.\"\n\nHe stared at me, his face twisted\u2014then began to cry! I was horrified. Could this really be happening?\n\n\"They always pick on me. You're no better. Make fun of me. And you took my knife away. I worked a month making that knife, had to pay ten bucks for the broken blade....\"\n\nThe thought of all of the troubles had started him blubbering again. I saw then that he was only a year or two older than me\u2014and a lot more insecure. So my first introduction to criminal life found me cheering him up, getting a wet towel to wipe his face, giving him back his knife\u2014and even giving him a five-buck goldpiece to stop his crying. I was beginning to feel that a life of crime was not quite what I thought it would be.\n\nIt was easy enough to get the story of his life\u2014in fact it was hard to shut him up once he got in full spate. He was filled with self-pity and wallowed in the chance to reveal all to an audience.\n\nPretty sordid, I thought, but kept silent while his boring reminiscences washed over me. Slow in school, laughed at by the others, the lowest marks. Weak and put upon by the bullies, gaining status only when he discovered\u2014by accident of course with a broken bottle\u2014that he could be a bully too once he had a weapon. The rise in status, if not respect, after that by using threats of violence and more than a little bullying. All of this reinforced by demonstrations of dissections on live birds and other small and harmless creatures. Then his rapid fall after cutting a boy and being caught. Sentenced to Juvenile Hall, released, then more trouble, and back to Hall yet again. Until here he was, at the zenith of his career as a knife-carrying punk, imprisoned for extorting money by threat of violence. From a child of course. He was far too insecure to attempt to threaten an adult.\n\nOf course he did not say all this, not at once, but it became obvious after endless rambling complaints. I tuned him out and tuned my inner thoughts in. Bad luck, that was all it was. I had probably been put in with him to keep me from the company of the real hardened criminals who filled this prison.\n\nThe lights went out at that moment and I lay back on the bunk. Tomorrow would be my day. I would meet the other inmates, size them up, find the real criminals among them. Befriend them and begin my graduate course in crime. That is surely what I would do.\n\nI went happily to sleep, washed over by a wave of wimpish whining from the adjoining bunk. Just bad luck being stuck in with him. Willy was the exception. I had a roommate who was a loser, that was all. It would all be different in the morning.\n\nI hoped. There was a little nag of worry that kept me awake for a bit, but at last I shrugged it off. Tomorrow would be fine, yes it would be. Fine. No doubt about that, fine....\nChapter 3\n\nBreakfast was no better\u2014and no worse\u2014than the ones I made for myself. I ate automatically, sipping the weak cactus tea and chewing doggedly at the gruel, while I looked around at the other tables. There were about thirty prisoners stuffing their faces in this room, and my gaze went from face to face with a growing feeling of despair.\n\nFirst, most of them had the same vacuous look of blank stupidity as my cellmate. All right, I could accept that, the criminal classes would of course contain the maladjusted and the mental mud walls. But there had to be more than that! I hoped.\n\nSecond, they were all quite young, none out of their twenties. Weren't there any old criminals? Or was criminality a malfunction of youth that was quickly cured by the social adjustment machines? There had to be more to it than that. There had to be. I took some cheer from this thought. All of these prisoners were losers, that was obvious, losers and incompetents. It was obvious once you thought about it. If they had been any good at their chosen profession they wouldn't be inside! They were of no use to the world or to themselves.\n\nBut they were to me. If they couldn't supply the illegal facts that I needed, they would surely be able to put me in touch with those who did. From them I would get leads to the criminals on the outside, the professionals still uncaught. That was what I had to do. Befriend them and extract the information that I needed. All was not lost yet.\n\nIt didn't take long for me to discover the best of this despicable lot. A little group was gathered around a hulking young man who sported a broken nose and a scarred face. Even the guards seemed to avoid him. He strutted a good deal and the others made room around him when he walked in the exercise yard after lunch.\n\n\"Who is that?\" I asked Willy, who huddled on the bench next to me, industriously picking his nose. He blinked rapidly until he finally made out the subject of my attentions, then waved his hands with despair.\n\n\"Watch out for him, stay away, he's bad medicine. Stinger is a killer, that's what I heard, and I believe it too. And he's a champ at mudslugging. You don't want to know him.\"\n\nThis was intriguing indeed. I had heard of mudslugging, but I had always lived too close to the city to have seen it in action. There was never any of it taking place near enough for me to hear about, not with the police all around. Mudslugging was a crude sport\u2014and illegal\u2014that was enjoyed in the outlying farm towns. In the winter, with the porcuswine in their sties and the crops in the barns, time would hang heavy on their agrarian hands. That was when the mudslugging would begin. A stranger would appear and challenge the local champion, usually some overmuscled ploughboy. A clandestine engagement would be arranged in some remote barn, the women dismissed, moonshine surreptitiously brought in plastic bottles, bets made\u2014and the barefisted fight begun. To end when one of the combatants could not get off the ground. Not a sport for the squeamish, or the sober. Good, hearty, drunken masculine fun. And Stinger was one of this stalwart band. I must get to know Stinger better.\n\nThis was easily enough done. I suppose I could have just walked over and spoken to him, but my thought patterns were still warped by all of the bad videos I had watched for most of my life. Plenty of these were about criminals getting their just deserts in prison, which is probably where I originated the idea of this present escapade. Never matter, the idea was still a sound one. I could prove that by talking to Stinger.\n\nTo do this I walked, whistling, about the yard until I was close to him and his followers. One of them scowled at me and I scuttled away. Only to return as soon as his back was turned, to sidle up beside the head villain.\n\n\"Are you Stinger?\" I whispered out of the side of my mouth, head turned away from him. He must have seen the same videos because he answered in the same way.\n\n\"Yeah. So who wants to know?\"\n\n\"Me. I just got into this joint. I got a message for you from the outside.\"\n\n\"So tell.\"\n\n\"Not where these dummies can hear. We gotta be alone.\"\n\nHe gave me a most suspicious look from under his beetling brows. But I had succeeded in capturing his curiosity. He muttered something to his followers, then strolled away. They remained behind but flashed murderous looks at me when I strolled in the same direction. He went across the yard towards a bench\u2014the two men already there fleeing as he approached. I sat down next to him and he looked me up and down with disdain.\n\n\"Say what you gotta say, kid\u2014and it better be good.\"\n\n\"This is for you,\" I said, sliding a twenty-buck coin along the bench towards him. \"The message is from me and from no one else. I need some help and am willing to pay for it. Here is a down payment. There is plenty more where this came from.\"\n\nHe sniffed disdainfully\u2014but his thick fingers scraped up the coin and slipped it into his pocket. \"I ain't in the charity business, kid. The only geezer I help is myself. Now, shove off\u2014\"\n\n\"Listen to what I have to say first. What I need is someone to break out of prison with me. One week from today. Are you interested?\"\n\nI had caught his attention this time. He turned and looked me square in the eye, cold and assured. \"I don't like jokes,\" he said\u2014and his hand grabbed my wrist and twisted. It hurt. I could have broken the grip easily, but I did not. If this little bit of bullying was important to him, then bully away.\n\n\"It's no joke. Eight days from now I'll be on the outside. You can be there too if you want to be. It's your decision.\"\n\nHe glared at me some more\u2014then let go of my wrist. I rubbed at it and waited for his response. I could see him chewing over my words, trying to make up his mind. \"Do you know why I'm inside?\" he finally asked.\n\n\"I heard rumors.\"\n\n\"If the rumor was that I killed a geezer, then the rumor was right. It was an accident. He had a soft head. It broke when I knocked him down. They was going to pass it off as a farm accident but another geezer lost a bundle to me on the match. He was going to pay me next day but he went to the police instead because that was a lot cheaper. Now they are going to take me to a League hospital and do my head. The shrinker here says I won't want to fight again after that. I won't like that.\"\n\nThe big fists opened and closed when he talked and I had the sudden understanding that fighting was his life, the one thing that he could do well. Something that other men admired and praised him for. If that ability were taken away\u2014why they might just as well take away his life at the same time. I felt a sudden spurt of sympathy but did not let the feeling show.\n\n\"You can get me out of here?\" The question was a serious one.\n\n\"I can.\"\n\n\"Then I'm your man. You want something out of me, I know that, no one does nothing for nothing in this world. I'll do what you want, kid. They'll get me in the end, there is no place to hide anywhere when they are really looking for you. But I'm going to get mine. I'm going to get the geezer what put me in here. Get him proper. One last fight. Kill him the way he killed me.\"\n\nI could not help shivering at his words because it was obvious that he meant them. That was painfully clear. \"I'll get you out,\" I said. But to this I added the unspoken promise that I would see to it that he got nowhere near the object of his revenge. I was not going to start my new criminal career as an accomplice to murder.\n\nStinger took me under his protective wing at once. He shook my hand, crushing my fingers with that deadly grip, then led me over to his followers.\n\n\"This is Jim,\" he said. \"Treat him well. Anyone causes him trouble got trouble with me.\" They were all insincere smiles and promises of affection\u2014but at least they wouldn't bother me. I had the protection of those mighty fists. One of them rested on my shoulder as we strolled away. \"How you going to do it?\" he asked.\n\n\"I'll tell you in the morning. I'm making the last arrangements now,\" I lied. \"See you then.\" I strolled off on an inspection tour, almost as eager to be out of this sordid place as he was. For a different reason. His was revenge\u2014mine was depression. They were losers in here, all losers, and I like to think of myself as a winner. I wanted to be well away from them all and back in the fresh air.\n\nI spent the next twenty-four hours finding the best way out of the prison. I could open all of the mechanical locks inside the prison easily enough; my lockpick worked fine on our cell door. The only problem was the electronic gate that opened out into the outer courtyard. Given time\u2014and the right equipment\u2014I could have opened that too. But not under the eyes of guards stationed in the observation booth above it right around the clock. That was the obvious way out, so it was the route to be avoided. I needed a better idea of the layout of the prison\u2014so a reconnoiter was very much in order.\n\nIt was after midnight when I eased out of my bed. No shoes, I had to be as quiet as possible, so three pairs of socks should do the job. Working silently, I stuffed extra clothing under the blankets so the bed would look occupied if one of the guards should look in through the barred door. Willy was snoring lustily when I clicked the lock open and slipped out into the corridor. He wasn't the only one enjoying his sack time and the walls echoed with zzzzing and gronking. The nightlights were on and I was alone on the landing. I looked over the edge carefully and saw that the guard on the floor below was working on his racing form. Wonderful, I hoped that he had a winner. Silent as a shadow I went to the stairs and up them to the floor above.\n\nWhich was depressingly identical to the one below: nothing but cells. As was the next floor and the one above that. Which was the top floor so I could go no higher. I was about to retrace my steps when my eye caught a glint of metal in the shadows at the far end. Nothing ventured, as the expression goes. I scuttled past the barred doors, and the\u2014hopefully\u2014sleeping inmates, to the distant wall.\n\nWell, well, what did we have here! Iron rungs in the wall\u2014vanishing up into the darkness. I grabbed onto the first one and vanished up with them. The last rung was just below the ceiling. It was also just under a trapdoor that let into the ceiling above. Metal, with a metal frame\u2014and locked securely as I discovered when I pushed up against it. There had to be a lock, but it was invisible in the darkness. And I had to find it. Looping one arm through the iron rung I began to run my fingertips over the surface of the door in what I hoped was a regular pattern.\n\nThere was nothing there. I tried again, changing hands because my arm felt like it was being dragged from its socket\u2014with the same result. But there had to be a lock. I was panicking and not using my brain. I fought back my rising fears and stirred up my brain cells. There must be a lock or seal of some kind. And it was not on the trapdoor. So\u2014it had to be on the frame. I reached out slowly, ran my fingers along the sides of the frame. And found it at once.\n\nHow simple the answers are when you ask the right questions! I eased the lockpick from my pocket and slipped it into the lock. Within seconds it had clicked open. Seconds after that I had pushed the trapdoor up, climbed through, closed it behind me\u2014and sniffed appreciatively of the cool night air.\n\nI was out of prison! Standing on the roof, yes, of course, but free in spirit at least. The stars were bright above and shed enough light so I could see across the dark surface. It was flat and broad, bordered with a knee-high parapet and studded with vents and pipes. Something large and bulky occluded the sky, and when I worked my way close to it I heard the dripping of water. The water tank, fine, now what was visible below?\n\nTo the front I looked down into the well-lit courtyard, guarded and secure. But what was the back like?\n\nFar more interesting, I assure you. There was a straight drop of five stories to a rear yard, which was feebly illuminated by a single bulb. There were waste bins there, and barrels, and a heavy gate in the outer wall. Locked, undoubtedly. But what man had locked man could unlock. Or rather I could. This was the way out.\n\nOf course there was the five-story drop, but something could be worked there. Or perhaps I could find another way into the backyard. Plenty of time to run through the permutations of escape, six days yet. My feet were getting cold and I yawned and shivered. I had done enough for one night. My hard prison bunk seemed very attractive at this moment.\n\nCarefully and silently I retraced my steps. Eased the trapdoor shut above me, checked to see that it was locked, went down the ladder and the stairs to my floor....\n\nAnd heard the voices ahead. Loud and clear. The loudest of all being my dear cellmate Willy. I took one horrified look at the open door of my cell, at the heavy boots of the guards there, then pulled myself back and ran up the stairs again. With Willy's words ringing like a tocsin of doom in my ears.\n\n\"I woke and he was gone! I was alone! Monsters ate him or something! That's when I started shouting. Save me, please! Whatever got him came right through the locked door. It's gonna get me next!\"\nChapter 4\n\nAnger at my cretinous cellmate warmed me; the imminence of my capture instantly chilled me again. I fled unthinkingly, away from the voices and commotion. Back up the stairs, one flight, another\u2014\n\nThen all the lights came on and the sirens began to wail. The prisoners stirred and called out to one another. In a few moments they would be at the cell doors, would see me, would cry out, guards would appear. There was no escape. I knew this, yet all I could do was run. To the top floor\u2014then past the cells there. All of which were now brightly lit. I would be seen by the prisoners as I went by them, and I knew for certain that I would be ratted on by whichever juvenile delinquent spotted me. It was all over.\n\nHead high, I walked past the first cell and glanced in as I passed.\n\nIt was empty. As were all of the other cells on this floor. I still had a chance! Like a demented ape I swarmed up the iron rungs and fumbled my lockpick into the lock. There were voices below me, getting louder, and footsteps as well as two of the guards ascended the stairs that faced away from me. But all that one of them had to do was turn his head. And when they reached the floor I would be seen at once.\n\nThe lock clicked open and I pushed and swarmed up through the opening. Flat on the roof I eased the door down. Seeing two fat guards through the opening just turning my way as it shut.\n\nHad they seen it closing? My heart thudded like an insane drum and I gasped for air and waited for the shouts of alarm.\n\nThey did not come. I was still free.\n\nSome freedom! Depression instantly clutched and shook me. Free to lie on the roof, to shiver violently as the perspiration began to dry, free to huddle up here until I was found.\n\nSo I huddled and shivered and generally felt sorry for myself for about a minute. Then I stood and shook myself like a dog and felt the anger begin to rise.\n\n\"Big criminal,\" I whispered aloud, just to make sure that I heard. \"Life of crime. And on your first big job you let yourself be trapped by a knife-wielding moron. You've learned a lesson, Jim. May you someday be free to put it into practice. Always guard your flanks and your rear. Consider all the possibilities. Consider the fact that the cretin might have woken up. So you should have coshed him or something to make certain of his sound sleep. Which is certainly water over the dam. Remember the lesson well, but look around now and try to make the best of this rapidly disintegrating escape.\"\n\nMy options were limited. If the guards opened the trapdoor and came up to the roof they would find me. Was there any place to hide? The top of the water tank might offer a temporary refuge, but if they came this far they would certainly look there as well. But with no way to get down the sheer walls it offered the only feeble hope. Get up there.\n\nIt wasn't easy. It was made of smooth metal and the top was just beyond my reach. But I had to do it. I stepped back and took a run, leaped, and felt my fingers just grasp the edge. I scrabbled for a hold but they pulled loose and I dropped heavily back to the roof. Anyone below would have certainly heard that. I hoped I was over an empty cell and not the hall.\n\n\"Enough hoping and not enough trying, Jim,\" I said, and added a few curses in the hope of building my morale. I had to get up there!\n\nThis time I retreated to the far edge, the backs of my knees against the parapet, taking breath after deep breath. Go!\n\nRun up, fast, the right spot\u2014jump!\n\nMy right hand slapped against the edge. I grabbed and heaved. Got my other hand up there and pulled mightily, scraping and bruising myself on the rough metal, hauling myself up onto the top of the tank.\n\nTo lie there breathing heavily, looking at a dead bird not a foot from my face, vacant eyes staring into mine. I started to pull away when I heard the trapdoor slam heavily back onto the roof.\n\n\"Give me a push up, will you? I'm stuck!\"\n\nBy the wheezing and grunting that followed I was sure that this had to be one of the fat guards that I had seen on the floor below. More gasping and puffing heralded the arrival of his adipose companion.\n\n\"I don't know what we're doing up here,\" the first arrival whined.\n\n\"I do,\" his companion said quite firmly. \"We're obeying orders, which never did no one no harm.\"\n\n\"But the hatch was locked.\"\n\n\"So was the cell door he went through. Look around.\"\n\nThe heavy footsteps circled the roof, then returned.\n\n\"Not here. No place to hide. Not even hanging over the edge because I looked.\"\n\n\"There is one place, one place we haven't looked.\"\n\nI could feel the eyes burning towards me through the solid metal. My heart had started the drumbeat thing again. I clutched at the rusty metal and felt only despair as the footsteps crunched close.\n\n\"He could never climb up there. Too high. I can't even reach the top.\"\n\n\"You can't even reach your shoelaces when you bend over. Come on, give me a lift up. If you boost my foot I can reach up and grab on. All I got to do is take a look.\"\n\nHow right he was. Just one look. And there was nothing I could do about it. With the lethargy of defeat possessing me. I lay there, hearing the scratching and the curses, the overweight puffing and scrabbling. The scratching grew close and not a foot before my face a large hand appeared, groping over the edge.\n\nMy subconscious must have done it because I swear there was no logical thought involved. My hand shot out and pushed the dead bird forward, to the very edge, below the fingers\u2014which descended and closed on it.\n\nThe results were eminently satisfying. The bird vanished, as did the hand, followed by screams and shouts, scrabblings, and two large thuds.\n\n\"Why did you do that\u2014?\"\n\n\"I grabbed it, uggh\u2014oww! My ankle is broke.\"\n\n\"See if you can stand on it. Here, hold my shoulder. Hop along on the other foot, this way....\"\n\nThere was plenty of shouting back and forth through the trapdoor while I hugged myself with relief and pleasure. They might be back soon, there was that chance, but at least the first round was mine.\n\nAs the seconds, then the minutes, moved slowly by I realized that I had won the second round as well. The search had moved away from the roof. For the moment. The sirens cut off and the bustle moved down to the ground below. There were shouts and the slamming of doors, racing of engines as cars moved out into the night. Not soon after\u2014wonder of wonders\u2014the lights began to go out. The first search was over. I started to doze\u2014then jerked myself awake.\n\n\"Dummy! You are still in the soup. The search has been made, but this joint is still sealed tight. And you can bet your last buck that starting at first light they will go through every nook and corner. And will be up here with a ladder this time. So with that in mind it is time to move.\"\n\nAnd I knew just where I was moving to. The last place they would look for me this night.\n\nThrough the trapdoor one last time, and down the darkened corridor. Some of the inmates were still muttering about the events of the night, but all of them appeared to be back in their bunks. Silently I slipped down the stairs and up to cell 567B. Opening it in absolute silence and closing it behind me the same way. Past my stripped bunk to the other bunk where my fink friend Willy slept the sleep of the unjust.\n\nMy hand clamped his mouth shut, his eyes sprang open, and I exacted primal and sadistic pleasure by whispering in his ear.\n\n\"You are dead, you rat, dead. You called the guards and now you are going to get what you deserve....\"\n\nHis body gave one gigantic heave then went limp. The eyes were closed. Had I killed him? At once I regretted the bad taste of my little joke. No, not dead, passed out, his breathing light and slow. I went to get a towel, soaked it in cold water\u2014then let him have it right in the mush.\n\nHis scream turned to a gurgle as I stuffed the towel into his mouth.\n\n\"I'm a generous man, Willy, that's how lucky you are. I'm not going to kill you.\" My whispered words seemed to reassure him because I felt the tremble in his body subside. \"You are going to help me. If you do that you will come to no harm. You have my word. Now prepare to answer my question. Think carefully about this. You are going to whisper just one thing. You are going to tell me the number of the cell that Stinger is in. Nod your head if you are ready. Good. I'm taking the towel away. But if you try any tricks or say anything\u2014anything\u2014else, why then you are dead. Here goes.\"\n\n\"... 231B...\"\n\nThis same floor, good. The towel went right back in. Then I pressed hard behind his right ear, applying continuous pressure to the blood vessel that leads to the brain. Six seconds unconsciousness, ten seconds death. He thrashed then went limp again. I released my thumb on the count of seven. I do have a forgiving nature.\n\nI used the towel to clean my face and hands, then groped for my shoes and put them on. Along with another shirt and my jacket. After that I gurgled down at least a litre of water and was ready to face the world again. I stripped the blankets from the beds, bundled them under my arm\u2014then left.\n\nOn tiptoe, as silently as I could, I slipped down to Stinger's cell. I felt immune, impervious. I realized that this was both foolish and dangerous. But after the traumatic events of the evening I seemed to have run out of fear. The cell door opened beneath my delicate touch and Stinger's eyes opened as well when I pushed his shoulder.\n\n\"Get dressed,\" I said quietly. \"We're getting out now.\"\n\nI'll give him this much\u2014he didn't bother asking questions. Just pulled his clothes on while I took the blankets from his bunk. \"We need at least two more,\" I said.\n\n\"I'll get Eddie's.\"\n\n\"He'll wake up.\"\n\n\"I'll see he goes back to sleep.\"\n\nThere was a murmured question\u2014followed by a solid thud. Eddie went back to sleep and Stinger brought over the blankets.\n\n\"Here's what we do,\" I told him. \"I found the way up to the roof. We go there and knot these blankets together. Then we climb down them and get away. Okay?\"\n\nOkay! I had never heard a more insane plan in my life. But not Stinger.\n\n\"Okay! Let's go!\"\n\nOnce more up the stairs\u2014I was really getting pretty tired of this\u2014and tired all over as well. I climbed the rungs, opened the trapdoor, and pushed the blankets through onto the roof when he passed them up to me. He didn't say a word until I had closed and sealed the door again.\n\n\"What happened? I heard you got away and I was going to kill you if they ever brought you back.\"\n\n\"It's not that simple. I'll tell you when we get clear. Now let's start tying. Opposite corners lengthwise; we need all the length we can get. Use a square knot like you learned in the Boy Sprouts. Like this.\"\n\nWe knotted and tied like crazy until they were all connected, then took the ends and pulled and grunted and that was that. I tied one end to a solid-looking pipe and threw the bundle of blankets over the side.\n\n\"At least twenty feet short,\" Stinger said, scowling down at the ground. \"You go first because you're lighter. If it breaks with me at least you got a chance. Get moving.\"\n\nThe logic of this could not be argued with. I climbed up on the parapet and seized the top blanket. Stinger squeezed my arm with an unexpected show of emotion. Then I was climbing down.\n\nIt was not easy. My hands were tired and the blanket fabric hard to grip. I went down as quickly as I could because I knew that my strength was running out.\n\nThen my legs scrabbled at empty air and I had reached the end. The hard floor of the courtyard appeared to be very far below. It was difficult to let go\u2014or rather really very easy. I could hold on no longer. My fingers opened and I fell\u2014\n\n\u2014hit and rolled and sat on the ground gasping for breath. I had done it. High above I could see the dark figure of Stinger swarming down the rope, hand over hand. Within seconds he was on the ground, landing light as a cat beside me, helping me to my feet. Half-supporting me as I stumbled to the gate.\n\nMy fingers were trembling and I couldn't get the lock open. We were painfully visible here under the light and if any of the guards glanced out of a window above we were trapped....\n\nI took in a long, shuddering breath\u2014then inserted the picklock once again. Slowly and carefully feeling the grooves on the interior, turning and pushing.\n\nIt clicked open and we hurled ourselves through. Stinger pushed it silently shut, then turned and ran out into the night with me right at his heels.\n\nWe were free!\nChapter 5\n\n\"Wait!\" I called after Stinger as he pelted down the road. \"Not that way. I've got a better plan. I worked it out before I was sent up.\"\n\nHe slowed to a halt and thought about this and slowly made up his mind. \"You called the shots OK so far. So what we gonna do?\"\n\n\"For openers\u2014leave a trail that they can follow with sniffer robots. This way.\"\n\nWe left the road and cut through the grass and down to the nearby stream. It was shallow but cold and I could not suppress a shiver as we waded across. The main highway ran close by and we headed that way. Crouching low as a heavy transporter thundered by. For the moment there was no other traffic in sight.\n\n\"Now!\" I called out. \"Straight up to the road\u2014then right back down walking in your own footprints.\"\n\nStinger did what he was told, backtracking with me to the stream and into the frigid water again.\n\n\"That's smart,\" he said. \"The sniffers find where we went into the water, where we came out\u2014and follow us to the road. Then they think that a groundcar maybe picked us up. So what comes next?\"\n\n\"We go upstream\u2014staying in the water\u2014to the nearest farm. Which happens to be a porcuswine farm....\"\n\n\"No way! I hate them mothers. Got bit by one when I was a kid.\"\n\n\"We have no other choice. Anything else we do the fuzz will pick us up at daybreak. I can't say I love the porkers either. But I grew up on a farm and I know how to get along with them. Now let's move before my legs freeze off at the ankles.\"\n\nIt was a long, cold slog and I could not stop the trembling once it began. But there was absolutely nothing else to do except push on. My teeth were rattling in my head like castanets before we came to the brook that bubbled down through the fields to join the stream that we were wading in. The stars were beginning to fade; dawn was not too far away.\n\n\"This is it,\" I said. \"The stream that we want. That chopped tree is my landmark. Stay right behind me\u2014we're very close now.\" I reached up and broke off a dead branch that overhung the stream, then led the way. We waded along until we reached a tall, electrified fence that spanned the stream. It could be clearly seen in the growing light. I used the branch to lift the bottom of the fence so Stinger could crawl under, then he did the same for me. As I stood up I heard the familiar rustle of large quills from the oak grove nearby. A large, dark form separated itself from the trees and moved towards us. I grabbed the branch from Stinger and called out softly.\n\n\"Sooo-ee, sooo-ee... here swine, swine, swine.\"\n\nThere was a bubbling grunt from the boar as it approached. Stinger was muttering under his breath, curses or prayers\u2014or both\u2014as he stood behind me. I called again and the great creature came close. A real beauty, a tonne at least, looking at me with its small red eyes. I stepped forward and raised the branch slowly\u2014and heard Stinger moan behind me. The boar never moved as I poked the stick behind its ear, parted the long quills\u2014and began to scratch its hide industriously.\n\n\"What are you doing? It'll kill us!\" Stinger wailed.\n\n\"Of course not,\" I said, scratching harder. \"Listen to it?\" The porcuswine's eyes were half-closed with pleasure and it was burbling happily. \"I know these big porkers well. They get vermin under their quills and can't get at them. They love a good scratch. Let me do the other ear\u2014there are nice itchy patches behind the ears\u2014then we can go on.\"\n\nI scratched, the boar moaned happily, and dawn crept up on us. A light came on in the farmhouse and we knelt down behind the porcuswine. The door opened, someone threw out a basin of water, then it closed again.\n\n\"Let's get to the barn,\" I said. \"This way.\"\n\nThe boar grumbled when I stopped scratching, then trotted along behind us, hoping for more, as we skulked across the farm. Which was a good thing since there were plenty more of the spiky porkers on all sides. But they moved aside when the kingpig approached and we proceeded in stately parade to the barn.\n\n\"So long, big feller,\" I said, giving a last good scratch. \"Been nice knowing you.\" Stinger had the barn door open and we slipped inside. We had just slid the bolt again when the heavy wood trembled as our overweight companion leaned against it and snorted.\n\n\"You saved my life,\" Stinger gasped. \"I'll never forget that.\"\n\n\"Just skill,\" I said humbly. \"After all, you are good with fists\u2014\"\n\n\"And you're great with pigs!\"\n\n\"I wouldn't have phrased it exactly that way,\" I muttered. \"Now let's get up into the hayloft where it is warm\u2014and where we won't be seen. There is a long day ahead of us and I want to spend as much of it as I can sleeping.\"\n\nIt had been quite a night. I burrowed into the hay, sneezed twice as the dust got into my nose\u2014then must have fallen instantly asleep.\n\nThe next thing I knew Stinger was shaking me by the shoulder and sunlight was streaming between the boards in the wall. \"Cops is here,\" he whispered.\n\nI blinked the sleep from my eyes and looked through the crack. A green and white police floater was hovering outside the farmhouse door and two uniformed pug-uglies were showing a sheet to the farmer. He shook his head and his voice was clear above the farmyard sounds.\n\n\"Nope. Never seen neither of them. Never seen a soul in a week if you want to know. Fact is, kind of nice to talk to you fellers. These guys really look nasty, criminals you say...\"\n\n\"Pops, we ain't got all day. If you didn't see them they could still be hiding on your farm. Maybe in your barn?\"\n\n\"No way they could do that. Them's porcuswine out there. Most ornery critters in creation.\"\n\n\"We still got to look. Orders are to search every building in the vicinity.\"\n\nThe policemen started our way and there was a screech like an insane siren and the thud of sharp hooves. Around the corner of the barn\u2014quills rattling with anger\u2014came our friend of the night before. He charged and the police dived for their floater. The angry boar crashed into it, sending it rocking across the yard with a great dent in its side. The farmer nodded happily.\n\n\"Told you weren't no one in the barn. Little Larry here, he don't cotton onto strangers. But drop by anytime you're in the neighborhood, fellers....\"\n\nHe had to shout the last words because the floater was heading west with Little Larry in snorting pursuit.\n\n\"Now that is what I call beautiful,\" Stinger said, awe in his voice. I nodded silent agreement. Even the dullest of lives contain moments of pure glory.\n\nEnough fun; time to work. I chewed on a straw and stretched out on the warm hay. \"Porcuswine are nice when you know them.\"\n\n\"The police don't seem to think so,\" he said.\n\n\"Guess not. That was the best thing I ever saw. I don't exactly get along with the police.\"\n\n\"Who does? What you got sent up for, Jimmy?\"\n\n\"Bank robbery. Did you ever hold up a bank?\"\n\nHe whistled appreciation and shook his head no. \"Not my style. I wouldn't know what to do first. Mudslugging's my style. Ain't been beat in nine years.\"\n\n\"Knocking around the way you do you must meet a lot of people. Did you ever meet Smelly Schmuck?\" I extemporized rapidly. \"He and I did some banks in Graham State.\"\n\n\"Never met him. Never even heard of him. You're the first bank robber I ever met.\"\n\n\"Really? Well, I guess there aren't that many of us these days. But you must know some safecrackers. Or groundcar thieves?\"\n\nAll I got for my efforts was another shake of the head. \"The only time I ever meet guys like you is in jail. I know some gamblers; they go around the mudslugging fights. But they're all two-buckers, losers. I did know one once who swore he knew The Bishop, long time ago.\"\n\n\"The Bishop?\" I said, blinking rapidly, trying to sum up what little I knew of the ecclesiastical hierarchy. \"I don't go to church much these days....\"\n\n\"Not that kind of bishop. I mean The Bishop, the geezer used to clean out banks and things. Thought you would have heard of him.\"\n\n\"Before my time, I guess.\"\n\n\"Before everyone's time. This was years ago. Cops never got him, I hear. This two-bucker bragged he knew The Bishop; said that he had retired and was lying low. He must of been lying, two-bucker like him.\"\n\nStinger knew no more than this and I hesitated to pump him too hard. Our conversation died away and we both dozed on and off until dark. We were thirsty and hungry, but knew that we had to remain under cover during daylight. I chewed on my straw and tried not to think of large beers and bottles of cold water, but thought about The Bishop instead. It was a thin lead, but was all that I had. By the time the sun went down I was hungry and thirsty and thoroughly depressed. My prison escapade had turned out to be a dangerous fiasco. Jails were for losers\u2014that's about all I had found out. And in order to discover this fact I had risked life and limb. Never again. I took a silent oath to stay away from prison and the minions of the law in the future. Good criminals don't get caught. Like The Bishop, whoever he might be.\n\nWhen the last trace of light was gone from the sky we eased the barn door open. A bubbling grunt reached our ears and a great form blocked our exit. Stinger gasped and I grabbed him before he could flee.\n\n\"Grab a stick and make yourself useful,\" I said. \"I'll teach you a new skill.\"\n\nSo we scratched like crazy under the creature's quills while it grunted with pleasure. Trotting behind us like a pet dog when we finally left. \"We got a friend for life,\" I said as we slipped out the gate and I waved goodbye to our porcine pal.\n\n\"Those kinds of friends I can live without forever. You figure out what we do next?\"\n\n\"Absolutely. Advance planning, that's my middle name. There is a siding down this way where they transship from the linears to trucks. We stay away from it because the police are sure to be there. But all the trucks take the same road to the highway where there is a traffic control light. They have to stop until the highway computers see them and let them on. We go there\u2014\"\n\n\"And break into the back of one of the trucks!\"\n\n\"You're learning. Only we get one in the right lane going west. Otherwise we end up back in the fine city of Pearly Gates and right after that in the prison we worked so hard to get out of.\"\n\n\"Lead the way, Jim. You are the brainiest kid I ever met. You're going to go far.\"\n\nThat was my expressed wish and I nodded quick agreement. I was just sorry that he wasn't going too. But I didn't want to live with some far-off yokel's life on my conscience\u2014as much as he might deserve a little agro. But Stinger planned far more than that. I could not be party to a killing.\n\nWe found the road and waited in the bushes beside it. Two trucks rumbled up together\u2014with the lights of another one following. We stayed out of sight. First one, then the second pulled out and headed east. When the third slowed down to stop for his turn, lights came on. West!\n\nWe ran. I was fumbling with the locking bar when Stinger shouldered me aside. He hauled down and the door swung open. The truck started forward and he pushed me up into it. He had to run as it started its turn\u2014but grabbed the sill and pulled himself up with a single heave of those mighty arms. Between us we got the door closed but not sealed.\n\n\"We done it!\" he said triumphantly.\n\n\"We certainly did. This truck is going in the right direction for you\u2014but I have to get back to Pearly Gates as soon as the heat dies down. In about an hour we'll be passing through Billville. I'll leave you there.\"\n\nIt was a quick trip. I swung down at the first stop for a light and he gripped my hand. \"Good luck, kid.\" he called out as the truck pulled away. I couldn't wish him the same.\n\nI dug out a buck coin as the truck rumbled way. And made a mental note of its registration number. As soon as it was out of sight I headed towards the lights of a phonebox. I felt like a rat as I punched the buttons for the police.\n\nBut, really, I had no choice.\nChapter 6\n\nUnlike the hapless Stinger, I had a careful escape plan worked out. Part of it was a literal misdirection for my late partner. He was not really stupid, so it shouldn't take him very long to figure out who had blown the whistle on him. If he talked and told the police that I had returned to the fine city of Pearly Gates\u2014why that would be all for the better. I had no intention of leaving Billville, not for quite a while.\n\nThe office had been rented through an agency and all transactions had been done by computer. I had visited it before my hopeless bank job, and at that time had left some supplies there. They would come in very handy right now. I would enter through the service door of the fully automated building\u2014after turning off the alarms by using a concealed switch I had been prudent enough to install there. It had a timer built into it, so I had ten lazy minutes to get to the office. I yawned as I picked the lock, sealed the door behind me, then trudged up three flights of stairs. Past the dull eyes of the deactivated cameras and through the invisible\u2014and inoperative\u2014infrared beams. I picked the lock of the office door with two minutes to spare. I blanked the windows, turned on the lights\u2014then headed for the bar.\n\nCold beer had never tasted better. The first one never even touched the sides of my throat and sizzled when it hit my stomach. I sipped the second as I tore the tab on a dinpac of barbecued ribs of porcuswine. As soon as the steam whistled through the venthole I ripped open the lid of the stretched pack and pulled out a rib the length of my arm. Yum!\n\nShowered, dipilated and wrapped around a third beer, I began to feel much better. \"On.\" I told the terminal, then punched into the comnet. My instructions were simple; all newspaper records on the planet for the last fifty years, all references to a criminal named The Bishop, check for redundancies around the same date and don't give me any duplicates. Print.\n\nBefore I had picked up my beer again the first sheets were sliding out of the fax. The top sheet was the most recent\u2014and it was ten years old. A not too interesting item from a city on the other side of the planet, Decalogg. The police had picked up an elderly citizen in a low bar who claimed that he was The Bishop. However it had turned out to be a case of senile dementia and the suspect had been ushered back to the retirement home from which he had taken a walk. I picked up the next item.\n\nI tired towards morning and took a nap in the filing cabinet, which turned into a bed when ordered to do so. In the gray light of dawn, helped by a large black coffee, I finished placing the last sheet into the pattern that spread across the floor. Rosy sunlight washed across it. I turned off the lights and tapped the stylo against my teeth while I studied the pattern.\n\nInteresting. A criminal who brags about his crimes. Who leaves a little drawing of a bishop behind after scarpering with his loot. A simple design\u2014easy enough to copy. Which I did. I held it out at arm's length and admired it.\n\nThe first bishop had been found in the empty till of an automated liquor store sixty-eight years ago. If The Bishop had started his career of crime as a teenager, as I have done, that would put him in his eighties now. A comfortable age to be, since life expectancy has now been pushed up to a century and a half. But what had happened to him to explain the long silence? Over fifteen years had passed since he had left his last calling card. I numbered off the possibilities on my fingers.\n\n\"Number one, and a chance always to be considered, is that he has snuffed it. In which case I can do nothing so let us forget about that.\n\n\"Two\u2014he could have gone offplanet and be pursuing his life of crime among the stars. If so, forget it like number one. I need a lot more golden bucks, and experience, before I try my hand on other worlds.\n\n\"Three, he has gone into retirement to spend his ill-gotten gains\u2014in which case more power to him. Or four, he has changed rackets and stopped leaving his spoor at every job.\"\n\nI sat back smugly and sipped the coffee. If it were three or four I had a chance of finding him. He had certainly had a busy career before the years of silence; I looked at the list with appreciation. Plane theft, car theft, cash theft, bank emptying. And more and more. All of the crimes involving moving bucks from someone else's pockets to his pockets. Or real property that could be sold quickly, with forged identification, for more bucks. And he had never been caught, that was the best part of it. Here was the man who could be my mentor, my tutor, my university of crime\u2014who would one day issue a diploma of deviltry that would eventually admit me to the golden acres I so coveted.\n\nBut how could I find him if the united police forces of an entire world, over a period of decades, had never been able to lay a finger on him? An interesting question.\n\nSo interesting that I could see no easy answer. I decided to let my subconscious work on this problem for a bit, so I pushed some synapses aside and let the whole thing slip down into my cerebellum. The street outside was beginning to fill up with shoppers and I thought that might be a good idea for me as well. All the rations I had here were either frozen or packaged, and after the sludgy prison food I felt the urge for things that crackled and crunched. I opened the makeup cabinet and began to prepare my public persona.\n\nAdults don't realize\u2014or remember\u2014how hard it is to be a teenager. They forget that this is the halfway house of maturity. The untroubled joys of childhood are behind one, the mature satisfactions of adulthood still ahead. Aside from the rush of blood to the head, as well as other places, when thoughts of the opposite sex intrude, there are real difficulties. The hapless teenager is expected to act like an adult\u2014yet has none of the privileges of that exalted state. For my part I had escaped the tedious tyranny of teendom by skipping over it completely. When not lolling about in school or trading lies with my age group, I became an adult. Since I was far more intelligent than most of them\u2014or at least I thought that I was\u2014adults that is, I had only to assume the physical role.\n\nFirst an application of crowsfooter around my eyes and on my forehead. As soon as this colorless liquid was applied wrinkles appeared and the calendar of my age rushed forward a number of years. A few wattles under my chin blended in well with the wrinkles, while the final touch was a nasty little moustache. When I pulled on my shapeless under-office clerk jacket, my own mother would not have recognized me if she had passed me in the street. In fact this had happened about a year ago and I had asked her the time and even then no spark of recognition had brought a glint to her bovine eyes. Taking an umbrella from the closet, since there was absolutely no possibility of rain, I stepped from the office and proceeded to the nearest shopping mall.\n\nI must say, my subconscious was really working fast this day, as I shortly found out. Even after all the beers I still had a thirst. That dry stay in the barn had left its mark. Therefore I turned smartly under the platinum arches of Macswineys and marched up to the serving robot that was built into the counter. The plastic head had a permanent grin painted on it and the voice was syrupy and sexy.\n\n\"How can I be of service, sir or madam?\" They could have spent a few bucks on a sex-recognition program I thought as I scanned the list of TUMCHILLER YUMMY DRINKS on the wall.\n\n\"Let me have a double-cherry oozer with lots of ice.\"\n\n\"On the way, sir or madam. That will be three bucks, if you please.\"\n\nI dropped the coins in the hopper and the serving hatch flipped open and my drink appeared. While I reached for it I had to listen to a robotic sales pitch.\n\n\"Macswineys is happy to serve you today. With the drink of your choice I am sure you would like a barbecued porcuswineburger with yummy top secret sauce garnished with sugar-fried spamyams....\"\n\nThe voice faded away from my attention as my subconscious heaved up the answer to my little problem. A really simple and obvious answer that was transparent in its clarity, pristine pure and simple....\n\n\"Come on, buster. Order or split, you can't stand there all day.\"\n\nThe voice graveled in my ear and I muttered some excuse and shuffled off to the nearest booth and dropped into it. I knew now what had to be done.\n\nSimply stand the problem on its head. Instead of me looking for The Bishop I would have to make him look for me.\n\nI drank my drink until my sinuses hurt, staring unseeingly into space as the pieces of the plan clicked into place. There was absolutely no chance of my finding The Bishop on my own\u2014it would be foolish to even waste my time trying. So what I had to do was commit a crime so outrageous and munificent that it would be on all the news channels right around the planet. It had to be so exotic that not a person alive with the ability to read\u2014or with a single finger left to punch in a news channel\u2014would be unaware of it. The entire world would know what had happened. And they would know as well that The Bishop had done it because I would leave his calling card on the spot.\n\nThe last traces of drink slurped up my straw and my eyes unfocused and I slowly returned to the garish reality of Macswineys. And before my eyes was a poster. I had been staring at it, without seeing it, for some time. Now it registered. Laughing clowns and screaming children. All rapt with joy in slightly faulty 3D. While above their heads the simple message was spelled out in glowing letters.\n\nSAVE YOUR COUPONS!!\n\nGET THEM WITH EVERY PURCHASE!!\n\nFREE ADMISSION TO LOONA PARK!!!\n\nI had visited this site of plastic joys some years before\u2014and had disliked it even as a child. Horrifying rides that frightened only the simple. Rotating up-and-down rides only for the strong of stomach; round-and-round and throw up. Junk food, sweet candy, drunk clowns, all the heady joy to please the very easily pleasable. Thousands attended Loona Park every day and more thousands flooded in on weekends\u2014bringing even more thousands of bucks with them.\n\nBucks galore! All I had to do was clean them out\u2014in such a very interesting way that it would make the top news story right around the planet.\n\nBut how would I do it? By going there, of course, and taking a good hard look at their security arrangements. It was about time that I had a day off.\nChapter 7\n\nFor this little reconnaissance trip it would be far wiser for me to act my age\u2014or less. With all the makeup removed I was a fresh-faced seventeen again. I should be able to improve upon that; after all I had taken an expensive correspondence course in theatrical makeup. Pads in my cheeks made me look more cherubic, particularly when touched up with a bit of rouge. I put on a pair of sunglasses decorated with plastic flowers\u2014that squirted water when I pressed the bulb in my pocket. A laugh a second! Styles in dress had changed, which meant that plus-fours for boys had gone out of fashion, thank goodness, but shorts were back. Or rather a reprehensible style called short-longs, which had one leg cut above the knee, the other below. I had purchased a pair of these done in repulsive purple corduroy tastefully decorated with shocking-pink patches. I could scarcely dare look at myself in the mirror. What looked back at me I hesitate to describe, except that it looked very little like an escaped bank robber. Around my neck I slung a cheap disposable camera that was anything but cheap, disposable\u2014or only a camera.\n\nAt the station I found myself lost in a sea of lookalikes as we boarded the Loona Special. Screaming and laughing hysterically and spraying each other with our plastic flowers helped to while away the time. Or stretch it to eternity in at least one case. When the doors finally opened I let the multichrome crowd thunder out, then strolled wearily after them. Now to work.\n\nGo where the money was. My memories of my first visit were most dim\u2014thank goodness!\u2014but I did remember that one paid for the various rides and diversions by inserting plastic tokens. My father had furnished a limited and begrudging number of these, which had been used up within minutes, and of course no more had been forthcoming. My first assignment then was to find the font of these tokens.\n\nEasily enough done, for this building was the target of every prepubescent visitor. It was a pointed structure like an inverted ice-cream cone, bedecked with flags and mechanical clowns, topped with a golden calliope that played ear-destroying music. Surrounding it at ground level and fixed to its base was a ring of plastic clown torsos, rocking and laughing and grimacing. Repellent as they were, they provided the vital function of separating the customers from their money. Eager juvenile hands pushed buck bills into the grasping palms of the plastic punchinellos. The hand would close, the money vanish\u2014and from the clown's mouth a torrent of plastic tokens would be vomited into the waiting receptacle. Disgusting\u2014but I was obviously the only one who thought so.\n\nThe money went into the building. Now I must find where it came out. I strolled about the base and discovered that the regurgitating dispensers did not quite girdle it. To the rear, behind the concealment of trees and shrubs, a small building snuggled up to the base. I pushed my way under the shrubs and found myself facing a private policeman stationed beside an unmarked door.\n\n\"Get lost, kid,\" he said sweetly. \"Employees only.\"\n\nI dodged around him and pushed against the door\u2014and managed to photograph it at the same time. \"I gotta go to the bathroom,\" I said crossleggedly. \"They said the bathroom was here.\"\n\nA hard hand pulled me away and propelled me back to the shrubbery. \"Not here. Out. Back the way you came.\"\n\nI went. Very interesting. No electronic alarms and the lock was a Glubb\u2014reliable but old. I was beginning to like Loona Park after all.\n\nIt was an excruciating wait until dark when the park closed down. Out of boredom I sampled the Glacier Ride where one hurtled through mock ice caverns with Things frozen into the ice on all sides\u2014though they occasionally lunged out at the screeching riders. Rocjet Rovers was equally bad, and in the name of good taste I will draw the curtain down over the heady joys of Candyland and the Swamp Monster. Suffice to say that the time did arrive at last. The token dispenser closed down an hour before the park shut. From a nearby vantage point I watched with avid interest as an armored van took away a great number of solid containers. Even more interesting was the fact that when the money went\u2014so did the security. I imagine that the logic behind this was that no one in their right mind would want to break in and steal the tokens.\n\nSo I wasn't in my right mind. As darkness fell I joined the exhausted celebrants as they staggered towards the exits. Except that I didn't get that far. A locked door at the rear of Vampire Mountain unlocked easily under my gentle ministrations. I slipped into the darkness of the service area. High above me, pale fangs shone and fake blood dripped; I felt very comfortable indeed tucked in behind a coffin filled with dirt.\n\nI let an hour go by, no more. This should clear the employees out of the way but still leave enough revelers in the streets outside the park so that my disgusting outfit would not be noticed when I finally made my exit.\n\nThere were guards about, but they were easily avoided. As I had expected, the Glubb opened easily and I slipped quickly inside. The room proved to be windowless, which was fine since my light would then not be seen. I switched it on and admired the machinery.\n\nA simple and clean design\u2014I appreciate that in machinery. The dispensers were ringed about the walls. Silent now, but still obvious in their operation. When coins or bills were inserted they were counted and passed on. Machines above released the measured amount of tokens into the delivery chutes. Beside them pipes sprang out of the floor and terminated in a bin above\u2014undoubtedly they were filled from underground conveyors that returned the tokens ready for redispensing. The bucks, untouched by human hands, were being conveyed through sealed and transparent tubes to the collection station, where the coins fell into locked boxes. They were not for me since they were too bulky to move easily. But, ahh, the bills, they were far lighter and worth far more. They slipped along the chutes until they dropped gracefully through an opening in the top of a safe. An operation that appeared to be relatively secure from light-fingered employees.\n\nWonderful. I admired the machinery and thought about it, then made notes. The dispensers had been manufactured by a firm by the name of Ex-changers, and I took pix of their trademark on the machines. The safe was a secure and reliable brand that easily yielded to my ministrations. It was empty of course, but I had expected that. I made a note of the combination, then opened and closed it a number of times until I could do it with my eyes closed. A plan was taking shape in my head and this was to be an integral part of it.\n\nFinished at last, I slipped from the building without being seen, and with little more effort escaped from the park to join the frolicking throngs. They were less boisterous on the return journey and I only had to use my spray-glasses twice. I cannot describe the relief I felt when I finally staggered through the office door, stripped off the outlandish garb, then buried my nose in a beer. Then, metaphorically of course, I put my thinking cap on.\n\nThe next weeks were busy ones. While I worked at the equipment I needed for my operation I followed the news accounts closely. One of the prison escapers, after a fierce struggle, had been recaptured. His companion had not been found, despite the help rendered by the one who had been caught. Poor Stinger; life wouldn't be the same for him once the will to fight was taken from him. However life would still be the same for the man he had planned to kill so I did not feel too sorry for Stinger. And I had work to do. Two things to do in tandem; plan the robbery\u2014and lay the trap for The Bishop. I am proud to say that I accomplished both with some ease. After this I waited until there was a dark and stormy night to visit Loona Park again. I was in and out as quickly as I could, which was some hours since there was a good deal of work to be done.\n\nAfter that it was only a matter of waiting for the right time. A weekend would be best, with the tills overflowing. As part of my plans I had rented the garage quite legally, but had stolen the small van most illegally. I used the waiting time to repaint it\u2014a better job than the original if I must say so\u2014to add new identification numbers, and to fix nameplates to the doors. At last Saturday came and I had to work hard to control my impatience. To pass the time, moustached and crowfooted, I enjoyed a good and leisurely lunch, for I had to wait until late afternoon, when the coffers would be full. The drive into the countryside was pleasant, and I reached my appointed spot at the appointed time. Close to the service entrance to the park. I had some apprehension as I pulled on the skintight and transparent gloves\u2014but the feeling of anticipation was far greater. With a smile on my lips I reached out and switched on the apparatus fixed underneath the dash before me.\n\nAn invisible radio signal winged out and I tried to visualize with my mind's eye what happened next. Fast as light to the receiver, down the wires to its target\u2014which was a tiny charge of explosive. Not much, just a carefully measured amount that would destroy the latch on one of the token dispensers without rupturing the tube at the same time. With the latch destroyed, a steady stream of colored plastic wafers should now be rattling down into the dispenser, filling it and flowing over\u2014gushing on in a never-ending stream. What a benefactor I was! How the children would bless me had they but known my identity.\n\nBut that wasn't all that was going to happen. For every minute now another radio signal pulsed out of my transmitter, another latch was destroyed, another gusher of tokens spouting forth each time that this happened. Another and then another. At the proper moment I started the van's engine and drove to the service gate of Loona Park, opened the window, and leaned out above the sign on the door that read EX-CHANGERS DISPENSING MACHINES.\n\n\"Got a radio call,\" I said to the guard there. \"You got some kind of problem here?\"\n\n\"No problem,\" the guard said, heaving the gate open. \"More like a riot. You know where the building is?\"\n\n\"Sure do. Help is on the way!\"\n\nThough I had visualized the effects of my unexpected largesse, I quickly discovered that reality far surpassed my wildest expectations. Screaming, cheering kiddies rushed about laden with tokens, while others fought for places around the gushing dispensers. Their happy cries were ear-splitting and the attendants and guards could do nothing to stop their wave of exuberance. It was slightly less crowded on the service road, but I still had to drive slowly, hand on the horn, to make my way through the stragglers. Two guards were pushing kids back through the shrubs when I drove up.\n\n\"Got some trouble with the dispensers?\" I asked sweetly. The guard's snarled response was lost in childish cries of delight, which was probably all for the best. He unlocked the door and all but pushed me and my toolbox through.\n\nThere were four people there, struggling ineffectually with the machines. They could not be cut off since I had taken the liberty of shorting the switchbox. A bald-headed man was working on an armored cable with a hacksaw and I made tsk-tsking sounds. \"That is a recipe for suicide,\" I said. \"You got a four-hundred-volt line in there.\"\n\n\"Can you do anything better, buster,\" he snarled. \"They're your damned machines. Go to work.\"\n\n\"I shall\u2014and here is the cure.\"\n\nI opened the sizable toolbox, which contained only a shining metal tube, and took it out. \"This will do the job,\" I said, turning the valve at the top and hurling it from me. The last thing I saw were their eye-popping expressions as the black smoke billowed out and filled the room\u2014blocking out all vision completely.\n\nI had been expecting it; they had not. The toolbox was in my arms as I took four measured paces in the darkness and fetched up against the side of the safe. Any noises I made were drowned by their shouts and screams and the constant chugging of the token dispensers. The safe opened easily, the lid of the toolbox fit neatly against the lower edge. I leaned in, felt the mounds of bills, then swept them forward into the waiting container. It was quickly filled and I snapped it shut. My next task was to make sure that the right person took responsibility for this crime. The card with its inscription was in my top pocket. I slipped it out and laid it carefully in the safe, which I then locked again to make absolutely sure that my message would be received and not lost in all the excitement. Only then did I pick up the now-heavy toolbox and stand with my back to the safe, turning and orientating myself.\n\nI knew that the exit was there in the darkness, nine easy paces away. I had taken five when I bumped into someone and strong hands grabbed me while a hoarse voice shouted in my ear.\n\n\"I got him! Help me!\"\n\nI dropped the box and gave him exactly the help he needed, running my hands up his body to his neck and doing all the right things there. He grunted and slid away. I groped for the box\u2014for a panicky moment I couldn't find it. Then I did, clutched the handle, and seized it up and stood....\n\nAnd realized I had lost all sense of direction during the fracas.\n\nMy panic was as dark as the smoke, and I shook so hard that I almost dropped the case. Seventeen years old and very much alone\u2014with the unknown world of adults closing in upon me. It was over, all over.\n\nI don't know how long this crisis lasted, probably only seconds, although it seemed infinitely longer than that. Then I grabbed myself by the metaphorical neck and shook myself quite hard.\n\n\"You wanted it this way\u2014remember? Alone with everyone's hand turned against you. So give in to them\u2014or start thinking. Fast!\"\n\nI thought. The people screaming and banging all about me were no help or threat\u2014they were as confused as I was. All right, hand outstretched, go forward. Any direction. Reach something that could be identified by touch. Once this was done I should be able to work out where I was. I heard a thudding ahead, it had to be one of the dispensers, then I bumped into it.\n\nWhile at the same moment a draft of air touched my face and a familiar voice called out close by.\n\n\"What's going on in here?\"\n\nThe guard! And he had opened the door. How very nice of him. I moved along the wall, avoiding him easily since he was still shouting in the darkness, then followed the billowing smoke out into the light of day. Blinking at the brightness and at the other guard who was stationed just before me, grabbing me.\n\n\"Just hold it right there. You ain't going nowhere.\"\n\nHe could not have been much wronger, I mean grabbing onto a Black Belt like that. I eased him to the ground so he wouldn't hurt himself when he fell, threw the box into the van, looked around to see that I was totally unobserved, closed the door, started the engine, then drove slowly and carefully away from fun-filled Loona Park.\nChapter 8\n\n\"All fixed, everything just fine back there,\" I called out to the guard and he nodded while he pulled the gate open. I drove off in the direction of the city, slowly around a bend\u2014then turned sharply inland on an unpaved road.\n\nMy escape had been as carefully planned as the theft. Stealing money is one thing; keeping it is another altogether. In this age of electronic communication a description of me and the van would be flashed around the planet in microseconds. Every police car would have a printout and every patrolman verbal warning. So how much time did I have? Both guards were unconscious. But they could be revived, could pass on the information, a phone call would be made, warning given. I calculated that this would take at least five minutes. Which was fine since I only needed three.\n\nThe road wound up through the trees, made a final turn\u2014and ended in the abandoned quarry. My heart was thudding a bit since I had to take one chance in this operation. And it had worked\u2014the rental car was still here, just where I had left it the day before! Of course I had removed some vital parts from the engine, but a determined thief could have towed it away. Thank goodness that there was only one determined thief around.\n\nI unlocked the car and took out the box of groceries, then carried it to the van. The side of the box swung down\u2014revealing an empty box. The protruding tops of packets and containers, just the glued-together tops of packets and containers. Very ingenious, if I say so myself. Which I have to, since no one else knows about this operation. Money into box, close box, put in car. Take off work clothes, shiver in the cool breeze as I throw them into the truck. Along with moustache. Pull on sports outfit, actuate timer on thermite charges, lock van, get in car. Simply drive away. I had not been observed so there was no reason at all now why I shouldn't get away with my little adventure. I stopped at the main road and waited for a clutch of police cars to go roaring by in the direction of Loona Park. My, but they were in a hurry. I turned onto the road and drove slowly and carefully back to Billville.\n\nBy this time the van would be burning merrily and melting down to a pool of slag. No clues there! The van was insured by law so the owner would be reimbursed. The fire would not spread\u2014not from the heart of the stone quarry\u2014and no one had been injured. It had all worked well, very well.\n\nBack in the office I heaved a sigh of relief, opened a beer and drank deep\u2014then took the bottle of whiskey from the bar and poured a stiff shot. I sipped it, wrinkled my nose at the awful flavor, then poured the rest of the drink into the sink. What filthy stuff. I suppose if I kept trying I would get used to it someday, but it scarcely seemed worth the effort.\n\nBy now enough time should surely have elapsed for the press to have reached the scene of the crime. \"On,\" I called out to my computer, then, \"Print the latest edition of the newspaper.\"\n\nThe fax hummed silkily and the paper slid into the tray. With a color pic of the money fountain operating at full blast on the front page. I read the report with a glow of pleasure, turned the page, and saw the drawing. There it was, just as they had found it when they had finally opened the safe. A drawing of a bishop with a line of chess notation written below it.\n\nR\u2014Kt 4 X B\n\nWhich means in chess notation Rook to square Knight 4 takes Bishop.\n\nWhen I read it the warm glow of pleasure was replaced by a chill of worry. Had I given myself away to the police? Would they analyze the clue and be waiting for me?\n\n\"No!\" I cried aloud. \"The police are lazy and relaxed with little crime to keep them on their toes. They may puzzle over it\u2014but they will never understand it until it is too late. But The Bishop should be able to work it out. He will know that it is a message for him and will labor over it. I hope.\"\n\nI sipped at my beer and had a good worry. It had taken me tedious hours to work out this little mind-twister. The fact that The Bishop used a chess bishop as his calling card had led me to the chess books. I assumed that he\u2014or she, I don't believe that anyone had ever determined The Bishop's sex, although it was assumed the criminal was male\u2014cared about chess. If more knowledge was needed he could consult the same books that I had. With very little effort it could be discovered that there are two different ways of noting chess moves. The oldest of them, the one that I had used, named the squares of the file after the piece that sat at the end of the file. (If you must know, \"ranks\" are the rows of squares that stretch from side to side of a chessboard. \"Files\" are the rows that stretch between the players.) So the square on which the White King sits is King 1. King 2 would be the next one up. If you think that this is complicated don't play chess\u2014because this is the easiest part! However there is a second form of chess notation that assigns a number to each of the 64 squares on the board. So Knight 4 can be either 21, 8, 22, or 45.\n\nConfusing? I hope so. I hope the police never think it is a code and get around to cracking it. Because if they do I am cracked as well. This little bit of chess movement contains the date of my next crime, when I am going to \"take bishop,\" meaning take The Bishop card to a crime. Meaning also I am going to take credit for being The Bishop. Also meaning I am taking The Bishop to the cleaners.\n\nI have the scenario clear in my mind. The police puzzle over the chess move\u2014then discard it. Not so The Bishop in his luxury hideout. He is going to be angry. A crime has been committed and he has been blamed. Money has been taken\u2014and he doesn't have it! My hope is that he will worry over this chess move, see it as a clue, scribble away at it, and eventually solve it.\n\nBy thinking about the fact that Knight is a homonym for night. Night three\u2014what can that mean? The third night of what? The third night of the Modern Music Festival in the city of Pearly Gates, that is what. And this third night is also the forty-fifth day of the year, which is\u2014that's correct\u2014also known as Knight 3 in one of its four permutations. With this added verification The Bishop would be sure that some crime would take place on the third night of the Festival. A crime involving money of course. My mental fingers were crossed in the hope that he would be more interested in me than in informing the police in advance about the crime.\n\nI hoped that I had struck the right balance. Too complex for the police, but capable of solution by The Bishop. And he had exactly one week to solve it and come to the Festival.\n\nWhich also meant that I had one week to hype myself up and depress myself down, get too much sleep\u2014then not enough sleep. And take pleasure only in the construction of plans and apparatus for this bold foray into the pockets of the public.\n\nOn the night in question it was raining heavily\u2014which suited me perfectly. I turned up the collar of my black coat, jammed my black hat down on my head, then seized up the black case that held the musical instrument. A horn of some kind. This was made obvious by the swollen shape at one end, where the case swelled out to accommodate the bell. It might be a crumpaphone or even a dagennet. Public transportation took me close to the stage entrance to the theater. As I walked the rest of the way I soon found myself braving the elements among other black-garbed, instrument-bearing musicians. I had my pass ready, but the doorman just waved us through and out of the rain. There was little chance that anyone would question my identity because I was only one of 230. For tonight was the premier of what was sure to be a head-destroying piece of so-called music modestly entitled Collision of Galaxies, scored for 201 brass instruments and 29 percussion. The composer, Moi-Woofter Geeyoh, was not known for the delicate dissonances of her compositions. The choice of this piece of music had also made this the night of my choice; even reading the score gave one a headache.\n\nThere was a shortage of dressing rooms for the musical multitude and they were milling about all over the place emitting lost noises. No one noticed when I slipped away, drifted up a back staircase\u2014and let myself into a janitorial broom closet. The service staff had long departed so I would not be disturbed\u2014other than by the music. Nevertheless I locked the door from the inside. When I heard the sounds of tuning up I took out my copy of the score of Collision.\n\nIt started out calmly enough\u2014after all, the galaxies had to get on stage before they could collide. I followed the score with my finger until it reached the red mark I had placed there. The score folded neatly into my pocket as I carefully unsealed the door and looked out. Corridor empty, as it should be. With steady tread I walked down the corridor, the floor of which was already beginning to throb with impending galactic destruction.\n\nThe door was labeled PRIVATE\u2014KEEP OUT. I took the black mask from one pocket, removed my hat and pulled the mask on, extracted the key to the door from another. I did not want to waste time with lockpicks, so had made this key when I had scouted this location. I hummed along with the music\u2014if that could be said to be possible\u2014with the key in the lock. At the correct destructive crash I opened the door and stepped into the office.\n\nMy entrance had to of course been unheard, but my movements caught the older man's eye. He turned and stared, and the pen he had been using dropped from his limp fingers. His hands reached towards the ceiling when I drew the impressive\u2014and fake\u2014gun from my inside pocket. The other and younger man could not be threatened and dived to the attack. And continued to dive unconscious to the floor, knocking over and breaking a chair on the way.\n\nNone of this made a sound. Or rather it made a lot of sound, none of which could be heard over the music that was now rapidly working itself up to a crescendo that would drown out the crack of doom. I moved fast because the really loud parts were coming close.\n\nI took two pairs of handcuffs from a coat pocket and locked the older man's ankle to his desk, then pulled his arms down before they got tired. I next secured the sleeping dreamer the same way. Almost time. I took the plastic explosive from another pocket\u2014yes, there were a lot of pockets in this garment, and not by chance either\u2014and slapped it to the front of the safe. Right over the time lock. They must have felt very secure here with their careful arrangements. All the night's ample receipts had been locked away in the safe in the presence of armed guards. To remain locked and secure until the morning when other armed guards would be present when it opened. I pushed the radio fuse into the explosive, then retreated across the room until I was out of the line of fire along with the others.\n\nEvery loose object in the room was bouncing in time with the music now while dust rained down from the ceiling. It still wasn't time. I used the opportunity to rip out the phones by their roots. Not that anyone would be talking on a phone until after the concert.\n\nThere it was\u2014almost there! I had the musical score in my mind's eye and at the instant when the galaxies finally impacted I pressed the radio actuator.\n\nThe front of the safe blew off in silent motion. I was stunned by the musical catastrophe way up here in the office\u2014not by the explosion\u2014and I wondered how many of the audience had gone deaf in the name of art. My wondering didn't stop me from shoveling all the buck bills from the safe into my instrument case. When it was filled I tipped my hat to my prisoners, one wide-eyed, one unconscious, and let myself out. The black mask went back into its pocket and I went out of the theater by an unwatched emergency exit.\n\nIt was a brisk two-block walk to the underpass entrance and I was just one other figure hurrying through the rain. Down the steps and along the corridor, to take the turning that led to the station. The commuter trains had left and the corridor was deserted. I stepped into the phone booth and made my unobserved identity change in exactly twenty-two seconds, precisely the rehearsed time. The black covering of the case stripped away to reveal the white covering of the case inside. The flared bell-shape went too. That had been shaped from thin plastic that crunched and went into a pocket with the black cover. My hat turned inside out and became white, my black moustache and beard disappeared into their appointed pocket so that I could shed the coat and turn it inside out so that it too, that's right, became white. Thus garbed, I strolled into the station and out the exit along with the other arriving passengers, to the cab rank. It was a short wait; the cab rolled up and the door opened. I climbed in and smiled appreciatively at the shining skull of the robot driver.\n\n\"Mah good man, tay-ake me to thu Arbolast Hotel,\" I said in my best imitation Thuringian accent\u2014since the Thuringar train had arrived at the same time I had.\n\n\"Message not understood,\" the thing intoned.\n\n\"Ar-bo-last Ho-tel, you metallic moron!\" I shouted. \"Ar-bowb-bo-last!\"\n\n\"Understood,\" it said, and the cab started forward.\n\nJust perfect. All conversations were stored in a molecular recorder for one month in these cabs. If I were ever checked on, the record would reveal this conversation. And my hotel reservation had been made from a terminal in Thuringia. Perhaps I was being too cautious\u2014but my motto was that this was an impossibility. Being too cautious, I mean.\n\nThe hotel was an expensive one and tastefully decorated with mock arbolasts in every corridor and room. I was obsequiously guided to mine\u2014where the arbolast served as a floor lamp\u2014and the robot porter glided away smarmily with a five-buck coin in his tip slot.\n\nI put the bag in the bedroom, took off the wet coat, extracted a beer from the cooler\u2014and there was a knock on the door.\n\nSo soon! If that was The Bishop he was a good tail, because I had not been aware of being followed. But who else could it be? I hesitated, then realized that there was one certain way to find out. With smile on face, in case it was The Bishop, I opened the door. The smile vanished instantly.\n\n\"You are under the arrest,\" the plainclothes detective said, holding out his jeweled badge. His companion pointed a large gun at me just to make sure that I understood.\nChapter 9\n\n\"What... what...\" I said, or something very like this. The arresting officer was not impressed by my ready wit.\n\n\"Put on your coat. You are coming with us.\"\n\nIn a daze I stumbled across the room and did just as he commanded. I should leave the coat here, I knew that, but I had no will to resist. When they searched it they would find the mask and key, everything else that would betray me. And what about the money? They hadn't mentioned the bag.\n\nAs soon as my arm was through the sleeve the policeman snapped a handcuff on my wrist and clicked the other end to his own wrist. I was going nowhere without them. There was little or nothing I could do\u2014not with the gun wielder three steps behind us.\n\nOut the door we went and along the corridor, to the elevator, then down to the lobby. At least the detective had the courtesy to stand close to me so the handcuffs were not obvious. A large black and ominous groundcar was parked in the middle of the no-parking zone. The driver didn't even bother to glance in our direction. Though as soon as we had climbed in and the door closed, he pulled away.\n\nI could think of nothing to say\u2014nor were my companions in a conversational mood. In silence we rolled through the rainy streets, past police headquarters, which was unexpected, to stop before the Bit O' Heaven Federal Building. The Feds! My heart dropped. I had been correct in assuming that breaking the clues and catching me had certainly been beyond the intelligence of the local police. But I had not reckoned upon the planetary investigation agencies. By hindsight\u2014which is not very satisfying\u2014I saw my error. After years of absence The Bishop strikes again. Why? And what does the bit of chesswackery mean? Put the cryptologists on it. Oho, a bit of bragging, scene and date of the next crime revealed. Keep it Federal and out of the hands of the local and incompetent police. Watch the cash with the most modern of electronic surveillance techniques. Track the criminal to see if others are involved. Then pounce.\n\nMy state of black depression was so great that I could scarcely walk. I swayed when our little procession stopped before a heavy door labeled FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION, with DIRECTOR FLYNN in smaller gold letters beneath it. My captors knocked politely and the doorlock buzzed and opened. We filed in.\n\n\"Here he is, sir.\"\n\n\"Fine. Secure him to the chair and I'll take over from here on out.\"\n\nThe speaker sat massively behind the massive desk. A big man with sleek black hair, who was made even bigger by the enormous quantity of fat that he was carrying around. His chin, or chins, hung down onto the swelling volume of his chest. The size of his stomach kept him well back from the desk, upon which the fingers of his clasped hands rested like a bundle of stout sausages. He returned my shifty gaze with his steady and steely one. I made no protest as I was guided to the chair, dropped into it, felt the handcuffs being secured to it, heard footsteps recede and the door slam.\n\n\"You are in very big trouble,\" he intoned.\n\n\"I don't know what you mean,\" I said, the impact of my innocence lessened by the squeak and tremor of my voice.\n\n\"You know full well what I mean. You have committed the crime of theft tonight, purloining the public purse donated by stone-deaf music lovers. But that is the least of your folly, young man. By your age I can tell that you have also purloined the good name of another. The Bishop. You are pretending to be something that you are not. Here, take these.\"\n\nPurloined a good name? What in the galaxy was he talking about? I snatched the keys out of the air by reflex. Gaped at them\u2014then gaped even more broadly at him as I tremblingly unlocked the cuffs.\n\n\"You are not...\" I gurgled. \"I mean, the arrest, this office, the police... You are...\"\n\nHe calmly waited for my next words, a beatific smile on his face.\n\n\"You are... The Bishop!\"\n\n\"The same. My understanding of the message concealed by your feeble code was that you wanted to meet me. Why?\"\n\nI started to rise and an immense gun appeared in his hand, aimed between my eyes. I dropped back into the chair. The smile was gone, as was all warmth from his voice.\n\n\"I don't like to be imitated, nor do I like to be played with. I am displeased. You now have three minutes to explain this matter before I kill you, then proceed to your hotel room to retrieve the money you stole this evening. Now the first thing that you will reveal is the location of the rest of the money stolen in my name. Speak!\"\n\nI spoke\u2014or rather I tried to speak but could only sputter helplessly. This had a sobering affect. He might kill me\u2014but he was not going to reduce me to helpless jelly first. I coughed to clear my throat, then spoke.\n\n\"I don't think that you are in too much of a hurry to kill me\u2014nor do I believe in your three-minute time limit. If you will cease in your attempts to bully me I shall try to tell you carefully and clearly my motives in this matter. Agreed?\"\n\nSpeaking like this was a calculated risk\u2014but The Bishop was a game player, I knew that now. His expression did not change, but he nodded slightly as though conceding a Pawn move\u2014knowing that he still had my King well in check.\n\n\"Thank you. I never thought of you as a cruel man. In fact, when I discovered your existence, I used you as a career model. What you have done, what you have accomplished, is without equal in the history of this world. If I offended you by stealing money in your name I am sorry. I will turn all the money from that robbery over to you at once. But if you will stop to think\u2014it is the only thing that I could do. I had no way of finding you. So I had to arrange things so that you could find me. As you have. I counted upon your curiosity\u2014if not your mercy\u2014not to reveal my identity to the police before you had met me yourself.\"\n\nAnother nod granted me another Pawn move. The unwavering barrel of the gun informed me that I was still in check.\n\n\"You are the only person alive who knows my identity,\" he said. \"You will now tell me why I should not kill you. Why did you want to contact me?\"\n\n\"I told you\u2014out of admiration. I have decided on a life of crime as the only career open to one of my talents. But I am self-trained and vulnerable. It is my wish to be your acolyte. To study at your knee. To enter the academy of advanced crime in the wilderness of life with you on one end of the log and me on the other. I will pay whatever price you require for this privilege, though I may need a little time to raise more money since I am turning the receipts of my last two operations over to you. There it is. That is who I am. And, if I work hard enough, you are whom I wish to be.\"\n\nThe softening gaze, the thoughtful fingers raised to chin meant I was out of check for the moment. But the game wasn't won yet\u2014nor did I wish it to be. I wanted only a draw.\n\n\"Why should I believe a word of this?\" he asked at last.\n\n\"Why should you doubt it? What other possible reason could I have?\"\n\n\"It is not your motives that disturb me. I am thinking about the possibility of someone else's, someone in a position of police responsibility who is using you as a pawn to find me. The man who arrests The Bishop will rise to the top of his chosen profession.\"\n\nI nodded agreement as I thought furiously. Then smiled and relaxed. \"Very true\u2014and that must have been the very first thing to come to your mind. Your office in this building either means that you are high in the ranks of law enforcement, so high that you could easily find out if this had been the plan. Or\u2014even more proof of your genius\u2014you have ways and means of penetrating the police at any level, to fool them and use them to actually arrest me. My congratulations, sir! I knew that you were a genius of crime\u2014but to have done this, why it borders on the fantastic!\"\n\nHe nodded his head slowly, accepting his due. Did I see the muzzle of the gun lowered ever so slightly? Was a drawn game possibly in sight? I rushed on.\n\n\"My name is James Bolivar diGriz and I was born a little over seventeen years ago in this very city in the Mother Machree Maternity Hospital for Unemployed Porcuswineherders. The terminal I see before you must access official files at every level. Bring up mine! See for yourself if what I have told you is not the truth.\"\n\nI settled back into the chair while he tapped commands on the keyboard. I did nothing to distract him or draw his attention while he read. I was still nervous but worked to affect a surface calm.\n\nThen he was done. He leaned back and looked at me calmly. I didn't see his hands move\u2014but the gun vanished from sight. Drawn game! But the pieces were still on the board and a new game was beginning.\n\n\"I believe you, Jim, and thank you for the kind words. But I work alone and wish no disciples. I was prepared to kill you to preserve the secret of my identity. Now I do not think that will be necessary. I will take your word that you will not look for me again\u2014or use my identity for any more crimes.\"\n\n\"I grant your requests instantly. I only became The Bishop to draw your attention. But reconsider, I beg of you, my application for membership in your academy of advanced crime!\"\n\n\"There is no such institution,\" he said, hauling himself to his feet. \"Applications are closed.\"\n\n\"Then let me rephrase my request,\" I said hurriedly, knowing my remaining time was brief. \"Let me be personal, if I can, and forgive any distress I may cause. I am young, not yet twenty, and you have been on this planet for over eighty years. I have been only a few years at my chosen work. And, in this brief time, I have discovered that I am truly alone. What I do I must do for myself and by myself. There is no comradeship of crime because all of the criminals I have seen are incompetents. Therefore I must go it alone. If I am lonely\u2014then dare I even guess at the loneliness of your life?\"\n\nHe stood stock-still, one hand resting on the desk, staring at the blank wall, as through a window, at something I could not see. Then he sighed, and with the sound, as though it had released some power that kept him erect, he slumped back into the chair.\n\n\"You speak the truth, my boy, and only the truth. I do not wish to discuss the matter, but your barb has been driven well home. Nevertheless what is, will be. I am too old a dog to change his ways. I bid you farewell, and thank you for a most interesting week. Been a bit like old times.\"\n\n\"Reconsider, please!\"\n\n\"I cannot.\"\n\n\"Give me your address\u2014I must send you the money.\"\n\n\"Keep it, you earned it. Though in the future earn it under a different identity. Let The Bishop enjoy his retirement. I will add only one thing, a bit of advice. Reconsider your career ambitions. Put your great talents to work in a more sociably acceptable manner. In that way you will avoid the vast loneliness you have already noted.\"\n\n\"Never!\" I cried aloud. \"Never. I would rather rot in jail for the rest of my life than accept a role in the society I have so overwhelmingly rejected.\"\n\n\"You may change your mind.\"\n\n\"There is no chance of that,\" I said to the empty room. The door had closed behind him and he was gone.\nChapter 10\n\nWell, that was that. There is nothing like an overwhelming depression to bring one down from the heights of elation. I had done exactly what I had set out to do. My complex plan had worked perfectly. I had unearthed The Bishop from his secret lair and had made him an offer he couldn't refuse.\n\nExcept he had. Even the pleasure of having pulled off the successful robbery now meant nothing. The bucks were like ashes in my hand. I sat in my room at the hotel and looked into the future and could see only a vast vacuity. I counted the money over and over until the sums were meaningless. In making my plans I had considered all of the possibilities but one\u2014that The Bishop would turn me down. It was kind of hard to take.\n\nBy the time I got back to Billville the next day I was wallowing in a dark depression and thoroughly enjoying the bath of self-pity. Which I normally cannot stand. Nor could I this time. I looked in the mirror at the hollow-eyed and woebegone face and stuck my tongue out at it.\n\n\"Sissy!\" I said. \"Momma's boy, whiner, self-indulgent wimp,\" and added whatever other insults I could think of. Having cleansed the air a bit, I made a sandwich and a pot of coffee\u2014no alcohol to clog the synapses!\u2014and sat down to munch and guzzle and think about the future. What next?\n\nNothing. At least nothing constructive that I could think of at this moment. All of my plans had ended at a blank wall and I could see no way around or over it. I slumped back and snapped my fingers at the 3V. A commercial channel came on and before I could change channels the announcer appeared in glorious three dimension and color. I didn't switch because the announcer was a she and wearing only the flimsiest of swimsuits.\n\n\"Come where the balmy breezes blow,\" she cajoled. \"Come join me on the silver sands of beautiful Vaticano Beach, where the sun and waves will refresh your soul....\"\n\nI turned the thing off. My soul was in fine shape and the fine shape of the announcer only gave me more problems to think about. Future first, heterosexual love later. But the commercial had at least given me the beginning of an idea.\n\nA holiday? Take a break? Why not\u2014lately I had been working harder than any of the businessmen I so badly did not want to become. Crime had paid, and paid nicely, so why didn't I spend some of the hard-earned loot? I probably wouldn't be able to escape from my problems. I had learned by experience that physical displacement was never a solution. My troubles always went with me, as everpresent and nagging as a toothache. But I could take them with me to someplace where I might find the leisure and opportunity to sort them out.\n\nWhere? I punched up a holiday guide from the database and flipped through it. Nothing seemed to appeal. The beach? Only if I could meet the girl from the commercial, which seemed far from likely. Posh hotels, expensive cruises, museum tours, all of them seemed about as exciting as a weekend on a porcuswine ranch. Maybe that was it\u2014I needed a breath of fresh air. As a farm boy I had seen enough of the great outdoors, usually over the top of a pile of porcuswine you-know-what. With that sort of background I had welcomed my move to the city with open arms\u2014and hadn't ventured out since.\n\nThat might be the very answer. Not back to the farm but into the wilderness. To get away from people and things, to do a little chatting with mother nature. The more I thought of it the better it sounded. And I knew just where I wanted to go, an ambition I had had since I was knee-high to a porcuswinelet. The Cathedral Mountains. Those snow-covered peaks, pointing towards the sky like giant church towers, how they used to fill my childish dreams. Well, why not? About time to make a few dreams come true.\n\nShopping for backpack, sleeping bag, thermal tent, cooking pots, lights\u2014all the gear needed\u2014was half the fun. Once outfitted, I couldn't waste time on the linear but took the plane to Rafael instead. I bulged my eyes at the mountains as we came in to land and snapped my fingers and fidgeted while I waited for the luggage. I had studied the maps and knew that the Cathedral Trail crossed the road in the foothills north of the airport. I should have taken the connecting bus like the others instead of being conspicuous in a taxi, but I was in too much of a rush.\n\n\"Pretty dangerous, kid, I mean walking the trail alone.\" The elderly driver smacked his lips as he launched into a litany of doom. \"Get lost easily enough. Get eaten by direwolves. Landslides and avalanches. And...\"\n\n\"And I'm meeting friends. Twenty of them. The Boy Sprouts Hiking Team of Lower Armmpitt. We're gonna have fun,\" I invented rapidly.\n\n\"Didn't see no Boy Sprouts out here lately,\" he muttered with senile suspicion.\n\n\"Nor would you,\" I extemporized, bent over in the backseat and flipping through the maps quickly. \"Because they took the train to Boskone, got off there, right at the station close to where the trail crosses the tracks. They'll be waiting for me, troop leader and all. I would be afraid to be alone in the mountains, sir.\"\n\nHe muttered some more, muttered even louder when I forgot to tip him, then chuckled in his gray whiskers as he drove away because, childishly, I had then overtipped him. While resisting strongly the impulse to slip him a phoney five-buck coin. The sound of the motor died away and I looked at the well-marked trail as it wound up the valley\u2014and realized that this had been a very good idea indeed.\n\nThere is no point in waxing enthusiastic about the joys of the Great Outdoors. Like skiing, you do it and enjoy it, but don't talk about it. All the usual things happened. My nose got sunburned, ants got into my bacon. The stars were incredibly clear and close at night, while the clean air did good things to my lungs. I walked and climbed, froze myself in mountain streams\u2014and managed to forget my troubles completely. They seemed very out of place in this outdoor world. Refreshed, cleansed, tired but happy, and a good deal thinner, I emerged from the mountains ten days later and stumbled through the door of the lodge where I had made reservations. The hot bath was a blessing, and the cold beer no less. I turned on the 3V and got the tail end of the news, slumped down and listened with half an ear, too lazy to change channels.\n\n\"... reports a rise in ham exports exceeding the four percent growth predicted at the first of the year. The market for porcuswine quills is slipping however, and the government is faced with a quill mountain that is already drawing criticism.\n\n\"Closer to home, the computer criminal who broke into Federal Files goes on trial tomorrow. Federal prosecutors treat this as a most serious crime and want the death penalty reestablished. However...\"\n\nHis voice faded from my attention as his smarmy face vanished from the screen to be replaced by the computer criminal himself being led away by a squad of police. He was a big man, and very fat, with a mane of white hair. I felt a clutch in my chest just near the place I imagined my heart to be. Wrong color hair\u2014but wigs would take care of that. There was no mistaking him.\n\nIt was The Bishop!\n\nI was out of the tub and across the room and hitting the frame freeze controls. It is a wonder I did not electrocute myself. Shivering with cold, and scarcely aware of it, I flipped back, then zoomed for detail. Enlarged the frame when he looked back over his shoulder for an instant. It was he\u2014without a doubt.\n\nBy the time I had wiped off the suds and dressed, the general shape of my plans was clear. I had to get back to the city, to find out what had happened to him, to see what I could do to help. I punched up flight information; there was a mail flight just after midnight. I booked a seat, had a meal and a rest, paid my bill, and was the first passenger aboard.\n\nIt was just dawn when I entered my office in Billville. While the computer was printing out all the news items on the arrest, I made a pot of coffee. Sipping and reading, my spirits sank like a rock in a pond. It was indeed the man I knew as The Bishop, although he went under the name of Bill Vathis. And he had been apprehended leaving the Federal Building, where he had installed a computer tap which he had been using to access Top Secret files. All of this had happened the day after I left on my escapist holiday.\n\nI had the sudden realization of what this meant. Guilt assailed me because I was the one who had put him into jail. If I had not started my mad plan, he would never have bothered with the Federal files. He had only done that to see if the robberies had been part of a police operation.\n\n\"I put him in jail\u2014so I will get him out!\" I shouted, leaping to my feet and spilling coffee across the floor. As I mopped it up I cooled down a bit. Yes, I would like to get him out of jail. But could I do it? Why not? I had some experience now in jail-breaking. It should be easier to get from the outside in than it had been doing it the other way. And, after further thought, I realized that perhaps I would not have to go near the jail. Let the police get him out for me. He would have to be taken to court, so would be in transit in various vehicles.\n\nI soon discovered that it was not going to be that easy. This was the first major criminal that had been caught in years and everyone was making a big fuss over it. Instead of being taken to the city or state jail, The Bishop was being held in a cell inside the Federal Building itself. I could get nowhere near it. And the security measures when he was taken to the courthouse were unbelievable. Armed vans, guards, monocycles, police hovercraft and copters. I was not going to get to him that way either. Which meant I was baffled for the moment. Interestingly enough, so were the police\u2014but for very different reasons.\n\nThey had discovered, after endless search, that the real Bill Vathis had left the planet twenty years before. All of the records of this fact had vanished from the computer files\u2014and it was only a note written by the real Vathis to a relative that had established the disappearance of the original. Well\u2014if their prisoner wasn't Vathis. Who was he?\n\nWhen their captive was questioned, according to the report released to the press, \"He answered the question only with silence and a distant smile.\" The prisoner was now referred to as Mr. X. No one knew who he was\u2014and he chose not to speak on the matter. A date was fixed for the trial, not eight days away. This was made possible by the fact that Mr. X refused to plead neither innocent nor guilty, would not defend himself\u2014and had refused the services of a state-appointed attorney. The prosecution, greedy for a conviction, stated that their case was complete and asked for an early trial. The judge, eager as well to be in the limelight, agreed to their request and the date was set for the following week.\n\nI could do nothing! Back to the wall, I admitted defeat\u2014for the moment. I would wait until after the trial. Then The Bishop would simply be one more prisoner and would have to be taken from the Federal Building at last. When he was safely in jail I would arrange his escape. Well before the arrival of the next spacer that would take him away for brain-cleansing and purifying. They would use all of the miracles of modern science to turn him into an honest citizen and, knowing him, I was sure that he would rather die than have that happen. I must intervene.\n\nBut they were not making it easy for me. I could not find a way to be in the courtroom when the trial began. So I, along with every other inhabitant of the planet as far as could be determined, watched the trial on TV when it began.\n\nAnd ended with suspicious speed. All of the first morning was taken with recitals of the well-documented account of what the defendant had done. It was pretty damning. Computer malfeasance, memory bank barratry, CPU violation, terminal treachery, dropping solder on classified documents\u2014it was terrible. Witness after witness read out their statements, all of which were instantly accepted and entered into the evidence. Through all this The Bishop neither watched nor listened. His stare was into the distance, as though he were looking at much more interesting things than the simple operation of the court. When the evidence had been given, the judge banged his gavel and ordered a break for lunch.\n\nWhen the court reconvened\u2014after a break long enough for a seventeen-course banquet with dancing girls for afters\u2014the judge was in a jovial mood. Particularly after the prosecution had done a damning summoning up. He nodded agreement most of the time and thanked all the smarmy ambulance chasers for the excellent job that they had done. Then he looked his most pontifical and spoke in pregnant periods for the records.\n\n\"This case is so clear that it is transparent. The state has brought charges so damning that no defense could possibly stand before them. That no defense was offered is even greater evidence of the truth. The truth is that the defendant did wilfully, with malice and forethought, commit all of the crimes for which he stands accused. There can be no doubt about that. The case is an open and shut one. Nevertheless I shall deliberate the rest of this day and far into the night. He will have his chance of justice that he rejected. I will not find him guilty until tomorrow morning when this court resumes. At that time I will pass sentence. Justice will be done and will be seen to be done.\"\n\nSome justice, I muttered through my teeth and started to switch off the set. But the judge wasn't through.\n\n\"I have been informed that the Galactic League is very interested in this case. A spacer has been dispatched and will be here within two days. The prisoner will then be taken from our custody and we will, if you will excuse and understand my emotions, be well rid of him.\"\n\nMy jaw dropped and I stared moronically at the screen. It was over. Just two days. What could I do in two days? Was this to be the end of The Bishop\u2014and the end of my scarcely launched career in crime?\nChapter 11\n\nI was not going to give up. I had to at least try, even if I failed and were caught myself. It was my fault that he had gotten into this position. I owed him at least an attempt at a rescue. But what could I do? I couldn't get near him in the Federal Building, approach him in transit, or even see him in court.\n\nCourt. Court? Court. Court! Court\u2014why did I keep thinking about the court? What was there about it that tickled my interest, that scratched at my medulla oblongata with an idea trying to get in?\n\nOf course! \"Yippee!!\" I enthused and ran around in small circles waving my arms and gurgling out loud my best imitation\u2014they used to love it at parties\u2014of a rutting porcuswine.\n\n\"What about the court?\" I asked myself, and was ready with the snappy answer. \"I'll tell you about the court. It is in an old building, an Ancient Artifact under preservation order. It probably has some old records in the basement and undoubtedly bats in the attic. During the day it is guarded like the mint\u2014but it is empty at night!\"\n\nI dived for my equipment cabinet and began hurling various necessities to the floor. Tool kit, lockpicks, lights, wires, bugs\u2014all the apparatus I would need for the job.\n\nNow a car\u2014or rather a van\u2014was very much in order since I would hopefully need transportation for two. I took care of that next. I had a number of sites that I had noted in case of need\u2014and now I needed. Although it was still daylight, the trucks and vans of the Crumb-ee Bakery were back in their lot being readied for their predawn tasks of the following day. A few vans were being taken into the garage for servicing and one of them happened to go a bit farther. Right onto the road and towards the city limits. I was on a country side road by dusk, in Pearly Gates soon after dark, and letting myself into a back door to the courthouse not long after that.\n\nThe burglar alarms were antiques, meant to keep out children or mental defectives\u2014since there was obviously nothing in the building worth stealing. That's what they thought! Armed with pix of the courtroom I had made myself during the trial, I went directly to it. Courtroom six. I stood in the doorway and looked about the darkened room. The lights from the street outside cast an orange glow through the high windows. I walked silently inside, sat down in the judge's chair, then looked into the witness box. In the end I found the chair in which The Bishop had sat during his lightning trial, where he would sit on the morrow. This is where he would sit\u2014and this is where he would stand when he rose to hear his sentence. Those great hands would grasp the rail here. Just here.\n\nI looked down at the wooden floor and smiled grimly. Then knelt and tapped on it. Then took out a drill as the various parts of my plan began to fall into place.\n\nOh, but this was a busy night! I had to clear boxes from the cellar beneath the courtroom, saw and hammer and sweat, and even slip out of the courthouse long enough to find a sports supply store and break into it. And, most critical of all, I had to work out a route of escape. The escape itself would not have to be rushed\u2014but it would have to be secure. If I had had the time a bit of tunneling would have been in order. But I had no time. Therefore ingenuity would have to replace manual labor. As I cogitated in a comfortable position I found myself nodding off. Never! I made my way from the building yet again, found an all-night restaurant staffed by surly robot machines, and drank two large coffees with extra caffeine. This worked, producing ideas as well as instant heartburn. I staggered off and broke into a clothing store. By the time I reached the courthouse again I really was staggering with fatigue. With fumbling fingers I resealed all of the doors, removed all traces of my passage. The first light of dawn was graying the windows before I was done. I fumbled with tired fingers as I sealed the cellar from the inside, stumbled across the room, sat down on the canvas, set my alarm watch\u2014and lay down to instant slumber.\n\nIt was pitch dark when the mosquito whine of the alarm irritated me awake. I had a moment of panic until I remembered that the cellar was windowless. It should be full daylight outside by now. I would see. I turned on a worklight, made adjustments\u2014then turned on the TV monitor. Perfect! A color picture of the courtroom above filled the screen, transmitted from the optical bug I had planted the night before. Some ancient employees were dusting the furniture and sweeping the floor. The session would begin in an hour. I left the set running while I made a last check of my labors of the previous night. All working, all in order... so all I had to do was wait.\n\nThat was what I did. Sipping at the cold coffee and chewing painfully on a stale sandwich from the previous day's supplies. The suspense ended when the courtroom doors were thrown open and the lucky spectators and the press came in. I could see them imaged clearly on the screen, hear the shuffle of their footsteps overhead. The sound of their voices murmured from the speaker, quieting only when they were silenced for the arrival of the judge. All eyes were on him, all ears twitching attentively when he cleared his throat and began to speak.\n\nFirst he bored everyone into a state of stupefaction by going over the previous day's evidence in detail, then adding his obvious agreement to each summation and observation. I let his voice drone on while I looked at The Bishop, zooming in on his face.\n\nHe gave them nothing. His features were set, he looked almost bored. But there was a glint to his eyes that was almost hatred, nearer contempt. A giant pulled down by ants. The set of his jaw indicated that they may have imprisoned his body, but his soul was still free. But not for long if the judge had his way!\n\nNow something in the judge's voice caught my attention. He had finished his preamble at last. He cleared his throat and pointed at The Bishop.\n\n\"Defendant will stand for sentencing.\"\n\nAll eyes were on the prisoner. He sat stolidly, unmoving. There was a growing rustle and murmur. The judge began to turn red and he hammered with the gavel.\n\n\"I will be obeyed in this court,\" he thundered. \"The defendant will rise or will be forced to do so. Is that understood?\"\n\nNow I was sweating. If only I could have told him not to cause any difficulties. What would I do if he were held up by great ugly policemen? Two of them had already started forward at the judge's signal. It was then that The Bishop slowly raised his eyes. The look of withering contempt he directed at the judge would have deterred anyone not as dense as his honor; it was a glare of repulsion that might have destroyed minor life forms.\n\nBut he was standing! The police halted as the large hands went out and seized the solid railing. It creaked as he tugged on it and heaved his giant form up, to stand erect. His head was high as he released the rail and his arms dropped to his sides....\n\nNow! I stabbed down on the button. The explosions were not loud\u2014but their effect was dramatic. They severed the two bolts that held the edge of the trapdoor in place. Under the great weight of The Bishop the door swung wide and he plunged down like a missile. I rushed up the ladder as he fell past me\u2014but had time for a last glimpse of the courtroom on the screen.\n\nThere was silence as he vanished from sight. The springs slammed the trapdoor up into position and I pushed the heavy steel sealing bolts into place beneath it. This happened so fast that the horizontal form of The Bishop was still bouncing up and down on the trampoline when I turned to look. I scurried down the ladder to his side as he finally came to rest, looking up at me with stolid gaze as he spoke.\n\n\"Ah, Jim my boy. How nice to see you again.\" He took my proffered hand and I helped him down to the floor. Above us there was pandemonium, shouting and screaming that could be clearly heard through the floor. I permitted myself one glorious look at the screen, at the pop-eyed judge, the scurrying policemen.\n\n\"Very impressive, Jim, very,\" The Bishop said, admiring the scene on the screen as well.\n\n\"Right!\" I ordered. \"Look at it as you strip off your outer clothing. Very little time, explanations will follow.\"\n\nHe hesitated not a millisecond but was hurling clothing from him even as the words were clearing my lips. The great rotund form emerged, clothed in tasteful purple undergarments, and he raised his hands above his head at my shouted command. Standing on the ladder I pulled the immense dress down over him.\n\n\"Here is the coat,\" I said. \"Put that on next. Dress touches the ground, so don't remove shoes. Large hat next, that's it, mirror and lipstick while I unbolt the door.\"\n\nHe did what I said without a murmur of protest. The Bishop had vanished from sight and a lady of truly heroic proportions now emerged. There was a hammering above his head which he completely ignored.\n\n\"Let's go!\" I called out, and he minced across the room in a most feminine fashion. I kept the door closed until he reached me and I used those few seconds to fill him in. \"They'll be at the cellar stairs by now\u2014but they are blocked. We go the other way.\" I pulled on the policeman's helmet to go with the uniform I was wearing. \"You are a prisoner in my custody. We are leaving\u2014now!\"\n\nI took him by the arm and we turned left down the dusty corridor. Behind us there was much crashing and shouting from the blocked stairwell. We hurried on, to the boiler room, and through that to the set of short stairs that rose up to the heavy exit door. With its hinges now greased and lock well oiled. It opened at a touch and we stepped out into the alleyway.\n\nNot an arm's length from the back of a policeman who was standing guard there. He was the only one.\n\nIt took only an instant to examine the scene. The narrow alley was open at the far end. There was a dead end behind us. People\u2014and safety\u2014were in the street beyond the police guard. Then The Bishop climbed up beside me and something grated under his foot. The policeman turned his head to look.\n\nI could see his eyes widen\u2014as well they might, for the lady beside me was an impressive sight. I took advantage of his diverted attention to jump forward and reach out to keep his head turning even more in the same direction. He seized me in strong hands\u2014which quickly went limp since the Tongoese neck twist produces instant unconsciousness when the rotation reaches 46 degrees from full front. I eased him to the ground, then stopped The Bishop from striding forward with my raised palm.\n\n\"Not that way.\"\n\nThe door on the building across the alley said SERVICE ENTRANCE and was locked. It opened to my ready key. As I waved my portly companion inside I took off my cap and threw it beside the policeman. I closed the door from the inside and dropped my uniform jacket as I did. The necktie went next as we strolled into the department store, until I was dressed simply in slacks and shirt. I put my moustache into my pocket and we joined the other customers. Occasionally looking at a display as we passed, but certainly never dawdling. There were a few amazed looks at my companion, but this was a very proper store and no one was so rude as to stare. I went first through the exit, holding the door, then led by a few paces as we joined the passing throng. Behind us, getting weaker as we went, were shouts and cries and the sound of alarm bells and sirens. I permitted myself a small smile. When I glanced back I saw that my companion had permitted herself one as well. She even had the nerve to let me have a brief wink. I turned back quickly\u2014I couldn't encourage this sort of thing\u2014then turned the corner into the side street, where the bread truck awaited.\n\n\"Stand here and look into your mirror,\" I said, unlocking the rear door. I busied myself inside, then barely had time to move aside as a great form hurtled by.\n\n\"No one looking...\" he gasped.\n\n\"Perfect.\"\n\nI climbed out, secured the door, went to the driver's side, climbed in, and started the engine. The van rumbled forward, slowly forcing its way through the pedestrians at the corner, then waited for a break in traffic.\n\nI had considered driving back and past the courthouse, but that would have been dangerous braggadocio. Better to simply slip away.\n\nWhen the street was empty I turned in the opposite direction and drove carefully towards the city limits. I knew all the back roads so we would be away well before they could be blocked.\n\nWe were not out of danger yet\u2014but I still felt smug satisfaction. And why not! I had done it! Committed the escape of the century to save the criminal of the century. Nothing could stop us now!\nChapter 12\n\nI drove, slowly but steadily, for the rest of the morning and into the afternoon. Avoiding all of the major highways by staying with the secondary roads. Though my route, by necessity, had to vary in direction, I nevertheless moved steadily south. Doing my best to add real feeling and emotion to Pi-r squared. Sounds familiar? It should be since it is probably the single geometry theorem that anyone ever remembers. The area of a circle is equal to its radius times the value of Pi\u2014squared. So each roll of the wheels of the bread van added an ever-increasing area that must be searched to find the escaping prisoner.\n\nFour hours of this should put us well ahead of the police. The fact had to be considered as well that The Bishop had been locked in the back of the van for all of this time and knew nothing of my plans for the future. Explanations were in order\u2014as was some food. I was getting hungry and, considering his girth, he would surely be feeling the same. With this in mind I pulled into the next suburban shopping center, checked the quick-food restaurants as I drove by, then parked at the far end of the lot. Backed up close to a blank wall. The Bishop blinked benevolently when I opened the rear door admitting light and fresh air.\n\n\"Time for lunch,\" I said. \"Would you like...\"\n\nI lapsed into silence as he raised his hand in a gesture of silence.\n\n\"Permit me, Jim, to say something first. Thank you. From the bottom of my heart I thank you for what you have done. I owe you my life, no less. Thank you.\"\n\nI stood with lowered eyes\u2014I swear I was blushing like a girl!\u2014and twisting my toe around and around on the ground. Then I coughed and found my voice.\n\n\"I did what had to be done. But\u2014could we talk of this later?\" He sensed my embarrassment and nodded, a regal figure despite the absurd garb he was still wearing. I pointed to the box on which he had been sitting. \"There are clothes in there. While you change I'll get some food. You don't mind junk food from Macswineys?\"\n\n\"Mind? After the loathsome sludge of the prison food, one of their Barbecued Porcuswineburgers would be unto paradise. With a large portion of sugarfried spamyams, if you please.\"\n\n\"Coming up!\"\n\nI closed the van door with a feeling of relief and trotted off towards the beckoning platinum arches. The Bishop's enthusiasm for fast food was most encouraging in a way that he could not suspect yet.\n\nLoud munching and rustling sounded from the tables on all sides as I passed and made my way up to the serving counter. I reeled off my order to the plastic-headed robotic attendant, stuffed bills into the hopper\u2014then grabbed the bag of food and drink as it slid out of the gate.\n\nWe sat on the boxes in the back of the van and ate and drank with enthusiasm. I had left the rear door open a crack, which gave us more than enough light. During my absence The Bishop had discarded his dress and was now wearing more masculine garb\u2014the largest size I could find. He wolfed down half of his sandwich, nibbled a few spamyams to hold it in place, then smiled over at me.\n\n\"Your plan of escape was pure genius, my boy. I noticed the change in the flooring when I first sat down in the chair in the courtroom and pondered long over its significance. I hoped it was what I thought it might be, and can truthfully say that when the ground opened under my feet, so to speak, I felt a feeling of pleasure such as I had never experienced before. The sight of that despicable judge's face disappearing from my sight is a memory I shall always treasure.\"\n\nSmiling broadly he finished the rest of the sandwich, then wiped his lips delicately before speaking again.\n\n\"Since I do not wish to cause you greater embarrassment with more fulsome praise, perhaps I should ask you what plans you have made to keep me safe from the hands of the law? Because, knowing you as I do now, I am secure in the belief that you have planned ahead in precise detail.\"\n\nPraise from The Bishop was praise indeed and I basked in the warmth of it for a few moments while I worried out a bit of swinish gristle from between my teeth. \"I have done that, thank you. The bread truck is our vehicle of invisibility, for it and its brothers trundle the highways and byways of this country daily.\" For some reason I found myself sounding more and more like The Bishop when I spoke. \"We will stay in it until nightfall, slowly approaching our destination all of the while.\"\n\n\"And of course casual police patrols will not bother us, since the identifying numbers on this vehicle are not the ones that were on it before it came into your possession.\"\n\n\"Precisely. The theft will have been reported and local police informed. But the search will not widen, for this vehicle will be found not far from its depot in Billville in the morning. The new numbers, soluble in paint thinner, will have been removed, the odometer turned back to show only a brief joy ride by the thieves. If a van like this were seen and noted in the distant city of Bit O' Heaven, there will be nothing to connect that bread van with this one. That trail will run cold as will all the others.\"\n\nHe digested this bit of information, along with the last of the spamyams, then licked his fingers ruminatingly. \"Capital. I could not have done better myself. Since further movement will be dangerous\u2014the police will soon have a net over the entire country\u2014I presume that Billville is our destination?\"\n\n\"It is. I have my establishment there. Also your place of security. When I asked about your food tastes I had that in mind. You are going to take up residence in an automated Macswineys until the heat of the chase dies down.\"\n\nHis eyebrows climbed up to his forehead and I saw him glance with some apprehension at the discarded wrappings, but he was kind enough not to speak his doubts aloud. I hurried to reassure him.\n\n\"I have done it myself\u2014so don't worry. There are some slight discomforts....\"\n\n\"But none to equal that of Federal prison! I apologize for an unseemly thought. No offense given.\"\n\n\"Or taken. It all came about by accident one evening when the police were a little close behind me for comfort. I picked the lock on the service entrance of the local Macswineys, the very one that you will be visiting, and my pursuers lost my trail. While I waited for a safe period I examined the premises. Amazing! Operating at high speed all around me was the solution to the single problem that faces all fast-food chains. The cost of keeping even the highly underpaid and unskilled employees. Human beings are both intelligent and greedy. They tend to become skilled, then want more money for their work. The answer is to do away with human beings completely.\"\n\n\"Admirable solution. If you are finished with your crumplumps I just might nibble one or two while I listen to your fascinating documentary.\"\n\nI passed the greasy bag to him and went on. \"Everything is mechanized. As the customer speaks his order the required item of food is ejected from the deep-frozen store into a super-voltage radar oven where it is instantly blasted to steamingly edible temperature. These ovens are so powerful that an entire frozen porcuswine can be exploded into steam and greasy particles in twelve microseconds.\"\n\n\"Amazing!\"\n\n\"Beverages are dispensed with the same lightning speed. By the time a customer has finished speaking, his entire order is waiting. Behind a steel door, of course, until he has paid. The machinery is fully automatic and reliable and rarely touched by human hands. It is inspected weekly, while the frozen food store is replenished weekly as well. But not on the same day so that the vehicles don't get in each other's way.\"\n\n\"Crystal clear!\" he cried aloud. \"One makes one's home, so to speak, in the machinery chamber. When the frozen store is replenished, access to it will be from outside the building and the living chamber will not be entered. On the day the machinery is inspected the occupant rests comfortably in the freezing room until the technicians leave. I assume there is a connecting door, easily found. Ahh, yes, the freezer\u2014that explains the large and warm garment I found packed in with my clothes. But should there be an equipment failure...?\"\n\n\"The alarm sounds in the central repair depot and a mechanic is dispatched. I have also arranged for it to sound in the room as well to allow enough time to slip away. I have also made provision for unexpected visits by the engineering staff. An alarm sounds if a key is placed in the outer lock, which then jams for precisely sixty seconds. Any questions?\"\n\nHe laughed and reached out and patted my shoulder. \"How could there be? You have thought of everything. Might I ask about reading matter and, how shall I phrase it delicately, sanitary facilities?\"\n\n\"Portable viewscope and library with your bedroll. All needed facilities already plumbed in for visiting technicians.\"\n\n\"I could ask for no more.\"\n\n\"But... I could.\" I lowered my gaze\u2014then raised it and steeled myself to speak. \"You once told me that you were not in the acolyte-seeking business. Dare I ask you if you still feel that way? Or would you consider dallying the hours away with some lessons in criminal lore? Just to pass the time, so to speak.\"\n\nNow it was his turn to lower his eyes. He sighed, then spoke. \"I had good reasons to reject your request. Good at the time, or so I believed. I have changed my mind. In gratitude for my rescue I would enroll you in my school of Alternate Life-styles for a decade or more. But I don't believe you would like mere gratitude. That would not wear well, unless I have misread your character. I don't believe you rescued me just to gain my gratitude. So I therefore tell you, in all truth, that I look forward to passing on the few things I have learned down through the years. I look forward to our continuing friendship as well.\"\n\nI was overwhelmed. We were on our feet at the same time and shaking hands, laughing. His grip was like steel but I didn't mind at all. It was I who turned away first, then looked at my watch.\n\n\"We have been here too long already and must not draw any attention. I shall drive on now\u2014and the next stop will be the last one, for we will have arrived. Please exit quickly, enter the service door at once, and close it behind you. I'll be back as soon as this van has been disposed of, so the next person to open the door will be me.\"\n\n\"At your orders, Jim. But speak\u2014and I shall obey.\"\n\nIt was a boring drive but a necessary one. But bored I was not, for I was filled with plans and thoughts of the future. I drove through street after street, stopping only once to charge the batteries at an automated service station. Then onward again, doomed forever to rumble through the back roads of Bit O' Heaven, watching the sun creep towards the horizon. To at last pull into the service road of the Billville shopping center, now empty of traffic until morning.\n\nNo one in sight. The Bishop passed me with a swish and the door slammed. The operation was still going well and I was in a hurry to finish, but knew better than to rush now. No one saw me when I carried the boxes and equipment into the building and dumped them in my office. It was taking a chance, but it had to be done. The chances that the van would be noticed and remembered were slim. Before I drove away I sprayed the interior of the van with print-go, a solvent that destroys fingerprints and should be in common use by all criminals. Even bread-van thieves.\n\nThis was it. I could do no more. I parked the van at the end of a quiet suburban street and walked back into town. It was a warm night and I enjoyed the exercise. When I passed the pond in Billville Park I heard a water bird calling out sleepily. I sat on the bench and looked out at the still surface of the pond. And thought about the future and my destiny.\n\nHad I really succeeded in breaking free with my old life? Was I to succeed in the life of crime that I so much wanted? The Bishop had promised to help me\u2014and he was the only person on the planet who could.\n\nI whistled as I walked towards the shopping center. Looking forward to a brilliant and exciting future. So involved in my thoughts that I ignored the occasional surface car that passed, barely aware of one stopping behind me.\n\n\"You there, kid, just a minute.\"\n\nWithout thinking I turned about, so distracted that I didn't notice until too late that I was standing under the streetlight. The policeman sat in the car staring at me. I'll never know why he stopped, what he wanted to talk to me about, because that thought fled his mind instantly. I could see recognition there as his eyes widened.\n\nIn my concern over The Bishop I had forgotten completely that I was still a wanted criminal and jail-breaker, that all the police had my photograph and description. And here I was strolling the streets bereft of any disguise or attempt at security. All these thoughts passed through my head and out my ear in the instant that he recognized me. Nor did I even have time for any mental kicks in the seat of my trousers.\n\n\"You're Jimmy diGriz!\"\n\nHe seemed as surprised as I was. But not surprised enough to slow down his reflexes. Mine were still getting into gear by the time his were all through operating. He must have practiced that draw in the mirror every day because he was fast. Too fast.\n\nAs I was turning to run, the muzzle of his recoilless .75 appeared in the open window.\n\n\"Gotcha!\" he said. With a dirty, wide, evil law-enforcing smile.\nChapter 13\n\n\"Not me\u2014someone else\u2014mistaken identity!\" I gasped, but shoved my hands into the air at the same time. \"Would you shoot a hapless child just on suspicion?\"\n\nThe gun never wavered, but I did. Shuffling sideways towards the front of the car.\n\n\"Stop that and get back here,\" he shouted, but I kept the nervous shuffling going. I doubted, or hoped, that he wouldn't shoot me in cold blood. As I remember, that is against the law. I wanted him to come after me, because in order to do that he would have to take the gun out of the window. There was no way that he could point it at me and open the door at the same time.\n\nThe gun vanished\u2014and so did I! The instant he lowered it I turned and ran, head down and pumping as fast as I could. He shouted after me\u2014and fired!\n\nThe gun boomed like a cannon and the slug zipped past my ear and slammed into a tree. I spun about and stopped. This cop was insane.\n\n\"That's better,\" he called out, resting the gun on top of the open door and aiming it at me with both hands. \"I fired to miss. Just once. Next time I hit. I got the gold medal for shooting this piece. So don't make me show you how good I am with it.\"\n\n\"You are mad, do you know that?\" I said, all too aware of the quaver in my voice. \"You just can't shoot people on suspicion.\"\n\n\"Yes I can,\" he said, walking up to me with the gun still pointed steady as a rock. \"This ain't suspicion but identification. I know just who you are. A wanted criminal. You know what I'll say? I'll say this criminal grabbed my gun and it went off and he got shot. How does that sound? Want to grab my gun?\"\n\nHe was a nutter all right, and a police nutter at that. I could see that he really wanted me to make a break so he could fire off his cannon. How he had escaped all the tests that were supposed to keep his kind out of law enforcement I will never know. But he had done it. He was licensed to carry a gun and was looking for an excuse to use it. That excuse I was not giving him. I extended my arms slowly before me, wrists together.\n\n\"I'm not resisting, officer, see. You are making a mistake, but I am going quietly. Put on the cuffs and take me in.\"\n\nHe looked downright unhappy at this, and frowned at me. But I made no more moves and in the end he scowled, pulled the handcuffs from his belt, and tossed them over to me. The gun never wavered.\n\n\"Put them on.\"\n\nI locked them on one wrist, very loosely so I could slip my hand out of them, then on the other. I was looking down when I did this and I did not see him move. Until he had me by both wrists and had squeezed both cuffs until they had locked hard deep into my skin. He smiled down at me, twisting the metal into my flesh with sadistic glee.\n\n\"Gotcha now, diGriz. You are under arrest.\"\n\nI looked up at him, he was a head taller than me and maybe twice my weight\u2014and I burst out laughing. He had put the gun back in its holster in order to grab me\u2014that's what he had done. The big man had grabbed the little kid. He couldn't understand why I was laughing and I gave him no opportunity to find out. I did the easiest, best, and fastest thing possible under the circumstances. Also the dirtiest.\n\nMy knee came up hard into his groin and he let go of my wrists at the impact and bent double. I did him a favor, the poor man must have been in some pain, and got him in the side of the neck with my joined hands as he went by. He was unconscious before he hit the ground. I knelt and started to go through his pockets for the keys to the handcuffs.\n\n\"What's happening there?\" a voice called out as a light came on over the door of the nearest house. The sound of that shot would bring the whole street out soon. I would worry about the cuffs later. Right now I had to make tracks.\n\n\"Man's been hurt!\" I shouted. \"I'm going for help.\" This last was called over my shoulder as I trotted off down the street and around the corner. A woman appeared in the doorway and called after me but I wasn't staying around to listen. I had to keep moving, get away from this place before the alarm was called in and the search began. Things were coming apart. And my wrists hurt. I looked at them when I passed the next streetlight and saw that my hands were white, and were getting numb as well. The cuffs were so tight they were cutting off all the blood circulation. Any slight guilt I may have had over the dirty fighting vanished on the instant. I had to get these things off\u2014and fast. My office, the only place.\n\nI got there, avoiding the main streets and staying away from people. But when I reached the back door of the building my fingers were numb and stiff. I could feel nothing.\n\nIt took an intolerably long time to fish the keys out of my pocket. When I succeeded I instantly dropped them. Nor could I pick them up again. My fingers would not close. I could only drag my lifeless hands over the keys.\n\nThere are low moments in life\u2014and I believe that this was the lowest one that I had ever experienced. I just could not do what had to be done. I was finished, licked, through. I couldn't get into the building. I couldn't help myself. It didn't take a medical degree to figure out that if I didn't get the cuffs off soon I was going to go through life with plastic hands. This was it.\n\n\"This is not it!\" I heard myself snarling. \"Kick the door open, do something, unlock it with your toes.\"\n\nNo, not my toes! I fumbled the keys about on the ground with my dead fingers until I had separated out the correct key. Then bent my body over it and touched it with my tongue, feeling its position, ignoring the filth and dirt that I licked up along with it. Then I pulled back my lips and seized the key with my teeth. Good so far!\n\nIf you should ever be tempted to unlock a door with a key in your teeth while wearing handcuffs I have only a single word of advice. Don't. You see, you have to turn your head sideways to get the key into the keyhole. Then roll your head to turn the key, then butt the door with your head to get it open....\n\nIt worked at last and I fell face first onto the floor inside. With the knowledge that I would have to do the whole thing all over again upstairs. That I did do it, and finally slid through into the office, owes more to persistence, stubbornness and brute force than to intelligence. I was too exhausted to think. I could only react.\n\nI elbowed the door shut and stumbled to my workbench, hurled my toolbox to the floor, and kicked its contents about until I found the vibrosaw. I picked this up with my teeth and managed to wedge it into an open desk drawer, holding it in place as I closed the drawer with my elbow. Closing it on my lip as well, which brought forth a nice gusher of blood. Which I ignored. My wrists were on fire\u2014but my hands were past feeling. White and dead-looking. I had run out of time. I used my elbow to turn on the saw. Then pushed the handcuffs towards the blade, pulling my arms apart hard to stretch the chain. The blade buzzed shrilly and the chain was cut and my arms flew wide.\n\nNext came the more exacting job of cutting the cuffs off without cutting my flesh. Too much.\n\nThere was blood everywhere before I was done. But the cuffs were off and I could see the flesh turn pink as circulation was restored.\n\nAfter this, all I was up to was collapsing into a chair and watching the blood drip. I sat like this for about a minute when the numbness ended and the pain began. With an effort I stumbled to my feet and dragged over to the medical locker. Getting this good and bloody as well while I shook the pain capsules out and managed to swallow two of them. Since I was already there I pulled out the antiseptic and bandages and cleaned up the cuts. They were more messy than dangerous and none were very deep. I bandaged them, then looked into the mirror and shuddered and did something about the lip.\n\nA police siren wailed by in the street outside\u2014and I realized that the time had come to do some furious thinking and planning.\n\nI was in trouble. Billville wasn't very big, and all exits would be sealed by now. That's what I would have done first, if I were looking for a fugitive. And even the dimmest of policemen would have figured this one out as well. Barricades on all the roads, copters out with nightscopes to watch the open fields, police at the linear station. All holes plugged. Trapped like a rat. What else? The streets would be patrolled too, easy enough to do by groundcar. And the later it got the fewer people there would be about and the more dangerous it would be to wander around.\n\nThen, in the morning, what then? I knew what then. A search of every room in every building until I was found. I felt the perspiration bead my forehead at the thought. Was I trapped?\n\n\"No surrender!\" I shouted aloud, then jumped to my feet and paced back and forth. \"Jimmy diGriz is too slippery to be caught by the ham-handed minions of the local law. Look how I slipped away from that homicidal copper. Slippery Jim diGriz, that's who I am. And I am about to slip away from them again. But how?\"\n\nHow indeed. I cracked open a beer, drank deep, then slumped back into the chair. Then looked at my watch. It was already getting too late to risk my presence on the street. The restaurants would be emptying, the feely and stinky cinemas disgorging their customers, couples marching homeward two by two. Any single individual drawing the instant attention of the law.\n\nIt had to be the morning then. I would have to venture forth in the light of day\u2014or the rain! I punched up the weather report as quickly as I could, then slumped back once again. 99% chance of sunshine. I might as easily wish for an earthquake as a storm.\n\nThe office was a mess; it looked like the aftermath of an explosion in the slaughterhouse. I would have to clean it up....\n\n\"No, Jim, you will not have to clean it up. Because the police are going to find it sooner or later, and probably sooner. Your fingerprints are everywhere and they know your blood type. They'll have a really good time trying to figure out what happened to you.\"\n\nIt would give them something to think about at least. And maybe cause a little trouble for one sadistic copper. I wheeled the chair over to the terminal and typed out the message. The printer whistled and I took the sheet of paper from the hopper. Wonderful!\n\nTO THE POLICE. I WAS SHOT DEAD BY YOUR MURDERING POLICE OFFICER YOU FOUND UNCONSCIOUS. HE GOT ME. I AM BLEEDING INTERNALLY AND WILL DIE SOON. GOODBYE CRUEL WORLD. I NOW GO TO THROW MYSELF INTO THE RIVER.\n\nI doubted very much if the ruse would work, but it might at least get that gun-crazy cop in trouble. And keep the rest of them busy dredging the river. There was some blood on the note and I smeared more on from the bandages. Then laid it carefully on the table.\n\nThis bit of tomfoolery had cheered me a bit. I sat back and finished the beer and made plans. Was I leaving anything important behind? No, there were no records kept here that I would need in the future. I found my doomsday key and unlocked the destruct switch, then pressed it. A single click from the memory banks was the only evidence that all of the computer's memory had just turned into random electrons. Everything else\u2014tools, equipment, machinery\u2014was expendable, could be replaced when needed. But I was not leaving the money.\n\nAll this was pretty tiring\u2014but I couldn't afford to rest until all arrangements were complete. I pulled a pair of thin plastic gloves over the blood and bandages and set to work. The money was in the safe, since I robbed banks and did not believe in supporting them by opening an account. I put it all into a businessman's carrybag. It was only half full, so I added all the microtools that would fit. In the space that was left I stuffed in as much clothing as I could, then stood on the thing until I got it closed and locked.\n\nNew clothes and a disguise next. A black four-piece business suit, the fabric enriched by a pattern of tiny white buck bills. An orange rollneck, just what all the young bankers were wearing, along with trendy porcuswineherd boots with builtup heels. Add some to my height\u2014that would help. When I left I would wear the moustache and gold-rimmed glasses. What I could do now was darken my hair with dye and add to my fading tan. Preparations done, woozy with beer, fatigue, and pain pills, I opened the file cabinet bed, set the alarm, and dropped into oblivion.\n\nThere were giant mosquitoes circling my head, more and more of them, after my blood, mosquitoes...\n\nI opened my eyes and blinked away the dream. My alarm watch, since I hadn't turned it off, had raised the volume on the mosquito buzzing, louder and louder until it sounded like a squadron of them diving to the attack. I pushed the button, smacked my gummy lips together, then stumbled over for a glass of water. It was full daylight outside and the early risers were just appearing.\n\nPreparations made, I washed and dressed with care. Nifty orange gloves that matched the shirt hid my bandaged hands. When the streets were at their rush-hour busiest I seized up the carrybag, then checked carefully to make sure that the hall outside was empty. Stepped out and closed the door without looking back. This part of my life was over with. Today was the first day of my new life.\n\nI hoped. I walked to the stairs with what I hoped was a very sincere, businessman-type walk, down past the first arrivals, and into the street.\n\nTo see the policeman on the corner looking closely at every passerby.\n\nI did not look at him, but found an attractive girl walking ahead of me with very neat legs indeed. I watched their twinkling advance and tried to forget the nearby minion of the law. Came towards him, passed him, walked away from him. Waiting for the cry of recognition...\n\nIt never came. Maybe he was looking at the girl too. One down\u2014but how many more to go?\n\nThis was the longest walk that I had ever taken in my life. Or at least it seemed that way. Not too fast, not too slow. I struggled to be part of the crowd, just another wage-slave going to work, thinking only of profit and loss and debenture bonds. Whatever debenture bonds were. One more street\u2014safe so far. There's the corner. The service road behind the shopping center. No place for a businessman like you. So look sharp and don't hang about. Around the corner to safety.\n\nSafety? I staggered as though I had been struck.\n\nThe Macswineys service van was outside the door and a hulking brute of a mechanic was just going inside.\nChapter 14\n\nI looked at my watch, snapped my fingers, then turned away from the service road in case my actions were being observed. And marched on smartly until I came to the first Speedydine. Just to make my day complete there were two policemen sitting in the first booth. Looking at me, of course. I marched past, eyes front, and found the seat farthest from them. There was an itching between my shoulder blades that I didn't dare scratch. I couldn't see them\u2014but I knew what they were doing. They were looking at me, then talking to each other, deciding I was not quite what I looked like. Better investigate. Stand, walk my way, lean over my booth...\n\nI saw the blue-trousered legs out of the corner of my eye and my heart instantly began hammering so loudly I was sure the whole restaurant could hear it. I waited for the accusing words. Waited... let my eyes travel up the blue-clad legs...\n\nTo see a uniformed linear driver sitting down across from me. \"Coffee,\" he said into the microphone, shook his newspaper open, and began to read.\n\nMy heart slowed to something resembling normal and I silently cursed myself for suspicion and cowardice. Then spoke aloud into my own microphone in the deepest voice I could sum up.\n\n\"Black coffee and mulligatawny dumplings.\"\n\n\"Deposit six bucks, if you please.\"\n\nI inserted the coins. There was a rumble of machinery at my elbow and my breakfast slid out onto the table. I ate slowly, then glanced at my watch, then went back to sipping my coffee. As I well knew from the earlier occasion when I had nipped into the freezer, when I had been hiding out there, thirty minutes was the minimum service time for a Macswineys mechanic. I allowed forty before I slid out of the booth. I tried not to think about what I would find when I finally got into the back of the fast-food parlor. I remembered my parting words only too well, I would be the next person through the door. Ho-ho. The next person had been the mechanic. Had he caught The Bishop? I sweated at the thought. I would find out soon enough. I passed the booth where the police had been. They were gone\u2014out searching some other part of the city for me I hoped\u2014and I headed back to the shopping center. To be greeted by the glorious sight of the Macswineys van drawing out into the road ahead of me.\n\nThe key was ready in my hand as I approached the door. The road ahead was empty\u2014then I heard the footsteps coming up behind me. The police? With boring repetition my heart started the thudding routine again. I walked slower as I came close to the door. Then stopped and bent over and slipped the palmed key into my hand as though I had just picked it up. I examined it closely as someone came up, then passed me. A young man who showed not the slightest interest in my existence. He went on and turned into the back entrance to the market.\n\nI took one look over my shoulder\u2014then jumped for the door before anything else happened. Turned the key, pushed\u2014and of course it didn't open.\n\nThe delay mechanism I had installed was working fine. It would unlock in one minute. Sixty short seconds.\n\nSixty incredibly crawling seconds. I stood there in my fine business outfit, as out of place in this alley as teats on a boar porcuswine, as we used to say back on the ranch. Stood there and sweated and waited for police or passersby to appear. Waited and suffered.\n\nUntil the key turned, the door opened\u2014and I fell through.\n\nEmpty! On the far wall the automatic machinery clattered and whirred. The drink dispenser gurgled and a filled container whistled down its track and vanished. To be followed by the steaming bulk of a burger. Night and day this went on. But among all this mechanical motion no human form appeared. They had captured him\u2014the police had The Bishop. And they would capture me next....\n\n\"Ahh, my boy, I thought it might be you this time.\"\n\nThe Bishop emerged from the freezer, immense in his insulated gear, his sleeping roll and carryall tucked under his arm. He slammed the door behind him and the strength went out of me with a woosh and I slumped down with my back to the wall.\n\n\"Are you all right?\" he asked, concern in his voice. I waved a weak hand.\n\n\"Fine, fine\u2014just let me catch my breath. I was afraid they had you.\"\n\n\"You shouldn't have worried. When you did not reappear within a reasonable time I assumed there had been some hitch in your plans. So I rehearsed my evacuation moves just in case the legitimate users appeared today. And they did. It is really quite cold in there. I wasn't sure how long they would be, but I was sure you had installed some way of discovering when they left....\"\n\n\"I meant to tell you!\"\n\n\"No need. I found the hidden speaker and switch and listened to someone who mutters profanities while he works. After some time the slam of the door and silence were welcome information indeed. Now about yourself. There were problems?\"\n\n\"Problems!\" I burst out laughing with relief. Then stopped when I heard a hysterical edge to the sound. I told him, omitting some of the more gruesome details. He made appropriate noises at the right places and listened attentively until the bitter end.\n\n\"You are being too harsh on yourself, Jim. A single lapse after all the tension of the day is not to be unexpected.\"\n\n\"But not to be allowed! Because I was stupid I almost had both of us caught. It won't happen again.\"\n\n\"There is where you are wrong,\" he said, shaking a thick admonitory finger. \"It could happen at any time\u2014until you have trained yourself in your work. But you will be trained and trained efficiently...\"\n\n\"Of course!\"\n\n\"... until a lapse like this one will be impossible. You have done incredibly well, for one of your inexperience. Now you can only improve.\"\n\n\"And you will teach me how\u2014how to be a successful crook like you!\"\n\nHis brow furrowed at my words and his expression was grave. What had I said that was wrong? I chewed my sore lip with worry as he unrolled his bedroll in silence, spread it out then sat upon it crosslegged. When at last he spoke I hung upon his every word.\n\n\"Now your first lesson, Jim. I am not a crook. You are not a crook. We do not want to be criminals for they are all individuals who are stupid and inefficient. It is important to comprehend and appreciate that we stand outside of society and follow strict rules of our own, some of them even stricter than those of the society that we have rejected. It can be a lonely life\u2014but it is a life you must choose with your eyes open. And once the choice has been made you must abide by it. You must be more moral than they are because you will be living by a stricter moral code. And this code does not contain the word crook. That is their word for what you are and you must reject it.\"\n\n\"But I want to be a criminal....\"\n\n\"Abandon the thought\u2014and the title. It is, and you must excuse me saying it, a juvenile ambition. It is only your emotions striking out at the world you dislike and cannot be considered a reasoned decision. You have rejected them\u2014but at the same time accepted their description of what you are. A crook. You are not a crook, I am not a crook.\"\n\n\"Then\u2014what are we?\" I asked, all eagerness. The Bishop steepled his fingers as he intoned the answer.\n\n\"We are Citizens of the Outside. We have rejected the simplistic, boring, regimented, bureaucratic, moral, and ethical scriptures by which they live. In their place we have substituted our own far superior ones. We may physically move among them\u2014but we are not of them. Where they are lazy, we are industrious. Where they are immoral, we are moral. Where they are liars, we are the Truth. We are probably the greatest power for good to the society that we have discarded.\"\n\nI blinked rather rapidly at that one, but waited patiently because I knew that he would soon make all clear. He did.\n\n\"What kind of a galaxy do we live in? Look around you. The citizens of this planet, and of every other planet in the loose organization known as the Galactic League, are citizens of a fat, rich union of worlds that has almost forgotten the real meaning of the word crime. You have been in prison, you have seen the dismal rejects whom they consider criminals. And this is what is called a frontier world! On the other settled planets there are few malcontents and even fewer who are socially maladjusted. Out there the handful who are still being born, in spite of centuries of genetic control, are caught early and their aberrations quickly adjusted. I made one single trip offplanet in my life, a tour of the nearest worlds. It was terrible! Life on those planets has all the color and wonder of a piece of wet cardboard. I hurried back to Bit O' Heaven for, loathsome as it can be at times, it is still a bit o' heaven compared to the others.\"\n\n\"Someday\u2014I would like to see these other worlds.\"\n\n\"And so you shall, dear boy, a worthy ambition. But learn your way around this one first. And be thankful they don't have complete genetic control here yet\u2014or the machines to mentally adjust those who struggle against society. On other planets the children are all the same. Meek, mild, and socially adjusted. Of course some do not show their genetic weakness\u2014or strength as we call it\u2014until they are adults. These are the poor displaced ones who try their hands at petty crimes\u2014burglary, shoplifting, rustling, and the like. They may get away with it for a week or two or a month or two, depending on their degree of native intelligence. But as sure as atomic decay, as sure as the fall of leaves in the autumn\u2014and just as predestined\u2014the police will eventually reach out and pull them in.\"\n\nI digested this information, then asked the obvious question: \"But if that is all there is to crime, or rebellion against the system\u2014where does that leave you and me?\"\n\n\"I thought you would never ask. These dropouts I have described, whom you have associated with in prison, comprise ninety-nine point nine percent of crime in our organized and dandified society. It is the last and vital one-tenth of one percent that we represent that is so vital to the fabric of this same society. Without us the heat death of the universe would begin. Without us the lives of all the sheeplike citizenry would be so empty that mass suicide to escape it would be the only answer. Instead of pursuing us and calling us criminals they should honor us as first among them!\"\n\nThere were sparks in his eyes and thunder in his voice when he spoke. I did not want to interrupt his fulminant speech, but there were questions to be asked.\n\n\"Please excuse me\u2014but would you be so kind as to point out just why this is so?\"\n\n\"It is so because we give the police something to do, someone to chase, some reason for rushing about in their expensive machines. And the public\u2014how they watch the news and listen for the latest reports on our exploits, how they talk to each other about it and relish every detail! And what is the cost of all this entertainment and social good? Nothing. The service is free, even though we risk life, limb and liberty to provide it. What do we take from them? Nothing. Just money, paper, and metal symbols. All of it insured. If we clean out a bank, the money is returned by the insurance company who, at the end of the year, may reduce their annual dividend by a microscopic amount. Each shareholder will receive a millionth of a buck less. No sacrifice, no sacrifice at all. Benefactors, my boy, we are nothing less than benefactors.\n\n\"But in order for us to accomplish all this good for them we must operate outside their barriers and well outside of their rules. We must be as stealthy as rats in the wainscoting of their society. It was easier in the old days of course, and society had more rats when the rules were looser, just as old wooden buildings have more rats than concrete buildings. But there are rats in the buildings now as well. Now that society is all ferroconcrete and stainless steel there are fewer gaps between the joints. It takes a very smart rat indeed to find these openings. Only a stainless steel rat can be at home in this environment.\"\n\nI broke into spontaneous applause, clapping until my hands hurt, and he nodded his head with gracious acceptance of the tribute.\n\n\"That is what we are,\" I enthused. \"Stainless steel rats! It is a proud and lonely thing to be a stainless steel rat!\"\n\nHe lowered his head in acknowledgment, then spoke. \"I agree. Now\u2014my throat is dry from all this talking and I wonder if you could aid me with the complex devices about us. Is there any way you might extract a double-cherry oozer from them?\"\n\nI turned to the maze of thudding and whirring machinery that covered the inner wall.\n\n\"There is indeed, and I shall be happy to show you how. Each of these machines has a testing switch. This, if you will look close, is the one on the drink dispenser. First you must turn it to on, then you can actuate the dispenser, which will deliver the drink here instead of to a customer on the other side. Each is labeled\u2014see, this is the cherry oozer. A mere touch and... there!\"\n\nWith a whistling thud it dropped into place and The Bishop seized it up. As he began to drink he froze, then whispered out of the corner of his mouth.\n\n\"I just realized, there is a window here and a young lady is staring in at me!\"\n\n\"Fear not,\" I reassured him. \"It is made of one-way glass. She is just admiring her face. It is the inspection port to look at the customers.\"\n\n\"Indeed? Ahh, yes, I can see now. They are indeed a ravenous lot. All that mastication causes a rumble in my own tum, I am forced to admit.\"\n\n\"No trouble at all. These are the food controls. That nearest one is for the Macbunnyburger, if you happen to like them.\"\n\n\"Love them until my nose crinkles.\"\n\n\"Then here.\"\n\nHe seized up the steaming package, traditionally decorated with beady eyes and tufted tail of course, and munched away. It was a pleasure to watch him eat. But I tore myself away before I forgot and pushed coins into the slot on back of the armored coin box.\n\nThe Bishop's eyes widened with astonishment. As soon as he swallowed he spoke.\n\n\"You are paying! I thought that we were safely ensconced in a gustatorial paradise with free food and drink at our beck and call, night and day?\"\n\n\"We are\u2014for all of this money is stolen and I am just putting it back into circulation to keep the economy healthy. But there is no slack in the Macswineys operation. Every morsel of porcine tissue, every splinter of ice is accounted for. When the mechanic tests the machines he is responsible for every item delivered. The shop's computer keeps track of every sale so that the frozen supplies are filled exactly to the top each time they are replenished. All of the money collected is taken away each day from the safe on the outer wall\u2014which is automated as well. An armored van backs over it just as the time lock disengages. A code is keyed in and the money disgorged. So if we simply helped ourselves, the records would reveal the theft. Prompt investigation would follow. We must pay for what we use, precisely the correct amount. But, since we won't be coming back here, we will steal all the money on the day we leave.\"\n\n\"Fine, my boy, fine. You had me worried there for a minute with your bit of forced honesty. Since you are close to the controls, please trigger another delicious morsel of Lepus cuniculus while I pay.\"\nChapter 15\n\nI suppose that there have been stranger places to go to school, but I can't think of any. At certain times of day it was hard to be heard above the rattle, hiss, and roar of the dispensing machinery. Lunch and dinner were the busiest times, but there was another peak when the schools got out. We would eat then as well, since it was so hard to talk, working our way through the entire Macswineys inventory. Countless Macbunnyburgers hopped down our throats, and many a Frozen Fomey followed. I liked Dobbindogs until one too many cantered past my gums, and switched to jellied porcuswinetrotters, then to felinefritters. The Bishop was very catholic in his tastes and liked everything on the menu. Then, once the crowds had gone, after we had patted the last trace of gravy from our lips, we would loll back at our ease and my studies would continue. When we started on computer crime I discovered what The Bishop had been up to for the past couple of decades.\n\n\"Give me a terminal and I can rule the world,\" he said, and such was the authority of his voice that I believed he could. \"When I was young I delighted in all manner of operations to please the citizens of this planet. It was quite a thrill to intercept cash shipments while en route, then substitute my calling card for the bundles of bills. They never did find out how I did it....\"\n\n\"How did you?\"\n\n\"We were talking about computers.\"\n\n\"Digress just this once, I beg of you. I promise to put the technique to good use. Perhaps, with your permission, even leave one of your cards.\"\n\n\"That sounds an excellent idea. Baffle the current crop of coppers as thoroughly as I did their predecessors. I'll describe what happens\u2014and perhaps you can discover for yourself how it was done. In the Central Mint, a well-guarded and ancient building with stone walls two meters thick, are located the giant safes filled with billions of bucks. When a shipment is to be made, guards and officials fill a bullion box, which is then locked and sealed while all present look on. Outside the building waits a convoy of coppers all guarding a single armored car. At a given signal the car backs up against the armor-plated delivery door. Inside the building the steel inner door is opened, the box placed inside the armored chamber. This door is sealed before the outer one can be opened. The box then travels in the armored car to the linear train, where an armored wagon receives it. This has but the single door, which is locked and sealed and wired with countless alarms. Guards ride in a special chamber of each car as it shuttles through the linear network to the city needing the bucks. Here another armored car awaits, the box is removed\u2014still sealed\u2014placed in the car, and taken to the bank. Where it is opened\u2014and found to contain only my card.\"\n\n\"Marvelous!\"\n\n\"Care to explain how it was done?\"\n\n\"You were one of the guards on the train...\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Or drove the armored car...\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\nI racked my brains this way for an hour before he relented and explained. \"All your suggestions have merit, but all are dangerous. You are far more physical than I ever was. In my operations I always preferred brains to brawn. The reason that I never had to break into the box and extract the money is that the box was empty when it left the building. Or rather it was weighted with bricks as well as my card. Can you guess now how it was done?\"\n\n\"Never left the building,\" I muttered, trying to stir my brain to life. \"But it was loaded into the box, the box put into the truck...\"\n\n\"You are forgetting something.\"\n\nI snapped my fingers and leapt to my feet. \"The wall, of course it had to be the wall. You gave me all the clues. I was just being dense. Old, made of stone, two meters thick!\"\n\n\"Exactly so. It took me four months to break in, I wore out three robots doing it, but I won out in the end. First I bought the building across the road from the mint and we tunneled under it. With pick and shovel. Very slow, very silent. Up through the foundations of the building and inside the wall. Which proved to have an outer and inner stone wall, and as is the building custom, it was filled with rubble in between. Our diamond saws were never heard when we opened the side of the armored vault connecting the inside of the mint with the outside. The mechanism I installed could change boxes in one point oh five seconds. When the inner door was closed, the lock had to be thrown before the outer door could be opened. That was enough time, almost three seconds, to allow for the switch. They never did find out how I did it. The mechanism is still in place. But the operation was basically misdirection, along with a lot of digging. Computer crime is something else altogether. Basically it is an intellectual exercise.\"\n\n\"But isn't computer theft almost impossible these days, with codes and interlocks?\"\n\n\"What man can code or lock, man can decode and unlock. Without leaving any trace. I will give you some examples. Let us begin with the rounding-off caper, also called the salami. Here is how it works. Let us say that you have 8,000 bucks in the bank, in a savings account that earns eight percent a year. Your bank compounds your account weekly in order to get your business. Which means at the end of the first week your bank multiplies your balance by .0015384 percent and adds this sum to your balance. Your balance has increased by 12.30 bucks. Is that correct? Check it on your calculator.\"\n\nI punched away at the sum and came up with the same answer. \"Exactly twelve bucks and thirty centimes interest,\" I said proudly.\n\n\"Wrong,\" he said deflatingly. \"The interest was 12.3072, wasn't it?\"\n\n\"Well, yes, but you can't add seventy-two-hundredths of a centime to someone's account, can you?\"\n\n\"Not easily, since financial accounts are kept to two decimal places. Yet it is at this precise moment in the calculations that the bank has a choice. It can round all decimals above .005 up to the nearest centime, all those below .0049 down to zero. At the end of a day's trading the rounding-ups and rounding-downs will average out very close to zero so the bank will not be out of pocket. Or, and this is the accepted practice, the bank can throw away all decimal places after the first two, thereby making a small but consistent profit. Small on banking terms\u2014but very large as far as an individual is concerned. If the bank's computer is rigged so that all the rounding-downs are deposited to a single account, why at the end of the day the computer will show the correct balance in the bank's account and in the client's accounts. Everyone will be quite pleased.\"\n\nI was punching like fury into my calculator, then chuckled with glee at the results. \"Exactly so. All are pleased\u2014including the holder of that account that now holds the round-downs. For if only a half a centime is whipped from ten-thousand accounts, the profit is a round fifty bucks!\"\n\n\"Exactly. But a large bank will have a hundred times that number of accounts. Which is, as I know from happy experience, a weekly income of five-thousand bucks for whoever sets up this scam.\"\n\n\"And this, this is your smallest and simplest bit of computer tomfoolery?\" I asked in a hushed voice.\n\n\"It is. When one begins to access large corporative computers, the sums become unbelievable. It is such a pleasure to operate at these levels. Because if one is careful and leaves no traces, the corporations have no idea that they have even been fiddled! They don't want to know about it, don't even believe it when faced with the evidence. It is very hard to get convicted of computer crime. It is a fine hobby for one of my mature years. It keeps me busily engaged and filthy rich. I have never been caught. Ahh, yes, except once....\"\n\nHe sighed heavily and I felt mortified.\n\n\"My fault!\" I cried. \"If I had not tried to contact you, why you would never have got involved with the Feds.\"\n\n\"No guilt, Jim, feel no guilt over that. I misjudged their security controls, far more rigid than the ones I had been dealing with. It was my mistake\u2014and I certainly paid for it. Am still paying. I am not decrying the safety of our refuge here, but this junk food begins to wear on one after a bit. Or perhaps you haven't noticed?\"\n\n\"This is the staff of life of my generation.\"\n\n\"Of course. I had not thought of that. The horse tires not of hay, the porcuswine will snuffle up his swill greedily unto eternity.\"\n\n\"And you could probably tuck into lobster and champagne for the next century.\"\n\n\"Well-observed and correct, my boy. How long do you think that we shall be here?\" he asked, pushing away half of an unconsumed portion of crump-tumps.\n\n\"I would say a minimum of two weeks more.\" A shudder shivered his frame.\n\n\"It will be a good opportunity for me to reduce.\"\n\n\"By that time the heat of the chase will have died down considerably. We will still have to avoid public transportation for a good while after that. However I have prepared an escape route that should be secure fairly soon.\"\n\n\"Dare I ask what it is?\"\n\n\"A boat, rather a cabin cruiser on the Sticks River. I bought it some time ago, in a corporative name, and it is at the marina just outside Billville.\"\n\n\"Excellent!\" He rubbed his hands with glee. \"The end of summer, a cruise south, fried catfish in the evening, bottles of wine cooling in the stream, steaks at riverside restaurants.\"\n\n\"And a sex change for me.\"\n\nHe blinked rapidly at that, then sighed with relief when I explained. \"I'll wear girl's clothes when I'm aboard and can be seen from the shore, at least until we are well away from here.\"\n\n\"Capital. I shall lose some weight\u2014there will be no difficulty dieting here. Raise a moustache, then a beard, die my hair black again. It is something to look forward to. But shall we say one month instead of two weeks? I could last that amount of time incarcerated in this gustatorial ghetto as long as I would not be eating. My figure will be the better for the extra weeks, my hair and moustache longer.\"\n\n\"I can do it if you can.\"\n\n\"Then it is agreed. And we shall make the most of the time now by forwarding your education? RAM, ROM, and PROM will be the order of the day.\"\n\nI was too busy with my studies to be bothered by the omnipresent odor of barbecued porcuswineburgers. Besides that, I could still eat them. So as my comprehension grew of all the varied possibilities of illegality in our society, so did my companion's figure fade. I wanted to leave earlier, but The Bishop, having made up his mind, would not be swayed.\n\n\"Once a plan is made it must always be followed to the letter. It should only be changed if outside circumstances change. Man is a rationalizing animal and needs training in order to become a rational one. Reasons can always be found for altering an operation.\" He shuddered as the machines speeded up with a roar, school was out, then crossed off one more day on his calendar. \"An operation well planned will work. Meddle with it and you destroy it. Ours is a good plan. We will stay with it.\"\n\nHe was far leaner and harder when the day of our exodus finally arrived. He had been tried in the gustatory furnace and had been tempered by it. I had put on weight. Our plans were made, our few belongings packed, the safe cleaned out of all of its bucks\u2014and all trace of our presence eliminated. In the end we could only sit in silence, looking again and again at our watches.\n\nWhen the alarm sounded we were on our feet, smiling with pleasure.\n\nI turned off the alarm as The Bishop opened the door of the freezer room. As the key turned in the outer lock we closed the door behind us. Stood and shivered in Macswineys' mausoleum while we listened to the mechanic enter the room we had so recently left.\n\n\"Hear that?\" I asked. \"He's adjusting the icer on the cherry oozer dispenser. I thought it sounded funny.\"\n\n\"I prefer not to discuss the contents of the ghastly gourmet gallery. Is it time to go yet?\"\n\n\"Time.\" I eased open the outer door and blinked at the light of day, unseen for so long. Other than the service van the street was empty. \"Here we go.\"\n\nWe shuffled out and I sealed the door behind us. The air was sweet and fresh and filled with lovely pollution. Even I had had my fill of cooking odors. As The Bishop hurried to the van I slipped the two wedges into the outer door to our chamber of culinary horrors. If the mechanic tried to get out before his appointed time, these would slow him down. We only needed about fifteen minutes.\n\nThe Bishop was a dab hand with a lockpick and had the van open and the door swinging wide even as I turned about. He dived into the back among the machine parts as I started the engine.\n\nIt was just that easy. I dropped him close to the marina, where he sat on a bench in the sunshine, keeping an eye on our possessions. After that it was simplicity itself to leave the purloined van in the parking lot of the nearest liquor store. Then I strolled, not ran, back to the riverside to rejoin him.\n\n\"It's the white boat, that one there,\" I pointed it out, pressing on my moustache with my other hand at the same time to make sure that it was securely in place. \"The entire marina is fully automated. I'll get the boat and bring it back here.\"\n\n\"Our cruise is about to begin,\" he said, and there was a merry twinkle in his eye.\n\nI left him there in the sunlight and went to the marina to insert the boat's identification into the operations robot.\n\n\"Good morning,\" it said in a tinny voice. \"You wish to take out the cabin cruiser Lucky Bucks. The batteries have been recharged at a cost of twelve bucks. Storage charges...\"\n\nIt went on like that, reading aloud all the charges that could be clearly seen on the screen\u2014presumably for customers who couldn't read\u2014and there was nothing that could be done about it. I stood on one foot and then the other until it was finished, then pumped in the coins. The machine gurgled and spat out my receipt. Still strolling, I went to the boat, inserted the receipt, then waited for the welcome click when the chain unlocked. Seconds later I was out on the river and heading for the solitary figure on the bank.\n\nSolitary no more. A girl sat beside him.\n\nI circled out and around and she was still there. The Bishop sat slumped and gave me no sign what to do. I circled once more, then the sight of a patrolling police car sent me burbling to the bank. The girl stood and waved, then called out.\n\n\"Why little Jimmy diGriz, as I live and breathe. What a lovely surprise.\"\nChapter 16\n\nLife had had far too many moments like this lately. I looked at the girl more closely as I eased the boat against the bank. She knew me, I should know her; smashingly good-looking, her blouse filled to perfection. Those tulip lips, her!\u2014object of my wildest dreams.\n\n\"Is that you Beth? Beth Naratin?\"\n\n\"How sweet of you to remember me!\"\n\nI was ready to jump ashore with the mooring line, but she took it from my hand and tied it to the bollard there. Over her shoulder I saw the police cruiser go past and keep on cruising. Then glanced at The Bishop, who simply raised his eyes to heaven as she spoke.\n\n\"I said to myself, Beth, I said, that can't be Jimmy diGriz climbing out of that old Macswineys van and wearing a cute little moustache. Not Jimmy who has been in the news so much lately. If it is, why don't I just mosey after him, for old times' sake. Then I saw you talk to this nice gentleman here, before you went off to the marina, so I just made up my mind to wait for you to come back. Going on a trip, are you?\"\n\n\"No, no trip, just a little day excursion up the river and back. Nice seeing you again, Beth.\"\n\nThat was the only nice part about this. Seeing her, I mean. The object of my childish worship. She had left school soon after I had entered\u2014but she was hard to forget. Four years older than me, a real mature woman. That would make her twenty-one now. She had been head of her class, winner of the Beauty Queen of the Year. With good reason. Now, old as she was, she was still a smasher. Her voice sliced through my memories.\n\n\"I don't think that you are being exactly truthful, Jimmy. Why with all these bags and things I bet that you are going on a long cruise. If I were you I would consider a long cruise a really good idea.\"\n\nWas there a different tenor to her voice with these last words? What did she want? We couldn't hang around here much longer. She made her wants clear when she jumped aboard, rocking the boat at its mooring.\n\n\"Always room for one more!\" she called out cheerfully, then went to sit in the bow. I stepped ashore and grabbed up the bags. Then whispered to The Bishop.\n\n\"She knows me. What do we do?\"\n\nHe sighed in answer. \"Very little that we can do. For the present we have a passenger. I suggest that we consider this problem once we are under way. After all\u2014we have no choice.\"\n\nToo true. I passed our belongings over to him, then struggled to untie the black knot that she had tied in the line. Gave the Lucky Bucks a kick out with my foot, jumped aboard, and took the wheel. The Bishop carried the cases below as I switched on the power and headed downstream. Away from Billville, Macswineys and the law.\n\nBut not from Beth. She lay stretched out on the deck before me, skirt hiked up so I could admire those gorgeous lengths of leg. I did this. Then she turned about and smiled, clearly able to read my mind. I forgot about my planned female disguise at this moment\u2014imagining the jeering that would greet my sex change. I was getting angry.\n\n\"All right, Beth, why don't you just spell it out,\" I said, hauling my gaze bodily out to the clear waters of the river.\n\n\"Whatever do you mean?\"\n\n\"Stop the games. You have been watching the news, that's what you said. So you know about me.\"\n\n\"Sure do. Know you hold up banks and escape from jail. That doesn't bother me though. I had a bitsy bit of difficulty myself. So when I saw you, then this boat, I knew you must have some money. Maybe a lot of money. So I just jumped at the chance to take this trip with you. Isn't that nice?\"\n\n\"No.\" I kept my thoughts on the law and not the legs. She was trouble. \"And I do have a bit of money put aside. If I get you some, put you ashore...\"\n\n\"The money, yes. The shore, no. I've seen the last of him and Billville. I'm going to see the world now. And you are going to pay my way.\"\n\nShe snuggled down, with her arms for a pillow, smiling as she enjoyed the sunshine. I looked on gloomily and thought of three or four blows that would snap that delicate neck....\n\nNot even as a joke. This problem could be solved\u2014and without deadly violence. We hummed along, the water parting in white foam at our bow, Billville behind us and green fields opening up ahead at the bend in the river. The Bishop came on deck and sat next to me. With her third presence there was nothing much we could say.\n\nWe continued in silence this way for the better part of an hour, until a dock beside a general store appeared ahead. Beth stirred and sat up, running her fingers through that gorgeous blond hair.\n\n\"You know what\u2014I'm hungry. Bet you are too. Why don't you pull up over there and I'll jump ashore and get us some food and some beer. Isn't that a good idea?\"\n\n\"Great!\" I agreed. She goes into the store, we go into high gear and away.\n\n\"I am skint,\" she smiled. \"Stone broke. If you give me a few bucks I'll buy lunch. I think a thousand will do.\"\n\nHer sweet-little-girl expression never changed while she said this and I wondered just what kind of trouble she was in. Extortion and blackmail maybe; she certainly had the qualifications for that. I dug deep into my wallet.\n\n\"That's nice,\" she said, thumbing through the bundle with glowing eyes. \"I won't be long. And I know you will be here. Jimmy, along with your friend. Haven't I seen him in the news broadcasts too?\"\n\nI glowered after the lovely rotations of her rump as she trotted towards the store.\n\n\"Got our hides nailed to the wall,\" The Bishop said gloomily.\n\n\"Nailed, flayed, and tanned. What do we do?\"\n\n\"Exactly what she says for the time being. Short of killing her, we have very little choice. But I do not believe in killing.\"\n\n\"Nor do I. Although this is the first time that I have understood the temptation.\"\n\n\"What do you know about her?\"\n\n\"Nothing\u2014since I last saw her in school. She says she is in trouble, but I have no idea what she means.\"\n\nHe nodded in thought. \"When we are well away from her I'll get close to a terminal. If she is in the police records I can dig her out.\"\n\n\"Will that do us any good?\"\n\n\"I have no idea, dear boy. We can only try. Meanwhile we must make the best of the situation. We are well away from the terrors of the pork palace, safely away from our pursuers as well. As long as this creature gets money from us we are safe. For the moment. And you must admit that she is decorative.\"\n\nI had no answer to that and could only sit glumly until our uninvited passenger returned.\n\nAfter lunch we continued our voyage downstream. Exhausted by the morning of sunbathing, Beth went below for a beauty nap. The Bishop wanted a turn at the wheel so I showed him the simple controls and pointed out the navigation markers. We had very little to say to each other. But we were thinking a lot. In midafternoon the object of our fierce cogitation trotted up from below.\n\n\"Such a cute little ship,\" she gushed. \"The cutest little girls' room, little kitchen, and everything. But only two little beds. How in the world will we all sleep?\"\n\n\"In shifts,\" I growled, the sound of her voice already getting to me.\n\n\"You always were a card, Jimmy. I think it best if I sleep below. You and your friend can make do.\"\n\n\"Make do, young lady, make do? How does one my age make do on deck when the chill mists of night descend?\" The Bishop's anger was under control, barely, but her bright smile seemed to be unaware of it.\n\n\"I'm sure that you will find a way,\" she said. \"Now I would like to stop at the next town we come to, that one there. I left in such a hurry I forgot all my things. Clothes and makeup, you know.\"\n\n\"You wouldn't need a bit of money to buy those things?\" I asked facetiously. She ignored my feeble humor and nodded.\n\n\"Another thousand will do.\"\n\n\"I'm going below,\" The Bishop said, and did not emerge again until I had tied up and she was gone. He carried two beers and I took one and drank deep.\n\n\"Murder is out,\" he said firmly.\n\n\"Murder is out,\" I agreed. \"But that doesn't mean we can't enjoy thinking about it. What do we do?\"\n\n\"We don't just heave anchor and go. She'll have the police after us in minutes, then will pocket the reward. We must take that into consideration, then think faster than she can. Coming with us was an impulse, obviously. She is greedy for money and we must keep giving it to her. But sooner or later she will decide that she has had enough of ours and will turn us in for the reward, Is there such a thing as a map aboard?\"\n\nThat mighty brain was at work, I could tell that. I asked no questions but rooted out the map as quickly as I could. He traced it with his finger.\n\n\"We are here, I imagine, yes, here is the very place. While downstream, here, is the bustling city of Val's Halla. When will we get there?\"\n\nI squinted at the scale and marked the distance with my thumb. \"Could be there by midafternoon tomorrow, if we get an early start.\"\n\nHis face broke into a smile so wide that his eyes were crinkled half shut. \"Splendid, absolutely splendid. That will do very nicely indeed.\"\n\n\"What will?\"\n\n\"My plans. Which I shall keep to myself for the moment since there are details still to be worked out. When she returns you must agree with me, whatever I say; that is all you have to do. Now, next order of business. Where do we sleep tonight?\"\n\n\"On the river's bank,\" I said, heading below. \"Our friend has all the money that I was carrying, so I must get more from our stock. Then I'm going ashore to buy a tent, sleeping bags, all the gear for comfortable camping out.\"\n\n\"Capital. I shall man the fort and hone my plans until you return.\"\n\nI bought some steaks too, along with a collection of fancy bottles of wine. We needed a major change from the Macswineys cuisine. When the sun was close to the horizon I tied the boat to the trees on the banks of a green meadow, where we could pitch our tent. The Bishop, after smacking his lips over the meat, announced that he would prepare dinner. While he did this, and Beth did her nails, I hammered stakes and got our beds ready. The sun was a ball of orange on the horizon when we tucked into the meal. It was tremendous. No one talked until we were done. When the last morsel was gone The Bishop sighed, raised his glass and sipped, then sighed with repletion.\n\n\"Though I cooked it myself, I must say that meal was a triumph.\"\n\n\"It does take the taste of porcuswine out of the mouth,\" I agreed.\n\n\"I didn't like the wine. Nasty.\" Only her outline was visible in the darkness. Lacking the usual glorious physical accompaniment her voice, as well as her words, left a very lot to be desired. Yet The Bishop's deep basso was free of rancor when he spoke again.\n\n\"Beth\u2014I may call you Beth, mayn't I? Thank you. Beth, we shall be in the city of Val's Halla tomorrow, where I must go ashore and call into my bank. Our funds are running low. You wouldn't like our money to run out, would you?\"\n\n\"No, I wouldn't.\"\n\n\"Thought not. But would you like me to go to the bank and bring you back one hundred thousand bucks in small buck bills?\"\n\nI heard her gasp. Then she fumbled for the switch and the riding lights above the cockpit came on. She was frowning at The Bishop and, for the very first time, lost her cool.\n\n\"Are you trying to play games with me, old man?\"\n\n\"Not at all, young lady. I am simply paying for our safety. You know certain facts that are, shall we say, best left unspoken aloud. I think that sum is a reasonable amount to pay for your continuing silence. Don't you?\"\n\nShe hesitated\u2014then burst out laughing. \"I sure do. Just let me see the color of those bucks and I may even consider letting you boys continue your journey without poor little me.\"\n\n\"Whatever you say, my dear, whatever you say.\"\n\nNor would he speak another word on the subject. We retired soon after that, for it had been a busy day for all of us. Beth took possession of the boat and we had the tent. When I returned from setting the alarms to make sure that the boat would still be there in the morning. The Bishop was already in full snore. Before I slept myself I realized that, whatever he was planning, we had at least one more day of freedom before Beth would think of contacting the police. The lure of that money would ensure her silence. As I dozed off I realized that The Bishop had undoubtedly planned it that way.\n\nWe were humming down the river an hour after dawn, despite Beth's protests. She emerged later, but her anger soon vanished beneath The Bishop's monetary ministrations. He described the interest her invested bucks could earn without her spending any of her capital, touched lightly on the consumer goods she would soon purchase, and generally charmed her like a snake with a rabbit. I had no idea what his plans were but I enjoyed every moment of it.\n\nBy midafternoon I had tied up at the marina on the canal that bisected Val's Halla. The city center was close to hand and The Bishop, beard combed and moustache twirled, was neatly turned out and businesslike.\n\n\"This will not take long,\" he said, then left. Beth looked after him, already atwitch with anticipation.\n\n\"He's really the one they call The Bishop,\" she said when he had gone.\n\n\"I wouldn't know about that.\"\n\n\"Don't give me that old booshwah. I saw the films on 3V, how somebody got him out. A small guy with a moustache. It had to be you.\"\n\n\"Lot of moustaches in this world.\"\n\n\"I never thought, when I saw you around the school, you would ever end up like this.\"\n\n\"I thought the same about you. I admired you from afar.\"\n\n\"So did every other pubescent boy in the school. Don't think I didn't know it. We used to laugh about it, him being a teacher and all that....\"\n\nShe shut up and glowered at me and I smiled sweetly and went below to wash the dinner and breakfast dishes that she had so carefully ignored. I was just finishing up when there was a hail from the shore.\n\n\"Boat ahoy! Permission to come aboard?\"\n\nThe Bishop stood on the dockside, beaming and splendid. His new suit must have cost a small fortune. The suitcase that he held up appeared to be made of real animal skin of some kind, with fittings of glowing gold. Beth's eyes were as wide as saucers. The Bishop climbed aboard and treated us to a conspiratorial wink.\n\n\"Best to get below before I show you what's in this case. It is not for the world to see.\"\n\nBeth led the way and he held the case to his chest until I had closed and locked the door. Then he swept the papers from the table to the deck, placed the case in its center, and with tantalizing precision unlocked and opened the case.\n\nEven I was impressed. There was far more than the hundred thousand here. Beth stared at it\u2014then reached out and tugged a bundle of thousand-buck bills free.\n\n\"Real? Is it real?\" she asked.\n\n\"Guaranteed right from the mint. I saw to that myself.\" With her attention on the money he turned to me. \"Now, Jim, would you mind doing me a favor? Would you find some rope or twine, I'm sure that you will know what you will need. I want absolute silence as well when you tie this girl up so she cannot move.\"\n\nI was expecting something\u2014she was not. Her mouth was just opening to scream when I seized that precious neck and pressed hard just below the ears.\nChapter 17\n\nWith savage glee I cut one of the blankets into strips and bound those delicate wrists and trim ankles. I was just putting sticking tape over her mouth when she came to and tried to scream. It came out as a muffled mewl. \"Can she breathe all right like that?\" The Bishop asked.\n\n\"Perfectly. See the glare in her eye and the angry heaving of that magnificent chest? She is breathing through her nostrils just fine. Now\u2014will you tell me what this is all about?\"\n\n\"On deck, if you please.\"\n\nHe waited until the door was closed behind us before he spoke, rubbing his hands together with joy.\n\n\"Our troubles are over, my boy. I knew that as soon as I looked at the map. There are two things about this fine city that assure me of that. One was the bank, a branch of Galactic Trust with which I have an account\u2014sizable as you have seen. The second fact of interest is that there is a spaceport here.\"\n\nI puzzled over this for a few seconds as my sluggish brain slowly added two and two. Then my jaw gaped so hard I could barely speak.\n\n\"You mean that, us, we... we are going offplanet?\"\n\nHe nodded and grinned. \"Precisely. This little world has become, shall we say, a little too warm for us. It will be even warmer when our female friend is freed. By that time we shall have shaken the dust of Bit O' Heaven from our boots and we will be lightyears away. You did tell me that you wanted to travel?\"\n\n\"I did, of course, but aren't there controls, inspections, police, things like that?\"\n\n\"There are. But customs and immigration can be circumvented if you know how. I know how. And I did check on which ships were here before taking this drastic step. I am sorry that I had no opportunity to warn you\u2014but I was certain that your magnificent reflexes would resolve the matter with ease. When I left here I did not know that this would be the day to put the plan into operation. I intended just to get the money to string the girl along. While keeping track of spacer operations. But the fates are on our side. There is a freighter here from Venia taking on cargo\u2014and leaving in the early hours of the morning. Isn't that wonderful!\"\n\n\"I'm sure that it is. But I would be a lot surer if I knew why.\"\n\n\"Jim, your education has been sorely neglected. I thought every schoolboy knew how venal the Venians were. They are the despair of the League polimetricians. Incorrigible. The motto on Venia is La regloj \u0109iam \u015dansili\u011das. Which may be freely translated as There are no Fixed Rules. That is to say, there are laws about everything\u2014but bribery can change anything. It is not so much that they are a world of criminals, but rather a planet of twisters.\"\n\n\"Sounds nice,\" I agreed. \"Then what have you arranged?\"\n\n\"Nothing yet. But I am positive that opportunity will arrive at the spaceport.\"\n\n\"Yes, sure.\" I was far from enthusiastic. The plan had all the earmarks of improvisation and crossed fingers. But I had little choice. \"What about the girl?\"\n\n\"We'll leave a message for the police with the electronic post, to be delivered after we are gone. Telling them the place where she can be found.\"\n\n\"That place can't be here\u2014too public. There is an automated marina farther downstream. I could tie up there, one of the outer berths.\"\n\n\"The perfect solution. If you will give me instructions how to find it I will hie myself to the spaceport to make the arrangements. Shall we meet there at 2300 hours?\"\n\n\"Fine by me.\"\n\nI watched his impressive form move off in the growing darkness, then started the engine and made a slow turn in the canal. It was dark by the time I reached the marina. But it was brightly lit and the channel was well marked. Most of the boats had tied up close to shore, which was fine by me. I took the outermost berth, well away from the others. Then went below, turned on the lights, and faced the poisonous glare from those lovely eyes. I locked the cabin door behind me, then sat down on the bunk across from Beth.\n\n\"I want to talk to you. If I take off the tape do you promise not to scream? We are well away from the city and there is no one here to hear you in any case. Deal?\"\n\nThe hatred was still there as she nodded reluctantly. I peeled off the tape\u2014then jerked my fingers away just in time as those perfect teeth snapped at my hand.\n\n\"I could kill you, murder you, butcher you, slaughter you...\"\n\n\"Enough,\" I said. \"I'm the one who could do all those things, not you. So shut up.\"\n\nShe shut. Perhaps realizing what her position really was; there was more fear than anger in her eyes now. I didn't want to terrorize a helpless girl\u2014but the murder talk had been her idea. She was ready to listen.\n\n\"You can't be comfortable. So lie still while I untie you.\"\n\nShe waited until her wrists were free, then raked her nails towards my face while I was untying her ankles. I had expected this, so she ended up back on the bunk with the breath knocked out of her.\n\n\"Act reasonable,\" I told her. \"You can be tied and gagged again just as easily. And please don't forget that you brought this on yourself.\"\n\n\"You are a criminal, a thief. Wait until the police get their hands on you....\"\n\n\"And you are a blackmailer. Can we stop the names and games now? Here is what is going to happen. We are going to leave you on this boat and when we are well away the police will be told where to find you. I'm sure that you will tell them a good story. There are express linears from here, as well as the highways. You'll never see us again, nor will they.\" A little misdirection never hurt.\n\n\"I'm thirsty.\"\n\n\"I'll get you something.\"\n\nOf course she made a break for the door when I had my back turned, then tried for my eyes again when I pulled her away. I could understand her feelings\u2014I just wished that she wouldn't.\n\nTime dragged very slowly after that. She had nothing to say that I wanted to hear\u2014and the reverse was obviously true as well. Hours passed in this way before the boat rocked as someone stepped aboard. I dived towards the bunk but she got out one good scream before I could silence her. The door handle rattled and turned.\n\n\"Who is it?\" I called out, crouched and ready for battle.\n\n\"Not a stranger, I assure you,\" the familiar voice said. I unlocked and opened the door with a feeling of great relief.\n\n\"Can she hear me?\" he asked, looking at the silent figure on the bunk.\n\n\"Possibly. Let me secure her again and we'll go on deck.\"\n\nHe went ahead of me and as I closed the door a sudden flare of light lit up the night sky, then climbed in a burning arc up to the zenith.\n\n\"A good omen,\" The Bishop said. \"A deep spacer. All is arranged. And time is of the essence, so I suggest that we grab up our things and leave at once.\"\n\n\"Transportation?\"\n\n\"A rented groundcar.\"\n\n\"Can it be traced?\"\n\n\"I hope so. The rental return is located at the linear station. I've purchased tickets, for both of us you will be happy to hear.\"\n\n\"I mentioned linears to our friend inside.\"\n\n\"Two great minds that work as one. I think I shall manage to drop the tickets where she can see them while we are packing.\"\n\nWe were in and out quite quickly\u2014and I did enjoy the way the unmistakable blue linear tickets dropped on the blankets for an instant. Fell from his pocket while both his hands were engaged elsewhere. Masterful! As I closed the door I could not resist the temptation to blow a kiss towards Beth. I received a glower and a muffled snarl in return, which I surely deserved. She still had a few thousand of our money so she should not complain.\n\nAfter turning in the groundcar we took the levitrain to the linear station. Where we waited until we were alone and unobserved before continuing on to the spaceport. Up until this moment it had been all rush and plan and the reality of what I was doing struck home only when I saw the floodlit flank of a deep spacer looming up ahead.\n\nI was going offplanet! It is one thing to watch the spaceoperas\u2014but another thing completely to venture into space. I felt the goosebumps swell on my arm, the hair stir on my neck. This new life was going to be a good one!\n\n\"Into the bar,\" The Bishop ordered. \"Our man is already here!\"\n\nA thin man in grease-stained spacer gear was just leaving, but dropped back into the booth when he saw The Bishop.\n\n\"Vi estas malfrua!\" he said angrily.\n\n\"V'ere\u2014sed me havas la monon,\" The Bishop answered, flashing a large wad of bills which soothed the other immeasurably. The money changed hands, and after some more conversation another bundle of bills went the way of the first. Greed satisfied, the spaceman led the way to a service van and we climbed into the back. The door was slammed and in the darkness we sped off.\n\nWhat an adventure! Unseen vehicles passed us, then there were strange hammering sounds that came and went, followed by a loud hissing like a giant serpent. We stopped soon after this and our guide came around and opened the rear door. I stepped out first and found myself at the foot of a ramp leading up into what could only be the battered hull of a deep spacer.\n\nNext to the ramp stood an armed guard, staring at me.\n\nIt was all over, the adventure ended before it even began. What could I do? Run, no I couldn't leave The Bishop. He pushed past me while I was still rushing about in circles inside my head, strolled casually over to the guard.\n\nAnd passed him a wad of bills.\n\nThe guard was still counting them when we hurried up the ramp behind our bribed spaceman, struggling to stay close with all the baggage we carried.\n\n\"Eniru, rapide!\" the spaceman ordered, opening the door of a compartment. We pushed through into the darkness as the door closed and locked behind us.\n\n\"Safe harbor!\" The Bishop sighed with relief as he fumbled at the wall until he found the switch, and the lights came on. We were in a small, cramped cabin. There were two narrow bunks and an even smaller bathroom beyond. Pretty grim.\n\n\"Home sweet home,\" The Bishop said, smiling benevolently as he looked around. \"We'll have to stay in here at least two days. So let us stow our gear well out of sight. Otherwise the captain will threaten to return and the bribe will be higher. I'm sure we can last it out.\"\n\n\"I'm not sure I understand all of that. Haven't you paid the bribe already?\"\n\n\"Only the first installments. Bribes are never shared, that is your first lesson in the gentle art. The spaceman got paid to sneak us aboard, and arranged that a friendly guard would be there to take his cut. Those arrangements are in the past. Our presence aboard this ship is unknown to the officers\u2014and particularly the captain who will need a very large payment indeed. You will see.\"\n\n\"I certainly intend to. Bribery is indeed an exacting science.\"\n\n\"It is.\"\n\n\"It's a good thing you speak their language so you can do a deal.\"\n\nHis eyebrows shot up at this and he leaned close. \"You did not understand us?\" he asked.\n\n\"I didn't take foreign languages in school.\"\n\n\"Foreign!\" He looked shocked. \"What a backward part of that porcuswine-rearing planet you must have come from. That was not a foreign language, dear boy. That was Esperanto, the galactic language, the simple, second language that everyone learns early and speaks like a native. Your education has been neglected, but that is easily repaired. Before our next planetfall you shall be speaking it as well. To begin with, all present-tense verbs in all persons end in as. Simplicity itself....\"\n\nHe stopped as someone tried the handle on the cabin door. His finger touched his lips as he pointed to the adjoining bath. I dived that way and turned on the light there just as he turned off the one in the cabin. He joined me in a rush and jammed in beside me as I flicked off the light. He eased the door shut just as the corridor door opened.\n\nFootsteps thudded across the cabin and there was the sound of thin whistling. A routine inspection, nothing to be seen, he would go away in an instant...\n\nThen the bathroom door opened and the light came on. The gold-braided officer looked at The Bishop cramped into the tiny shower, at me crouching on the commode, as he smiled a singularly dirty smile.\n\n\"I thought there was too much activity belowdecks. Stowaways.\" A small gun appeared in his hand. \"Out. You two are going ashore and I am calling the local police.\"\nChapter 18\n\nI leaned forward, getting my weight on my legs, muscles tense. Ready to attack the instant that The Bishop distracted the officer's attention. I really did not want to go against that gun with my bare hands\u2014but I wanted even less to go back to jail. The Bishop must surely have been aware of this. He reached out a restraining hand.\n\n\"Now, let us not be hasty, James. Relax while I talk to this kind officer.\"\n\nHis hand went slowly to his pocket, the gun following his every move, the fingers dipped deep\u2014and came up with a thin wad of credits.\n\n\"This is advance payment for a small favor,\" he said, handing them over to the officer, who took the credits in both hands. Which was easy enough to do now that the gun had vanished just as quickly as it had appeared. He counted while The Bishop talked.\n\n\"The favor we so humbly request is that you do not find us for two days. You will be paid this same sum tomorrow, and again the day after when you discover us and take us to the captain.\"\n\nThe money vanished and the gun reappeared\u2014and I never saw his hands move. He was so good he should have been on the stage.\n\n\"I think not,\" he said. \"I think I will take all the money you have concealed on your person and in your bags. Take it and bring you to the captain now.\"\n\n\"Not very wise,\" The Bishop said sternly. \"I will tell the captain exactly how much you took and he will relieve you of it and you will have nothing. I will also tell him which crewmen were bribed and they will be deprived of their money and you will not be a popular officer on this ship. Will you?\"\n\n\"There is a certain element of truth in what you say,\" he mused, rubbing his jaw in thought, hands empty again. \"If the payments were increased perhaps...\"\n\n\"Ten percent, no more,\" said The Bishop, and the payment was made. \"See you tomorrow. Please relock the door behind you.\"\n\n\"Of course. Have a pleasant journey.\"\n\nThen he was gone and I climbed down from the pot and seized and shook The Bishop's hand. \"Congratulations, sir. A masterful demonstration of a science I scarcely knew existed.\"\n\n\"Thank you, my boy. But it helps to know the ground rules. He never had any intention of turning us out of this ship. That was just his bid. I called it, he raised, I matched and closed. He knew he couldn't squeeze higher because I need a large sum in reserve for the captain. Unspoken, but agreed nevertheless, is my silence about the bribe to him. All done by the rules....\"\n\nHis words were cut off by the loud sound of a hooter in the corridor outside, while a red light began blinking rapidly over the door.\n\n\"Is something wrong?\" I called out.\n\n\"Something is very right. We are ready for takeoff. I suggest that we recline on the bunks because some of these old clunkers put on the Gs when they blast free. A few minutes more and we shake the dust of Bit O' Heaven from our shoes. Preferably forever. That prison, simply terrible, the food...\"\n\nA growing roar drowned out his words and the bunk began to tremble. Then the acceleration of takeoff jumped on my chest. Just like in the films\u2014but far more exciting in reality. This was it! Offplanet! What joys lay ahead.\n\nPretty far ahead still. The mattress was thin and my back hurt from the pressure. Then we went in and out of null-G a few times before they got the artificial gravity right. Or almost right. Every once in awhile it would give a little hiccup. So would my stomach. This happened often enough so that during the next days I didn't miss the meals that I would normally have eaten. At least we had all the rusty, flat water we needed to drink. The officer stayed bribed, I stayed in my bunk most of the time and concentrated on the Esperanto lessons to forget my miseries. After two days of this the gravity finally straightened out and my appetite returned. I looked forward to our release, some more bribery\u2014and some food.\n\n\"Stowaways!\" the officer said when he unlocked the door, staggered, hand over heart. For the benefit of the crewgirl who accompanied him. \"Terrible, unheard of! On your feet, you two, and come with me. Captain Garth will want to know about this.\"\n\nIt was a very convincing performance, spoiled only by his ready hand for the money as soon as the crewgirl's back was turned. She seemed bored by the whole thing and was probably in on the deal herself. We tramped the corridor and up three flights of metal stairs to the bridge. The captain, at least, was shocked to see us. Probably the only one on the ship who didn't know we were aboard.\n\n\"Damn and blast\u2014where did these come from?\"\n\n\"In one of the empty cabins on C deck.\"\n\n\"You were supposed to check those cabins.\"\n\n\"I did, my captain, it is in the log. One hour before takeoff. After that I was on the bridge with you. They must have come aboard after that.\"\n\n\"Who did you bribe?\" Captain Garth said, turning to us, a grizzled old spacedog with a mean look in his eye.\n\n\"No one, captain,\" The Bishop said, sincerity ringing in his voice. \"I know these old Reptile class freighters very well. Just before takeoff the guard at the gangway entered the ship. We came in behind him, unseen, and hid in the cabin. That is all there is to it.\"\n\n\"I don't believe a word of it. Tell me who you bribed or you'll be in the brig and in big trouble.\"\n\n\"My dear captain, your honest crewmen would never take bribes!\" He ignored the unbelieving snort. \"I have proof. All of my not inconsiderable fortune is intact and in my pocket.\"\n\n\"Out,\" the captain instantly ordered all the men in the control room. \"All of you. I'll take this watch. I want to question these two more thoroughly.\"\n\nThe officer and the crewmembers shuffled out, their faces expressionless under his gaze. When they were gone the captain sealed the door and spun about. \"Let's have it,\" he ordered. The Bishop passed over a very tidy sum and the captain riffled through it, then shook his head. \"Not enough.\"\n\n\"Of course,\" The Bishop agreed. \"That is the opening payment. The balance after landfall on some agreeable planet with lax custom officers.\"\n\n\"You ask a lot. I have no desire to risk trouble with planetary authorities by smuggling in illegal immigrants. It will be far easier to relieve you of the money right now and dispose of you as I will.\"\n\nThe Bishop was not impressed at all by this ploy. He tapped his pocket and shook his head. \"Not possible. Final payment is with this registered check for two-hundred thousand credits drawn on Galactic Credit and Exchange. It is not legal tender until I countersign it with a second signature. You may torture me, but I will never sign! Until we are standing on firm ground.\"\n\nThe captain shrugged meaningfully and turned to the controls, making a minor adjustment before he turned back. \"There is a matter of paying for your meals,\" he said calmly. \"Charity does not pay my fuel bills.\"\n\n\"Absolutely. Let us fix a rate.\"\n\nThat appeared to be all there was to it\u2014but The Bishop whispered a warning as we went back down the corridor. \"The cabin is undoubtedly bugged. Our luggage searched. I have all our funds on me. Stay close so there are no accidents. That officer, for one, would make an excellent professional pick-pocket. Now\u2014what do you say to a little food? Since we have paid we can end our enforced fast with a splendid feast.\"\n\nMy stomach rumbled loud agreement with this suggestion, and we made for the galley. Since there were no passengers the fat, unshaven cook served only Venian peasant food. Fine for the natives, but it took some getting used to. Did you ever try to hold your nose and eat at the same time? I didn't ask the cook what we were eating\u2014I was afraid he would tell me. The Bishop sighed deeply and began to fork down his ration of gunge.\n\n\"The one thing I forgot about Venia,\" he said gloomily, \"was the food. Selective memory I am sure. Who would want to recall at any time a feast like this?\"\n\nI did not answer since I was gulping at my cup of warm water to get the taste out of my mouth.\n\n\"Small blessings,\" I said. \"At least the water here isn't as nasty as the stuff from the tap in our cabin.\" The Bishop sighed again.\n\n\"That is coffee that you are drinking.\"\n\nA fun cruise it was not. We both lost weight since it was often better to avoid a meal than to eat it. I continued my studies, learning the finer points of embezzling, expense-account grafting, double- and treble-entry bookkeeping\u2014all done in Esperanto until I was as facile as a native in that fine language.\n\nAt our first planetfall we stayed in the ship since soldiers and customs officers were thick as sandfleas about the ship.\n\n\"Not here,\" the captain said, looking at the screened image of the ground with us. \"Very rich planet, but they don't like strangers. The next planet in this system is one you will like, agricultural, low population, they can use immigrants, so there isn't even a customs office.\"\n\n\"The name?\" The Bishop asked.\n\n\"Amphisbionia.\"\n\n\"Never heard of it.\"\n\n\"Should you have? Out of thirty-thousand settled planets.\"\n\n\"True. But still...\"\n\nThe Bishop seemed troubled and I couldn't understand why. If we didn't like this planet we could liberate enough funds to move on. But some instinct had him on edge. In the end he bribed the purser to use the ship's computer. When we were toying with our dinner he told me about it.\n\n\"Something doesn't smell right about this\u2014smells worse than this food.\" This was a horrifying thought. \"I can find no record of a planet named Amphisbionia in the galactic guide. And the guide is updated automatically every time we land and hook into a planetary communication net. In addition to that, there is a lock on our next destination. Only the captain has the code to access it.\"\n\n\"What can we do?\"\n\n\"Nothing\u2014until after we land. We'll find out then what he is up to.\"\n\n\"Can't you bribe one of the officers?\"\n\n\"I already did\u2014that's how I found out that only the captain knows where we are heading. Of course he didn't tell me until after I paid. A dirty trick. I would have done the same thing myself.\"\n\nI tried to cheer him up, but it was no use. I think the food had affected his morale. It would be a good thing to arrive at this planet, whatever it was. Certainly a good thief can make a living in any society. And one thing was certain. The food would have to be better than the sludge we were reluctantly eating now.\n\nWe stayed in our bunks until the ship touched down and the green light came on. Our meager belongings were already assembled and we carried them down to the airlock. The captain was operating the controls himself. He muttered as the automatic air analyzer ran through its test; the inner lock would not open until it was finished and satisfied with the results. It finally pinged and flashed its little message at him and he hit the override. The great hatch ground slowly open admitting a whiff of warm and pungent air. We sniffed it appreciatively.\n\n\"Here is a stylo,\" Captain Garth said. The Bishop merely smiled.\n\nThe captain led the way and we followed with our bags. It was night, stars were bright above, invisible creatures called from the darkness of a row of trees nearby. The only light was from the airlock.\n\n\"Here will do,\" the captain said, standing on the end of the ramp. The Bishop shook his head as he pointed at the metal surface.\n\n\"We are still on the ship. The ground if you please.\"\n\nThey agreed on a neutral patch close to the ramp\u2014but far enough from the ship to foil any attempt to rush us. The Bishop took out the check, accepted the stylo at last, then wrote his careful signature. The captain\u2014ever suspicious!\u2014compared it with the signature above and finally nodded. He walked briskly up the ramp as we picked up our bags\u2014then turned and called out.\n\n\"They're all yours now!\"\n\nAs the ramp lifted up, out of our reach, powerful lights came on from the darkness, pinning us like moths. Armed men ran towards us as we turned, trapped, lost.\n\n\"I knew something was wrong,\" The Bishop said. He dropped his bags and grimly faced the rushing men.\nChapter 19\n\nA resplendent figure in a red uniform strode out of the darkness and stood before us twisting a large and elegant set of moustaches. Like someone out of a historic flic, he actually wore a sword, which he held firmly by the hilt.\n\n\"I'll take everything you two have. Everything. Quickly!\"\n\nTwo uniformed men came running up to see that we did as we were told. They were carrying strange-looking guns with large barrels and wooden stocks. Behind us I heard a creaking as the ramp came back down with Captain Garth standing on the end of it. I bent over to pick up the bags.\n\nAnd kept turning\u2014diving at the captain, grabbing him.\n\nThere was a loud bang and something whirred by my head and spanged off the ship's hull. The captain swore and swung his fist at me. Couldn't have been better. I stepped inside the blow, grabbed the arm and levered it up into the small of his back. He screeched with pain; a lovely sound.\n\n\"Let him go,\" a voice said, and I looked over the captain's trembling shoulder to see that The Bishop was now lying on the ground with the officer's foot on his chest. And his sword was not just for decoration\u2014because the point of it was now pressed to The Bishop's throat.\n\nIt was going to be one of those days. I gave the captain's neck a little squeeze with my free hand before I let go. He slithered straight down and his unconscious head bonged nicely on the ramp. I stepped away from him and The Bishop climbed unsteadily to his feet, dusting himself off as he turned to our captor.\n\n\"Excuse me, kind sir, but might I humbly ask you the name of this planet on whose soil we stand?\"\n\n\"Spiovente,\" was the grunted answer.\n\n\"Thank you. If you permit, I will help my friend Captain Garth to his feet, for I wish to apologize to him for my young friend's impetuous behavior.\"\n\nNo one stopped him as he turned to the captain, who had just regained consciousness.\n\nHe lost it again instantly as The Bishop kicked him in the side of the head.\n\n\"I am normally not a vindictive man,\" he said, turning away and digging out his wallet. He handed it to the officer and said, \"But just this once I wanted to express my feelings before returning to my normal peaceful self. You understand, of course, why I did that?\"\n\n\"Would have done the same thing myself,\" the officer said, counting the money. \"But the games are over. Don't ever speak to me again or you are dead.\"\n\nHe turned away as another man appeared from the darkness with two black metal loops in his hands. The Bishop stood, numb and unresisting, as the man bent and snapped one onto his ankle. I didn't know what the thing was\u2014but I didn't like it. Mine would not be put on that easily.\n\nYes it would. The muzzle of the gun ground into my back and I made no protest as the thing was snapped into place. The thing-snapper then stood up and looked me in the face, standing so close that his sewer breath washed over me. He was ugly to boot, with a puckered scar that added no improvement to the face. He pushed a sharp finger into my chest as he spoke.\n\n\"I am Tars Tukas, servant of our lord the mighty Capo Doccia. But you never call me by name; you always call me master.\"\n\nI started to call him something, something that was quite an improvement on master, when he pressed a button on a metal box slung from his belt.\n\nThen I was on the ground, trying to shake the red fog of pain from my eyes. The first thing I saw was The Bishop lying before me, groaning in agony. I helped him to his feet; Tars Tukas needn't have done that, not to a man his age. He was grinning a lopsided scarred grin when I turned.\n\n\"Who am I?\" he asked. I resisted all temptation, for The Bishop's sake if not my own.\n\n\"Master.\"\n\n\"Don't forget, and don't try to run away. There are neural repeaters right around the entire country. If I leave this on for long enough, all your nerves stop working. Forever. Understood?\"\n\n\"Understood, master.\"\n\n\"Hand over everything you got on you.\"\n\nI did. Money, papers, coins, keys, watch, the works. He frisked me roughly and seemed satisfied for the moment.\n\n\"Let's move.\"\n\nA tropical dawn had come quickly and the lights were being turned out. We didn't look back as we followed our new master. The Bishop was having difficulty in walking and I had to help him. Tars Tukas led us to a battered wooden cart that was standing close by. We were waved into the back. We sat on the plank seat and watched while crates were lowered from the cargo hatch of the spacer.\n\n\"That was a nice dropkick on the captain,\" I said. \"You obviously know something about his planet that I don't. What was the name?\"\n\n\"Spiovente.\" He spat the word like a curse. \"The millstone around the League's neck. That captain has sold us down the river with a vengeance. And he is a smuggler too. There is a complete embargo on contact with this stinking world. Particularly weapons\u2014which I am sure those cases are full of. Spiovente!\"\n\nWhich didn't really tell me very much other than that it was pretty bad. Which I knew already. \"You couldn't possibly be a bit more informative about this millstone?\"\n\n\"I blame myself completely for getting you involved in all this. But Captain Garth will pay. If we do nothing else, Jim, we will bring him to justice. We'll get word to the League, somehow.\"\n\nThe somehow depressed him even more and he dropped his head wearily onto his hands. I sat in silence, waiting for him to speak in his own good time. He did finally, sitting up, and in the reflected light I saw that the spark was back in his eye.\n\n\"Nil carborundum, Jim. Don't let the bastards wear you down. We are landed in a ripe one this time. Spiovente was first contacted by the League over ten years ago. It had been isolated since the Breakdown and had thousands of years to go bad. It is the sort of place that gives crime a bad name\u2014since the criminals are in charge here. The madhouse has been taken over by the madmen. Anarchy rules\u2014no, not true\u2014Spiovente makes anarchy look like a Boy Sprout's picnic. I have made a particular study of this planet's system of government, while working out the stickier bits of my personal philosophy. Here we have something that belongs in the lost dark ages of mankind's rise. It is thoroughly despicable in every way\u2014and there is nothing that the League can do about it, short of launching an invasion. Which would be completely against League philosophy. The strength of the League is also its weakness. No planet or planets can physically attack another planet. Any one that did would face instant destruction by all the others since war has now been declared illegal. The League can only help newly discovered planets, offer advice and aid. It is rumored that there are covert League organizations that work to subvert repulsive societies like this one\u2014but of course this has never been revealed in public. So what we have here is trouble, bad trouble. For Spiovente is a warped mirror image of the civilized worlds. There is no rule of law here\u2014just might. Criminal gangs are led by Capos, the swordman in the fancy uniform, Capo Doccia, he's one of them. Each Capo controls as large a capote as he can. His followers are rewarded with a portion of the loot extracted from the peasantry or from the spoils of war. At the very bottom of this pyramid of crime are the slaves. Us.\"\n\nHe pointed to the paincuff on his ankle and thoroughly depressed himself. Me as well.\n\n\"Well, we can still look at the bright side,\" I said with desperation.\n\n\"What bright side?\"\n\nI wondered about that myself as I furiously thought out loud.\n\n\"The bright side, yes, there is always a bright side. Like for instance\u2014we are well away from Bit O' Heaven and our problems there. All set for a new start.\"\n\n\"At the bottom of the pile? As slaves?\"\n\n\"Correct! From here the only direction we can go is up!\"\n\nHis lips twitched in the slightest smile at this desperate sally and I hurried on.\n\n\"For example\u2014they searched us and took away everything we had on us. Every item except one. I still have a little souvenir in my shoe from my trip to jail. This.\" I held up the lockpick and his smile widened. \"And it works\u2014see.\" I opened my paincuff and showed it to him, then snapped it back into place. \"So when we are ready to leave\u2014we leave!\"\n\nBy this time the grin had widened into a full smile. He reached out and seized my shoulder in a grip of true comradeship. \"How right you are,\" he beamed. \"We shall be good slaves\u2014for a time. Just long enough to learn the ropes of this society, the chain of command and how to penetrate it, what the sources of wealth are and how to acquire them. As soon as I determine where the chinks are in the structure of society here we shall become rats again. Not stainless steel ones, I am afraid, more of the furry, toothy kind.\"\n\n\"A rat by any other name is just as sweet. We will overcome!\"\n\nWe had to leap aside then as the first of the crates was manhandled into the back of the cart, the fabric of its battered structure squeaking and groaning. When the last of the cases was aboard the loaders climbed in themselves. I was glad the light was so bad\u2014I really did not want to look at them too closely. Three scruffy, dirty men, unshaven and dressed in rags. Unwashed too as my twitching nose quickly informed me. Then a fourth man heaved himself up, bigger and nastier than the others, although his garments were in slightly better shape. He glared down at us and I smelled trouble, in addition to the pong.\n\n\"You know who I am? I'm the Pusher. This is my bunch and you do what I say. The first thing I say is you, old man, take off that jacket. It'll look better on me than on you.\"\n\n\"Thank you for the suggestion, sir,\" The Bishop answered sweetly. \"But I think I shall retain it.\"\n\nI knew what he was doing and I hoped that I was up to it. There was little room to move about in and this thug was twice my size. I had time for one blow, no more, and it had to be a good one.\n\nThe brute roared in anger and started climbing over the crates. The terrified slaves scrambled out of his way. I scrambled aside too and he ignored me as he passed. Perfect. He was just clutching at The Bishop when I hit him in the back of the neck with my joined fists. There was a satisfactory thunk and he collapsed on top of the crate.\n\nI turned to the slaves who were watching in wide-eyed silence.\n\n\"You just got a new pusher,\" I told them, and there were quick nods of agreement. I pointed to the nearest one. \"What's my name?\"\n\n\"Pusher,\" he answered instantly. \"Just don't turn your back on that one when he comes to.\"\n\n\"Will you help me?\"\n\nHis grin exposed blackened, broken teeth. \"Won't help you fight. Warn you though if you don't beat us the way he did.\"\n\n\"No beating. You all help?\"\n\nAll of them nodded agreement.\n\n\"Good. Then your first assignment will be to throw the old pusher out of this cart. I don't want to be too close when he comes to.\"\n\nThey did this with enthusiasm, and added a few kicks on their own initiative.\n\n\"Thank you, James, I appreciate the help,\" The Bishop said. \"My thinking was that you would probably have to fight him sooner or later, so why not sooner, with myself as distraction. And our rise in this society has begun\u2014for you have already climbed out of the basic slave category. Suffering satellites\u2014what is that?\"\n\nI looked where he pointed and my eyes popped just as far out as his. It was a machine of some kind, that much was obvious. It was advancing slowly towards us, rattling and clanking and emitting fumes. The operator swivelled it about in front of the cart as his assistant jumped down and joined the two together. There was a jolt and we slowly got under way.\n\n\"Look closely, Jim, and remember,\" he said. \"You are seeing something from the dawn of technology, long forgotten and lost in the midst of time. That landcar is powered by steam. It is a steamcar, as I live and breathe. You know, I am beginning to think that I will enjoy it here.\"\n\nI was not as fascinated by neolithic machinery as he was. My thoughts were more on the deposed thug and what would happen when he came after me. I had to learn more about the ground rules\u2014and quickly. I moved back to the other slaves, but before I could open conversation we clattered across a bridge and through a gate in a high wall. The driver of our steam chariot stopped and called out.\n\n\"Unload those here.\"\n\nIn my new persona as Pusher I supervised but did little to help. The last case was just dropped to the ground when one of my slaves called out to me.\n\n\"He's coming now\u2014through the gate behind you!\"\n\nI turned quickly. He was right. The ex-pusher was there, scratched and bloody and red-faced with rage.\n\nHe bellowed as he attacked.\nChapter 20\n\nThe first thing that I did was run away from my attacker\u2014who roared after me in hot pursuit. This was done not through fear, though I did have a certain amount of that, but from the need to get some space around me. As soon as I was well away from the cart I turned and tripped him so he sprawled full-length in the muck.\n\nThis drew a big laugh from the onlookers; I took a quick glance around while he was climbing to his feet. There were armed guards, more slaves\u2014and the red-garbed Capo Doccia who had cleaned us out. An idea began to form\u2014but before it took shape I had to move to save my life.\n\nThe thug was learning. No more wild rushing about. Instead he came slowly towards me, arms spread, fingers extended. If I allowed him a sweet embrace I would not emerge from it alive. I backed slowly, turning to face Capo Doccia, moved to one side, then stepped quickly forward. Seizing one of my attacker's outstretched hands in both of mine, pulling and falling backwards at the same time. My weight was just about enough to send him flying over me to sprawl full-length again.\n\nI was on my feet at once\u2014with the plan clear in my mind. An exhibition.\n\n\"That was the right arm,\" I called out loudly.\n\nHe was stumbling when he returned to the attack so I took a chance and called my shot.\n\n\"Right knee.\"\n\nI used a flying kick to get him on the kneecap. This is quite painful and he screamed as he dropped. He was slower getting to his feet this time, but the hatred was still there. He was not going to stop until he was unconscious. Good. All the better for my demonstration of the art.\n\n\"Left arm.\"\n\nI seized it and twisted it up behind his back, held it there, pushing hard. He was strong\u2014and still fighting, trying to clutch me with his right hand, struggling to trip me. I got in first.\n\n\"Left leg,\" I shouted as I kicked hard on the back of his calf and he went down another time. I stepped back and looked towards Capo Doccia. I had his undivided attention.\n\n\"Can you kill as well as dance?\" he asked.\n\n\"I can. But I chose not to.\" I was aware that my opponent had stood up, was swaying from side to side. I turned slightly so I could see him out of the corner of my eye. \"What I prefer is to render him unconscious. That way I win the fight\u2014and you still have a slave.\"\n\nThe thug's hands closed on my neck and he bubbled viciously. I was showing off and I knew it. But I had to provide a good performance for my audience. So, without looking at all, I slammed backwards with my bent arm. Sinking my elbow hard into his gut, in the center, just below the rib cage, in line with the elbows. Right into the nerve ganglion known as the solar plexus. His hands loosened and I stepped forward. Hearing the thud as he hit the ground. Out cold.\n\nCapo Doccia signaled me to him, spoke when I was close.\n\n\"That is a new way to fight, offworlder. We make wagers on the ruffians here who battle with their fists, striking each other until the blood flows and one of them cannot go on.\"\n\n\"Fighting like that is crude and wasteful. To know where to strike and how to strike, that is an art.\"\n\n\"But your art is of no value against sharp steel,\" he said, half-pulling his sword. I had to tread carefully now or he would be chopping me up just to see what I could do.\n\n\"Bare hands cannot stand against one such as you who is a master of the blade.\" For all I knew he only used the thing to carve his roast, but flattery always helps. \"However against an unskilled swordsman or knife-wielder the art has value.\"\n\nHe digested that, then called to the nearest guard. \"You, take your knife to this one.\"\n\nThis was getting out of hand\u2014but I could see no way to avoid the encounter now. The guard smiled and pulled a shining length of dagger from its sheath and stalked towards me. I smiled in return. He raised it over his head to stab down\u2014not holding it pointed directly out before him like an experienced knife-fighter. I let him come on, unmoving until he struck.\n\nStandard defense. Step inside the blow, take the impact of his wrist against my forearm. Seize the knife-wrist with hands, turn and twist. All of this done very fast.\n\nThe knife went one way, he went the other. I had to end this demonstration quickly before I was taking on clubs, guns, whatever the head thug felt like. I stepped closer to Capo Doccia and spoke in a quiet voice.\n\n\"These are offworld secrets of defense\u2014and killing\u2014that are unknown here on Spiovente. I do not wish to reveal more here. I am sure you do not wish slaves to learn dangerous blows like these. Let me show you what can be done without this raw audience. I can train your bodyguards in these skills. There are those who want to kill you. Think of your own security first.\"\n\nIt sounded like a lecture on traffic safety to me, but it seemed to make sense to him. But he wasn't completely convinced.\n\n\"I do not like new things, new ways. I like things as they are.\"\n\nRight, with him on top and the rest in chains below. I talked fast.\n\n\"What I do is not new\u2014but as old as mankind. Secrets that have been passed on in secret since the dawn of time. Now these secrets can be yours. Change is on the way, you know that, and knowledge is strength. When others seek to take what you have, any weapon is useful to defeat them.\"\n\nIt sounded like nonsense to me\u2014but I hoped that it made sense to him. From what The Bishop had told me about this garbage world, the only security was in strength\u2014paranoia paid off. At least it had him thinking, which from the narrowness of his forehead was something he probably found hard to do. He turned on his heel and walked away.\n\nPoliteness, like soap, was also unknown on this planet. No \"see you later\" or \"let me think about that.\" It took me a few moments to realize that the audience was over. The disarmed guard was glaring at me and rubbing his wrist. But he had put the dagger away. Since I had talked with Capo Doccia I now had some status, so he wouldn't knife me without reason. Which left my first protagonist, the ex-Pusher. He was sitting up dizzily when I approached. He looked up at me, blinking and befuddled. I tried to look my meanest when I spoke.\n\n\"That is two times you have come at me. You will not do it a third time. Third time means out in my ball game. You will die if you try anything ever again.\"\n\nThe hatred was still there in his face\u2014but there was fear as well. I stepped forward and he cringed back. Good enough. As long as I didn't turn my back on him very often. I turned it now and stalked away.\n\nHe shambled after me and joined the waiting gang of slaves. He seemed to have accepted his demotion, as had the others. There were a few black looks in his direction but no more violence. Which was fine by me. It is one thing to work out in the gym\u2014but something totally different here mixing with these heavies really trying to kill me. The Bishop beamed his congratulations.\n\n\"Well done, Jim, well done.\"\n\n\"And all very tiring. What next?\"\n\n\"From what I could discover this little group is off duty, so to speak, having worked during the night.\"\n\n\"Then rest and food are in order. Lead on.\"\n\nI suppose it could be called food. About the only good thing I could say about it was that it was not as repulsive as the Venian cooking aboard the spacer. A large and exceedingly filthy pot was seething over a fire to the rear of the building. The chef\u2014if one dared use that term for this repulsive individual, as filthy as his pot\u2014was stirring the contents with a long wooden spoon. The slaves each took a wooden bowl from the dripping pile on the table close by and these were filled by the cook. There was no worry about lost or broken cutlery because there wasn't any. Everyone dipped and shoveled with their fingers, so I did the same. It was vegetable gruel of some kind, pretty tasteless, but filling. The Bishop sat next to me on the ground, back to the wall, and slowly ate his. I finished first and had no difficulty in restraining a desire for a second serving.\n\n\"How long do we stay slaves?\" I asked.\n\n\"Until I learn more about how things operate here. You have spent your entire life on a single planet, so both consciously and unconsciously you accept the society you know as the only one. Far from it. Culture is an invention of mankind, just like the computer or the fork. There is a difference though. While we are willing to change computers or eating instruments, the inhabitants of this culture will brook no changes at all. They believe that theirs is the only and unique way to live\u2014and anything else an aberration.\"\n\n\"Sounds stupid.\"\n\n\"It is. But as long as you know that, and they don't, you can step outside the rules or bend them for your own benefit. Right now I'm finding out what the rules are here.\"\n\n\"Try not to take too long.\"\n\n\"I promise not to since I am not that comfortable myself. I must determine if vertical mobility exists and how it is organized. If there is no vertical mobility, we will just have to manufacture it.\"\n\n\"You have lost me. Vertical what?\"\n\n\"Mobility. In terms of class and culture. Take for example these slaves and the guards outside. Can a slave aspire to be a guard? If he can, then there is vertical mobility. If he cannot, this is a stratified society and horizontal mobility is all that can be accomplished.\"\n\n\"Such as becoming top slave and kicking all other slaves?\"\n\nHe nodded. \"You have it, Jim. We shall cease being slaves as soon as my studies show how that is possible. But first we need some rest. You will observe that the others are now asleep on the straw to the rear of this noisome building. I suggest we join them.\"\n\n\"Agreed....\"\n\n\"You, get over here.\"\n\nIt was Tars Tukas. And of course he was pointing at me. I had a feeling that it was going to be a very long day.\n\nAt least I was seeing more of the sights. We crossed the courtyard, scene of my triumphs, and up a flight of stone steps. There was an armed guard here and two more inside lolling about on a wooden bench. A bit more luxury too. Woven mats on the floors, chairs, and tables, a few bad portraits on the wall, some with a rough resemblance to Capo Doccia. I was hustled right along into a large room with windows that faced out over the outer wall. I could see fields and trees and little else. Capo Doccia was there, along with a small band of men, all drinking from metal cups. They were well dressed, if multicolored leather trousers and billowing shirts and long swords is your idea of well dressed. Capo Doccia waved me over.\n\n\"You, come here and let us look at you.\"\n\nThe others turned with interest and eyed me like an animal on auction.\n\n\"And he actually knocked the other one down without using his fists?\" One of them said. \"He is so weak and puny, not to mention ugly.\"\n\nThere are times when the mouth should be opened only to put in food. This was probably one of them. But I was tired, fed up with my lot, and generally in a foul temper. Something snapped.\n\n\"Not as weak, puny or ugly as you, you pig's git.\"\n\nThis got his attention all right. He howled with instant anger, turned bright red\u2014then drew a long steel blade and rushed at me.\n\nI had little time to think, less time to act. One of the other dandies was standing close by, his metal drinking mug held loosely. I grabbed it from him, turned, and threw the contents in the attacking man's face.\n\nMost of it missed, but enough dripped down onto his clothes to infuriate him even more. He slashed down with his sword and I caught the blow on the mug, diverting it. Letting the mug slide up along the blade into his fingers, grabbing and twisting his sword arm at the same time.\n\nHe howled nicely and the sword clattered to the floor. After this he was turned sideways, nicely exposed for a finishing kick to the back.\n\nExcept someone tripped me from behind at that moment and I went sprawling.\nChapter 21\n\nThey thought this very amusing because their laughter was all I could hear. When I scrambled for the fallen blade one of them kicked it aside. Things were not looking too good. I couldn't fight them all. I had to get out.\n\nIt was too late. Two of them knocked me to the ground from behind and another one kicked me in the side. Before I could get up my sword-wielding opponent was on top of me, kneeling on my chest and drawing an exceedingly ugly dagger with a wavery edge.\n\n\"What is this creature, Capo Doccia,\" he called out, holding my chin with his free hand, the dagger close to my throat.\n\n\"An offworlder,\" Capo Doccia said. \"They threw him off the spacer.\"\n\n\"Is it valuable, worth anything?\"\n\n\"I don't know,\" Capo Doccia said, looking down at me bemusedly. \"Perhaps. But I don't like its fancy offplanet tricks. They don't belong here. Oh, kill it and be done.\"\n\nI had not moved during this interesting exchange because I had some obvious interest in its outcome. I moved now.\n\nThe knife-wielder screamed as I twisted his arm\u2014breaking it I hope\u2014and grabbed the dagger as his fingers flew open. I held on to him as I jumped to my feet, then pushed him into the midst of his companions. They were behind me as well, but they fell back as I swept the dagger about in a circle. Moving after it, running before they could get their own weapons out. Running for my life.\n\nThe only direction I knew, back down the stairs. Bumping into Tars Tukas and rendering him unconscious as I passed.\n\nRoars and shouts of anger sounded behind me and I wasted no time even glancing their way. Down the stairs, three at a time, towards the guards at the entrance. They were still scrambling to their feet when I plowed into them and we all went down. I kneed one under the chin as we fell, grabbing his gun by the barrel as I did this. The other was struggling to point his weapon at me when I caught him in the side of the head with the one I was holding.\n\nThe running feet were right behind me as I charged through the door, right at the surprised guard. He drew his sword but before he could use it he was unconscious. I dropped the dagger and seized his more lethal sword and ran on. The gate we had entered by was ahead. Wide open.\n\nAnd well-guarded by armed men who were already raising their guns. I angled off towards the slave building as they fired. I don't know where their shots went but I was still alive as I turned the corner.\n\nOne knife, one gun, one very tired Jim diGriz. Who did not dare stop or even slow down. The outer wall was ahead\u2014with scaffolding and a ladder leaning against it where masons were making repairs. I screeched and waved my weapons and the workmen dived in all directions. I went up the ladders as fast as I could. Noticing that bullets were striking the wall on all sides of me, chips of stone flying.\n\nThen I was on top of the wall, fighting for breath, chancing a look behind me for the first time.\n\nDropping to my face as the massed gunmen below fired a volley that parted the air just above my head. Capo Doccia and his court had left the pursuit to the guards and were standing behind them cursing and waving their weapons. Very impressive. I pulled my head back as they fired again.\n\nOther guards were climbing up to the wall and moving towards me. Which really did limit my choices a bit. I looked over the outside of the wall at the brown surface of the water that lay at its base. Some choice!\n\n\"Jim, you must learn to do something about your big mouth,\" I said, then took a deep breath and jumped.\n\nSplashed\u2014and stuck. The water was just up to my neck and I was stuck in the soft mud that had broken my fall. I struggled against it, pulling out one foot, then the other, struggling against its gluey embrace as I waded to the far bank. My pursuers weren't in sight yet\u2014but they would surely be right behind me. All I could do was keep moving. Crawling up the grassy bank, still clutching my purloined weapons, then staggering into the shelter of the trees ahead. And still no sign of the armed guards. They should be across the bridge and after me by this time. I couldn't believe my good luck.\n\nUntil I fell headlong, screaming as the pain washed over me. Pain unbelievable, blotting out sight, sound, senses.\n\nThen it stopped and I brushed the tears of agony from my eyes. The paincuff\u2014I had forgotten all about it. Tars Tukas had regained consciousness and was thumbing the control button. What had he said? Leave it on long enough and it blocks all the nerves, kills. I grabbed at my shoe and the lockpick concealed there as the pain struck again.\n\nWhen it stopped this time I was almost too weak to move my fingers. As I fumbled with the pick I realized that they were sadists and I should be grateful for the fact. With the button held down I was good as dead. But someone, undoubtedly Capo Doccia, wanted me both to suffer and to know that there was no way out. The key was in the lock when pain consumed me one more time.\n\nWhen it stopped I was lying on my side, the lockpick fallen from my fingers, unable to move.\n\nBut I had to move. Another wave of agony like that and it would be all over for me. I would lie in these woods until I died. My fingers trembled, moved. The pick crept towards the tiny opening of the lock, moved in, twisted feebly....\n\nIt took a very long time for the red mists to clear from my vision, the agony to seep out of my body. I could not move, felt I would never stir again. I had to blink the tears away when I could see. See the most beautiful sight in the world.\n\nThe open paincuff lying on the moldy leaves.\n\nOnly my captor's knowledge that the pain machine led to certain death had saved my life. The searchers were in no hurry; I could hear them talking as they moved through the woods towards me.\n\n\"... somewhere in here. Why don't they just leave him?\"\n\n\"Leave a good blade and a shooter? No chance of that. And Capo Doccia wants to hang the body up in the courtyard until it rots. Never saw him that angry.\"\n\nLife slowly returned to my paralyzed body. I moved off the animal track I had been following and pulled myself into the shelter of the low shrubbery, reaching out to straighten out the grass. And not too soon.\n\n\"Look\u2014he came out of the water here. Went along this path.\"\n\nHeavy footsteps approached and went by. I clutched my weapons and did the only thing possible. Lay quiet and waited for my strength to return.\n\nThis was, I must admit, a bit of a low point in my life. Friendless, alone, still throbbing with pain, exhausted, hunted by armed men just dying to kill me, thirsty.... It was quite a list. About the only thing that hadn't happened so far was getting rained on.\n\nIt started to rain.\n\nThere are high and low points in emotion when there is no room for excess. To love one so much it would be impossible to love any more. I think. Never having had any personal experience in that. But I had plenty of experience in being in the pits. Where I was now. I could sink no lower or get no more depressed. It was the rain that did it. I began to chuckle\u2014then grabbed my mouth so I wouldn't laugh out loud. Then the laughter died away as my anger grew. This was no way to treat a mean and nasty stainless steel rat! Now in danger of getting rusty.\n\nI moved my legs and had to stifle a groan. The pain was still there but the anger rode it down. I clutched the gun and stuck the sword into the ground, then pulled myself to my feet by grabbing the branches of the tree with my free hand. Grabbed up the sword again and stood there, swaying. But not falling. Until I was finally able to stagger off, one step at a time, away from the searchers and Capo Doccia's criminal establishment.\n\nThe forest was quite extensive and I moved along game paths for an unmeasurable length of time. I had left the searchers far behind, I was sure of that. So when the forest thinned and ended I leaned against a tree to catch my breath and looked out at the tilled field. It was time to find my way back to the haunts of man. Where there were plows there were ploughboys. They shouldn't be too hard to find. When a certain measure of strength had returned I staggered off along the edge of the field, ready to fall into the forest at the sight of armed men. I was very pleased to see the farmhouse first. It was low to the ground, thatched, and windowless\u2014at least on this side. It had a chimney from which there rose a thin trickle of smoke. No need for heating in this balmy climate\u2014so this must be a cooking fire. Food.\n\nAt the thought of food my neglected stomach began to churn, rumble, and complain. I felt the same way. Food and drink were next in order. And what better place to find them than at this isolated farm? The question was the answer. I stumbled across the furrows to the back of the house, worked my way around the side to the front. No one. But there were voices coming from the open doorway, laughter\u2014and the smell of cooking. Yum! I sauntered into the open, along the front and through the front door.\n\n\"Hi, folks. Look who has come to dinner.\"\n\nThere were a half-dozen of them grouped around the scrubbed wood table. Young and old, thick and thin. All with the same expression on their faces. Jaw-dropped astonishment. Even the baby stopped crying and aped its elders. A grizzled oldster broke the spell, scrambling to his feet in such a hurry his three-legged stool tumbled over.\n\n\"Welcome, your honor, welcome.\" He tugged his forelock as he bowed to show how grateful he was for my presence. \"How may we aid you, honored sir?\"\n\n\"If you could spare a bit of food...\"\n\n\"Come! Sit! Dine! We have but humble fare but willingly share it. Here!\"\n\nHe straightened his stool and waved me to it. The others scampered away from the table so I wouldn't be disturbed. Either they were discerning judges of human nature and knew what a sterling fellow I was\u2014or they had seen the sword and gun. A wooden plate was filled from the pot hung over the fire and put before me. Life here was a cut above the slave pens for I was also supplied with a wooden spoon. I tucked in with a great deal of pleasure. It was a vegetable stew, with the occasional shard of meat, garden fresh of course, and tasted wonderful. There was cool water to drink out of a clay cup and I could have asked for nothing more. While I shoveled it all into my face I was aware of low whispering from the farmers gathered at the far end of the room. I doubted if they were planning anything violent. Nevertheless I kept one eye on them, and my hand not far from the hilt of the sword laid out on the table.\n\nWhen I had finished and belched loudly\u2014they buzzed warmly at this gustatory approval\u2014the old man detached himself from the group and shuffled forward. He pushed before him a shock-headed youth who looked to be about my age.\n\n\"Honored sir, may I speak with you?\" I waved agreement and belched again. He smiled at this and nodded. \"Ahh, you are kind enough to flatter the cook. Since you are obviously a man of good wit and humor, intelligent and handsome, as well as being a noted warrior, permit me to put a small matter to you.\"\n\nI nodded again; flattery will get you everywhere.\n\n\"This is my third son, Dreng. He is strong and willing, a good worker. But our holding is small and there are many mouths to feed, as well as giving half of what we produce to the so-wonderful Capo Doccia for our protection.\"\n\nHe had his head lowered when he said this, but there were both submission and hatred in his voice. I imagine the only one that Capo Doccia protected them from was Capo Doccia. He pushed Dreng forward and squeezed his bicep.\n\n\"Like rock, sir, he is very strong. His ambition has always been to be a mercenary, like your kind self. A man of war, armed and secure, selling his services to the gentry. A noble calling. And one which would enable him to bring a few groats home to his family.\"\n\n\"I'm not in the recruiting business.\"\n\n\"Obviously, honored sir! If he went as a pikeman with Capo Doccia, there would be no pay or honor, only an early death.\"\n\n\"True, true,\" I agreed, although I had heard this fact for the first time. The old boy's train of thought wandered a bit, which was fine by me since I was getting an education into life on Spiovente. Didn't sound nice at all. I sipped some more water and tried to summon up another burp to please the cook, but could not. Old dad was still talking.\n\n\"Every warrior, such as yourself, should have a knave to serve him. Dare I ask\u2014we have looked outside and you are alone\u2014what happened to your knave?\"\n\n\"Killed in battle,\" I improvised. He looked dumbfounded at this and I realized that knaves weren't supposed to fight. \"When the enemy overran our camp.\" That was better, nodded agreement to this. \"Of course I killed the blackguard who butchered poor Smelly. But that's what war is about. A rough trade.\"\n\nAll of my audience murmured understandingly, so I hadn't put a foot wrong so far. I signaled to the youth.\n\n\"Step forward, Dreng, and speak for yourself. What is your age?\"\n\nHe peered out from under his long hair and stammered an answer. \"I'll be four, come next Wormfeast Day.\"\n\nI wanted no details of this repulsive holiday. He was sure big for his age. Or this planet had a very long year. I nodded and spoke.\n\n\"A good age for a knave. Now tell me, do you know what the knavely duties are?\" He better, because I certainly didn't. He nodded enthusiastically at my question.\n\n\"That I do, sir, that I do. Old Kvetchy used to be a soldier, told me all about it many a time. Polish the sword and gun, fetch the food from the fire, fill the water bottle, crack the lice with stones...\"\n\n\"Fine, great, I can see you know it all. Down to the last repulsive detail. In exchange for your services you expect me to teach you the trade of war.\" He nodded quick agreement. The room was hushed as I pondered my decision.\n\n\"Right then, let us do it.\"\n\nA bucolic cry of joy echoed from the thatch and old dad produced a crock of what could only be home brew. Things were looking up for me, ever so slightly, but certainly looking up.\nChapter 22\n\nWork appeared to have ceased for the day with the announcement of Dreng's new job. The home brew was pretty awful stuff, but obviously contained a fair measure of alcohol. Which seemed like a good idea at the time. I drank enough to kill the pain, then slacked off before I ended up drunk on the floor like the rest of them. I waited until old dad was well on the way to alcoholic extinction before I pumped him for information.\n\n\"I have traveled from afar and am ignorant of the local scene.\" I told him. \"But I do hear that this local bully, Capo Doccia, is a little on the rough side.\"\n\n\"Rough!\" he growled, then slurped down some more of the paint thinner. \"Poisonous serpents flee in fear when he approaches, while it is well-known that the gaze of his eyes kills infants.\"\n\nThere was more like this, but I turned off my attention. I had waited too long in the drinking session to extract any reasonable information from him. I looked around for Dreng and found him just tucking into a great crock of the brew. I pried it away from him, then shook him until I attracted his attention.\n\n\"Let's go. We're leaving now.\"\n\n\"Leaving...?\" He blinked rapidly and tried to focus his eyes on me. With little success.\n\n\"We. Go. Out. Walkies.\"\n\n\"Ahh, walkies. I get my blanket.\" He stood swaying, then gave me some more rapid blinks. \"Where's your blanket for me to carry?\"\n\n\"Seized by the enemy, along with everything else I possessed other than my sword and gun, which never leave my side while I have a breath in my body.\"\n\n\"Breath in body... Right. I'll get blanket. Get you blanket.\"\n\nHe rooted about in the rear of the room and appeared with two fuzzy blankets, despite a lot of domestic and female crying about the cold of winter. Capital goods were not easy to come by for the peasantry. I would have to get some groats for Dreng eventually.\n\nHe reappeared with the blankets draped over his shoulders along with a leather bag, a stout staff in his hand\u2014and a wicked-looking knife in a wooden scabbard at his waist. I waited outside to avoid the tearful traditional departure scene. He eventually emerged, looking slightly more sober, and stood swaying at my side.\n\n\"Lead on, master.\"\n\n\"You show me the way. I want to visit Capo Doccia's keep.\"\n\n\"No! Can it be true that you fight for him?\"\n\n\"That is the last thing I would ever do. In fact I would fight against him for a wooden groat. The truth is that the Capo has a friend of mine locked away in there. I want to get a message to him.\"\n\n\"There is great danger in even going close to his keep.\"\n\n\"I'm sure of it, but I am fearless. And I must contact my friend. You lead the way\u2014and through the woods if you don't mind. I don't want to be seen by either Capo Doccia or his men.\"\n\nObviously neither did Dreng. He sobered up as he led me by obscure paths and hidden ways to the other side of the forest. I peered out carefully at the roadway leading to the drawbridge, to the entrance to the keep.\n\n\"Any closer and they will see us,\" he whispered. I looked up at the late afternoon sun and nodded agreement.\n\n\"It's been a busy day. We'll lay up in the woods here and make our move in the morning.\"\n\n\"No move. It's death!\" His teeth chattered though the afternoon was hot. He hurried as he led the way deeper into the forest, to a grassy hollow with a stream running through it. He produced a clay cup from his bag, filled it with water and brought it to me. I slurped and realized that having a knave wasn't a bad idea after all. Once his chores were done he spread the blankets on the grass and promptly fell asleep on his. I sat down with my back to a tree and, for the first time, had a chance to examine the gun I had lifted.\n\nIt was sleek and new and did not fit this broken-down planet at all. Of course\u2014it had to be from the Venian ship. The Bishop said that they had probably been smuggling weapons. And I was holding one of them in my hands. I looked at it more closely.\n\nNo identification, or serial number\u2014or any other indication where it had been manufactured. And it was pretty obvious why. If the League agents succeeded in getting their hands on one of these it would be impossible to trace it back to the planet of origin. The gun was small in size, about halfway between a rifle and a pistol. I can claim some acquaintance with small arms\u2014I am an honored member of the Pearly Gates Gun Club and Barbecue Society because I am a pretty good shot and helped them win tournaments\u2014but I had never seen anything like this before. I looked into the muzzle. It was about .30 caliber, and unusually enough it was a smooth bore. It had open, iron sights, a trigger with safety button, one other lever on the stock. I turned this and the gun broke in half and a handful of small cartridges fell to the ground. I looked at one closely and began to understand how the gun worked.\n\n\"Neat. No lands or grooves so there is no worry about keeping the barrel clean. Instead of rotating, the bullet has fins to keep it in straight flight. And, uggh, make a nastier hole in anyone it hits. And no cartridge case either\u2014this is solid propellent. Does away with all the worries about ejecting the brass.\" I peeked into the chamber. \"Efficient and foolproof. Push your cartridges into the recessed stock. When it's full put one more into the chamber. Close and lock. A little solar screen here to keep a battery charged. Pull the trigger, a spot in the chamber glows hot and ignites the charge. The expanding gas shoots out the bullet\u2014while part of the gas is diverted to ram the next bullet into the chamber. Rugged, almost foolproof, cheap to make. And deadly.\"\n\nDepressed and tired, I lay the gun beside me, dropped the sword close to hand, lay back on the blanket and followed Dreng's good example.\n\nBy dawn we were slept out and slightly hungover. Dreng brought me water, then handed over a strip of what looked like smoked leather. He took one himself and began chewing on it industriously. Breakfast in bed\u2014the greatest! I bit my piece and almost broke a tooth. It not only resembled smoked leather, but tasted exactly like it as well.\n\nBy the time that the drawbridge clanked down for the day we were lying in a copse on the hill above it, as close as we could get. It was the nearest cover that we could find since, for pretty obvious reasons, all the trees and shrubs had been cleared away from the approaches to the gate. It wasn't as near as I liked, but would have to do. But it was far too close for Dreng for I could feel him shivering at my side. The first thing to emerge from the gate was a small body of armed men, followed by four slaves dragging a cart.\n\n\"What's going on?\" I asked.\n\n\"Tax collecting. Getting in their share of the crops.\"\n\n\"We've now seen who comes out\u2014but do any of your farmers ever go in?\"\n\n\"Madness and death! Never!\"\n\n\"What about selling them food.\"\n\n\"They take all they want from us.\"\n\n\"Do you sell them firewood?\"\n\n\"They steal what they need.\"\n\nThey had a pretty one-sided economy, I thought gloomily. But I had to come up with something\u2014I just couldn't leave The Bishop as a slave in this dismal place. My cogitation was interrupted by a commotion inside the gate. Then, as though my thoughts had coalesced into reality, a figure burst out of the gate, knocking aside the guard there, rushing on.\n\nThe Bishop!\n\nRunning fast. But right behind him were the pursuing guards.\n\n\"Take this and follow me!\" I shouted, jamming the hilt of the sword into Dreng's hand. Then I was off down the slope as fast as I could go, shouting to draw their attention. They ignored me until I fired a shot over their heads.\n\nThings got pretty busy after that. The guards slowed, one even dived to the ground and put his hands over his head. The Bishop pelted on\u2014but one of his pursuers was right behind him, swinging a long pike. Catching The Bishop on the back and knocking him down. I fired again as I ran, jumped over The Bishop and felled the pikeman with the butt of my gun.\n\n\"Up the hill!\" I called out when I saw that The Bishop was struggling to his feet, blood all over his back. I banged off two more shots, then turned to help him. And saw that Dreng was clutching the sword\u2014but still lying on top of the hill.\n\n\"Get down here and help him or I'll kill you myself!\" I shouted, turning and firing again. I hadn't hit anyone but I was sure keeping their heads down. The Bishop stumbled on and Dreng, having plumbed some deep well of decency\u2014or in fear that I would kill him\u2014was coming to our aid. Shots were whistling past us now so I spun and returned their fire.\n\nWe reached the top of the low hill, went over it towards the relative safety of the woods. Dreng and I half carried the great form of The Bishop as he stumbled and staggered. I took a quick\u2014and reassuring\u2014look at his back. There was a shallow cut there, nothing too bad. Our pursuers were still not in sight when we crashed through the bushes and reached the safety of the trees.\n\n\"Dreng\u2014lead us out of here. They mustn't catch us now!\"\n\nSurprisingly enough they didn't. The farm lad must have played in these woods for all of his young life because he knew every track and path. But it was hard work. We staggered on, then struggled our way along a steep grassy slope with a few miserable bushes halfway up. Dreng pulled the bushes aside to reveal the entrance to a shallow cave.\n\n\"Chased a Furry in here once. No one else knows about it.\"\n\nThe entrance was low and it was a labor to pull The Bishop through. But once inside, the cave opened out and there was more than enough space to sit up, although it wasn't high enough to stand. I took one of the blankets and spread it out, then rolled The Bishop onto it so that he lay on his side. He groaned. His face was filthy and bruised. He had not an easy time of it. Then he looked towards me and smiled.\n\n\"Thank you, my boy. I knew you would be there.\"\n\n\"You did? That's more than I knew.\"\n\n\"Nonsense. But, quickly please, the...\"\n\nHe writhed and moaned and his body arched into the air with unbearable pain. The paincuff\u2014I had forgotten about it! And it was receiving a continuous signal, certain death.\n\nHaste makes waste. So I controlled my anxiety and slowly slipped off my right shoe, opened the compartment, and seized the lockpick firmly in my fingers. Bent over, inserted it\u2014and the cuff sprang open. Pain lanced through my hand, numbing it, as I threw the thing aside.\n\nThe Bishop was unconscious and breathing heavily. There was nothing more I could do except sit and wait.\n\n\"Your sword,\" Dreng said, holding it out to me.\n\n\"You take care of it for awhile. If you think you are up to it?\"\n\nHe lowered his eyes and trembled again. \"I want to be a fighter, but I am so afraid. I could not move to help you.\"\n\n\"But you did\u2014finally. Remember that. There isn't a person alive who has not been afraid at one time or another. It is only the brave man who can feel fear and still go forward.\"\n\n\"A noble thought, young man,\" the deep voice said. \"And one that you should always remember.\"\n\nThe Bishop had regained consciousness and was smiling a wan smile.\n\n\"Now, Jim, as I was saying before they turned on their little machine, I was certain that you would be here this morning. You were free\u2014and I knew that you would not leave me alone in that wicked place. There was an immense hue and cry when you escaped, with abundant to-ing and fro-ing until the gate was closed for the night. It was obvious that it would be impossible for you to come then. But with dawn the gate would be opened and I had not the slightest doubt that you were sure to be close by, trying to find a way to get to me. Simple logic. So I simplified the equation by coming to you.\"\n\n\"Very simple! You almost got yourself killed.\"\n\n\"But I didn't. And we are both safely away from them. Plus I see that you have managed to enlist an ally. A good day's work. Now the important question. What do we do next?\"\n\nWhat indeed?\nChapter 23\n\n\"As to what we do next\u2014the answer is obvious,\" I said. \"We stay here until the excitement has died down. Which should happen fairly quickly since there is not much market value in a dead slave.\"\n\n\"But I feel remarkably healthy.\"\n\n\"You have forgotten that the paincuff will kill if used continuously. So, when our way is clear we head for the nearest habitation and dress your wound.\"\n\n\"It is bloody, but can't be more than a scratch.\"\n\n\"Sepsis and infection. We take care of the cut first.\" I turned to Dreng. \"Any farmers you know who live close to this place?\"\n\n\"No, but the widow Apfeltree is just over the hill, past the dead tree, through the end of the swamp....\"\n\n\"Great. Show us the way, don't tell.\" I turned back to The Bishop. \"And after we fix your back, then what?\"\n\n\"After that, Jim, we join the army. Since you are now a mercenary, that is the proper thing to do. An army will be based in a keep, and there will be a locked room in that keep where all the groats are stored. While you practice your military profession I shall, as the expression goes, case the joint. In order to further this noble work of ours I have one particular army in mind for you. The one that serves the Capo Dimonte.\"\n\n\"Not Capo Dimonte!\" Dreng wailed, clutching his hair with both hands. \"He is evil beyond measure, eats a child for breakfast every day, has all of his furniture upholstered in human skin, drinks from the skull of his first wife...\"\n\n\"Enough,\" The Bishop ordered, and Dreng was stilled. \"It is obvious that he does not have a good press here in the Capote of Doccia. That is because he is the sworn enemy of Capo Doccia and goes to war against him periodically. I am sure that he is no worse\u2014or better\u2014than any other capo. But he does have one advantage. He is our enemy's enemy.\"\n\n\"So hopefully our friend. Right. I owe old Doccia one and I look forward to paying it back.\"\n\n\"You should not bear grudges, Jim. It dulls the vision and interferes with your career. Which should now be grabbing groats not wreaking vengeance.\"\n\nI nodded agreement. \"Of course. But while you are planning the heist there is no reason why I can't enjoy a bit of revenge.\"\n\nI could see that he disapproved of my emotions\u2014but I could not attain his Olympian detachment. A weakness of youth, perhaps. I changed the subject.\n\n\"After we empty the treasury, then what?\"\n\n\"We find out how the locals are contacting the offplanet smugglers, like the Venians. With the obvious aim of leaving this backward and deadly world as soon as possible. In order to do that we may have to get religion.\" He chuckled at my shocked expression. \"Like you, my boy, I am a Scientific Humanist and feel no need for the aid of the supernatural. But here on Spiovente what technology there is seems to be in the hands of an order called the Black Monks....\"\n\n\"No, stay away!\" Dreng wailed; he was certainly a source of bad news. \"They know Things that Drive Men Mad. From their workshops all forms of unnatural devices pour forth. Machines that scream and grunt, that talk through the skies, the paincuffs as well. Avoid them, master, I beg of you!\"\n\n\"What our young friend has decried is true,\" The Bishop said. \"Minus the fear of the unknown, of course. Through some process that is not relevant now all of technology on this world became concentrated in the hands of this order, the Black Monks. I have no idea what their religious affiliations are\u2014if any\u2014but they do supply and repair the machines that we have seen. This gives them a certain protection, since if one capo were to attack them the others would rush to their defense to insure their continued access to the metallic fruits of technology. It is to them that we may have to turn for salvation and exodus.\"\n\n\"I second the motion and it is carried by acclamation. Join the army, whip as many groats as we can, contact the smugglers\u2014and buy our way out.\"\n\nDreng gaped at all the long words, drooling a bit at the same time. He obviously followed little of what we discussed. Action was more his style. He made a silent exit on a scouting trip and an even more slithery return. No one was about, our way was clear. The Bishop could walk now, with a little aid from us, and the widow's house was not too distant. Even with Dreng's reassurances she was trembling with fear when she admitted us to her hovel.\n\n\"Guns and swords. Murder and death. I'm doomed, doomed.\"\n\nDespite her muttering, punctuated by the smacking of her toothless gums, she followed my instructions and put a pot of water over the fire. I cut a strip of cloth from my blanket, boiled it clean, then used it to wash The Bishop's wound. It was shallow but deep. The widow was persuaded to part with some of her store of moonshine and The Bishop shuddered, but did not cry out, when I poured it into the open cut. Hoping the alcohol content was high enough to act as an antiseptic. I used more boiled blanket as a bandage\u2014which was about all that I could do.\n\n\"Excellent, James, excellent,\" he said, gingerly pulling his sliced jacket over his shoulders. \"Your years in the Boy Sprouts were obviously not wasted. Now let us thank the good widow and leave since it is obvious that she is upset by our presence.\"\n\nLeave we did, strolling the open, rut-filled road, every footstep taking us farther away from Capo Doccia. Dreng was a good provider, drifting off into orchards for fruit, or rooting out edible tubers from the fields we passed, even digging them up under the noses of the rightful owners. Who only touched their forelocks at the sight of my weapons. It is a nasty world that only respects bullies. For the first time I began to appreciate the better qualities of the League worlds.\n\nIt was late afternoon when the walls of the keep loomed before us. This place had a little more style than Doccia's, or at least it looked that way from a distance, because it was situated on an island in a lake. A causeway and drawbridge connected it to the mainland. Dreng was shaking with fear again and was more than happy to stay on the shore with The Bishop while I braved the dangers of the keep. I strode militarily along the stone causeway, then stamped over the bridge. The two guards eyed me with open suspicion.\n\n\"Good morn, brothers,\" I called out cheerfully, gun on shoulder, sword in hand, gut in and chest out. \"Is this the establishment of the Capo Dimonte, known the length and breadth of the land for his charm and strength of arm?\"\n\n\"Who wants to know?\"\n\n\"I do. An armed and powerful soldier who wishes to enlist in his noble service.\"\n\n\"Your choice, brother, your choice,\" he said with obvious gloom. \"Through the gate, across the courtyard, third door on your right, ask for Sire Srank.\" He leaned close and whispered. \"For three groats I'll give you a tip.\"\n\n\"Done.\"\n\n\"So pay.\"\n\n\"Shortly. I'm a little skint right now.\"\n\n\"You must be\u2014if you want to hire out to this lot. All right, five then, in five days.\" I nodded agreement. \"He'll offer you very little, but don't settle for less than two groats a day.\"\n\n\"Thanks for the credit. I'll get back to you.\"\n\nI swaggered through the gate and found the right door. It was open to admit the last light, and a fat man with a bald head was scratching away at some papers. He looked up when my shadow fell across the table.\n\n\"Get out here,\" he shouted, scratching his head so hard that a shower of dandruff sparkled in the sunbeam. \"I've told you all, no groats until morning after next.\"\n\n\"I've not enlisted yet\u2014nor will I if that's the way you pay the troops.\"\n\n\"Sorry, good stranger, sun in my eyes. Come in, come in. Enlist? Of course. Gun and sword\u2014and ammunition?\"\n\n\"Some.\"\n\n\"Wonderful.\" His hands rustled when he dry-washed them. \"Food for you and your knave and a groat a day.\"\n\n\"Two a day and all ammunition used to be replaced.\"\n\nHe scowled\u2014then shrugged and scratched one of the sheets and pushed it over to me. \"A one-year enlistment, salary open to review at end of contract. Since you can't read or write I hope you can manage to scratch your illiterate X down here.\"\n\n\"I can read so well I see that you have me down for four years, which I will now correct before I sign.\" Which I did, writing Judge Nixon's name on the line, knowing full well that I would be leaving well before my enlistment was up. \"I'll get my knave who awaits without, along with my aged father.\"\n\n\"No extra food for poor relations!\" he snarled generously. \"You share yours.\"\n\n\"Agreed,\" I said. \"You're all heart.\"\n\nI went back to the gate and waved my companions over.\n\n\"You owe me,\" the guard said.\n\n\"I'll pay you\u2014when that scrofulous toad pays me.\"\n\nHe grunted agreement. \"If you think he's bad\u2014wait until you meet Capo Dimonte. I wouldn't be hanging around this damp dump if it weren't for the loot bonus.\"\n\nThey were coming on slowly, The Bishop half dragging the reluctant Dreng.\n\n\"Loot bonus? Paying out soon?\"\n\n\"Soon as the fighting is over. We march tomorrow.\"\n\n\"Against Capo Doccia?\"\n\n\"No such luck. The word is that he is loaded with jewels and golden groats and more. Be nice to share in that haul. But not this time. All they have told us is that we are heading north. Must be a surprise attack on someone, probably a friend, and they don't want word to leak out. That's good thinking. Catch them with their drawbridge down and it's half the battle.\"\n\nI pondered this bit of military wisdom as I led my small band in the indicated direction. The soldier's quarters, while not something to put in a travel brochure, were certainly a cut above the slave quarters. Wooden bunks with straw mattresses for the fighting men\u2014some straw under the bunk for the knave. I would have to make some arrangements for The Bishop, but I was sure that bribery would take care of that. We sat together on the bunk while Dreng went to find the kitchen.\n\n\"How is the back?\" I asked.\n\n\"Sore, but only a small bother. I'll take a bit of a rest, then begin a survey of the layout....\"\n\n\"In the morning will be time enough. It has been a long couple of days.\"\n\n\"Agreed. And here is your knave with the food!\"\n\nIt was a hot stew with fragments of some nameless bird bobbing in it. Had to be a bird; the feathers were still attached. We divided the stew into three equal portions and wolfed it down. All this fresh air and walking was certainly good for the appetite. There was also a ration of sour wine which neither I nor The Bishop could stomach. Not so Dreng, who slurped and smacked his way through it in moments. Then rolled under the bunk and began to snore raucously.\n\n\"I'm going to have a look around,\" I said. \"Take a rest on the bunk until I get back....\"\n\nI was interrupted by an off-key blare on a bugle. I looked up to see that the malevolent musician was standing in the doorway. He emitted another toneless blast. I was ready to grab him by the throat if he tried it again, but he stepped aside and bowed. A thin figure in blue uniform took his place. All of the soldiers who were watching bowed their heads slightly or shook their weapons in salute, so I did the same. It could be no other than Capo Dimonte himself.\n\nHe was lean to the point of being hollow-stomached. He either had circulation trouble or was naturally blue of skin. His little red eyes peered out of hollow blue sockets, while he fingered his blue jaw with azure fingers. He looked around suspiciously, then spoke: for all of his leanness his voice had a deep strength to it.\n\n\"My men, I have good news for you. Prepare yourselves and your weapons for we march at midnight. This will be a forced march to enable us to reach Pinetta Woods before dawn. Fighting men only\u2014and we travel light. Your knaves will stay here to look after your goods. We will lay up there during the day, then leave at dusk tomorrow. We will meet our allies during the night and join forces for an assault on the enemy at dawn.\"\n\n\"A question, Capo,\" one of the men called out. He was grizzled and scarred, obviously a veteran of many conflicts. \"Against whom do we march?\"\n\n\"You will be told before the attack. We will gain victory only by surprise.\"\n\nThere were murmurs on all sides as the veteran called out again.\n\n\"Our enemy a mystery\u2014at least tell us then who are our allies.\"\n\nCapo Dimonte was not pleased with the question. He scratched his chin and fiddled with the hilt of his sword while his audience waited. He obviously needed our voluntary assistance, so in the end he spoke.\n\n\"You will all be pleased to hear that we have allies of great strength and will. They also have war machines to batter the stoutest wall. With their assistance we can take any keep, defeat any army. We are lucky to serve at their side.\" He pressed his lips together, reluctant to go on but still knowing that he must.\n\n\"Our victory is assured since our allies are none other than... the order of the Black Monks.\"\n\nThere was a long moment of shocked silence\u2014followed instantly by shouts of anger. The significance of all this escaped me\u2014other than the fact that it did not sound good at all.\nChapter 24\n\nAs soon as he had spoken, Capo Dimonte made his exit and the door slammed shut behind him. There were shouts and cries of anger from all sides\u2014but there was one man who bellowed louder than all the others. It was the scarred veteran. He climbed onto a table and shouted them all into silence.\n\n\"Everyone here knows me, knows old Tusker. I was cutting off heads when most of you weren't even potty trained. So I'm going to talk and you are going to listen and then you will get a chance to talk too. Anyone here don't like that idea?\"\n\nHe closed one immense fist and held it out, then turned in a circle, scowling fiercely. There were some angry mutters, but none loud enough to imply disagreement.\n\n\"Good. Then listen. I know those black-frocked buggers from a long way back and I don't trust them. All they think of is their own hides. If they want us to fight for them that's only because there is big trouble ahead and they would like to see us killed rather than them. I don't like it.\"\n\n\"I don't like it either,\" another man called out. \"But what kind of a choice do we have?\"\n\n\"None,\" Tusker growled angrily. \"And that's what I was going to say next. I think we have been grabbed by the short and curlies.\" He drew his sword and shook it at them. \"Every weapon we have, outside of them new guns, comes from the Black Monks. Without their supplies we have nothing to fight with, and without nothing to fight with we have nothing to do and we can starve or go back to the farm. And that's not for me. And it better not be for any of you either. Because we are all in this together. We all fight\u2014or none fight. And if we fight and any of you try to sneak out of here before the action starts, then he is going to find my sword stuck all the way through his liver.\"\n\nHe shook the shining blade at them while they glared in silence.\n\n\"A solid argument,\" The Bishop whispered, \"the logic impeccable. Too bad that it is wasted on this ignoble cause. You and your comrades have no choice but to agree.\"\n\nThe Bishop was right. There was more shouting and argument, but in the end they had to go along with the plans. They would march at the side of the Black Monks. None of them, myself included, were very happy about the idea. They could stay up and argue until midnight but I was tired and could use the few hours sleep. The Bishop wandered out in search of information and I rolled up on the bunk and slipped into a restless slumber.\n\nThe shouted orders woke me, feeling more tired than when I had gone to sleep. No one seemed happy about the midnight march\u2014or our battle companions\u2014and there were dark looks and much cursing. There were even some oaths I hadn't heard before, real nice ones, that I filed away for future use. I went out to the primitive lavabo and threw cold water on my face, which seemed to help. When I returned, The Bishop was sitting on the bunk. He rose and extended his large hand.\n\n\"You must watch yourself, Jim. This is a crude and deadly world and all men's hands are turned against you.\"\n\n\"That is the way I prefer to live\u2014so don't worry yourself.\"\n\n\"But I do.\" He sighed mightily. \"I have nothing but contempt for superstition, astrologers, palm readers, and the like, so you will understand why I feel great disgust at myself for the black depression that possesses me. But I see nothing but darkness in the future, emptiness. We have been companions for such a brief period, I do not wish it to end. Yet, I am sorry, do excuse me, I have a sense of danger and despair that cannot be alleviated.\"\n\n\"With good reason!\" I cried, trying to put enthusiasm into my words. \"You have been torn from the security of your quasi-retirement, imprisoned, freed, fled, hid, dieted, fled again, bribed, were cheated, beaten, enslaved, wounded\u2014and you wonder why you are depressed?\"\n\nThis brought a wan smile to his lips and he grasped my hand again. \"You are right. Jim, of course. Toxins in the bloodstream, depression in the cortex. Watch your back and return safely. By the time you do I'll have worked out how to relieve the capo of some of his groats.\"\n\nHe was looking his age\u2014for the first time since we had met. As I left I saw him stretch out wearily on the bunk. He should be feeling better when I returned. Dreng would fetch his food and look after him. What I must do is concentrate on staying alive so I would come back.\n\nIt was a dreary and exhausting march. The day had been hot, and so was the night. We shuffled along, dripping with perspiration and slapping at the insects that rushed out of the darkness to attack us. The rutted road caught at my feet and dust rose into my nostrils. On we marched, and on, following along after the clanking and hissing conveyance that led our nightmarish parade. One of the steam cars was hauling Capo Dimonte's war wagon in which he traveled in relative comfort. His captains were in there with him, swilling down booze no doubt and generally enjoying themselves. We marched on, the cursing in the ranks growing steadily weaker.\n\nBy the time we stumbled under the sheltering trees of Pinetta Woods we were tired and mutinous. I did what most of the others did, dropped onto the bed of sweet-smelling needles under the trees and groaned in appreciation. And admiration for the sturdier warriors, with old Tusker in the van, who insisted on their ration of acid wine before retiring. I closed my eyes, groaned again, then slept.\n\nWe stayed there all day, glad to have the rest. Around noon rations were reluctantly handed out from the cart. Warm, foul water to wash down rock-like bits of what might have been bread. After this I managed to sleep some more, until we formed ranks again at dusk and the night march continued.\n\nAfter some hours we came to a crossroads and turned right. There was a murmur through the ranks at this, starting with those who knew the area well.\n\n\"What are they saying?\" I asked the man who marched beside me, in silence up until now.\n\n\"Capo Dinobli. That's who we're after. Could be no one else. No other keep in this direction for one day, two day's march.\"\n\n\"Do you know anything about him?\"\n\nHe grunted and was silent, but the man behind him spoke up. \"I served with him, long time ago. Old bugger then, must be ancient now. Just one more capo.\"\n\nThen it was one foot after another in a haze of fatigue. There had to be better ways to make a living. This was going to be my first and last campaign. As soon as we returned I and The Bishop would sack the treasury and flee with all the groats we could carry. Wonderful thought. I almost ran into the man in front of me and stopped just in time. We had halted where the road passed near the forest. Against the darkness of the trees even darker shadows loomed. I was trying to see what they were when one of the officers came back down the ranks.\n\n\"I need some volunteers,\" he whispered. \"You, you, you, you.\"\n\nHe touched my arm and I was one of the volunteers. There seemed to be about twenty of us who were pulled out of line and herded forward towards the woods. The clouds had cleared and there was enough light from the stars now to see that the black bulks were wheeled devices of some kind. I could hear the hiss of escaping steam. A dark figure strode forward and halted us.\n\n\"Listen and I will tell you what you must do,\" he said.\n\nAs he spoke a metal door was opened on the machine nearest us. Light gleamed as wood was pushed into the firebox. By the brief, flickering light I could see the speaker clearly. He was dressed in a black robe, his head covered by a cowl that hid his face. He pointed to the machine.\n\n\"This must be pushed through the woods\u2014and in absolute silence. I will put my knife into the ribs of any of you who makes a noise. A track was cut during daylight and will be easy to follow. Take up the lines and do as you are instructed.\"\n\nOther dark-robed figures were handing us the ropes and pushing us into line. On the whispered signal we began hauling.\n\nThe thing rolled along easily enough and we pulled at a steady pace. There were more whispered instructions to guide us\u2014then we halted as we approached the edge of the forest. After this we dropped the ropes and sweated as we pushed and pulled the great weight about until the guides were satisfied. There was much whispered consultation about alignment and range, and I wondered just what was going on. We had been forgotten for the moment, so I walked as quietly as I could past the thing and peered out through the shrubbery at the view beyond.\n\nVery interesting. A field of grain stretched down a gentle slope to a keep, its dark towers clear in the starlight. There was a glimmer of reflection about its base, where the waters of the moat protected it from attack.\n\nI stayed there until dawn began to gray the sky, then moved back to examine the object of our labors. As it emerged from the darkness its shape became clear\u2014and I still hadn't the faintest idea of what it was. Fire and steam, I could see the white trickle of vapor clearly now. And a long boom of some kind along the top. One of the black figures was working the controls now. Steam hissed louder as the long arm sank down until the end rested on the ground. I went to look at the large metal cup there\u2014and was rewarded for my curiosity by being drafted to help move an immense stone into place. Two of us rolled it from the pile of its fellows nearby, but it took four of us, straining, to raise it into the cup. Mystery upon mystery. I rejoined the others just as Capo Dimonte appeared with the tall, robed man at his side.\n\n\"Will it work, Brother Farvel?\" Dimonte asked. \"I know nothing of such devices.\"\n\n\"But I do, capo, you shall see. When the drawbridge is lowered my machine will destroy it, crush it.\"\n\n\"May it do just that! Those walls are high\u2014and so will our losses be if we must storm the keep without being able to break through the gate.\"\n\nBrother Farvel turned his back and issued quick instructions to the machine's operators. More wood was pushed into its bowels and the hissing rose in volume. It was full daylight now. The field before us was empty, the view peaceful. But behind us in the forest lurked the small army and the war machines. It was obvious that battle would be joined when the drawbridge was lowered and destroyed.\n\nWe were ordered to lie down, to conceal ourselves as the light grew. It was full daylight by this time, the sun above the horizon\u2014and still nothing happened. I crouched near the machine, close to the cowled operator at the controls.\n\n\"It is not coming down!\" Brother Farvel called out suddenly. \"It is past due, always down at this time. Something is wrong.\"\n\n\"Do they know that we are here?\" Capo Dimonte said.\n\n\"Yes!\" an incredibly loud voice boomed out from the trees above us. \"We know you are there. Your attack is doomed\u2014as are all of you! Prepare to face your certain death.\"\nChapter 25\n\nThe roaring voice was totally unexpected, shocking in the silence of the forest. I jumped, startled\u2014nor was I the only one. The monk at the machine's controls was even more startled. His hand pulled on the control lever and there was a gigantic hissing roar. The long arm on top of the device thrashed skyward, pushed by a stubbier arm close to its hinged end. The arm rose up in a high arc and slammed into a concealed buffer that jarred and shook the entire machine. The arm may have stopped\u2014but the stone in the cup at the end of the arm continued, high into the air, rising in a great arc. I rushed forward to see it splash into the moat just before the closed drawbridge. Good shot\u2014it would certainly have demolished the structure had it been down.\n\nAll around me things became busy quite suddenly. Brother Farvel had knocked the monk from the controls and was now kicking him, roaring with rage. Swords had been drawn, soldiers were rushing about\u2014some of them firing up into the trees. Capo Dimonte was bellowing orders that no one was listening to. I put my back to a tree and held my gun ready for the expected attack.\n\nIt never came. But the amplified voice thundered again.\n\n\"Go back. Return from whence you came and you will be spared. I am talking to you, Capo Dimonte, you are making a mistake. You are being used by the Black Monks. You will be destroyed for nothing. Return to your keep, for only death awaits you here.\"\n\n\"It is there. I see it!\" Brother Farvel shouted, pointing up into the trees. He spun about and saw me, seized me by the arm in a painful grip, and pointed again. \"There, on that branch, the device of the devil. Destroy it!\"\n\nWhy not. I could see it now, even recognize what it was. A loudspeaker of some kind. The gun cracked and kicked my shoulder hard. I fired again and the speaker exploded, bits of plastic and metal rained down.\n\n\"Just a machine,\" Brother Farvel shouted, stamping the fragments into the ground. \"Start the attack\u2014send your men forward. My death-throwers will give you support. They will batter down the walls for you.\"\n\nThe capo had no choice. He chewed his lip a bit, then signaled the bugler at his side. Three brazen notes rang out and were echoed by other buglers to our rear and on both flanks. When the first of his troops burst from beneath the trees he drew his sword and ordered us to follow him. With great reluctance I trotted forward.\n\nIt was not quite what you would call a lightning attack. More of a stroll when you got down to it. We advanced through the field, then stopped on order to wait for the death-throwers to get into position. Steam cars pulled them forward into line and the firing began. Rocks sizzled over our heads and either bounced from the keep wall or vanished into its interior.\n\n\"Forward!\" the capo shouted, and waved his sword again just as the return fire began.\n\nThe silvery spheres rose up from behind the keep walls, rose high, arced forward above us\u2014and dropped.\n\nHit\u2014and cracked open. One struck nearby and I could see it was a thin container of some kind filled with liquid that smoked and turned to vapor in the air. Poison! I threw myself away from it, running, trying not to breathe. But the things were bursting all about us now, the air thick with fumes. I ran and my lungs ached and I had to breathe, could not stop myself.\n\nAs the breath entered my lungs I fell forward and blackness fell as well.\n\n* * *\n\nI was lying on my back, I knew that, but was aware of very little else because of the headache that possessed me completely. If I moved my head ever so slightly it tightened down like a band of fire on my temples. When I tentatively opened one eye\u2014red lightning struck in through my eyeball. I groaned, and heard the groan echoed from all sides. This headache was the winner, the planet-sized headache of all time, before which all other headaches paled. I thought of previous headaches I had known and sneered at their ineffectiveness. Cardboard headaches. This was the real thing. Someone groaned close by and I, and many others, groaned in sympathy.\n\nBit by bit the pain ebbed away, enough so that I tentatively opened one eye, then the other. The blue sky was clear above, the wind rustled the grain on which I lay. With great hesitation I rose up on one elbow and looked around me at the stricken army.\n\nThe field was littered with sprawled bodies. Some of them were sitting up now, holding their heads, while one or two stronger\u2014or stupider\u2014soldiers were climbing unsteadily to their feet. Nearby lay the silvery, broken fragments of one of the attacking missiles, looking innocent enough now with the gas dispersed. My head throbbed but I ignored it. We were alive. The gas had not killed us\u2014it had obviously been designed only to knock us out. Potent stuff. I looked at my shadow, not wanting to risk a glance at the sun yet, and saw how foreshortened it was. Close to noon. We had been asleep for hours.\n\nThen why weren't we dead? Why hadn't the Capo Dinobli's men pounced on us and slit our throats? Or at least taken our weapons? My gun was at my side; I broke it and saw that it was still loaded. Mysteries, mysteries. I jumped, startled\u2014instantly regretting it as my head throbbed\u2014as the hoarse scream rang out. I managed to sit up and turn to look.\n\nInteresting. It was Brother Farvel himself who was still shouting and cursing while he tore handfuls of hair from his head. This was most unusual. I had certainly never seen anything like it before. I rose hesitantly to my feet to see what he was upset about. Yes indeed, I could understand his emotions.\n\nHe was standing beside one of his death-throwers which had been thrown a little death of its own. It had burst open, exploded into a tangle of twisted pipes and fractured metal. The long arm had been neatly cut into three pieces and even the wheels had been torn from the body. It was just a mass of unrepairable junk. Brother Farvel ran off, still shouting hoarsely, wisps of hair floating in the breeze behind him.\n\nThere were more cries and shouts of pain from the other monks as Brother Farvel came staggering back, stumbling towards the Capo Dimonte, who was just sitting up.\n\n\"Destroyed, all of them!\" the Black Monk roared while the capo clutched his hands tightly over his ears. \"The work of years, gone, crushed, broken. All my death-throwers, the steam-powered battering ram\u2014ruined. He did it. Capo Dinobli did it. Gather your men, attack the keep, he must be destroyed for this monstrous crime that he has committed.\"\n\nThe capo turned to look towards the keep. It was just as it had been at dawn, quiet and undisturbed, the drawbridge still up, as though the day's events had never occurred. Dimonte turned back to Brother Farvel, his face cold and drawn.\n\n\"No. I do not lead my men against those walls. That is suicide and suicide was not our agreement. This is your argument, not mine. I agreed to aid you in taking the keep. You were to force entrance with your devices. Then I would attack. That arrangement is now over.\"\n\n\"You cannot go back on your word....\"\n\n\"I am not. Breech the walls and I will attack. That is what you promised. Now, do it.\"\n\nBrother Farvel turned red with rage, raised his fists, leaned forward. The capo stood his ground\u2014but drew his sword and held it out.\n\n\"See this,\" he said. \"I am still armed\u2014all of my men are armed. It is a message that I understand quite clearly. Dinobli's men could have taken our weapons and cut our throats while we lay here. They did not. They do not war on me. Therefore I do not war on them. You fight them\u2014this is your battle.\" He nudged the toe of his boot into the bugler lying beside him. \"Sound assembly.\"\n\nWe were quite happy to leave the Black Monks there in the field, surveying the wreckage of their machines and their plans. Word quickly spread through the ranks as to what had occurred and smiles replaced the pained grimaces as the headaches vanished to be replaced by relief. There would be no battle, no casualties. The Black Monks had started the trouble\u2014and it had been finished for them. My smile was particularly broad because I had some good news for The Bishop.\n\nI knew now how we were to get off the repellent planet of Spiovente.\n\nThrough the clear wisdom of hindsight I could understand now what had happened the night before. The approach of our troops in the darkness had been observed carefully. With advanced technology of some kind. The hidden watchers must have also seen the track being constructed through the forest for the death-thrower and understood the significance of the operation. The loudspeaker had been placed in the tree directly above the site\u2014then activated by radio. The gas that had felled us was sophisticated and had been delivered with pinpoint accuracy. All of this was well beyond the technology of this broken-down planet. Which meant only one thing.\n\nThere were offworlders in the keep of Capo Dinobli. They were there in force and were up to something. And whatever it was had aroused the wrath of the Black Monks, so much so that they had planned this attack. Which had backfired completely. Good. Mine enemy's enemy one more time. The monks had a stranglehold on what little technology there was on Spiovente\u2014and from what I had seen, the technology was completely monopolized by the military. I cudgled my brain, remembering those long sessions with The Bishop on geopolitics and economics. I was getting the glimmer of a solution to our problems when there was a wild shouting from the ranks ahead.\n\nI pushed forward with the others to see the exhausted messenger sprawled in the grass beside the road. Capo Dimonte was turning away from him, shaking his fists skyward in fury.\n\n\"An attack\u2014behind my back\u2014on the keep! It is that sun of a worm, Doccia, that's who it is! We move now, forced march. Back!\"\n\nIt was a march that I never want to repeat. We rested only when exhaustion dropped us to the ground. Drank some water, staggered to our feet, went on. There was no need to beat us or encourage because we were all involved now. The capo's family, his worldly goods, they were all back in the keep. Guarded only by a skeleton force of soldiers. All of us were as concerned as he was, for what little we owned was there as well. The knaves watching our few possessions. Dreng, whom I scarcely knew, yet felt responsibility for. And The Bishop. If the keep were taken what would happen to him? Nothing, he was an old man, harmless, no enemy of theirs.\n\nYet I knew this was a lie even as I tried to convince myself of its validity. He was an escaped slave. And I knew what they did with escaped slaves on Spiovente.\n\nMore water, a little food at sunset, then on through the night. At dawn I could see our forces straggling out in a ragged column as the stronger men pushed on ahead. I was young and fit and worried\u2014and right up in the front. I could stop now for a rest, get my breath back. Ahead on the road I saw the two men spring from the bushes and vanish over the hill.\n\n\"There!\" I shouted. \"Watchers\u2014we've been seen.\"\n\nThe capo jumped from the war-wagon and ran to my side. I pointed. \"Two men. In hiding there. They ran towards the keep.\"\n\nHe ground his teeth with impotent rage. \"We can't catch them, not in our condition. Doccia will be warned; he'll escape.\"\n\nHe looked back at his straggling troops, then waved his officers forward.\n\n\"You, Barkus, stay here and rest them, then get in formation and follow me. I'm going on with all the fit men I can. They can take turns riding on the war-wagon. We're pushing forward.\"\n\nI climbed onto the roof of the cart as it started ahead. Men ran alongside, holding on, letting it pull them. The steam car wheezed and puffed smoke at a great rate as we clanked up the hill and onto the downslope beyond.\n\nThere were the towers of the keep in the distance, smoke rising from it. When we rattled around the next bend we found a line of men across the road, weapons raised, firing.\n\nWe did not slow down. The steam-whistle screeched loudly and we roared in answer, our anger taking us forward. The enemy fled. It had just been a holding party. We could see them joining the rest of the attackers who were now streaming away from the lake. When we reached the causeway it was empty of life. Beyond it was the broken gate of the keep with smoke rising slowly above it. I was right behind the capo when we stumbled forward. Long boards were still in place bridging the gap before the splintered and broken drawbridge, half raised and hanging from its chains. A soldier pushed out between the broken fragments and raised his sword in weary salute.\n\n\"We held them, capo,\" he said, then slumped back against the splintered wood. \"They broke through into the yard but we held them at the tower. They were firing at the outer door when they left.\"\n\n\"The Lady Dimonte, the children...?\"\n\n\"All safe. The treasury untouched.\"\n\nBut the troops' quarters were off the yard and not in the tower. I pushed ahead with the others, who had realized this, climbing through the ruined gate. There were bodies here, many of them. Unarmed knaves chopped down in the attack. The defenders were coming out of the tower now\u2014and Dreng was among them, coming forward slowly. His clothing was spattered with blood, as was the ax he carried, but he seemed sound.\n\nThen I looked into his face and read the sorrow there. He did not need to speak; I knew. The words came from a distance.\n\n\"I am sorry. I could not stop them. He is dead, the old man. Dead.\"\nChapter 26\n\nHe lay on the bunk, eyes closed as though he were sleeping. But never that still, never. Dreng had drawn my blanket over him, up to his chin, combed his hair and cleaned his face.\n\n\"I could not move him when the attack came,\" Dreng said. \"He was too heavy, too ill. The wound in his back was bad, black, his skin hot. He told me to leave him, that he was dead in any case. He said if they didn't kill him the 'fection would. They didn't have to stab him though....\"\n\nMy friend and my teacher. Murdered by these animals. He was worth more than the entire filthy population of this world gathered together. Dreng took me by the arm and I shook him off, turned on him angrily. He was holding out a small packet.\n\n\"I stole the piece of paper for him,\" Dreng said. \"He wanted to write to you. I stole it.\"\n\nThere was nothing to be said. I unwrapped it and a carved wooden key fell to the floor. I picked it up, then looked at the paper. There was a floor plan of the keep drawn on it, with an arrow pointing to a room carefully labeled STRONGROOM. Below it was the message, and I read what was written there in a tight, clear hand.\n\nI have been a bit poorly so I may not be able to give you this in person. Make a metal copy of the key\u2014it opens the strongroom. Good luck, Jim. It has been my pleasure to know you. Be a good rat.\n\nHis signature was carefully written below. I read the name\u2014then read it again. It wasn't The Bishop\u2014or any of the other aliases he had ever used. He had left me a legacy of trust\u2014knowing that I was probably the only person in the universe who would value this confidence. His real name.\n\nI went and sat down outside in the sun, suddenly very weary. Dreng brought me a cup of water. I had not realized how thirsty I was; I drained it and sent him for more.\n\nThis was it, the end. He had felt the approach of darkness\u2014but had worried about me. Thought of me when it was really his own death that was looming so close.\n\nWhat next? What should I do now?\n\nFatigue, pain, remorse\u2014all overwhelmed me. Not realizing what was happening I fell asleep, sitting there in the sun, toppled over on my side. When I awoke it was late in the afternoon. Dreng had wadded his blanket and put it under my head, sat now at my side.\n\nThere was nothing more to be said. We put The Bishop's body on one of the little carts and wheeled it along the causeway to the shore. We were not the only ones doing this. There was a small hill beside the road, a slope of grass with trees above it, a pleasant view across the water to the keep. We buried him there, tamping the soil down solidly and leaving no marker. Not on this disgusting world. They had his body, that was enough. Any memorial I erected in his honor would be light-years away. I would take care of that one day when the proper moment came.\n\n\"But right now, Dreng, we take care of Capo Doccia and his hoodlums. My good friend did not believe in revenge, so I cannot either. So we shall call it simple justice. Those criminals need straightening out. But how shall we do it?\"\n\n\"I can help, master. I can fight now. I was afraid, then I got angry and I used the ax. I am ready to be a warrior like you.\"\n\nI shook my head at him. I was thinking more clearly now. \"This is no job for a farmer with a future. But you must always remember that you faced your fear and won. That will do you well for the rest of your life. But Jim diGriz pays his debts\u2014so you are going back to the farm. How many groats does a farm cost?\"\n\nHe gaped at that one and shuffled through his memory. \"I never bought a farm.\"\n\n\"I'm sure of that. But somebody must have that you know.\"\n\n\"Old Kvetchy came back from the wars and paid Widow Roslair two hundred and twelve groats for her share of her farm.\"\n\n\"Great. Allowing for inflation five hundred should see you clear. Stick with me, kid, and you'll be wearing plowshares. Now get to the kitchen and pack up some food while I put part one of the plan into operation.\"\n\nIt was like a chess game that you played in your head. I could see the opening moves quite clearly, all laid out. If they were played correctly, middle game and endgame would follow with an inevitable win. I made the first move.\n\nCapo Dimonte was slumped on his throne, red-eyed and as tired as the rest of us, a flagon of wine in his hand. I pushed through his officers and stood before him. He scowled at me and flapped his hand.\n\n\"Away, soldier. You'll get your bonus. You did your work well today, I saw that. But leave us, I have plans to make....\"\n\n\"That is why I am here, capo. To tell you how to defeat Capo Doccia. I was in his service and know his secrets.\"\n\n\"Speak!\"\n\n\"In private. Send the others away.\"\n\nHe considered a moment\u2014then waved his hands. They left, grumbling, and he sipped his wine until the door slammed shut.\n\n\"What do you know,\" he ordered. \"Speak quickly for I am in a foul humor.\"\n\n\"As are we all. What I wanted to tell you in private does not concern Doccia\u2014yet. You will attack, I am sure of that. But in order to assure success I am going to enlist Capo Dinobli and his secrets on your side. Wouldn't the attack be better if they were all asleep when we came over the wall.\"\n\n\"Dinobli knows no more of these matters than I do\u2014so don't lie to me. He is tottering and has been bedridden for a year.\"\n\n\"I know that,\" I lied with conviction. \"But it is those who use his keep for their own ends, who cause the Black Monks to make war on them, these are the ones who will help you.\"\n\nHe sat up at this and there was more than a glint of the old schemer in his eyes. \"Go to them then. Promise them a share of the spoils\u2014and you will share as well if you can do this. Go in my name and promise what you will. Before this month is out Doccia's head will be roasting on a spit over my fire, his body will be torn by red-hot spikes and...\"\n\nThere was more like this but I wasn't too interested. This was a pawn move in the opening. I now had to bring a major piece forward to the attack. I bowed myself out, leaving him muttering on the throne, splashing wine around as he waved his arms. These people had very quick tempers.\n\nDreng had packed our few belongings and we left at once. I led the way until we were well clear of the keep, then turned off towards a stream that ran close by. It had a grassy field at its bank and I pointed towards it.\n\n\"We stay here until morning. I have plans to make and we need the rest. I want to be sharp when I knock on old Dinobli's door.\"\n\nWith a night's rest to refresh my brain everything became quite clear. \"Dreng,\" I said, \"this will have to be a one-man operation. I don't know what kind of reception I will get and I may be busy enough worrying about myself, without having you to care for. Back to the keep and wait for me.\"\n\nThere was really no door to knock on, just two heavily armed guards at the gate. I came down through the field, past the mounds of junked machines already smeared with a red patina of rust, and crossed the drawbridge. I stopped before I reached the guards and carefully kept my gun lowered.\n\n\"I have an important message for the one in charge here.\"\n\n\"Turn about and quick march,\" the taller guard said, pointing his gun at me. \"Capo Dinobli sees no one.\"\n\n\"It's not the capo I care about,\" I said, looking past him into the courtyard. A tall man in rough clothes was passing. But beneath the ragged cuffs of his trousers I saw the gleam of plasteel boots.\n\n\"I wish the capo only good health,\" I called out loudly. \"So I hope that he is seeing a good gerontologist and takes his synapsilstims regularly.\"\n\nThe guard growled in puzzlement at this\u2014but my words were not for his edification. The man I was looking at in the courtyard stopped suddenly, still. Then slowly turned about. I saw keen blue eyes in a long face. Staring at me in silence. Then he came forward and talked to the guard\u2014though still looking at me.\n\n\"What is the disturbance?\"\n\n\"Nothing, your honor. Just sending this one on his way.\"\n\n\"Let him in. I want to question him.\"\n\nThe pointed gun was raised in salute and I marched through the gate. When we were out of earshot of the gate the tall man turned to face me, looking me up and down with frank curiosity.\n\n\"Follow me,\" he said. \"I want to talk with you in private.\" He did not speak until we were in the keep and inside a room with the door closed behind us.\n\n\"Who are you?\" he asked.\n\n\"You know\u2014I was about to ask you the very same question. Does the League know what you are doing here?\"\n\n\"Of course they do! This is a legitimate...\" He caught himself, then smiled. \"At least that proves you're from offplanet. No one can think that fast here\u2014or knows what you know. Here, sit, then tell me who you are. After that I will judge how much I can tell you of our work.\"\n\n\"Fair enough,\" I said, dropping into the chair and lying my gun on the floor. \"My name is Jim. I was a crewman on a Venian freighter\u2014until I got into difficulties with the captain. He dumped me on this planet. That is all there is to it.\"\n\nHe pulled up a pad and began to make notes. \"Your name is Jim. Your last name is...\" I was silent. He scowled. \"All right, let that go for the moment. What is the captain's name.\"\n\n\"I think that I will save that information for later. After you have told me who you are.\"\n\nHe pushed the pad aside and sat back in his chair. \"I'm not satisfied. Without your identity I can tell you nothing. Where do you come from on Venia? What is the capital city of your planet, the name of the chairman of the global consul?\"\n\n\"It's been a long time, I forgot.\"\n\n\"You are lying. You are no more Venian than I am. Until I know more...\"\n\n\"What exactly do you have to know? I am a citizen of the League, not one of the dismal natives here. I watch tri-D, eat at Macswineys\u2014a branch on every known world, forty-two billion sold\u2014I studied molecular electronics, and have a Black Belt in Judo. Does that satisfy you?\"\n\n\"Perhaps. But you told me that you were dumped on this planet from a Venian freighter, which cannot be true. All unapproved contact with Spiovente is forbidden.\"\n\n\"My contact was unapproved. The ship was smuggling in guns like this one.\"\n\nThat got his attention all right. He grabbed the pad. \"The captain's name is...\"\n\nI shook my head in a silent no. \"You'll have that information only if you arrange to get me off this planet. You can do that because you as much as told me you were here with League approval. So let us do a little trading. You arrange for my ticket\u2014I have plenty of silver groats to pay for it.\" Or I would have, which was the same thing. \"You will also give me some small help in a local matter\u2014then I'll tell you the captain's name.\"\n\nHe didn't like this. He thought hard and wriggled on the hook, but could not get off it.\n\n\"While you are making your mind up,\" I said, \"you might tell me who you are and what you are doing here.\"\n\n\"You must promise not to reveal our identity to the natives. Our presence is well known offplanet, but we can only succeed here if our operation remains covert.\"\n\n\"I promise, I promise. I owe nothing to any of the locals.\"\n\nHe steepled his fingers and leaned back as though beginning a lecture. I had guessed right\u2014as his first words revealed.\n\n\"I am Professor Lustig of the University of Ellenbogen, where I hold the chair of applied socioeconomics. I am head of my department and I must say that I founded the department, since applied socioeconomics is a fairly new discipline, an outgrowth, obviously, of theoretical socioeconomics...\"\n\nI blinked rapidly to keep my eyes from glazing over and forced myself to keep listening. It was teachers like Lustig who made me run away from school.\n\n\"... years of correspondence and labor to attain our fondest ambition. Practical application of our theories. Dealing with the bureaucrats of the League was the most difficult because of the League nonintervention policy. In the end they were convinced that with the proper controls we be permitted to operate a pilot project here on Spiovente. Or as someone said with crude humor, we certainly couldn't make things worse. We keep our operation at the current level of planetary technology so it will be self-sustaining when we leave.\"\n\n\"What exactly are you trying to do?\" I asked.\n\nHe blinked rapidly. \"That should be obvious\u2014that is the only thing I have been talking about.\"\n\n\"You have been telling me theory, professor. Would you mind being specific about what you hope to accomplish.\"\n\n\"If you insist, on layman's terms, we are attempting to do no less than change the very fabric of society itself. We intend to bring this planet, kicking and screaming if necessary, out of the dark ages. After the Breakdown Spiovente sank into a rather repulsive form of feudalism. More warlordism, in fact. Normally a feudalistic society performs a great service during an age of disintegration. It maintains a general framework of government as various localities protect and care for themselves.\"\n\n\"I haven't seen much caring or protecting.\"\n\n\"Correct. Which is why these warlords will have to go.\"\n\n\"I'll help shoot a few.\"\n\n\"Violence is not our way! In addition to being distasteful, it is forbidden to League members. Our aim is to bring into existence government independent of the capos. In order to do that we are encouraging the rise of a professional class. This will bring about increased circulation of money and the end of barter. With increased funds the government will be able to institute taxation to purchase public services. To reinforce this a judiciary will need to be formed. This will encourage communication, centralization, and the growth of common ideas.\"\n\nSounded great\u2014although I wasn't wild about the taxes bit, or the judiciary. Still, anything would be better than the capos.\n\n\"That all sounds fine in theory,\" I said. \"But how do you put it into practice?\"\n\n\"By providing better services at a lower price. Which is why the Black Monks tried to attack us. They are no more religious than my hat\u2014the order is just a front for their monopoly of technology. We are breaking that monopoly and they don't like it.\"\n\n\"Very good. Yours sounds a fine plan and I wish you the best of luck. But I have a few things to do myself before I leave this sinkhole. To help you in your task of breaking the technological monopoly I would like to purchase some of your sleeping gas.\"\n\n\"Impossible. In fact it is impossible for us to aid you in any way. Nor are you leaving here. I've signalled for the guards. You will be held until the next League ship arrives. You know far too much about our operation to be permitted your freedom.\"\nChapter 27\n\nEven as this unacceptable bit of information was sinking into my brain, my body was launched across the desk. He should have remembered the bit about the Black Belt. My thumbs bit deep and he slumped. Even before his head bounced off the desk I had bounced off the floor and dived for the door. And none too soon\u2014as I pushed the locking bolt home I saw that the handle above it was starting to turn.\n\n\"Now Jim, move fast,\" I advised myself, \"before the alarm is spread. But first let me see what this two-faced academic has in his possession that may be of use.\"\n\nThere were files, papers, and books in the desk, nothing that would be of any value to me now. I sprayed it all about me on the floor as the banging started on the door. I didn't have much time. Next the prof. I tore his cloak open and ransacked his pockets. There was even less of interest here\u2014other than a ring of keys. I shoved them into my own pocket; they would have to do for loot. Seizing up the gun I dived for the window just as something heavy hit the door with a shuddering thud. Two stories up and the courtyard below was paved with evil-looking cobblestones. I would break my legs if I jumped. I leaned out and was grateful for the second-rate Spiovente masons. There were large gaps between the stones of the outer wall. The door crashed and splintered as I climbed out of the window, thrust the gun through my belt in the small of my back\u2014and began to climb down.\n\nIt was easy enough. I jumped the last bit, did a shoulder roll, which jammed the gun painfully into my spine, retrieved it, and stumbled around the corner of the building before anyone appeared in the window above. I was free!\n\nOr was I? Instant gloom descended. Free in the middle of the enemy keep with all men's hands turned against me. Some big free.\n\n\"Yes, free!\" I ground my teeth together arrogantly, braced my shoulders, and put a bold swagger into my walk. \"Free as only a Stainless Steel Rat can be free! Just press on, Jim\u2014and see if you can't find some locks to go with those keys in your pocket.\"\n\nI always get the best advice from myself. I marched on through an archway that led into the large courtyard. There were armed men lolling about here and they completely ignored me. That wouldn't last long. As soon as the alarm was raised they would all be after my hide. Eyes straight ahead I walked towards a massive building on the far side. It had a single large gate set into the wall, with a smaller one next to it. As I came closer I saw that both had very modern locks set into them. Very informative. I was most interested in what was locked away here. Now all I had to do was find the right key.\n\nTrying to look as though I belonged here I stopped before the smaller door and flipped through the keys. There must have been twenty of them. But the lock was a Bolger, that was obvious to my trained eye, so I fingered through them, looking for the familiar diamond shape.\n\n\"Hey, you, what you doing there?\"\n\nHe was a big thug, dirty and unshaven and red of eye. He also had a long dagger thrust through his belt, the hilt of which he was tapping with his fingers.\n\n\"Unlocking this door, obviously,\" was my firm response. \"Are you the one they sent to help me? Here, take this.\"\n\nI handed him my gun. This bought me a number of seconds as he looked at the weapon, enough time for me to push one key into the lock. It didn't turn.\n\n\"No one sent me,\" he said, examining the gun, which distracted him nicely for a few seconds more. I couldn't be doing anything wrong if I had given him my only weapon, could I? I could almost see him thinking, slowly, moving his lips as he did. I interrupted the turgid flow of his thoughts.\n\n\"Well, since you are here you can help me...\"\n\nAhh, the next key did the job, turning sweetly. The door opened and I turned about just as sweetly with my fingers pointed to jab. I caught the gun as he slid to the ground.\n\n\"Hey, you, stop!\"\n\nI ignored this rude command since I had not the slightest desire to see who was calling, but slipped through the door instead and slammed it shut behind me. Turned and looked around and felt a sharp pang of despair. There was no hope here. I was in an enormous chamber, badly lit by slits high in the wall. It was a garage for the steam cars. Five of them, lined up in a neat row.\n\nIt would be fine to escape in one of these, really wonderful. I had watched them in operation. First the fire had to be lit, then wood pushed in, steam raised. This usually took at least an hour. At that point, say, I could manage to do all this undisturbed, I had to open the door and clank to freedom at a slow walking pace. No way!\n\nOr was there a way? As my eyes adjusted to the gloom I realized that these weren't the same kind of steam cars I had seen before\u2014with their wooden wheels and iron tires. These had soft tires of some kind! Improved technology? Could it be offplanet technology disguised as antique wrecks?\n\nI hurried over to the closest one and climbed up to the operator's seat. There were the familiar big control levers and wheels\u2014but invisible from the ground was a padded driver's seat and familiar groundcar controls. This was more like it!\n\nSlipping my gun under the seat, I slipped myself into it. A safety belt hung there, wise precaution, but not at the moment. I pushed it aside as I leaned forward to examine the controls. Motor switch, gear selector, speedometer\u2014as well as some unfamiliar dials and controls. A banging on the door convinced me I should make a detailed study later. I reached out and turned on the motor. Nothing happened.\n\nOr rather something totally unexpected happened. The motor didn't start but a girl's voice did, speaking in my ear.\n\n\"Do not attempt to start this vehicle without wearing your seatbelt.\"\n\n\"Seatbelt, right, thank you.\" I clicked it on and turned the switch again.\n\n\"The engine will start only with the gear selector in neutral.\"\n\nThe banging on the door was even louder. I cursed as I pushed the selector, trying to find the right location in the dim light. The door crashed and splintered. There, now the switch again.\n\nThe motor turned over. I pushed the drive into forward. And the voice spoke.\n\n\"Do not attempt to drive with your hand brake on.\"\n\nI was cursing louder now, the small door broke down and crashed to the floor, pistons began to move around me while steam spurted and hissed. Someone shouted and the men in the door started towards me.\n\nThe thing shuddered and lumbered forward.\n\nThis was more like it! Covered in steel plates and fake ironmongery, it must be incredibly heavy. There was a simple way to find out. I floored the accelerator, twisted the wheel\u2014and pointed the hulk straight at the large door.\n\nIt was beautiful. The steam roared and spurted as I accelerated. Hitting the door dead center with a crash that deafened me. But my noble steed never slowed a fraction. Wood screeched and tore and fell away as I plowed through in a cloud of flying timber. I had a quick view of fleeing pedestrians before I had to duck down to prevent myself from being beheaded by a board. It scratched and clumped and fell away. I sat up and smiled with pleasure.\n\nWhat a wonderful sight. Soldiers were fleeing in all directions, dashing for cover. I swung the wheel and spun in a tight circle looking for the way out. A bullet clanged into the steel plating and whined away. There the gate was\u2014dead ahead. I floored the accelerator this time, then found the whistle cord. It screamed and steam spurted and I picked up speed.\n\nAnd none too soon, either. Someone had kept his head and was trying to lift the drawbridge. Two men had plugged the handle into the clumsy winch and were turning it furiously; chains clanked and tightened. I headed for the center of the gate, whistle screeching, bullets beginning to spang on the steel around me. I crouched down and kept the pedal on the floor. I was going to have only one chance.\n\nThe drawbridge was rising, slowly and steadily, cutting off my escape, getting larger and larger before me. It was up ten, twenty, thirty degrees. I was not going to make it.\n\nWe hit with a jar that would have thrown me out if the safety belt hadn't been locked. Thank you, voice. The front wheels rose up onto the drawbridge, higher and higher, until the nose of the car was pointing into the air. If it climbed any higher it would be flipped onto its back.\n\nWhich was a chance that I would just have to take. The gears growled and my transport of delight bucked and chuntered\u2014and I heard a squealing and snapping.\n\nThen the whole thing pitched forward. The chains lifting the drawbridge had torn from their moorings under the massive weight of my car. The nose fell and we hit with a crash that almost stunned me.\n\nBut my foot was still down and the wheels were still turning. The vehicle shot forward\u2014straight for the water. I twisted the steering wheel, straightened it, then tore across the bridge and onto the road. Faster and faster, up the hill and around the bend\u2014then let up on the speed before we overturned on the ruts. I was safe and away.\n\n\"Jim,\" I advised myself, gasping for breath. \"Try not to do that again if you can avoid it.\"\n\nI looked back, but there was no one following me. But there would be, soon, if not on foot then in one of the other fake steam cars. I put my foot back down and kept my mouth clamped shut so it didn't clack and splinter my teeth when we hit the bumps.\n\nThere was a long hill that slowed my pace. Even with the accelerator on the floor we crawled because of the gearing and the weight of the beast. I used the opportunity to check the charge\u2014batteries full! They had better be because I had no way of recharging them once they ran down. Above the clatter and rumble I heard a thin and distant whistle and flashed a quick look over my shoulder. There they were! Two of the machines, hot on my tail.\n\nThere was no way they were going to catch me. Off the road these things would be useless and mired down\u2014and there was only one road leading to Dimonte's keep. I was on it and headed that way and I was going to keep them behind me all the way.\n\nExcept that if I led them there they would know who had pinched their wagon and would come after it with the gas bombs. No good. I looked back and saw that they were gaining\u2014but they soon slowed to my pace when they reached the bottom of the hill. I went over the top and my speed picked up\u2014as did the jarring. I hoped that they had built the thing to withstand this kind of beating. Then the crossroad loomed up ahead, with peasants leaping out of my way, and there was the left turning that would take me to Capo Dimonte. I streamed right through it. I didn't know this road at all so all I could do was go on and keep my fingers crossed.\n\nSomething had to be done\u2014and fairly soon. Even if I stayed ahead of them all day I would run the battery flat and that would be that. Think, Jim, cudgel the old brain cells.\n\nOpportunity presented itself around the next bend. A rough farm track led off through a field and down to a stream. Then, like all good ideas, this one appeared full blown in my forebrain, complete in every detail.\n\nWithout hesitation I turned the wheel and trundled down into the meadow. Going slower and slower as I felt my wheels sink into the soft soil. If I got mired now it was the end. Or at least the end of my mastery of this crate\u2014which I would dearly like to keep for awhile. Carry on, Jim, but carefully.\n\nAt the lowest speed, in the lowest gear, I ground forward until the front wheels were in the stream. They were sinking mushily into the mud as I stopped\u2014then carefully began to back out. Looking over my shoulder, keeping in the ruts I had made on the way down. Reversing out of the field until I was safely back on the road. As I shifted gears I permitted myself a quick glimpse of my work. Perfect! The ruts led straight down to the water and on into it.\n\nOn the road behind me I heard a not-too-distant whistle. I stood on the throttle and accelerated around the bend until I was hidden by the trees. Stopped, killed the engine, slammed on the brakes, and jumped down.\n\nThis was going to be the dangerous part. I had to convince them to follow the tracks. If they didn't believe me, I had little chance of escape. But it was a risk that had to be taken.\n\nAs I ran I pulled off my jacket, staggering as I pulled my arms free and turned it inside out. I draped it over my shoulders, tied the arms in front, then bent to roll up my trouser legs. Not much of a disguise, but it would have to do. Hopefully the drivers had not had a good look at me\u2014if they had seen me at all.\n\nI stood by the spot where I had turned and had just enough time to seize up some dirt and rub it into my face as the first pseudo steam car clanked around the bend.\n\nThey slowed as I stepped into the road and pointed. And shouted.\n\n\"He went that-away!\"\n\nThe driver and the gunmen turned to look at the field and stared at the tracks. The vehicle slowed to a stop.\n\n\"Splashed right into the water and kept on going through the field. Feller a friend of yours?\"\n\nThis was the moment of truth. It stretched taut, longer and longer as the second vehicle came up and slowed to a stop as well. What if they questioned me\u2014even looked closely at me? I wanted to run\u2014but if I did, that would be a giveaway.\n\n\"Follow him!\" someone called out, and the driver twisted his wheel and turned towards the field.\n\nI slipped back into the trees and watched with great interest. It was beautiful. I felt proud of myself; yes, I did. I am not ashamed to admit it. When a painter creates a masterpiece he knows it and does not attempt to diminuate its importance by false modesty.\n\nThis was a masterpiece. The first car rattled down through the field, bobbing and bouncing, and hit the water with an immense splash. It was going so fast that its rear wheels actually reached the stream before it slowed to a stop. And began to slowly sink into the soft mud. It went down to its hubs before it stopped.\n\nThere was much shouting and swearing at that\u2014and best of all someone rooted out a chain and connected the two cars. Wonderful. The second one spun its wheels and churned the field until it too was safely mired. I clapped appreciatively and strolled back to my own car.\n\nI shouldn't have done it, I know. But there are times when one just cannot resist showing off. I sat down, snapped on my belt, started the motor, moved the car carefully forward and back until I had turned about. Then accelerated back down the road.\n\nAnd as I passed the turnoff I pulled down hard on the whistle. It screeched loudly and every head turned, every eye was on me. I waved and smiled. Then the trees were in the way and the beautiful vision vanished from sight.\nChapter 28\n\nIt was a victory ride. I laughed aloud, sang, and blew the whistle with joy. When this first enthusiasm had died down I moved the queen on my mental chessboard and considered what came next. The hissing of steam and clanking of machinery was distracting and I examined the controls until I found the switch that turned the special effects off. The steam was being boiled to order and the sounds were just a recording. I threw the switch and rode on in peace towards Capo Dimonte's keep. It was late afternoon before I reached it\u2014and by that time my plans were complete.\n\nWhen I came around the last bend in the road and turned onto the causeway I had full sound and steam effects going again. I trundled slowly down in clear sight of the guards. They had the partially repaired drawbridge raised long before I reached it, and peered out suspiciously at me as I stopped before the gap.\n\n\"Don't shoot! Me friend!\" I called out. \"Member of your army and a close associate of the Capo Dimonte. Send for him at once for I know he wants to see his new steam cart.\"\n\nHe did indeed. As soon as the drawbridge was lowered he strode across it and looked up at me.\n\n\"Where did you get this?\" he asked.\n\n\"Stole it. Climb aboard and let me show you some interesting things.\"\n\n\"Where is the sleeping gas?\" he asked as he climbed the rungs.\n\n\"I didn't bother with it. With this cart I have developed an even better and more foolproof plan. This is no ordinary steam cart, as I hope you have noticed. It is a new and improved model with some interesting additions that will capture your attention....\"\n\n\"You idiot! What are you talking about?\" He slipped his sword up and down in its scabbard\u2014such a quick temper.\n\n\"I will demonstrate, your caponess, since one action speaks louder than a thousand words. I also suggest that you sit there and strap that belt about you as I have done. This demonstration, I guarantee, will impress you.\"\n\nIf not impressed already, he was at least curious. He strapped in and I backed the length of the causeway to the shore. Going slowly with all attendant wheezing and clanking. I stopped the car and turned to him.\n\n\"What about the speed of this thing? What you are used to?\"\n\n\"Speed? You mean how fast it moves? This is an excellent yoke and goes with greater alacrity than my own.\"\n\n\"You have seen nothing yet, capo. First\u2014notice this.\"\n\nI turned off the sound and steam and he nodded with understanding. \"You have banked its fires and it rests and does not move.\"\n\n\"Quite the opposite. I have simply silenced it so no one can hear its approach. It is raring to go\u2014and go it will. After you answer one question. If this cart belonged to an enemy and it appeared here\u2014would your soldiers have time to raise the drawbridge before it reached them?\"\n\nHe snorted with derision. \"What sort of fool do you take me for with questions like that? Before a cart could crawl its way there the drawbridge could be raised and lowered more than once.\"\n\n\"Really? Then hold on and see what this baby can do.\"\n\nI floored the accelerator and the thing shot forward in almost perfect silence. There was the hum of the motor, the rustle of the tires on the smooth stone. Faster and faster towards the gate, which expanded before us with frightening speed. The guards who were standing there dived aside just in time as we hit the rough boards of the repaired wooden drawbridge with a crash, bounced, and rocked through the gate.\n\nAnd shuddered to a halt inside the keep. The capo sat there with round eyes, gasping, then struggled to get his sword free.\n\n\"Assassin! Your attempt to kill me has failed....\"\n\n\"Capo, listen, it was a demonstration. Of how I am going to get you and your soldiers through the gate of Capo Doccia's keep. Right through the open gate into the courtyard where you can kill, loot, murder, torture, maim, destroy...\"\n\nThis got his attention. The sword slid back into its scabbard and his eyes unfocused as they looked at the wonders I had summoned up for him.\n\n\"Right,\" he said, blinking rapidly and coming back to the present. \"You have an interesting idea here, soldier, and I want to hear more about it. Over a flagon of wine\u2014for that ride was something I have never experienced before.\"\n\n\"I obey. But let me first get this cart hidden and out of sight so it cannot be observed. The attack will only succeed if there is complete surprise.\"\n\n\"In that you are correct. Put it in the barn and I will post guards over it.\"\n\nThe wine he gave me was a good cut above the acid the troops were issued and I sipped it with pleasure. But not too much for I was going to need a clear head if the game were to proceed as planned. I had to find reasons that would make sense to him, to convince him to get cracking with his war plans at once. Because if we didn't move quickly Prof. Lustig would be swarming over us with his gas bombs. I am sure he was most unhappy about my pinching his buggy. And there were not that many keeps in the area where it could be hidden. It was time for action. I slid out a rook along a mental rank and spoke.\n\n\"The keep of the foul Capo Doccia is no more than a five-hour walk from here\u2014is that correct?\"\n\n\"Five hours, four-hour forced march.\"\n\n\"Good. Then consider this. He attacked you while you were away with the greater part of your army. His troops did great injury to the drawbridge and the fabric of the keep itself. Before you venture out to launch an attack you must have the drawbridge repaired, hire more soldiers perhaps. So when you begin your next campaign no advantage can be taken of your absence. Is that correct?\"\n\nHe slurped his wine and glared at me over the rim. \"Yes, damn and blast your head, I suppose it is. Prudence, my officers always consul prudence when I want to behead that creature, rip out his entrails, flay him alive...\"\n\n\"And you shall, yes indeed, fine things lurk in your future. And unlike your other advisers I do not consul caution. I think that fiend in human guise should be attacked\u2014and at once!\"\n\nThis appealed to him all right and I could see that I had his undivided attention as I explained my plan.\n\n\"Leave the keep here just as it is\u2014and take all your men. If everything goes as planned you will have troops back here long before anyone knows we have gone. We march at midnight, silent as vengeful spirits, to be in positions of concealment at dawn, as close to Capo Doccia's keep as is possible. I know just the spot. When the drawbridge is opened at dawn I shall use your new machine to see that it stays open. Your troops attack, take the keep by surprise\u2014and the day is won. As soon as you have captured the keep you can send a strong force back here.\"\n\n\"It could happen that way. But how do you plan to stop them closing the drawbridge?\"\n\nAs I told him the wicked grin spread across his face and he whooped with joy.\n\n\"Do it!\" he shouted, \"and I shall make you rich for life. With Doccia's groats of course, after I loot his treasury.\"\n\n\"You are kindness itself to your humble servant. May I then suggest that all in the keep be persuaded to rest, for it will be a long night?\"\n\n\"Yes, that will be done. The orders will be issued.\"\n\nAfter that I slipped away. Other than my natural concern for the tired bodies of my comrades I had other reasons for wishing all of them in their beds. I had a few important tasks to perform before I could get any rest myself.\n\n\"Tools,\" I told Dreng when I had rousted him out. \"Files, hammers, anything like that. Where would I find them here?\"\n\nHe shoved a finger deep into his matted hair and scratched hard in thought. I resisted the urge to reach out and shake him and waited instead until the slow processes had crawled to a finish. Perhaps the fingernail rasping on skull helped his sluggish synapses to function. It would be best not to interfere with an established practice. Eventually he spoke.\n\n\"I don't have any tools.\"\n\n\"I know, dear boy.\" I could hear my teeth grate together and forced myself to keep control. \"You don't have tools, but someone here must. Who would that be?\"\n\n\"Blacksmith,\" he said proudly. \"The blacksmith always has tools.\"\n\n\"Good lad. Now, would you kindly lead the way to this blacksmith?\"\n\nThe individual in question was sooty and hairy and in a foul mood, sour wine strong on his breath.\n\n\"Hiss off, runt. No one touches Grundge's tools, no one.\"\n\nRunt indeed! I did not have to force the snarl and growl. \"Listen you filthy piece of flab\u2014those are the capo's tools, not your tools. And the capo sent me for them. Now either I take them now or my knave goes to bring the capo here. Shall I do that?\"\n\nHe closed his fists and growled, then hesitated. Like everyone else, he had seen me drive the capo into the keep and knew I was his confidant. He couldn't take any chances on crossing his boss. He began to bob up and down bowing and scraping.\n\n\"Certainly, master. Grundge knows his place. Tools, sure, take tools. Over here, whatever you want.\"\n\nI pushed past his sweaty form to the dismal display of primitive devices. Pathetic! I kicked through the pile until I found a file, hammer, and clumsy metal snips that would have to do. I pushed them towards Dreng.\n\n\"Take these. And you, Grundge, can crawl over in the morning to the barn and get them back.\"\n\nDreng followed after me, then gaped up in awe at the steam cart.\n\n\"Close your mouth before you catch some flies,\" I told him, seizing the tools. \"What I'll need next is a stout bag or sack of some kind, about this big. Scout one out and bring it to me here. Then get to bed because you will not be getting much sleep tonight.\"\n\nWith proper tools I could have done the job in no time at all. But I had a feeling that tolerances wouldn't be that exact here and as long as I was close to the model it would be all right. The metal siding next to the driver's seat was roughly the thickness of the wooden key. I cut and filed and hacked a portion of it into shape. It would have to do.\n\nDreng\u2014and hopefully everyone else\u2014was now asleep and I could begin Operation Great-groat. With the key in my pocket, the bag tucked into my waist, silent as a shadow\u2014I hoped\u2014I made way into the depths of the keep. I had memorized The Bishop's map and his spirit must have been watching after me for I found the treasury without being seen. I slipped the key into the lock, crossed the fingers of my free hand, and turned.\n\nWith a metallic screech it clanked open. My heart did its usual pounding-in-chest routine while I stood rooted there. The noise must have been heard.\n\nBut it hadn't been. The door creaked slightly when I opened it and then I was inside the vault and easing it shut behind me.\n\nIt was beautiful. High, barred windows let in enough light so I could see the big chests against the far wall. I had done my fiscal research well, getting a look at a braggard's store of groats, so I knew just what to look for.\n\nThe first chest was stuffed with brass groats, my fingers could distinguish their thick forms in the darkness. In logical progression I found silver groats in the next chest and I shoveled my bag half full of them. As I did this I saw a smaller chest tucked in behind this one. I smiled into the darkness as I groped and felt the angled shapes within. Golden groats\u2014and lots of them. This was going to be a very successful heist after all. I only stopped shoveling when the bag became too heavy. Beware of greed. With this bit of advice to myself I threw it over my shoulder and let myself out just the way I had come in.\n\nThere were guards in the courtyard but they never saw me as I slipped into the barn. I turned on the instrument lights of the car, which provided more than enough illumination for me to see by. I opened the storage locker below and put the money bag into place. As I closed it I was overwhelmed by a great sensation of relief. In my mind's eye I slid out another rook to join the first. The chess game was going as planned and mate was clearly visible ahead.\n\n\"Now, Jim,\" I advised. \"Get your head down and get some sleep. Tomorrow is going to be an exceedingly busy day.\"\nChapter 29\n\nI muttered and slapped and rolled over but the irritation persisted. Eventually I blinked my grimy eyes open and growled up at Dreng, who was shaking my shoulder. He stepped away in fear.\n\n\"Do not beat me, master\u2014I am only doing as you instructed. It is time to waken, for the troops are assembling now in the courtyard.\"\n\nI growled something incoherent and this turned into a cough. When I did this a cup appeared before me and I drank deep of the cool water, then dropped back onto the bunk. Not for the first time did I approve of the knave system. But I was beat, bushed, fatigued. Even the stamina of youth can be sapped by adversity. I shook my head rapidly, then sat up on my elbows, angry at myself for the brief moment of self-pity.\n\n\"Go, good Dreng,\" I ordered, \"and find me food to nourish my hungry cells. And some drink as well since alcohol is the only stimulant these premises seem to have.\"\n\nI splashed cold water over my head in the courtyard, gasping and spluttering. As I wiped my face dry I saw in the clear starlight the ranks of soldiers being drawn up as the ammunition was being issued. The great adventure was about to begin. Dreng was waiting when I returned. I sat on my bunk and ate a pretty repellent breakfast of fried dinglebeans washed down by the destructive wine. I talked between gruesome mouthfuls because this was the last private moment I would have with my knave.\n\n\"Dreng, your military career is about to end.\"\n\n\"Don't kill me, master!\"\n\n\"Military career, idiot\u2014not your life. Tonight is your last night of service and in the morn you will be off home with your pay. Where does your old dad hide his money?\"\n\n\"We are too poor to have any groats.\"\n\n\"I am sure of that. But if he had any\u2014where would he put it?\"\n\nThis was a complicated thought and he puzzled over it while I chewed and swallowed. He finally spoke.\n\n\"Bury it under the hearth! I remember he did that once. Everyone buries their money under the fire; that way it can't be found.\"\n\n\"Great. That way it certainly can be found. You have got to do better than that with your fortune.\"\n\n\"Dreng has no fortune.\"\n\n\"Dreng will have one before the sun rises. I'm paying you off. Go home and find two trees near your home. Stretch a rope between them. Then dig a hole exactly halfway along the rope. Bury the money there\u2014where you can find it when you need it. And only take out a few coins at a time. Do you have that?\"\n\nHe nodded enthusiastically. \"Two trees, halfway. I never heard of anything like that before!\"\n\n\"An earth-shaking concept, I know,\" I sighed. There certainly was a lot that he hadn't heard about. \"Let's go. I want you to be stoker on my chariot of fire.\"\n\nI staggered to my feet and led the way to the barn. Now that the troops were lined up and ready the officers were finally appearing, scratching and yawning, with the capo at their head. I didn't have much time. Dreng climbed into the car behind me and squealed with fear when I turned on the instrument lights.\n\n\"Demonic illumination! Spirit lights! Sure sign of death!\"\n\nHe clutched at his chest and looked ready to expire until I gave him a good shaking. \"Batteries!\" I shouted. \"The gift of science denied to this dumb world. Now, stop quaking and open your bag.\"\n\nAll thoughts of death vanished and his eyes stuck out like boiled eggs as I shoveled silver and gold groats into his leather bag. This was a fortune that would change his entire life for the better, so at least I was accomplishing one good deed by my presence here.\n\n\"What are you doing up there?\"\n\nIt was Capo Dimonte, glaring up suspiciously from below.\n\n\"Just stoking the engines, excellency.\"\n\n\"Kick that knave out of the way, I'm coming up.\"\n\nI waved the goggle-eyed Dreng to the back of the car as the capo climbed aboard.\n\n\"You favor me with your presence, capo.\"\n\n\"Damned right. I ride while the troops walk. Now, move this thing out.\"\n\nThe scouts had already gone on ahead when we rumbled across the drawbridge and onto the causeway. The main body of troops came behind us, a certain eagerness in their step despite the hour. All of them had lost valuables and possessions\u2014even knaves\u2014during the raid. All were eager for revenge and theft.\n\n\"The Capo Doccia must be taken alive,\" Capo Dimonte suddenly said. I started to answer until I realized that he was talking only to himself. \"Tied and left helpless, brought back to the keep. First a little flaying, just enough skin to make a hatband. Then maybe blinding. No\u2014not right away\u2014he must see what is happening to him....\"\n\nThere was more like this, but I tuned it out. I had thoughts of my own\u2014and even some regrets. When The Bishop had been killed, my anger had overwhelmed all of the clear thinking that I should have been doing. All excuses vanished now\u2014I was embarking on this expedition solely for revenge. And I couldn't claim to be doing it in The Bishop's memory because he would have been seriously opposed to violent action of this kind. But it was too late now to turn back. The campaign had been launched and we were well on our way.\n\n\"Stop this thing!\" the capo ordered suddenly, and I hit the brakes.\n\nThere was a dark knot of men waiting on the road ahead\u2014our advanced scouts. The capo climbed to the ground and I leaned out to see what was happening. They were leading a man who had his arms bound behind him.\n\n\"What happened?\" the capo asked.\n\n\"Found him watching the road, excellency. Caught him before he could get away.\"\n\n\"Who is he?\"\n\n\"Soldier, name of Palec. I know him, served with him in the southern campaign.\"\n\nThe capo walked up to the prisoner and shoved his face close to the other's and snarled. \"I have you, Palec. Tied and bound.\"\n\n\"Aye.\"\n\n\"Are you the Capo Doccia's man?\"\n\n\"Aye, I serve under him. I took his groat.\"\n\n\"You've spent that on wine a long time ago. Will you serve with me and take my groat?\"\n\n\"Aye.\"\n\n\"Release him. Barkus\u2014a silver groat for this man.\"\n\nThese mercenaries fought well, but they also changed sides easily enough. Why not? They had no stakes in any of the capos' quarrels. Once Palec had accepted the coin they gave him his weapons back.\n\n\"Speak, Palec,\" the capo ordered. \"You are my loyal servant now, who has taken my groat. But you used to serve with Capo Doccia. Tell me what he plans.\"\n\n\"Aye. No secret there. He knows that your army is intact and you will be coming after him as soon as you can. Some of us have been sent out to watch the roads, but he doesn't think that you will march for some time yet. He stays drunk, that's a sign he's not expecting a fight.\"\n\n\"I'll put a sword through his belly, let out the wine and guts!\" The capo cut off his dreaming with an effort and forced himself back to the present. \"What about his troops? Will they fight?\"\n\n\"Aye, they've just been paid. But they have little love for him and will change sides as soon as the battle is lost.\"\n\n\"Better and better. Fall in with the ranks, scouts out ahead, start this machine.\"\n\nThe last was directed at me as he climbed back to his seat. I kicked it into gear and the advance continued again. There were no more interruptions and we proceeded, with hourly rest breaks, towards the enemy keep. It was well before dawn when we came to the scouts waiting on the road. This was the spot I had picked. The keep of Capo Doccia was around the next bend.\n\n\"I will post your lookout now,\" the capo said.\n\n\"Agreed. My knave here will show them the exact spot where they are to stay hidden, in sight of the gate.\" I waited until he was out of earshot before I whispered my instructions to Dreng.\n\n\"Take your bag and everything you possess with you\u2014because you are not coming back.\"\n\n\"I do not understand, master....\"\n\n\"You will if you shut up and listen instead of talking. Lead the soldiers to the bushes where we hid, when we were getting ready to rescue The Bishop. You do remember the place?\"\n\n\"It is past the burnt tree over the hedge and...\"\n\n\"Great, great\u2014but I don't need the description. Take the soldiers as I said, show them where to hide, then lie close beside them. Soon after dawn things are going to get very, very busy. At that time you will do nothing, understand that\u2014don't speak, just nod.\"\n\nHe did. \"Fine. You just remain there when everyone rushes off. As soon as they are gone and no one is looking at you\u2014slip away. Back into the woods and get to your home and lay low until the excitement is over. Then count your money and live happily ever after.\"\n\n\"Then\u2014I will no longer be your knave?\"\n\n\"Right. Discharged from the army with honor.\"\n\nHe dropped to his knees and seized my hand, but before he could say anything I touched my finger to his lips.\n\n\"You were a good knave. Now be a good civilian. Move!\"\n\nI watched him leave until he was swallowed up in the darkness. Dumb\u2014but loyal. And the only friend that I had on this rundown planet. The only one that I wanted! Now that The Bishop...\n\nThis morbid turn of thought was happily interrupted by the capo, who clambered back to his seat. He was followed by armed soldiers until the upperworks of the car were packed solid with them. The capo squinted up at the sky.\n\n\"There is the first light. It will be dawn soon. Then it will begin.\"\n\nAfter that we could only wait. The tension so thick in the air that it was hard to breathe. Blurred faces began to emerge from the darkness, all of them set in the same grim expression.\n\nI concentrated on what was happening around the bend, remembering the way it had been when Dreng and I had lain out there. Watching and waiting. The locked gate of the keep, the drawbridge up, all of it growing clearer as the sun rose. Smoke from cooking fires drifting up from behind the thick walls. Then the stirring of the soldiery, changing of the guards. At last the gate unlocked, the drawbridge lowered. Then what? Would they keep to the same routine? If they did not our force would soon be discovered....\n\n\"The signal!\" the capo said as he crashed his elbow hard into my ribs.\n\nHe didn't have to. I had seen the soldier wave the instant that he had appeared. My foot was already jammed down on the accelerator and we were picking up speed. Around the bend in the road, bouncing and swaying on the ruts, then straight ahead towards the entrance to the keep.\n\nThe guards looked up and gaped as we shot towards them. The slaves pulling the cart stared too, frozen and unmoving.\n\nThen the shouting started. The drawbridge creaked as they tried to raise it, but the cart and slaves were still on it. There were kicks and screamed orders and every second of wasted time brought us that much closer. They finally started to drag the cart back through the gate\u2014but it was too late.\n\nWe were upon them. The front wheels hit the drawbridge and we bounced into the air, coming down with a splintering crash. I stood on the brakes as we plowed into the cart. Slaves and guards were diving into the moat to escape destruction as we skidded, with locked wheels, right into the mouth of the gate.\n\n\"For Capo Dimonte, for groats, and for God!\" The capo shouted as he leapt to the attack.\n\nThe others leapt with him, walking over my back as I crouched down, jumping onto the drawbridge then through the gate.\n\nThere was screaming and shouting, the banging of guns. From behind me a growing roar of voices from the rest of the attacking army. I could see that the capo and his men were fighting inside the gate and had captured the drawbridge mechanism from the soldiers who were trying to raise it. Raising it had of course been impossible because of the great weight of the car resting on it. That had been the beauty and simplicity of my plan. Once I had arrived the drawbridge had to stay down. Only now did I trundle forward so that the rest of the troops had a clear way to the gate.\n\nThe battle for the keep of Capo Doccia was joined.\nChapter 30\n\nThis was a surprise attack that really had been a surprise. Our invading forces were pouring across the drawbridge and into the keep even as Capo Doccia's soldiers were emerging from their quarters. The guards on the wall fought fiercely, but they were outnumbered.\n\nTo add to the confusion I turned on the steamer sound effects and hung onto the whistle as I charged at the defenders who were trying to group up ahead. A few shots were fired at me, but most of the soldiers dived aside and ran. I screeched about and saw that the battle was going very well indeed.\n\nThe defenders on the walls were raising their hands in surrender. Being outnumbered from the start, and having little reason to fight for the capo as we had been told, they were eager to save their lives. Near the inner gate a group of officers were showing more spirit and a fierce battle was going on there. But one by one they were cut down or clubbed into submission. Two of them fled for the building but found the heavy door slammed in their faces.\n\n\"Bring torches!\" the Capo Dimonte shouted. \"We'll smoke the buggers out!\"\n\nThe battle had ended as swiftly as it had begun. The gate, walls and courtyard were in our hands. Huddled corpses showed the ferocity of the brief engagement. Slaves shivered in fear against the walls while the soldiers who had surrendered were being marched off. Only the central building remained in the hands of the defenders. Capo Dimonte knew exactly what to do about this. He waved a smoking torch over his head and called out loudly.\n\n\"All right, Doccia, you fat-bellied toad, this is your end. Come out and fight like a man you worm, or I'll burn you out. And burn alive every man, woman, child, dog, rat, pigeon who stays in there with you. Come out and fight, you ugly piece of vermin\u2014or remain and be cooked like a roast!\"\n\nA gun fired from inside and a bullet spanged from the cobbles at the capo's feet. He waved his red-drenched sword and a blast of gunfire roared out as our troops fired en masse. Bullets zinged from the stonework, thudded into the sealed door, and whistled in through the windows. When the firing stopped, shrill screaming could be heard from inside the building.\n\n\"One warning only!\" Capo Dimonte called out. \"I do not war on women or on good soldiers who surrender. Lay down your arms and you will go free. Resist and you will be burned alive. There is only one I want\u2014that pig, Doccia. Hear that, Doccia, you lout, swine, worm...\"\n\nAnd more, once he warmed to the subject. The torch crackled and smoked and there was the sound of muffled shouting and scuffling from inside the building.\n\nThen the door burst open and Capo Doccia came rolling down the steps end over end. He was barefooted, half-dressed\u2014but he was holding his sword.\n\nAt the sight of his enemy Capo Dimonte lost whatever little remaining cool he had left. He howled with anger and rushed forward. Doccia climbed to his feet, blood on his face, and raised his sword in defense.\n\nIt was a sight to watch\u2014and everyone did. There was an undeclared truce as the two leaders battled. The soldiers lowered their weapons and faces appeared at all of the windows above them. I climbed out of my seat and stood on the front of the car, where I had a perfect view of the combatants.\n\nThey were well-matched, both in anger and ability. Dimonte's sword crashed down on Doccia's raised blade. He did a neat parry, then thrust\u2014but Dimonte had moved back. After that it was steel on steel, punctuated by grunted curses.\n\nBack and forth across the cobbles they went, slashing away as if their lives depended on it. Which, of course, they did. It was pretty primitive saber work, slash and parry, but it certainly was energetic. A cry went up as Dimonte drew first blood\u2014a cut on Doccia's side that quickly stained his shirt.\n\nThis was the beginning of the end. Dimonte was stronger and angrier, high on victory. If Doccia had been drinking as much as we had been told, he was also fighting a hangover as well as his enemy. Dimonte began pressing harder and harder, slashing remorselessly, pushing the other capo relentlessly across the courtyard. Until his back was to the wall of the building and he could retreat no more. Dimonte beat down the other's guard, hammered him on the jaw with the hilt of his sword\u2014then disarmed Capo Doccia with a savage twist of his blade.\n\nAll of his plans for sadistic torture were washed away in the passion of his anger. He drew the blade back\u2014then slashed out.\n\nIt was not an attractive sight as the sharp steel tore across Doccia's throat. It sickened me and I turned away. Just as the shadow darkened the sun.\n\nOne person looked up, then another\u2014and there was a gasp. I looked too. Only unlike the rest of them I knew exactly what I was looking at.\n\nThe immense shining form of a D-class spacer that was equipped with atmospheric G-lift. Tonnes of ship drifting light as a feather over the courtyard. Coming to an effortless stop. Hanging there over our heads in silent menace.\n\nI turned and dived for the controls. There was no time to escape, no way to escape. I was scratching at the storage compartment as the first silvery spheres fell free of the ship. I gave them one horrified glance\u2014then took a deep breath and held it as I pulled the compartment door open and plunged my arm inside. Grabbing up the leather bag as I sat back onto the driver's seat.\n\nAll around me the spheres were hitting and bursting, releasing their loads of gas. I dropped the bag onto my lap as the first soldiers crumpled and fell. My fingers fumbled at the seat belt, lengthening it, as Capo Dimonte tottered then fell forward onto his dead enemy's body.\n\nThere was a stinging in my nostrils as I snapped the belt buckle over the bag, sealing it against me. And that was all that I could possibly do.\n\nMy lungs were beginning to hurt as I took a last, long look around the courtyard. I had the strong feeling that it would also be my last sight of the fair world of Spiovente.\n\n\"Good riddance!\" I shouted at the now silent forms, blasting the breath from my lungs. Then breathed in....\n\nI was conscious, I knew that. I could feel something soft under my back and there was a light burning down on my closed eyelids. I was afraid to open them\u2014remembering the blasting headache that had accompanied the last gassing. With this thought I cringed and moved my head.\n\nAnd felt nothing. Emboldened by this tiny experiment, I let one eye open a crack. Still nothing. I blinked in the strong light but there was no pain, no pain at all.\n\n\"A different gas, thank you kindly,\" I said to no one in particular as I opened my eyes wide.\n\nA small room, curved metal walls, a narrow bunk under me. Even if my last sight had not been of the hovering spacer, I should have been able to figure this one out. They had taken me aboard. But where were all my groats? I looked around rapidly, but they were certainly not in sight. The rapid movements of my head had brought on an attack of dizziness so that I fell back onto the bunk and groaned in loud self-pity.\n\n\"Drink this. It will eliminate the symptoms of the gas.\"\n\nI snapped my eyes open again and looked at the big man who was just closing the door behind him. He was in a uniform of some kind, with plenty of gold buttons and stripes, the sort of thing much favored by the military. He was holding out a plastic beaker which I seized gingerly and sniffed.\n\n\"We had plenty of time to poison or kill you while you were unconscious,\" he said. A sound argument. I drained the bitter liquid and instantly felt better.\n\n\"You have stolen my money,\" I said just as he was beginning to speak.\n\n\"Your money is safe\u2014\"\n\n\"It will be safe only when it is in my hands. As it was when you found me, strapped to my body. Whoever took it is a thief.\"\n\n\"Don't talk to me of thievery!\" he snapped. \"You probably stole it yourself.\"\n\n\"Prove it! I say I worked hard for that money and I don't intend to have it stolen for the space-war widows pension scheme....\"\n\n\"That is enough. I did not come here to talk about your miserable groats. They will be placed on deposit in the galactic bank....\"\n\n\"At what rate of exchange? And what kind of interest will it earn?\"\n\nHe was coldly angry now. \"That's enough. You are in deep trouble\u2014and you have a lot of explaining to do. Professor Lustig tells me that your name is Jim. What is your entire name and where do you come from?\"\n\n\"My name is Jim Nixon and I am from Venia.\"\n\n\"We will get nowhere if you persist in lying. Your name is James diGriz and you are an escaped convict from Bit O' Heaven.\"\n\nWell, as you can imagine, I did some rapid blinking at this information. Whoever this lad was he had one hell of an intelligence network. I could see that I was no longer playing the amateur team of the professors. They had called in the pros. And he had thrown me this curve ball to catch me off-balance, get me rattled, get me to talk freely. Except I did not work that way. I shifted mental gears, sat up in the bed so I could see him eye to eye, and spoke calmly.\n\n\"We have not been introduced.\"\n\nThe anger was gone now and he was as calm as I was. He turned and pressed a button on the wall that unfolded a metal chair. He sat down on it and crossed his legs.\n\n\"Captain Varod of the League Navy. Specializing in planetary mop-up details. Are you ready to answer questions?\"\n\n\"Yes\u2014if you will trade me one for one. Where are we?\"\n\n\"About thirteen lightyears out of Spiovente, you'll be happy to hear.\"\n\n\"I am.\"\n\n\"My turn. How did you get to that planet?\"\n\n\"Aboard a Venian freighter that was smuggling weapons to the now deceased Capo Doccia.\"\n\nThat got his attention all right. He leaned forward eagerly as he spoke. \"Who was the captain of the freighter?\"\n\n\"You are out of turn. What are you going to do with me?\"\n\n\"You are an escaped prisoner and will be returned to Bit O' Heaven to serve out your prison sentence.\"\n\n\"Really?\" I smiled insincerely. \"Now I will be happy to answer your question\u2014except I have completely forgotten the captain's name. Would you care to torture me?\"\n\n\"Don't play games, Jim. You are in deep trouble. Cooperate and I will do what I can for you.\"\n\n\"Good. I remember the name and you put me down on a neutral planet and we call it quits.\"\n\n\"That is impossible. Records are kept and I am an officer of the law. I must return you to Bit O' Heaven.\"\n\n\"Thanks. I just got terminal amnesia. Before you leave would you tell me what is going to happen to Spiovente?\"\n\nHe sat back in the chair with no intention at all of leaving.\n\n\"The first thing that will happen will be the termination of Lustig's disastrous intervention. We were forced into that by the Intergalactic Applied Socioeconomics Association. They managed to raise sufficient funds to put into effect some of their theories. A number of planets financed them and it was easier to let them make idiots of themselves than to try and stop them.\"\n\n\"And they have done that now?\"\n\n\"Completely. They have all been shipped out and were very happy to go. Having political and economic theories is one thing. But applying them to harsh reality can be a traumatic experience. This has been done in the past\u2014and always with disastrous results. We know none of the details now, they are lost in the mists of time, but there was an insane doctrine called Monetarism that is reputed to have destroyed whole cultures, entire planets. Now another experiment has gone astray, so the specialists will move in as they should have done in the first place.\"\n\n\"Invasion?\"\n\n\"You have been watching too much tri-D. War is forbidden and you should know better than to suggest that. We have people who will work within the existing society of Spiovente. Probably with this Capo Dimonte, since he has just doubled his domain. He will be aided and encouraged to grow in power, to annex more and more territory.\"\n\n\"And kill more and more people!\"\n\n\"No, we will see to that. Very soon he will not be able to rule without aid and our bureaucrats are waiting to help him. Centralized government...\"\n\n\"The growth of the judiciary, taxes, I know the drill. You sound just like Lustig.\"\n\n\"Not quite. Our techniques are proven\u2014and they work. Within one generation, two at the most, Spiovente will be welcomed into the family of civilized planets.\"\n\n\"Congratulations. Now, please leave so I can sit and brood about my future incarceration.\"\n\n\"And you still won't tell me the name of the gunrunner? He could continue in his smuggling operations\u2014and you would be responsible for more deaths.\"\n\nI would be too. Was I responsible for the dead in the courtyard of the keep as well? The attack had been my idea. But Dimonte would have attacked in any case and there could have been even more dead. The acceptance of responsibility was not done easily. Captain Varod must have been reading my mind.\n\n\"Do you have a sense of responsibility?\" he asked.\n\nGood question. He was a shrewd old boy.\n\n\"Yes, I do. I believe in life and the sanctity of life and I do not believe in killing. Each of us has only one go at life and I don't want to be responsible for cutting short anyone else's. I think I have made some mistakes and I hope I have learned by them. The name of the gunrunner is Captain Ga...\"\n\n\"Garth,\" he said. \"We know him and have been watching him. He has made his last voyage.\"\n\nMy thoughts spun rapidly. \"Then why ask me if you knew all along?\"\n\n\"For your sake, Jim, nobody else's. I told you that our job was rehabilitation. You have made an important decision and I believe that you will be a better individual for it. Good luck in the future.\" He stood to leave.\n\n\"Thanks a lot. I'll remember your words when I am cracking boulders on the rock pile.\"\n\nHe stood in the open door and smiled back at me. \"I am in the justice business on a very large scale. And, in truth, I don't believe in prisons and incarceration for failed bank robbery. You are destined for better things than that. Therefore I am having you returned to prison. You will be transferred to another ship, on another planet, where you will be locked away until it arrives.\"\n\nHe went out, then turned back for just an instant. \"Taking into consideration what you have told me, I am forgetting that you still have a lockpick in the sole of your shoe.\"\n\nThen he was gone for good. I stared at the closed door and suddenly burst out laughing. It was going to be a good universe after all, filled with good things to be appropriated in a manner only possible to one who knew his trade. And I knew mine!\n\n\"Thank you, Bishop, thanks for everything. You have done it, guided me and taught me. Because of you\u2014a Stainless Steel Rat is born!\"\nThe Stainless Steel Rat Gets Drafted\nThis book is for \nRog Peyton \nand all the Brum gang.\nChapter 1\n\nI am too young to die. Just eighteen years old\u2014and now I'm as good as dead. My grip is weakening, my fingers slipping, and the elevator shaft below me is a kilometer deep. I can't hold on any longer. I'm going to fall...\n\nNormally I am not prone to panic\u2014but I was panicking now. Shaking from head to toe with fatigue, knowing that there was just no way out of this one.\n\nI was in trouble, mortal trouble, and I had only myself to blame this time. All the good advice I had given myself down through the years, the even better counsel The Bishop had given me, all forgotten. All wiped away by sudden impulse.\n\nPerhaps I deserved to die. Maybe a Stainless Steel Rat had been born\u2014but a very rusty one was about to snuff it right now. The metal door frame was greasy and I had to hold on hard with my aching fingers. My toes barely gripped the narrow ledge\u2014while my unsupported heels hung over the black drop below. Now my arches began to ache with the effort of standing on tiptoe\u2014which was nothing compared to the fire in my throbbing forearms.\n\nIt had seemed such a logical, simple, good, intelligent plan at the time.\n\nI now knew it to be irrational, complex, bad and moronic.\n\n\"You are an idiot, Jimmy diGriz,\" I muttered through my tightly shut teeth, realizing only then that they were clamped into my lower lip and drawing blood. I unclamped and spat\u2014and my right hand slipped. The great spasm of fear that swept over me rode down the fatigue and I grabbed a new hold with an explosion of desperate energy.\n\nWhich faded away as quickly as it had come, leaving me in the same situation. Tireder if anything. There was no getting out of this one. I was stuck here until I could no longer hold on, until my grip loosened and I fell. Might as well let go now and get it over with...\n\n\"No, Jim, no surrender.\"\n\nThrough the thudding of blood in my ears my voice seemed to come from a great distance, to be deeper in register than my own, as though The Bishop himself were speaking. The thought was his, the words might very well be his. I held on, though I didn't really know why. And the distant whine was disturbing.\n\nWhine? The elevator shaft was black as the grave and just as silent. Was the maglevlift moving again? With muscle-tight slowness I bent my head and looked down the shaft. Nothing.\n\nSomething. A tiny glimmer of light.\n\nThe elevator was coming up the shaft.\n\nBut so what? There were two hundred and thirty-three floors in this government building. What were the odds that it would stop at the floor below me so I could step neatly back onto its top? Astronomical I was sure, and I was in no mood to work them out. Or perhaps it would come up to this floor and scrape me off like a bug as it went by? Another nice thought. I watched the light surge upward toward me, my eyes opening wider and wider to match the growing glow. The increasing whine of the centering wheels, rush of air exploding at me, this was the end...\n\nThe end of its upward motion. The car stopped just below me, so close that I could hear the door swoosh open and the voices of the two guards inside.\n\n\"I'll cover you. Keep your safety off when you search the hall.\"\n\n\"You'll cover me, thanks! I didn't hear myself volunteer.\"\n\n\"You didn't\u2014I did. My two stripes to your one mean you take a look.\"\n\nOne-stripe muttered complaints as he moved out as slowly as he could. As his shadow occulted the light from the open door I stepped down onto the car with my left foot, as gingerly as I could. Hoping that any movement to the car caused by my climbing onto it would be masked by his exiting.\n\nNot that it was easy to do. My thigh muscle spasmed with cramp and my fingers were locked into place. I stepped slowly back with my vibrating right foot until I was standing on top of the elevator. My cramped fingers still gripped the frame: I felt very much the fool.\n\n\"Hall is empty,\" a distant voice called out.\n\n\"Take a reading from the proximity recorder.\"\n\nThere were muttered grumbles and clattering from outside as I wrenched my right hand free of the greasy metal, reached over with it to grapple with my still recalcitrant left hand.\n\n\"Got a reading for myself. Other than that the last movement in the corridor was at eighteen hundred. People going home.\"\n\n\"Then we do have a mystery,\" two-stripes said. \"Come on back. We had a readout that showed this car going up to this floor. We called it back from this floor. Now you tell me that no one got out. A mystery.\"\n\n\"That's no mystery, that's just a malfunction. A glitch in the computer. The thing is giving itself instructions when no one else will.\"\n\n\"Much as I hate to agree\u2014I agree. Let's go back and finish the card game.\"\n\nOne-stripe returned, the elevator door closed, I sat down as quietly as I could, and we all dropped back down the shaft together. The guards got out at the prison floor and I just sat there in creaking silence as I kneaded the knots out of my muscles with trembling fingers. When they were roughly under control again I opened the hatch that I was sitting on, dropped down into the car and looked out slowly and carefully. The card players were out of sight in the guardroom, where they belonged. With infinite caution I retraced the route I had taken during my abortive escape. Slinking guiltily along the walls\u2014if I had a tail it would have been between my legs\u2014making a fumbled hash of opening the locked corridor doors with my lockpick.\n\nFinally reaching my own cell, unlocking and relocking it, slipping the lockpick back into my shoe sole\u2014dropping onto my bed with a sigh that must have been heard around the world. I did not dare speak out loud in the sleeping silence of the cell block, but I did shout the words inside my head.\n\n\"Jim, you are the dumbest most moronic idiot who ever came down the pike. Don't, and I repeat, don't ever do anything like that again.\"\n\nI won't, I promised in grim silence. That message had now been well drilled into my medulla oblongata. The truth was inescapable. I had done everything wrong in my eagerness to get out of prison. Now I would see if I could get it right.\n\nI had been in too much of a rush. There should never have been any hurry. After he had arrested me, Captain Varod, strongman of the League Navy, had admitted that he knew all about the lockpick that I had hidden. He did not like prisons, he had told me that. Although he was a firm believer in law and order he did not believe I should be incarcerated on my home planet, Bit O\" Heaven, for all of the troubles that I had caused there. Neither, for that matter, did I. Since he knew I had the lockpick I should have bided my time. Waited to make my escape during the transfer out of this place.\n\nDuring the transfer. It had never been my intention of doing anything but serve my time here in this heavily guarded and technologically protected prison in the middle of the League building in the center of the League base on this planet called Steren-Gwandra\u2014about which I knew absolutely nothing other than its name. I had been enjoying the rest, and the meals, a real pleasure after the rigors of war on Spiovente and the disgusting slop that passed for food there. I should have kept on enjoying, building my strength in preparation for my imminent freedom. So why had I tried to crack out of here?\n\nBecause of her, a woman, a female creature briefly seen and instantly recognized. One glimpse and all reason had fled, emotion had ruled and I had attempted my disastrous escape. More fool I. I grimaced at the memory, recalling all too clearly how this idiot adventure had begun.\n\nIt had been during our afternoon exercise period, that wildly exciting occasion when the prisoners were let out of their cells and permitted to shuffle around the ferroconcrete yard under the gentle light of the double suns. I shuffled with the rest and tried to ignore my companions. Low foreheads, joined eyebrows, pendulous and drool-flecked lips\u2014a very unsatisfactory peer group of petty criminals that I was ashamed to be a part of. Then something had stirred them, some unaccustomed novelty that had excited their feeble intellects and had caused them to rush toward the chain-link fence emitting hoarse cries and vulgar exhortations. Numbed by the monotony of prison life even I had felt a twinge of curiosity and desire to see what had caused this explosion of unfamiliar emotion. It should have been obvious. Women. That, and strong drink and its aftereffects, were the only topics that ever stirred the sluggish synapses of their teeny minds.\n\nThree newly arrived female prisoners were passing by on the other side of the fence. Two of them, cut from the same cloth as my companions, responded with equally hoarse cries and interesting gestures of the fingers and hand. The third prisoner walked quietly, if grimly, ignoring her surroundings. Her walk was familiar. But how could it be? I had never even heard of this planet before I had been forcefully brought here. This was a mystery in need of a solution. I hurried along the fence to its end, cleared a space for myself by applying my knuckles to a hair-covered neck in such a manner that the neck's owner slipped into unconsciousness, took his space and looked out.\n\nAt a very familiar face passing by not a meter distant. Without a doubt a face and a name that I knew very well.\n\nBibs, the crewgirl from Captain Garth's spacer.\n\nShe was a link to Garth and I had to talk to her, to find out where he was. By kidnapping us and dumping us on the loathsome planet of Spiovente, Captain Garth had been responsible for The Bishop's death. Which meant that I would like to be responsible for his in return.\n\nSo, without further thought, and possessed only of a suicidal and impractical enthusiasm, I had foolishly escaped. Only the luck that watches over the completely witless had saved my life and permitted my return, undetected, to my prison cell. I blushed now with shame as I thought about the stupidity of my plan. Lack of thought, lack of foresight\u2014and the incredibly dumb assumption that all security in the giant building would be identical. During our daily exodus and return to the cell block I had noted the exceedingly simple locks on all of the doors, the absence of any alarms. I had assumed that the rest of the building had been the same.\n\nI had assumed wrong. The car of the maglevlift had notified the guards when it had been used. I had spotted the detectors in the corridor at once when the door had opened on the top floor. That was why I had tried the escape hatch in the roof, hoping to find a way out through the mechanism at the top of the shaft.\n\nExcept that there had been no mechanism there\u2014just another door. Opening into another floor that did not appear on the bank of buttons inside the car. Some secret location known only to the authorities. Hoping to penetrate this secret I had climbed onto the doorsill and searched for a way to open the door. Only to have the elevator vanish from behind me leaving me stranded on top of the empty shaft.\n\nI had come out of this little harebrained adventure far better than I had deserved. Luck would not ride with me a second time. Cool planning was needed. I put this nearly disastrous escapade behind me and thought furiously of schemes and ways to make contact with the crewgirl.\n\n\"Do it honestly,\" I said, and shocked myself with the words.\n\nHonest? Me? The stainless steel rat who prowls the darkness of the night in solitary silence, fearing no one, needing no one.\n\nYes. Painful as the realization was, just this once honesty was indeed the best policy.\n\n\"Attention, foul jailers, attention!\" I shouted and hammered on the bars of my cage. \"Arouse yourself from your sweat-sodden slumbers and vulgar, erotic dreams and take me to Captain Varod. Soonest\u2014or even sooner!\"\n\nMy fellow prisoners awoke, calling out in righteous anger and threatened all sorts of unimaginative bodily harm. I returned the insults with enthusiasm and eventually the night guard appeared, scowling with menace.\n\n\"Hi, there,\" I called out cheerily. \"Nice to see a friendly face.\"\n\n\"You want your skull broke, kid?\" he asked. His repartee just about as sharp as that of the inmates.\n\n\"No. But I want you to stay out of trouble by instantly taking me to Captain Varod since I have information of such military importance that you would be shot instantly if suspected of keeping it from the captain for more than a second or two.\"\n\nHe added some more threats, but there was a glint of worry in his eyes as he thought about what I had said. It seemed obvious, even to someone of his guttering intelligence, that passing the buck was the wisest fallback position. He growled some more insults when I pointed back down the corridor, but left in any case and went to his telephone. Nor was my wait a long one. A brace of overmuscled and overweight guards appeared on the scene within minutes. They unlocked my cell, clamped on the cuffs and hurried me into the maglevlift and up a few hundred stories to a bare office. Where they fastened the cuffs to a heavy chair and left. The lieutenant who entered a few minutes later was still blinking the sleep from his eyes and was not happy at being disturbed in the middle of the night.\n\n\"I want Varod,\" I said. \"I don't talk to the hired help.\"\n\n\"Shut up, diGriz, before you get yourself into worse trouble. The captain is in deepspace and unreachable. I am from his department and urge you to speak quickly before I bounce you out of here.\"\n\nIt sounded reasonable enough. And I had very little choice.\n\n\"Have you ever heard of a space-going Venian swine who goes by the name of Captain Garth?\"\n\n\"Get on with it,\" he said in a bored voice, yawning to drive home the point. \"I worked on your case so you can speak freely. What do you know that you haven't told us already?\"\n\n\"I have information about our gunrunning friend. You do have him in custody, don't you.\"\n\n\"DiGriz\u2014you give us information, that is the way that it works, not the other way around.\" That was what he said, but his expression spoke otherwise. A fleeting instant of worry. If that meant what I thought it meant then Garth had managed to escape them.\n\n\"I saw a girl today, a new prisoner being brought in. Her name is Bibs.\"\n\n\"Did you get me out of bed to describe some sordid sexual secret?\"\n\n\"No. I just thought you should know that Bibs was a crewgirl on Garth's ship.\"\n\nThis caught his attention instantly, and not being as experienced as his commanding officer he could not conceal the look of sudden interest.\n\n\"You are sure of this?\"\n\n\"Check for yourself. The information on today's arrivals should be readily available.\"\n\nIt was: he sat behind the steel desk and hammered away at the keys on the terminal there. Looked at the screen and scowled in my direction.\n\n\"Three women admitted today. None named Bibs.\"\n\n\"How very unusual.\" Scorn dripped from my voice. \"Can it be that the criminal classes now use aliases?\"\n\nHe did not answer but tapped away at the terminal again. The fax buzzed and produced three sheets of paper. Three color portraits. I dropped two of them onto the floor and handed the third back.\n\n\"Bibs.\"\n\nHe bashed some more keys, then slumped back and rubbed his chin as he studied the screen.\n\n\"It fits, it fits,\" he muttered. \"Marianney Giuffrida, age twenty-five, occupation given as electrotechnician with deepspace experience. Arrested on a drugs possession charge, anonymous tip, swears she was framed. No other details.\"\n\n\"Ask her about Garth. Use persuasion. Make her talk.\"\n\n\"You have our thanks for your assistance, diGriz. It will go on your record.\" He tapped a number into the phone. \"But you have been watching too many films. There is no way we can force people to give evidence. But we can question and observe and draw conclusions. They will take you back to your cell now.\"\n\n\"Gee, thanks for the thanks. Thanks for nothing. Can you at least do me the favor of telling me how long you intend to keep me here?\"\n\n\"That should be easy enough to find out.\" A quick access of the terminal and a sage nod of the head as the door opened behind me. \"You will be leaving us the day after tomorrow. A spacer will be stopping at a planet with the interesting name of Bit O\" Heaven, where, it appears, you have to answer some criminal charges.\"\n\n\"Guilty until found guilty, I suppose.\" I sneered and whined to hide the surge of enthusiasm that raced through me. Once out of here I really would be out of here. I ignored the rough clutch and muttered complaints of my warders and permitted myself to be docilely led back to my cell. I was going to be good, very, very good, until the day after tomorrow.\n\nBut I lay awake a long time after that, staring into the darkness, working out how I was going to pry the information I needed out of crewmember Bibs.\nChapter 2\n\n\"Sign here.\"\n\nI signed. The ancient graybeard behind the desk passed over the plastic bag containing all of my worldly possessions, forcibly removed from me when I had been incarcerated. I reached for them but the fat guard reached even faster.\n\n\"Not yet, prisoner,\" he said, whisking them away from my clutching fingers. \"These will be forwarded to the arresting authorities.\"\n\n\"They're mine!\"\n\n\"Take it up with them. All set, Rasco?\"\n\n\"My name's not Rasco!\"\n\n\"Mine is. Shut up,\" the other guard said. A well-muscled and nasty individual whose right wrist was secured to my left by a pair of shining cuffs. He pulled hard on this connecting link so I stumbled toward him. \"You do what I say and no backtalk or funny stuff.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir. Sorry.\"\n\nI lowered my eyes in humility, which caused him to smirk with assumed superiority. He should only know that I was using the opportunity to look more closely at the cuffs. Bulldog-Crunchers, sold throughout the known galaxy, guaranteed foolproof. Maybe proof against fools but I could open them in under two seconds. It was going to be a nice day.\n\nFatso walked on my right side, well-connected Rasco on my left. I marched in step with them, eager to leave the prison and examine the world waiting outside the League building. I had come here in a closed van and had seen nothing. Eagerness possessed me in expectation of a first glimpse of my new home; thoughts about my forceful removal from this planet may have preoccupied my guardians\u2014but were the farthest thing from my mind at this moment.\n\nExiting the building was not easily done\u2014and I gave myself another mental kick for even thinking of breaking out of this bunker-skyscraper. There were three doors to go out through, one after another, each sealed as tightly as an airlock. Our passes were slipped into computerized machines that hummed and clicked\u2014then robot sensors examined our fingerprints and retinal patterns to make sure we matched the details on the passes. This was done three times before the outer portal hummed open and a wave of warm air, smell and sound washed in.\n\nAs we went down the steps to the street I gaped like a rube. I had never seen anything like this before. Of course my experience was strictly limited since this was only the third planet I had ever visited. My life on the porcuswine farms of Bit O\" Heaven and my service in the swamps of Spiovente had not prepared me for the manifold impressions that bombarded me.\n\nA wave of heat and dusty air washed over me. It was filled with pungent aromas, loud cries and a cacophony of strange noises. At the same time as my ears and nose were being assaulted my eyes bulged at the seething mass of humanity, the strange vehicles\u2014and the four-legged alien creatures. One passed close by, a man sitting on its back, its great feet thudding on the ground, eyes rolling in my direction. Its mouth opened to reveal hideous yellow teeth and it squealed loudly. I drew back and my guards laughed aloud at this perfectly reasonable reaction.\n\n\"We'll protect you from the margh,\" Fatso said, and they chortled with dim pleasure.\n\nMaybe it was called a margh in the local lingo, but it was still a horse to me. I had seen them in the ancient history tapes at school. The creatures had been used for farming when Bit O\" Heaven was first settled, but had soon succumbed to the deadly native life. Only the indestructible porcuswine had been able to survive. I looked more closely at the horse, at the obviously herbivorous teeth, and realized it posed no threat. But it was big. Two more of the creatures came up, towing a boxlike affair mounted on large wheels. The driver, sitting high above, pulled the thing to a stop when Rasco whistled to him.\n\n\"Get in,\" Fatso ordered, swinging open a door in the vehicle's side. I held back, pointed with distaste.\n\n\"It's filthy in there! Can't the League Navy provide decent transportation...\"\n\nRasco kicked me in the back of the leg so I fell forward. \"Inside\u2014and no backtalk!\" They climbed in after me. \"It is Navy policy to use native transport when possible, to aid the local economy. So shut up and enjoy.\"\n\nI shut, but I didn't enjoy. I looked unseeingly at the crowded street as we rumbled away, thinking of the best way to escape my captors while inflicting a bit of damage on my sadistic companion. Now would be as good a time as any. Strike like lightning, then leave them both unconscious in this vehicle while I slipped away in the crowd. I bent over and scratched furiously at my ankle.\n\n\"I've been bitten! There are bugs in here!\"\n\n\"Bite them back,\" Fatso said and they both roared with juvenile laughter. Wonderful. Neither saw me slip the lockpick from my shoe and palm it. I turned toward Rasco with mayhem in mind just as the vehicle lurched to a stop and Fatso reached across and threw open the door. \"Out,\" he ordered and Rasco pulled painfully on the handcuff, I gaped at the marble-fronted building before us.\n\n\"This isn't the spaceport,\" I protested.\n\n\"You got good eyes,\" Rasco sneered and dragged me after him. \"A local version of a linear. Let's go.\"\n\nI decided I wouldn't. I had had more than enough of their repellent company. But I had to stumble after them for the moment, looking about for some opportunity\u2014and seeing it just ahead. Men, and only men, were entering and exiting a doorway under a sign that proudly proclaimed PYCHER PYSA GORRYTH. Though I knew nothing of the local language I could figure this one out easily enough. I drew back and pointed.\n\n\"Before we get on the linear I gotta go in there.\"\n\n\"No way,\" Rasco said. Sadist. But I got unexpected aid from his companion.\n\n\"Take him in. It's going to be a long trip.\"\n\nRasco muttered disgustedly. But Fatso was obviously his superior because he pushed me forward. The pycher pysa was about as primitive as they come, a simple trough against one wall, a line of men facing it. I headed for a vacant position on the far end and fumbled with my clothing. Rasco watched me with obvious displeasure.\n\n\"I can't do anything with you watching,\" I wailed.\n\nHe rolled his eyes upward for a second. Just long enough for me to get his neck with my free hand. His look of surprise faded as I clamped down hard with my thumb. After this I had only to guide his unconscious fall to the tile floor. As he hit with a satisfactory thud I clicked open the cuff on my wrist. He snored lightly as I quickly frisked him, I had a reputation as a thief to live up to, and slipped his wallet from his hip pocket. It was safely hidden in my own before I stood and turned about. The row of men against the wall were all looking at me.\n\n\"He fainted,\" I said, and they gaped with incomprehension. \"Li svenas,\" I added, which did not clarify it for them in any way. I pointed to the unconscious copper, to the door, then at myself. \"I'm going for help. You lads keep an eye on him and I'll be right back.\"\n\nNone of them were in any position to follow me as I scuttled out of the entrance. Practically into Fatso's arms. He shouted something and reached for me\u2014but I was long gone. Out of the station and into the crowd. There were some more outcries from behind me but they soon died away as I twisted between two horses, around a coach and down a dark alley on the far side of the street. It was that easy.\n\nThe alley opened into another street, just as crowded as the first, and I strolled along it, just a part of the crowd. Free as a bird. I actually whistled as I walked, staring around at the sights, the veiled women and the brightly garbed men. This was the life!\n\nOr was it? Alone on a primitive planet, not speaking the language, sought by the authorities\u2014what did I have to be cheerful about? Black gloom descended instantly and I sneered aloud.\n\n\"That's it, Jim? You turn coward at the slightest setback. For shame! What would The Bishop say to this?\"\n\nHe would say stop talking in public, I thought as I noticed the strange looks I was getting. So I whistled happily, not a care in the world, turned a corner and saw the tables and chairs, men sitting and drinking interesting beverages, under a sign that said SOSTEN HA GWYRAS which conveyed exactly nothing to me. But underneath it was printed NI PAROLOS ESPERANTO, BONVENUU. I hoped that they spoke Esperanto better than they wrote it. I found a table against the wall, dropped into a chair and snapped my fingers at the ancient waiter.\n\n\"Dhe'th plegadow,\" he said.\n\n\"Plegadow the others,\" I said. \"We speak Esperanto. What's to drink, Dad?\"\n\n\"Beer, wine, dowr-tom-ys.\"\n\n\"I'm just not in the mood for a dowr-tom-ys today. A large beer, if you please.\"\n\nWhen he turned away I dug out Rasco's wallet. If my guards were supposed to encourage the local economy they should be carrying some of the local currency. The wallet clunked when I dropped it onto the table, heavy with little metal discs. I shook one out and turned it over. It had the number two stamped into one side, with Arghans on the other.\n\n\"That will be one Arghans,\" the waiter said, putting a brimming clay pot in front of me. I passed over the coin.\n\n\"Take that, my good man, and keep the change.\"\n\n\"You offworlders are so generous,\" he said, muffledly as he bit the coin. \"Not mean, stupid, vicious like the locals. You want girl? Boy? Kewarghen to smoke?\"\n\n\"Later perhaps. I'll let you know. Beer now and the heady pleasures of native life to come.\"\n\nHe went away muttering and I took a great slug of the beer. Instantly regretting it. I swallowed\u2014and regretted that as well as the noxious brew bubbled and seethed its way through my digestive track. I pushed the jar away and belched. Enough of this tomfoolery. I had escaped, great, step one. But what came next?\n\nNothing that I could think of at the moment. I sipped at the beer, it still tasted just as repulsive, but even this heroic treatment produced no inspiration. I was grateful for the interruption when the waiter sidled over and whispered hoarsely behind the back of his hand.\n\n\"New shipment kewarghen fresh from the fields. You get high, stay up for many days. Want some? No? What about girl with whips? Snakes? Leather straps and hot mud...\"\n\nI interrupted since I wasn't sure that I enjoyed where the conversation was going. \"I am sated, I tell you sated. All I wish are directions to return to the municipal edifice.\"\n\n\"Do not know what long words mean.\"\n\n\"Want to find building big, high, filled with plenty offworlders.\"\n\n\"Ahh, you mean the lys. For one Arghans I take you there.\"\n\n\"For one Arghans you give me instructions. I don't want to drag you away from your work.\" Nor did I want to be led astray to one of the many offers he had made. In the end he had to agree. I memorized the instructions, sipped some more of the beer and instantly regretted it, then slipped away when he had vanished into the back room.\n\nAs I walked a glimmer of a plan began to develop. I must think of a way to get to Bibs, the crewgirl from the freighter. Garth, the captain of her ship, had escaped, I was sure of that. But she might know more about him. She was my only link with this villain. But how could I get into the prison? I knew the name she had been arrested under, Marianney Giuffrida. Could I pass myself off as a concerned relative, one Hasenpeffer Giuffrida? The local identification should be easy to forge\u2014if it existed at all. But would the computer identify me as an ex-prisoner when I entered the building? Or had I been wiped from its memory when I had left? Perhaps I had been, but would Fatso put me back in memory when he reported my escape?\n\nThese thoughts were rattling around in my head when I turned the next corner and found the gigantic edifice before me. It rose up from the low buildings of the city like a towering cliff\u2014and looked just as impenetrable. I strolled by and looked up at the steps I had so recently descended, watched the doors open to admit a visitor. Then close again like a bank vault. My mind was still blank. I stood with my back to a brick wall across from the building. Which was perhaps not too bright, since I was still wearing prison garb. But such was the variety of local costume that my uniform drew no notice at all. I leaned and waited for inspiration to strike.\n\nIt didn't. But pure, random luck, a chance in a thousand did. The doors opened one more time and three people emerged. Two minions of the law, this obvious from the size of their boots, flanking a delicate female form. One thick wrist was manacled to her tiny one.\n\nIt was Bibs.\n\nThe suddenness of her appearence froze me in place. Kept me leaning against the wall as they descended to street level where one of the guards waved and whistled. In quick response two of the horsedrawn vehicles raced their way, one of them neatly cutting off the other. There were shouted curses and loud neighing as the horses reared up. This was quickly sorted out and the loser trotted off. The high body of the horsedrawn hulk blocked my view, but as clear as though it were transparent I knew what was happening. Door being opened, prisoner escorted inside, door closed...\n\nThe thing started forward as the driver's whip cracked, even as I was hurrying across the road. Getting up speed as I ran after it, jumped, got my feet on the step and hauled the door open.\n\n\"Out,\" the nearest guard said, turning toward me. \"This cab is taken...\"\n\nWe looked at each other in mutual recognition\u2014he was the night guard from the prison. With a cry of anger he reached for me. But I reached quicker, jumping in on top of him. He was big and strong\u2014but I was fast. I had a quick glimpse of the shocked look on Bibs's face as I turned all my attention to avoiding his clutch and getting in a quick blow with the edge of my hand.\n\nAs soon as he went limp I rolled over to face the other guard and discovered that he had no interest in me at all. Bibs had her free arm around his neck and was throttling him to death. He flailed with his other hand but could do nothing because it was manacled to her wrist.\n\n\"Just wait... until this one... is dead too,\" Bibs gasped.\n\nI didn't explain that the guard I had taken care of was only unconscious but reached over and grabbed her elbow hard, index finger grinding into the big nerve there. Her arm went numb, dropped away, and her face grew red with fury. But before she could speak I silenced the gasping guard and unlocked the cuffs. She rubbed her wrist and smiled.\n\n\"I don't know where you dropped from, buster, or why, but I appreciate the help.\" She cocked her head and looked more closely at me. \"I know you, don't I? Yes, of course, you're the midnight passenger, Jimmy something.\"\n\n\"That's right, Bibs. Jim diGriz at your service.\"\n\nShe laughed, loud and happily, while she removed all the possessions of the two unconscious guards, then scowled when I manacled them together.\n\n\"Better to kill them,\" she said.\n\n\"Better not to. Right now we're not important enough to them to cause much fuss. But if we murdered two of their men they would turn this planet over to find us.\"\n\n\"I guess you're right,\" she said with reluctant agreement\u2014then kicked both unconscious bodies with sudden fury.\n\n\"They can't feel anything.\"\n\n\"They will when they wake up. So where do we go from here, Jim?\"\n\n\"You tell me. I know absolutely nothing at all about this planet.\"\n\n\"I know far too much.\"\n\n\"Then lead the way.\"\n\n\"Right.\"\n\nShe opened the door as our vehicle slowed and we slipped out, stepped up onto the pavement as it lumbered from sight.\nChapter 3\n\nBibs tucked her arm through mine, which felt very cheering, as we strolled along the busy avenue. Anywhere else our gray prison clothes, tastefully decorated with blood-red broad arrows, would have certainly drawn attention\u2014and apprehension. Not among the motley throngs crowding these streets, dressed in every manner possible. There were bearded men in fringed buck-skins, women in layers of colored gauze, armed warriors in leather and steel; robes, gowns, chainmail, cuirasses, sashes\u2014everything imaginable. Plus a few that defied the imagination. We drew no attention at all.\n\n\"Do you have any money?\" Bibs asked.\n\n\"Just a few Arghans I lifted from one of my guards. Like you, I have just escaped.\"\n\nHer eyebrows lifted at this\u2014very attractive eyebrows arched above even more attractive eyes I noticed.\n\n\"Is that why you helped me out? What were you in prison for? All I know is that you and the old boy were left behind on Spiovente. Scuttlebutt had it that Garth sold you into slavery.\"\n\n\"He did, and my friend is dead because of that. I am a little bitter about Garth for a lot of reasons. I liked The Bishop. He helped me, taught me a lot, and I am happy to say that I was able to help him in return. We left our home world in a hurry, as you will remember, and paid Captain Garth a lot of money to get us away. But that wasn't enough for him. He earned more by selling us into slavery. I lived\u2014but The Bishop died because of being a slave. As you can imagine I am not wildly pleased by his death. A number of loathsome things happened on that planet, the least of which was my being caught by the League Navy. They were returning me to my home planet to stand trial.\"\n\n\"On what charges?\" There was keen interest in her voice.\n\n\"Bank robbery, criminal abduction, jailbreak. Things like that.\"\n\n\"Wonderful!\" she said, laughing aloud with joy; she had very neat white teeth. \"You did yourself an immense favor when you came to little Bibs's aid. I know this planet well, know where the money is. Know how to buy our way offplanet when we are done. You steal it, I'll spend it\u2014and our troubles are over.\"\n\n\"Sounds reasonable. Could we talk about it over some food? It's been a long time since breakfast.\"\n\n\"Of course\u2014I know just the place.\"\n\nAnd she did too. The restaurant was small and discreet while the felyon ha kyk mogh tasted a lot better than it sounded. We washed it down with a great bowl of ru'th gwyn, which turned out to be satisfactory red wine: I memorized the name for future use. When we had eaten our fill I took one of the wood splinters from the jar on the table and worried bits of gristle from between my teeth.\n\n\"Do you mind if I ask you a question?\" I asked, asking a question. Bibs sipped at her wine and waved permission. \"You know why I was imprisoned. Would you consider it rude if I asked the reason for your incarceration?\"\n\nShe slammed her mug down so hard that it cracked and oozed a carmine trickle. She was unaware of it; her face twisted with anger and I could hear her teeth grate together.\n\n\"He did it, I'm sure, it had to be him, the bastarda\u0109fiulo!\" Which is about the worst name you can call anyone in Esperanto. \"Captain Garth, he's the one. He knew the League Navy was after us for gunrunning. He paid us off here\u2014and the next day I was arrested. He tipped them off and planted the kewarghen in my bag. With that evidence they busted me on a drugs charge, selling to the natives and all that. I want to kill him.\"\n\n\"So do I\u2014for causing the death of my friend. But why did he want you arrested?\"\n\n\"Revenge. I kicked him out of bed. He was too kinky for my liking.\"\n\nI gulped and coughed and took a long slug of wine and hoped that she wouldn't notice that I was blushing. She didn't. Her eyes, still glazed with anger, stared past me into space. \"Kill him, I really would like to kill him. I know that it's impossible but, oh how he deserves it.\"\n\n\"Why impossible?\" I asked with some relief, glad to have the conversation back on comfortable topics like murder and revenge.\n\n\"Why? What do you know about this planet, Jim?\"\n\n\"Nothing. Other than its name, Steren-Gwandra.\"\n\n\"Which means 'planet' in the local lingo. They are not a linguistically imaginative lot. At least those here in Brastyr aren't. Like many other settled planets this one was cut off from galactic contact during the breakdown years. Brastyr, this continent, has few natural resources and over the centuries they managed to lose all of the old technology. They are so dim that most of them forgot Esperanto. Not the traders though, they had to deal with the offshore island. By the time that galactic contact was reestablished the locals had sunk into a sort of agricultural semifeudalism.\"\n\n\"Like Spiovente?\"\n\n\"Not quite. Just offshore is this damned great island I mentioned, separated from this mainland by a narrow strait. Almost all of the minerals, coal and oil in this hemisphere are located there. That's why it was settled first and why it was well developed before the second wave of immigrants arrived during the diaspora ages. None of the newcomers were allowed to settle there. Not that they cared, this entire continent was wide-open and bountiful and the arrangement suited all parties concerned. Industry and technology over there on Nevenkebla, farming and forestry here. I doubt if anything changed much during the breakdown years\u2014I imagine the relationship was intensified if anything. That's why we are never going to get close enough to Garth to kill him.\"\n\n\"I don't understand. What has this got to do with him?\"\n\n\"He's on the island. Unreachable.\" She sighed and rubbed her fingertip in circles in the pool of spilled wine. I was still puzzled.\n\n\"But Garth is a Venian, like you. The captain of a Venian ship. Why should they protect him?\"\n\n\"Because he's not Venian, that's why. The Nevenkebla military bought the ship, he commanded it. We were happy to go along with the plan; they paid well. Venians are very flexible when it comes to money. But he is really something big in the military there. They run the place. All those guns we were smuggling were made on the island. It was a good racket, plenty of offplanet currency. But when the League Navy got too close they paid us off and closed the operation down. There is just no way to get at him on that island.\"\n\n\"I'll find a way.\"\n\n\"I hope that you do. I'll give you all the help that I can. But first things first, Jim. We will have to stay out of sight for a bit while they are looking for us\u2014and that will take a pile of Arghans. How much do you have?\"\n\nShe spread out the coins she had stolen and I added mine to the pile.\n\n\"Not enough. We need a lot for bribes, a safe place to get out of sight. I have contacts, a fence I used to peddle to. For the right price we can have him find a safe house...\"\n\n\"No. Avoid the criminal classes at all counts. Too expensive and the first place that the authorities will look. Do they have hotels here? Expensive, luxurious hotels?\"\n\n\"Not as such. But there are ostelyow where traveling gentry put up. But offworlders never go there.\"\n\n\"Even better. Can you pass as a native?\"\n\n\"Yredy. You could too with a little effort. There are so many different accents and dialects here that no one will notice.\"\n\n\"Ideal. Let us then instantly steal a lot of money, buy some expensive clothes and jewelry and check in at the best ostel. Agreed?\"\n\n\"Agreed!\" She laughed out loud and clapped her hands together. \"I swear, Jim, you are a breath of fresh air on this fetid planet. I like your style. But it won't be easy. They don't have banks here. All the cash is held by moneylenders called hoghas. Their places are like small forts. Plenty of guards, always from the moneylender's own family so they can't be bribed.\"\n\n\"Sounds good. Let's go check one out. Then we will go back tonight and crack it.\"\n\n\"Do you mean it?\"\n\n\"Never more serious.\"\n\n\"I've never met anyone like you. You look like a kid\u2014but you can really take care of yourself.\"\n\nI did not like that kid remark but I stayed shut up and tried not to pout while she made plans.\n\n\"We'll take some of these Arghans, change them for Nevenkebla coins. This will take a lot of arguing over rate of exchange so you will have time to look around. I'll do the talking. You just carry the money and keep your mouth shut. We'll get you a bodyguard's club first, then they'll never even notice you.\"\n\n\"No time like the present. Let's find a club shop.\"\n\nThis was easily enough done. Most of the side streets were open markets, with stalls and tiny shops that sold an apparently endless variety of cloth, fruit, meals wrapped in leaves, knives, saddles, tents\u2014and clubs. While the merchant extolled the value of his wares, muffledly and incomprehensively through the layers of cloth about his face and neck, I hefted the samples and tested their swing. I finally settled on a meter length of tough wood that was bound about with iron bands.\n\n\"This looks like what we want,\" I told Bibs. The weapon vendor nodded and took the coins and muttered some more. Bibs pointed inside.\n\n\"He insists that a year guarantee goes with every club and you must try it out before you leave.\"\n\nThe testing block proved to be a large upright stone that had been carved into human form, what might at one time have resembled a man in armor. But years of testing had taken their toll. Gouges, nicks and missing chunks defaced it; noseless, chinless, with a single fragment of ear remaining. I hefted my club, tried a few practice swings\u2014then stood with my back to the stone while I psyched up my muscles with some dynamic-tension contractions and a breathing mantra. I was chuffing as nicely as a Spiovente steam wagon, holding the club upright, when I felt ready.\n\nTimed release, that's the secret. Not a secret really, just technique and practice. A single shout contracted my body all in an instant. In time with the sound I swung about with all of my weight and strength focused on the iron band on the end of the club. It whistled through a half-circle that terminated on the side of the rock head.\n\nThere was a ringing crack as the neck shattered and the stone head fell off. The club was still sound and the iron ring had a slight nick.\n\n\"This one will do,\" I said, as offhandedly as I could.\n\nThey were both very impressed, let me tell you. I was impressed myself. It had been a good blow, better than I had realized.\n\n\"Do you do that often?\" Bibs asked in a hushed voice.\n\n\"If I have to,\" I said with a calm I did not feel. \"Now take me to your hogh.\"\n\nWe found one just a few streets away, the identity of the business made known by a skeleton in an iron cage above the door.\n\n\"Some sign,\" I said. \"You would think they would hang out a painting of a money bag or a wooden Arghans.\"\n\n\"This is more practical. That is the last thief they caught trying to steal from them.\"\n\n\"Oh, thanks.\"\n\n\"It's just a tradition, don't let it disturb you.\"\n\nEasy enough for her to say\u2014she wasn't going to rob this place. Disturbed, I followed her past two ugly weightlifters who leaned on their spears and scowled at us.\n\n\"Hogh,\" Bibs said, sniffing with disdain at the guards. They muttered something not too nice, but still knocked on the iron-bound door until it creaked open. Inside were more guardians from the same mold. Except these had swords. The door slammed shut and was locked behind us as we passed through a dark room into the courtyard beyond. There were spikes\u2014as well as more guards\u2014on the surrounding wall. Not a wall, really, but the roof of the buildings that surrounded the courtyard. The hogh himself sat on a large chest, shielded from the sun by a canopy, guarded by two more men\u2014this time armed with pikes. The chest had a flat top and was covered with pillows.\n\n\"I suppose he sleeps on it at night,\" I said, a feeble joke to build the morale.\n\n\"Of course,\" Bibs said and the morale slumped even lower.\n\nThe moneylender was all smarmy gestures and oily voice. Bibs jingled our money at him and he smarmed even more. At the clap of his hands assistants cleared the pillows away and opened the lid of the chest. I looked in and the guards looked at me. It was neatly divided into sections and each section was filled with leather bags. More orders and hand clapping produced a bag that was placed on top of the now reclosed chest. He sat back on the lid with a happy sigh and cradled the bag in his lap, opened it and let a trickle of shining coins run through his fingers. The haggling began and I feigned boredom and looked around at the courtyard.\n\nThis was not going to be easy, not easy at all. The entrance door would certainly be sealed and guarded. If I came over the wall there were those spikes\u2014and more guards as well. Then what? Sneak down into the courtyard and tip the old boy off into the dust, grab the bag. And get speared, stabbed, clubbed and so forth. Not an attractive proposition at all. We were going to have to get a new plan to raise funds. I could see no way to get into this place; brute strength was far more efficient than technology in this setup. And say I got in, say I lifted the loot\u2014there was the little matter of getting out with it. Though that might not be too difficult...\n\nI felt the glimmerings of an idea and held onto them and stirred them about. Keeping my expression as calm and stony as possible, with just a hint of a snarl as I looked at the guards, who snarled back. Negotiations were progressing well with plenty of wails of grief and snorts of disdain from both sides. I was only barely aware of this as I rough-fashioned my plan, ran it around and polished it a bit, then took it through slowly, step by step, to see if it would work. Given a little bit of luck it would. Was it the only plan? I sighed inwardly. Yes, all things considered, it was the only plan. I swung my club impatiently and called out to Bibs.\n\n\"Come on lady, don't take all day.\" She turned about and scowled.\n\n\"What did you say?\"\n\n\"You heard me. You came to the bodyguard hiring hall and promised good pay for a short day. But the pay ain't that good and the day is too long.\"\n\nIf the hogh didn't understand Esperanto the plan would stop there. But I could see his ears perk up, listening and understanding everything we said. Bash on\u2014no turning back now. Bibs didn't know what I was doing, but she was smart enough to play along, taking umbrage at my insults.\n\n\"Listen you muscle-bound moron\u2014I can hire better than you for half the price. I don't need the static from a malbonulo whose eyebrows meet in the middle!\"\n\n\"That does it!\" I shouted. \"I don't take that from no one!\"\n\nI swung my club at her in a wicked blow that just brushed her hair. It didn't touch her\u2014so I let the butt end follow through with a light tap on the forehead that dropped her to the ground. With Bibs safely out of the picture I would now see if I could get away with what is usually referred to as a smash-and-grab.\n\nMy club swung again and knocked down one of the poles that held up the canopy. I stepped forward as it fell and chopped the hogh on the side of the neck as the cloth engulfed us.\n\nFast now, Jim. You have seconds\u2014or less. I groped the bag of coins out of his lap and stuffed them inside my shirt. It wouldn't fit until I spilled some out. Seconds. Gone.\n\nThere was plenty of shouting now and struggling with the cloth. I pulled myself free\u2014and walked away, calling back over my shoulder.\n\n\"I quit, lady. Get another bodyguard. Only poofters work for women anyway.\"\n\nTwo paces, three, four. The armed men looking from me to the heaving canopy as the guards there pulled it free. One of them emerged, dragging the unconscious hogh, shouting and screaming with anger. I did not need a translation. All of the other guards howled in rage and ran toward me.\n\nI turned tail and ran in the opposite direction. Away from the only exit.\n\nBut toward the flight of wooden stairs that ran up to the roof.\n\nThe single guard there stabbed at me with his spear. I parried it with the club and kicked him hard where it would make the best impression. Jumped his falling body and bounded up the stairs two at a time and almost impaled myself on the sword of the man standing at the top. All I could do was dive under it, roll, crash into his legs and bring him down.\n\nCatching him on the head with the butt of the club as I scrambled to my feet, coins jingling down about me.\n\nThree other guards on the roof were screeching and lumbering toward me. I ran to the edge, looked at the drop, cursed aloud. The cobbled street was too far below. If I jumped I would break a leg. Turned and threw my club at the first of the attackers. It caught him nicely and the second man ran into him.\n\nI saw no more because I was over the roof, holding onto the edge with both hands and letting myself down. Looking up at the third guard who was bringing his sword down on my hands.\n\nI let go. Dropped. Hit and rolled. My ankle hurt but I did not even think about it. Spears and clubs cracked to the ground around me as I hobbled away, around the first corner and into a market street. Hobbling slower and slower as the howls behind me faded in the distance.\n\nAround another corner where I stopped for breath, panting and wheezing. Then staggered on deeper into the city until I was sure I had lost my pursuers.\n\nI dropped into a chair of the first bar and actually enjoyed drinking a mug of the terrible beer.\nChapter 4\n\nThe bag of coins sat uncomfortably on my stomach, straining the fabric of my prison jacket. I looked at the drab cloth with the big red arrows on it and realized that I was being kind of stupid. By now my description would have gone out and all the hogh minions would be looking for me. I would not be that hard to find. As I hammered on the table with a coin I felt the sweat beginning to form on my forehead.\n\nAt the sight of the Nevenkebla currency the waiter's eyes lit up and he seized it with shaking fingers and carried it away reverently. I received a great handful of Arghans in exchange, surely I was being cheated, still I scuttled away happily. Scuttled into the first shop I found that had garments displayed around the entrance. Esperanto was spoken badly here, but good enough to enable me to buy some baggy trousers and a cloak, along with a wicker basket to conceal the money bag. Feeling safe, at least for the moment, I shambled deeper into the city. Through the busy streets to a market where I purchased a wide-brimmed leather hat with a colorful plume. Bit by bit I bought other clothes, until I was garbed anew, the basket with my prison clothes discarded, the money now safe in an elegant shoulder bag. By this time it was getting dark and I was completly lost.\n\nAnd worried about Bibs. I had done all that I could to assure her safety, to distance her from myself and my crime. Had it been enough? I felt a quick surge of guilt and the need to contact her. Easier said than done. First I must find the League building, my only point of reference, and work back from there.\n\nIt was dusk by the time I located it\u2014and I was getting very, very tired. Yet there was no choice, I must go on. Following the route the horse conveyance had taken with Bibs and her captors, finding the corner where we had emerged from it. From there it was easy enough to get to the restaurant where we had eaten, to drop into a chair with a sigh of relief. I could only hope now that she remembered the place and would think of coming here. I took off my hat and a hot band of pain circled my throat.\n\n\"Traitor,\" Bibs's voice hissed in my ear as I gurgled and groped but could reach nothing. Was this the end...?\n\nIt almost was. I was sinking into unconsciousness before the pain eased and the length of wire fell into my lap. I rubbed my sore, bleeding neck as Bibs pulled out a chair and sat down at the table. She weighed my shoulder bag, then looked inside. She had a black eye and some bruises around her mouth.\n\n\"I could have killed you,\" she said. \"I was that angry, that was what I was going to do. But when I saw you had brought the money I realized you had planned the whole thing this way and had come here to meet me. But since they had worked me over I felt I owed you some of the same. I'll order some wine.\"\n\n\"Planned...\" I croaked, then coughed. \"Knocked you out\u2014so they would think you weren't in on the robbery.\"\n\n\"It worked\u2014or I wouldn't be here. They bashed me about a bit, then they all ran out after you. I went right behind them in the confusion. Just wandered around and stayed out of sight until dark. Hating you. I had no money, nothing. Other than this black eye. You're lucky I didn't throttle you all the way.\"\n\n\"Thanks,\" I said, then glugged down half a mug of wine when the waiter set it in front of me. \"It was the only thing I could do. While you were talking to the old boy I looked at the defenses. There was no way in past them. But since we were already inside I saw that there was a good chance of getting out. So I took the money.\"\n\n\"Tremendous. You might have told me.\"\n\n\"There was no way to. Knocking you out was the only thing I could think of that would not get you involved. I'm sorry\u2014but it worked.\"\n\nBibs actually smiled as she ran her fingers through the coins. \"You are right, Jim my boy. It was worth a few bruises to get this much loot. Now let's get moving. You've changed clothes and I must do the same thing.\"\n\n\"Then to the best ostel in town.\"\n\n\"For a hot bath and a real meal. You're on!\"\n\nThe ostel was a sprawling building hidden behind high walls. Suites of rooms led off the central courtyard and we had the best, if the bowing and dry handwashing of the help meant anything. The wine was chilled and the finest I had ever tasted. I prowled around the carpeted rooms and nibbled the toasted tidbits that came with the wine, while Bibs burbled and splashed in the adjoining pool. She eventually emerged wrapped in a towel, glowing with health and growling with hunger. There was no nonsense about dining rooms or restaurants in this establishment. Servants brought the food on brass trays and we gorged ourselves. When they had cleaned up the leavings I threw the bolt in the outer door and filled Bib's crystal mug with more wine.\n\n\"This is the life,\" she said.\n\n\"It surely is.\" I sprawled on the cushions across from her. \"A good night's sleep and I will be feeling human again.\"\n\nShe lay back on the couch and looked at me through half-closed eyes. Well, really one half-closed and one all the way closed where she had been bopped. She shook her head and smiled.\n\n\"You are something else again, Jimmy. Just a kid, really, yet you are sure a winner. You survived Spiovente, which is not easy. Took out those two cops\u2014then you took on all the hogh's thugs\u2014and got away with it.\"\n\n\"Just luck,\" I said. Enjoying the praise but not that \"kid\" remark.\n\n\"I doubt it. And you saved my neck. Got me out of the hands of the law and stole enough clinkers to get me off this planet. I would like to say thanks.\"\n\n\"You don't have to, not really. You are going to help me find Garth so that makes us even.\" I stood and yawned. \"I want to ask you about him\u2014but it can wait until morning. I need some sleep.\"\n\nShe smiled again. \"But, Jim, I told you I would like to thank you. In my own way.\"\n\nWas it chance that as she lay back the towel slipped a little? No it was not chance. Nor was it by accident that she was devastatingly naked underneath. Despite the black eye Bibs was a terribly, terribly attractive girl.\n\nWhat does one do on an occasion like this?\n\nWhat one does not do is talk about it to others. I'm sorry. This is a private matter between two consenting adults. Very consenting. You will excuse me if I draw the curtain over this day and insert a space in this text to denote the passing of a good many hours.\n\n* * *\n\nNever had the sun shone so warmly and brightly. The afternoon sun. I smiled back at it just as warmly, bereft of any guilt, filled full with happiness. Nibbling a bit of fruit and sipping some wine. Turning languidly from the window as Bibs reentered the room.\n\n\"You mean it?\" she asked. \"You won't go offplanet with me? You don't want to?\"\n\n\"Of course I want to. But not until I have found Garth.\"\n\n\"He'll find you first and kill you.\"\n\n\"Perhaps he might be the one who gets killed.\"\n\nShe cocked her head most prettily to one side, then nodded. \"From anyone but you I would think that bragging. But you might just do it.\" She sighed. \"But I won't be here to see it. I rate survival ahead of vengeance. He put me into jail\u2014you got me out. Case closed. Though I admit to a big bundle of curiosity. If you do get out of this, will you let me know what happened? A message care of the Venian Crewmembers' Union will get to me eventually.\" She passed over a slip of paper. \"I've written down everything that I remembered, just like you asked.\"\n\n\"General,\" I read. \"Either Zennor or Zennar.\"\n\n\"I never saw it spelled out. Just overheard one of the officers talking to him when they didn't know I could hear them.\"\n\n\"What is Mortstertoro?\"\n\n\"A big military base, perhaps their biggest. That's where we landed to take on cargo. They wouldn't let us out of the spacer, but what we could see was very impressive. A big limousine, all flags and stars, would come for Garth and take him away. There was a lot of saluting\u2014and they always saluted him first. He is something big, high-up, and whatever he is involved with has to do with that base. I'm sorry, I know it's not much.\"\n\n\"It's a lot, all I need now.\" I folded the paper and put it away. \"What next.\"\n\n\"We should have identification documents by tonight. They are expensive but real. Issued by one of the smaller duchies that needs the foreign exchange. So I can ship out on any spacer I want to. As long as the League agents don't recognize me. But I've managed to bribe my way onto a trade delegation that made their flight arrangements months ago. One of them has been well paid to get ill.\"\n\n\"When do you leave?\"\n\n\"Midnight,\" she said in a very quiet voice.\n\n\"No! So soon...\"\n\n\"I felt the same way\u2014which is why I am leaving. I am not the kind of person that gets tied down in a relationship, Jimmy.\"\n\n\"I don't know what you mean.\"\n\n\"Good. Then I am getting away before you find out.\"\n\nThis sort of conversation was all very new and confusing. I am reluctantly forced to admit that up until the previous evening my contact with the opposite sex had been, shall we say, more distant. Now I was at an unaccustomed loss for words, indecisive and more than a little bewildered. When I blurted this out Bibs had nodded in apparent complete understanding. I realized now that there was an awful lot I did not know about women, a mountain of knowledge I might never acquire.\n\n\"My plans aren't that fixed...\" I started to say, but she silenced me with a warm finger to my lips.\n\n\"Yes they are. And you're not going to change them on my account. You seemed very certain this morning about what you felt you had to do.\"\n\n\"And I am still certain,\" I said firmly, with more firmness and certainty than I felt. \"The bribe to get me over to Nevenkebla was taken?\"\n\n\"Doubled before accepted. If you are going to go missing then old Grbonja will never be permitted to go ashore there again. But he has been ready to retire for years. The bribe is just the financial cushion he needs.\"\n\n\"What does he do?\"\n\n\"Exports fruit and vegetables. You'll go along as one of his laborers. He won't be punished if you get away from the market\u2014but they will take away his landing pass. He won't mind.\"\n\n\"When do I get to see him?\"\n\n\"We go to his warehouse tonight, after dark.\"\n\n\"Then...\"\n\n\"I leave you there. Are you hungry?\"\n\n\"We just ate.\"\n\n\"That is not what I mean,\" she answered in a very husky voice.\n\n* * *\n\nThe dark streets were lit only by occasional torches at the corners, the air heavy with menace. We walked in silence; perhaps everything that might be said had already been said. I had bought a sharp dagger, which hung at my waist, and another club that I slammed against a wall occasionally to be sure any watchers knew it was there. All too soon we reached our destination, for Bibs knocked on a small gate let into a high wall. There were some whispered words and the gate creaked open. I could smell the sweetness of fruit all about us as we threaded through the dark mounds, to the lamplit corner where an elderly man slumped in a chair. He was all gray beard and gray hair to his waist, where the hair spread out over a monstrous paunch held up by spindly legs. One eye was covered by a cloth wound round his head, but the other looked at me closely as I came up.\n\n\"This is the one you are taking,\" Bibs said.\n\n\"Does he speak Esperanto?\"\n\n\"Like a native,\" I said.\n\n\"Give me the money now.\" He held out his hand.\n\n\"No. You'll just leave him behind. Ploveci will give it to you after you land.\"\n\n\"Let me see it then.\" He turned his beady eye on me and I realized that I was Ploveci. I took out the leather bag, spread the coins out on my hands, then put them back into the bag. Grbonja grunted what I assumed was a sign of assent. I felt a breeze on my neck and wheeled about.\n\nThe gate was just closing. Bibs was gone.\n\n\"You can sleep here,\" he said pointing to a heap of tumbled sacks against the wall. \"We load and leave at dawn.\"\n\nWhen he left he took the lamp with him. I looked into the darkness, toward the closed gate.\n\nI had little choice in the matter. I sat on the sacks with my back to the wall, the club across my legs and thought about what I was doing, what I had done, what we had done, what I was going to do, and about the conflicting emotions that washed back and forth through my body. This was apparently too much thinking because the next thing I knew I was blinking at the sunlight coming through the opening door, my face buried in the sacks and my club beside me on the floor. I scrambled up, felt for the money\u2014still there\u2014and was just about ready for what the day would bring. Yawning and stretching the stiffness from my muscles. Reluctantly.\n\nThe large door was pulled wider and I saw now that it opened onto a wharf with the fog-covered ocean beyond. A sizable sailing vessel was tied up there and Grbonja was coming down the gangway from the deck.\n\n\"Ploveci, help them load,\" he ordered and passed on.\n\nA scruffy gang of laborers followed him into the warehouse and seized up filled sacks from the pile closest to the door. I couldn't understand a word they said, nor did I need to. The work was hot, boring, and exhausting, and consisted simply of humping a sack from the warehouse to the ship, then returning for another. There was some pungent vegetable in the sacks that soon had my eyes running and itching. I was the only one who seemed to mind. There was no nonsense about breaks either. We carried the sacks until the ship was full, and only then did we drop down in the shade and dip into a bucket of weak beer. It had foul wooden cups secured to it by thongs and after a single, fleeting moment of delicacy I seized one up, filled and emptied it, filled and drank from it once again.\n\nGrbonja reappeared, as soon as the work was done, and gurgled what were obviously orders. The longshoremen became sailors, pulled in the gangplank, let go the lines and ran up the sail. I stood to one side and fondled my club until Grbonja ordered me into the cabin and out of sight. He joined me there a few moments later.\n\n\"I'll take the money now,\" he said.\n\n\"Not quite yet, grandpop. You get it when I am safely ashore, as agreed.\"\n\n\"They must not see me take it!\"\n\n\"Fear not. Just stand close to the top of the gangplank and I will stumble against you. When I'm gone you will find the bag tucked into your belt. Now tell me what I will find when I get ashore.\"\n\n\"Trouble!\" he wailed and raked his fingers through his beard. \"I should never have gotten involved. They will catch you, kill you, me too...\"\n\n\"Relax, look at this.\" I held the money bag in the beam of light from the grating above and let the coins trickle between my fingers. \"A happy retirement, a place in the country, a barrel of beer and a plate of pork chops every day, think of all the joys this will bring.\"\n\nHe thought and the sight of the clinking coins had a great calming effect. When his fingers had stopped shaking I gave him a handful of money which he clutched happily.\n\n\"There. A downpayment to show that we are friends. Now think about this\u2014the more I know about what I will find when I get ashore the easier it will be for me to get away. You won't be involved. Now... speak.\"\n\n\"I know little,\" he mumbled, most of his attention on the shining coins. \"There are the docks, the market behind. All surrounded by a high wall. I have never been past the wall.\"\n\n\"Are there gates?\"\n\n\"Yes, large ones, but they are guarded.\"\n\n\"Is the market very large?\"\n\n\"Gigantic. It is the center of trade for the entire country. It stretches for many myldyryow along the coast.\"\n\n\"How big is a myldyryow?\"\n\n\"Myldyr, myldyryow is plural. One of them is seven hundred lathow.\"\n\n\"Thanks. I'll just have to see for myself.\"\n\nGrbonja, with much grunting and gasping, threw open a hatch in the deck and vanished below, undoubtedly to hide the coins I had given him. I realized then that I had had enough of the cabin so I went out on deck, up to the bow, where I would not be underfoot. The sun was burning off the morning haze and I saw that we were passing close to an immense tower that rose up from the water. It was scarred, ancient, certainly centuries old. They had built well in those days. The mist lifted and revealed more and more of the structure, stretching up out of sight. I had to lean back to see the top, high, high above.\n\nWith the remains of the fractured bridge hanging from it. The once-suspended roadway hung crumpled and broken, dipping down into the ocean close by. Rusted, twisted, heaped with the broken supporting cables which were over two meters thick. I wondered what catastrophe had brought it down.\n\nOr had it been deliberate? Had the rulers of Nevenkebla destroyed it to cut themselves free from the continent that was slowly sinking back into barbarism? A good possibility. And if they had done this they showed a firmness of mind that made my penetration of their island that much more difficult.\n\nBefore I could worry about this a more immediate threat presented itself. A lean, gray ship bristling with guns came thundering up from ahead. It cut across our bow and turned sharply around our stern; our sailing ship bobbed in its wake and the sails flapped. I emulated the sailors and tried to ignore the deadly presence, the pointed weapons that could blow us out of the water in an instant. We were here on legitimate business\u2014weren't we?\n\nThe gunboat's commander must have believed this as well because, with an insulting blare on their horn, the vessel changed course again and blasted away across the sea. When the ship had dwindled into the distance one of the sailors shook his fist after them and said something bitter and incomprehensible that I agreed with completely.\n\nNevenkebla rose out of the mists ahead. Cliffs and green hills backing an immense, storied city that rose up from a circular harbor. Factories and mine-heads beyond, plumes of smoke from industry already busy in the early morning. And forts at the water's edge, great guns gleaming. Another fort at the end of the seawall as we entered the harbor. I could feel the glare of suspicious eyes behind the gunsights as the black mouths of the barrels followed us as we passed. These guys were not kidding.\n\nAnd I was going to tackle this entire country single-handed?\n\n\"Sure you are, Jim,\" I said aloud with great braggadocio, swinging my club so that it whistled in tight arcs. \"You'll show them. They don't stand a chance against fighting Jimmy diGriz.\"\n\nWhich would have been fine if my voice had not cracked as I said it.\nChapter 5\n\n\"Down sails,\" an amplified voice roared. \"Take our line aboard.\"\n\nA high-prowed tug came chuntering up with its loudhailer bellowing. Grbonja swiftly translated the commands to the crew.\n\nNothing was left to chance in Nevenkebla: all matters were highly organized. Even before the sail was down we were secured safely to the tug and being towed to our berth at the crowded wharfside. Sailing craft of interesting variety and form were already unloading cargo there. We were moved into a vacant berth among the others.\n\n\"They come long ways,\" Grbonja wheezed, stumbling up beside me, pointing at the other ships. \"From Penpilick, Grampound, even Praze-an-Beeble\u2014may everyone there suffer from a lifetime of dysesya! Tie up outside harbor at night. You give me the money now, too dangerous on shore!\"\n\n\"A deal's a deal, grandpop. Too late to back out now.\"\n\nHe sweated and muttered and looked at the land coming close. \"I go ahead first, talk to freightmaster. Only then we unload. They take your papers and give you dock badge. After that you will see me. Give me the money.\"\n\n\"No sweat. Just keep your mind on the sunny future of happy retirement.\"\n\nTwo armed guards glowered down at us as we tied up. A steam winch dropped the gangway into place and Grbonja puffed up the incline and onto the dock. To turn me in? Maybe I should have paid him in advance? My heart gave a few quick thuds as it shifted into worry mode.\n\nIn a few minutes\u2014or was it centuries?\u2014Grbonja had returned and was shouting instructions at the crew. I left my club in the cabin and put the dagger inside my shirt where it couldn't be seen. My lockpick and remaining coins were in a pouch inside my shirt as well. I was ready as I was ever going to be. When I came out of the cabin the sailors were already starting to unload. I picked up a bag and followed the others up the gangway. Each of them held out his identity papers: I did the same. As they reached the dock the officer there took each man's papers and stuffed them into a box. Then pinned an identification tag to the man's clothes. He looked bored by the job. I tried not to tremble as I came up to him.\n\nIt was just routine. \"Next,\" he called out, whipped the papers from my hand and pinned the tag to my chest. Or rather pinned it through the fabric into my skin. I jumped but kept my mouth shut. He grinned, with a touch of sadism in the turn of his mouth, and pushed me on.\n\n\"Keep moving, lunkhead. Next.\"\n\nI was safely ashore and undetected. Following the bent back of the man ahead of me into the dark warehouse. Grbonja was standing by the growing pile of sacks. When he saw me he called out an incomprehensible instruction and pointed to the next bay.\n\n\"The money, now,\" he burbled as I dumped the sack. I slipped it to him and he staggered away muttering with relief. I looked around at the solid cement and steel walls and went back for another sack.\n\nBy the time I had carried in my third sack I was getting desperate. After a few more trips the ship would be unloaded and that would be the end of that. I would have had an expensive round trip and done some hard work. Nothing more. Because I could see no way out of the building\u2014and no place to hide within it. They obviously did not relish uninvited visitors to Nevenkebla. I needed more time.\n\n\"Call a beer break,\" I whispered to Grbonja as I passed him at the head of the gangway. The checker-inner had gone but the two unsmiling guards still stood watch.\n\n\"We never stop\u2014it is not the custom.\"\n\n\"It is today. It's a hot day. You don't want me to tell them you were hired to smuggle me here?\"\n\nHe groaned aloud, then called out. \"Beer, we stop for beer!\"\n\nThe crew asked no questions at this unexpected treat, only chattered together with pleasure as they gathered round the barrel. I had a good slug of the stuff then went and sat on the gunwhale beside the gangway. Looked up at the boots of the guard who stood above me. Looked down at the water and saw the space between the pilings there.\n\nMy only chance. The guard above me moved out of sight. Grbonja had his back turned while the sailors had their attention focused on the barrel. A difference of opinion over the rationing appeared to break out. There were angry shouts and a quick blow. The crew watched these proceedings with great interest. No one was visible on the dock above.\n\nI dropped a length of line over the side, swung my legs over and climbed down it. No one saw me go. With my legs in the sea I used my dagger to cut the line above my head and dropped silently into the water. With noiseless strokes I swam into the darkness under the pier.\n\nSlime-covered boards connected the wooden piles. When I reached for one of them something squealed and vanished in the darkness. And it stank down here. Nameless rubbish bobbed in the water around me. I was beginning to regret my impetuous swim.\n\n\"Chin up, Jim, and move along. This is the first place they look when they find out you are missing.\"\n\nI swam. Not far, for there was a solid wall here that ran back into the darkness. I groped along it until I reached the outer piles again. Through the openings between them I saw the hull of another sailing ship, tied close. There was no room to pass between the planks of the ship and the piles. Trapped so soon?!\n\n\"This is your day for panic,\" I whispered aloud, the sound of my voice covered by the slapping of the waves. \"You can't go back, so carry on you must. The hull of this ship has to curve away. Just dive down and swim along it until you find another opening between the piles.\"\n\nHo-ho. Sounded very easy to do. I kicked my boots off and breathed deep. But my trepidition grew with each shuddering breath that I drew in. When my head was swimming with oxygen intoxication I let out the last lungful and dived.\n\nIt was a long, dark and apparently endless swim. I ran my left hand along the ship's hull to guide me. Collecting some heroic splinters at the same time. On and on with no glimmer of light in front or above. This must be a very big ship. There was fire in my lungs and desperation in my swimming before I saw light ahead. I came up as quietly as I could by the ship's bow. Trying not to gasp as I exhaled and drew in life and fresh air.\n\nLooking up at a sailor standing on the rail above, turning towards me.\n\nI sank out of sight again, forcing myself deep under the water, swimming on with my lungs crying out for air, until I saw the black bulk of the next ship ahead of me, forcing myself to swim on to the last glimmer of light before floating up the surface again.\n\nCatching my head nicely between hull and piling, to fight down the rising panic as I fought to free myself\u2014getting some splinters in my scalp this time. My groping fingers found a gap between the pilings so I surfaced there, hung on, sucked in lungful after lungful of the stinking fug, enjoying it more than the freshest air I had ever breathed.\n\nThis was the beginning of a very long and very tiring day. I did not keep track of the number of ships I passed, but it was a lot. At first I searched under the various docks but soon gave that up since they were all the same, each firmly separated by an underwater wall from the next. Some of the ships had finished unloading and had left, for I came to gaps in the continuous wall of vessels. All I could do when this happened was to breathe deep, dive deep\u2014and swim like crazy to reach the next ship before my breath ran out.\n\nIt was afternoon before I reached the last ship and the end of the docks. The tide was ebbing, the vessels were now down below the dock level so there was more concealment from above. I was very tired but very proficient by this time. One more time I breathed deep, dove down at the bow, swam the length of the hull and surfaced in the shadow of the rudder.\n\nTo look at a solid wall of jointed stone stretching out before me.\n\nHolding onto the rudder, my eyes just above the surface, I peered around it. And realized that I was looking at the harbor wall that stretched unbroken out to the fort built at its far end. I drew back into the shadow of the rudder and found that my heart was sinking so fast it was pulling me under the water.\n\n\"Any bright ideas, Jim?\" I asked, then found that I was waiting a long time for an answer.\n\nThink, don't despair, I ordered myself. I still felt despair. Could I go back? No, that was out. After all I had gone through today I was not going to surrender that easily. Hide under one of the docks? Possibly. But they would be thoroughly searched as soon as I was missed, I was certain of that. What else? Climb up onto the dock? No way. The warehouses here were sure to be as barren of hiding places as the one I had left. Then what?\n\n\"Turn the problem on its head, that's what The Bishop had always said.\"\n\nWhat would that be in this situation? I was trying to get away from the soldiers, fleeing them, knowing they would be looking for me. So I should go to them. But that would be suicide. But where could I possibly go that would be totally unexpected?\n\nWhy, the fort on the end of the harbor wall of course.\n\n\"Without a doubt the most insane idea you have ever had,\" I muttered in disgust, peering around the rudder again. Above me there were shouted oaths from the sailors and the thud of feet on planking. I had the feeling that this ship would be leaving soon as well, taking my protection with it. The solid stone blocks of the jetty stretched unbroken to the fort at the end. Some debris washed against the stone and sea birds fought over the edible bits. Other than that\u2014nothing. No cover at all. If I tried to swim out there I would be seen at once by anyone who glanced that way. Above me tackle creaked as the sail was lifted; the ship was getting under way.\n\nI had to get clear of it\u2014or did I? No tug had appeared. Was it possible the ships were only towed into harbor? That they permitted them to sail out on their own? It was. I peered around the rudder again and saw two of the cargo vessels standing out toward the entrance. Light poured down from the growing gap above me and I sank under the surface before I could be seen.\n\nIt was not easy\u2014but it could be done. I held tight to the rudder as it came over, almost pulling itself out of my hands. I stayed under the surface as long as I could so I would not be seen from the shore. The sailing ship was moving along smoothly and it took all my strength to shift my grip from the front to the back of the rudder. Holding on was easier now. When I finally was forced to lift my face up to breathe I found myself in a rush of foam, inhaled some and fought not to cough. As we drew away from the dockside I saw an armed guard there. His back turned with indifference.\n\nIt was almost easy after that. The rush of the waves held me against the rudder post. I breathed easily with my head out of the water, unseen from the shore and invisible to anyone on the deck above. We tacked twice and each time I changed sides to keep the rudder between me and the fort that was now growing larger and larger ahead. When we went about for the last time I saw that this tack would take us close to the fort and past it on into the open ocean. I watched as the stone wall came closer and closer until I could see the sea beyond the end of it. Only then did I take a last breath, let go and dive deep.\n\nYes, I was tired. But this should also be my final little swim for the day so I wanted to make it a good one. The seaweed-covered harbor wall was clear ahead, the end rounded where it met the open ocean. There was a strong swell coming in that I had to fight against, swimming close to the stone where its force was weakest. Farther and farther until I had to breath or inhale water. Floating up to the bright surface and through it, looking up at the stone wall with the projecting gun barrels above. Holding on against the waves and breathing deep. Clutching into the cracks between the stones and working my way around to the far side until I could peer down its unbroken length at the shore beyond. Pleasure craft dotted the water here, power and sail, and I would certainly be seen if I tried to swim its length. Then what? I couldn't stay here in the water where I could be seen by any passing ship. I looked up at the great stone blocks and thought.\n\nWhy not? The only ships in sight now were vanishing seaward. At the outermost swell of the fort I could not be seen from the shore. And the space between stones provided ample grip for toe and finger. So climb.\n\nClimb I did. It was not easy\u2014but I had little choice. Up the vertical wall, scrabbling and clinging, midway between two of the largest seaward-facing guns. They projected through embrasures in the solid wall, shining steel, polished and deadly. I clung on and rested when I reached their level, the heaving surface of the sea a good ten meters below. The ocean was still empty\u2014but for how long?\n\n\"Give me a light, will you Jim?\"\n\nI started so hard I almost lost my grip and fell back into the water.\n\nFragrant cigar smoke blew over me and I realized it was coming from the gun embrasure close by. I hadn't been seen, no one here knew my name. It had just been coincidence. The gunners were there, that close, looking seaward and smoking on duty which I was sure was frowned upon strongly. I did not dare move. I could only hold on and listen.\n\n\"This new captain, he has got to go.\"\n\n\"He is the worst. Poison in his coffee?\"\n\n\"No. I heard they did that up north and they decimated the entire regiment. You know, shot one guy out of ten.\"\n\n\"That is the real old cagal and you know it. Nothing but cagalhouse rumor. Like fragging. Everyone talks about it, no one does it...\"\n\n\"Captain coming!\"\n\nA cigar butt sailed by my head and there was the quick slap of retreating feet. I climbed again, before my arms came out of their sockets. Forcing myself up the last few centimeters until I reached the edge and hauled myself painfully onto the flat roof of the fort. A seabird cocked a cold eye at me, screeched and flapped off. I crawled slowly across the sun-baked bird droppings of centuries, to the very center of the round building. I lay flat on my back and could see nothing but sky and the top of a distant hill. This meant that in turn I could not be discovered except from the air. I would chance that, since I had seen only one distant aircraft the entire day. I closed my eyes against the glare of the sun and instantly, without intending to, fell sound asleep.\n\nI awoke with a start and a rapidly beating heart. A cloud had crossed the face of the sun and I was chilled in my wet clothes. It had been stupid, falling asleep like that, yet I had gotten away with it. I had not been seen. The sun was closer to the horizon and since I had been safe here so far I might still be safe until dark.\n\nAnd hungry and thirsty. The demands of the body are insatiable, always after something. But this time it was going to be mind over matter and I was going to stay on the roof, unmoving, until nightfall.\n\nWhich was slow in coming. I smacked my dry lips and ignored the angry rumblings in my gut. The suns always set. It was just a matter of patience.\n\nDusk finally crept over the land, the first stars came out as it slowly grew dark. Lights came on in the fort below and I could hear the hoarse shouting of military orders. Very slowly I crawled to the inner edge and peered over. Into a courtyard where some sort of maneuver was being engaged in. Soldiers marched back and forth in little groups with much screeching from the officers. Eventually one group entered the fort and the other marched back toward the land along the broad top of the harbor wall, their way lit by evenly spaced lights. They got smaller and smaller in the distance until they reached the distant shore and vanished from sight.\n\nThen all of the lights went out.\n\nI lay, blinking into the sudden darkness, and could not believe my good luck. Had the lights been extinguished to enable me to sneak safely ashore? Probably not. There were guns below and if they meant to use them, as they obviously did, the gunners would not want to be blinded by their own lights. Good thinking, guys!\n\nI waited until I could see my way by starlight, then climbed down the outside wall to the rail around the courtyard, stepped carefully onto it and down onto the stone flagging. A single door in the wall was sealed and silent. On tiptoe I scuttled landward as fast as I could. The dark bulk of the fort grew small behind me and I strolled more easily, resisting the impulse to whistle with pleasure. The dark forms of the pleasure boats were visible off to the left. There were lights in the cabins of a few of them and I heard distant laughter across the water. I relaxed, strolled, the rough stone cool beneath my bare feet. I had the world to myself and safety lay close ahead.\n\nThen I ran headlong into the metal fencing that cut off the top of the harbor wall and all the lights came on in a searing blaze of illumination. Lights stretching ahead and behind, lights above revealing the wire fence and sealed metal door in front of me.\nChapter 6\n\nI bounced back from the wire, looked around wildly, hurled myself flat on the wall waiting for the sound of shots.\n\nBut nothing happened. The lights burned down brightly; the harbor wall behind me stretched emptily back to the fort. On the other side of the barrier the wall extended as far as the warehouses above the harbor where more lights revealed a small marching group. Coming towards me.\n\nHad I been seen\u2014or was I invisible in the shadows? Or had I triggered some alarm that turned on the lights and revealed my presence? Whatever had happened there was no point in my waiting around in order to find out. I crawled quickly to the outer edge of the wall facing the ocean\u2014I had had enough swimming in the harbor, thank you\u2014and dangled my legs backward over the edge. Groped with my bare feet for a toehold on the rough stone. Found one and eased myself down into the darkness. The tide was coming in again and my legs were engulfed by the sea. Above me on top of the wall the tramping feet grew louder. Below me the water was cold, black and unattractive.\n\nWhy didn't I just stay here out of sight until they had gone by above?\n\nAs soon as this cowardly thought had trickled through the synapses of my brain I recognized it for the dumb idea that it was. A flick of a flashlight and my presence would be revealed. I had not gone through all of the strenuous efforts and dangers of the day to be grabbed now because I was afraid of getting wet. Or eaten by unseen monsters. The ocean here must be safe or the fleets of pleasure craft would not have been drifting around all day.\n\n\"Swimmies, Jim, swimmies,\" I muttered and slid down into the sea.\n\nBy the time the soldiers had reached the gate I was treading water well away from the wall, ready to dive instantly if they pointed any lights my way. They didn't. I could see one of them unlocking the gate, then relocking it again after they had all passed through. Then they all marched on again. A relief party, surprise inspection perhaps, or some other uninteresting military maneuver. I turned about and began to swim toward shore.\n\nWhat next? The lights of a promenade grew closer and my problem grew bigger. How was I a barefoot, sodden stranger with no knowledge of this land whatsoever, how was I to go ashore and make my way about unnoticed? Not easily, that was obvious. A dark shape came between me and the lights. A craft of some kind. Salvation of some kind?\n\nI swam slowly between the moored pleasure boats. In the distance I could see that some of them were illuminated, but only darkness prevailed here. Were they occupied? They didn't appear to be; it was too early for any occupants to be asleep. Which hopefully meant that the jolly sportsmen had gone ashore after a strenuous day at play.\n\nA thin mast moved against the stars. A sailboat, a small one. I wanted something larger. I swam on until a darker form rose up above me. No masts, which meant that it was a powered craft of some kind. I swam alongside it to the stern, where my groping fingers found the ladder that was secured there. Rung by rung I climbed, dripping, out of the sea and into the craft. There was enough light from the stars and the illumination along the shore to make out cushioned seats, a wheel\u2014and a door that might lead below. I went to it, found the handle and tried to turn it. Locked.\n\n\"Good news indeed, Jim. If it is locked there is something here worth stealing. Best to look and see.\"\n\nI did. Darkness is no handicap for an efficient locksmith. I felt out the tumblers of a very simple lock with delicate touches of my lockpick. Lifted them aside and pushed the door open.\n\nWhat followed was slow work. If there were lights I did not want to turn them on. I did it all by touch. But there is a certain logic to any small craft that must be followed. Berths in the bow along the hull. Lockers below, shelves above. After a good deal of rattling, fumbling, head-banging and cursing I gathered my treasures in a blanket and took them up on deck and spread them out.\n\nWhat had felt like a bottle with a screwcap was a bottle with a screwcap. Which I unscrewed and sniffed. Then dipped in a finger and tasted. A very sweet wine. Not my normal tipple, but paradisical after all the seawater I had swallowed. There was a metal box with stale bread or biscuits of some kind that almost broke my teeth. They softened a bit when I poured wine over them, then wolfed them down. I belched deeply and felt better.\n\nI groped through the rest of my loot. There were books and boxes, unidentifiable forms, and strange shapes. And clothing. A very sheer skirt that was just not my thing. But other sartorial items were. I sorted out all of the other bits that appeared to be clothing not instantly identifiable as being intended for the fairer sex, stripped and tried some of it on. I had no idea of how well they matched, but it was an outfit of sorts. The trousers were too large by far, but a length of line in place of a belt took care of that. The shirt was a better fit, and if the jacket came down to my knees perhaps it was intended to be that length. The shoes were too big but stayed on my feet after I had stuffed cloth into their toes. It was the best I could do. Then I undressed and put my own wet clothing back on, put my new outfit into the can the bread had been in, wrapped this in turn in what I hoped was waterproof plastic.\n\nThe air was beginning to be chill and it was time to get moving. I was tired, slowed down by the exertions of the day and badly in need of some sleep. I wasn't going to get any. I finished the wine, put the empty bottle and everything else I had removed back into the cabin, then relocked the door. Before I could change my mind I put the bundle on my head and slipped over the side.\n\nThe shore was close and the beach empty as far as I could see. Which was a major blessing since swimming with one hand while balancing a can of clothing on the head with the other is not an exercise to be recommended. I emerged from the sea and scuttled to the shelter of some large rocks, stripped and buried my unwanted clothing in the sand. I quickly dressed in the dry clothes, tucked my small bag of possessions into my belt, slipped my dagger into the side of my shoe and I was ready to conquer the world.\n\nI really wanted only to find a quiet place to curl up for a nap\u2014but knew better. These people took their security seriously and the shore was their first line of defense as the fort had proved. I must get into the city itself.\n\nThere were lights on the promenade above, the sound of voices, but shadow below where I moved in silence. A flight of stairs rose up from the beach. I rose up as well\u2014but dropped back again even more swiftly at the sight of two uniformed and armed men close by. I lurked and counted backward from two hundred before I peeked again. The uniforms were gone and there were just a few evening strollers in sight. I merged and strolled and took the first turning that led away from the shore. There were streetlights here, open windows and locked doors. My clothing must not have looked too garish for a couple passed without even glancing my way. I heard music ahead and soon came to a bar over which a sign proclaimed DANCING AND DRINKING\u2014COME AND GET STINKING. An invitation almost impossible to resist. I pushed the door open and went in.\n\nThere is a power that shapes the bars of this universe. There has to be because form follows function. Function: to get containers of alcoholic beverages to people. Form: chairs to sit in, tables to rest containers on. I entered, pulled out a chair and sat at a vacant table. The other occupants ignored me just as I ignored them. A plump waitress in a short skirt came toward me, ignoring the whistles from the group of youths at the next table, skilfully avoiding their snapping fingers as well.\n\n\"Whadilitbe?\" she asked, flaring her nostrils at them as they raised beer mugs in her direction and toasted her loudly.\n\n\"Beer,\" I said and she moved off. When it came it was pungent and cold. She made her own change from the coins I had spread on the table, this seemed to be the local custom, then went back behind the bar.\n\nI drank deep and wiped the foam from my mouth just as another young man came through the door and hurried to the adjoining table.\n\n\"Porka\u0109oj!\" he whispered hoarsely. Two of the youths stumbled to their feet and hurried toward the rear of the bar.\n\nI put down my beer, scraped up my coins, and hurried after them. There was trouble here, though I did not know what kind. What he had said could be translated as bad-pigs, and must surely be local slang since I did not imagine some mucky swine were on their way. Pigs as an epithet for police is a common usage\u2014and the reactions of the two men seemed to bear this out. And I would lose nothing by being cautious. They hurried down a hallway and when I reached it a door at the far end was just closing. I had my hand on its knob when a loud siren sounded from the other side and a glare of illumination shone in through the cracks between door and frame.\n\n\"What's this?\" a coarse and loud voice said. \"You boys maybe slipping out through the backdoor because we got a patrol out front? Let's see your identification.\"\n\n\"We've done nothing wrong!\"\n\n\"You've done nothing right so far. C'mon, the ID.\"\n\nI waited, unmoving, hoping the bad-pig outside was not joined by his stymates from the bar. The coarse laughter from the other side of the door was anything but humorous.\n\n\"Hello, hello\u2014both out of date? Not thinking of avoiding the draft, are you boys?\"\n\n\"A clerical error,\" a pale voice whimpered.\n\n\"We get a lot like that. Let's go.\"\n\nThe light went away and so did the footsteps. I waited as long as I dared, then opened the door and exited the bar. The alley was empty, pig and prisoners were gone. I went myself, as quickly as I could without running. Then stopped. What was I running from? Once the police had left, the bar would be the safest place in the city for me. I stopped in a dark doorway and looked back at the rear entrance. No one else came out. I counted to three hundred, then to be safe backward again to zero. The door remained closed. Cautiously, ready to flee in an instant, I went back into the bar, peered into the barroom. No police\u2014but the glimmerings of an idea.\n\nThe four young men at the table looked up as I came back in, the newcomer sitting at one of the recently vacated seats. I shook my head gloomily and dropped into a chair.\n\n\"The porka\u0109oj got them. Both.\"\n\n\"I told Bill he needed new papers, wouldn't listen to me,\" the blond one said, the one who had come with the warning. He cracked his knuckles then seized up his beer. \"You got to have good papers.\"\n\n\"My papers are out of date,\" I said gloomily, then waved to the waitress.\n\n\"You should have stayed in Pensildelphia then,\" one of the others said, a spotty youth in an ill-fitting gold and green shirt.\n\n\"How did you know I was from Pensildelphia?\" I protested. He sneered.\n\n\"Rube accent like that, where else you from?\"\n\nI sneered back and glowed with pleasure inside. Better and better. I had a peergroup of draft dodgers, one of them who might be working with the police, and a hometown. Things were looking up. I buried my nose in my beer.\n\n\"You ought to get new ID,\" the friendly warner, possible police informer, said. I sniffled.\n\n\"Easy to say here. But you can't do it in Pensildelphia.\"\n\n\"Hard to do here too. Unless you got the right contacts.\"\n\nI stood up. \"I gotta go. Nice meeting you guys.\"\n\nBefore leaving I checked to make sure that the police were gone. Then I exited and waited. My new friend came out a moment later and smiled at me.\n\n\"Smart. Don't let too many people know what's going on. My label is Jak.\"\n\n\"Call me Jim.\"\n\n\"Good a name as any, Jim. How much you got to spend?\"\n\n\"Not much. I had a bad year.\"\n\n\"I'll put you in touch with the man himself for three sugarlumps. He'll want twenty.\"\n\n\"ID not worth more than ten. You get one-fifty.\"\n\n\"They're not all dumb in the backwoods, are they. Slap it in my hand and we're on our way.\"\n\nI paid him his cut and when he turned I put the tip of my knife against his neck just under his ear and pushed just hard enough to break the skin. He stayed absolutely still when I showed him the knife with the fresh drop of blood.\n\n\"That is a little warning,\" I said. \"Those pigs were waiting for whoever you flushed out. That's not my worry. My skin is. I got a feeling that you play both sides. Play the right side with me or I will find you and slice you. Understand?\"\n\n\"Understood...\" he said gruffly, with a tremor in his voice. I put the knife away and clapped him on the shoulders.\n\n\"I like you, Jak. You learn easy.\"\n\nWe went in silence and I hoped that he was making the right conclusions. I don't like threats and when threatened I do the opposite of what I am requested. But my experience of the petty criminal led me to believe that threats tended to work with them. Part of the time.\n\nOur route took us past a number of other bars and Jak looked carefully into each one before going on. He struck paydirt in the fifth one and waved me in after him. This place was dark and smoke filled, with jangling music blasting from all sides. Jak led the way to the rear of the room, to an alcove where the music was not quite as loud, at least not as loud as the striped outfit the fat man was wearing. He leaned back in a heavy chair and sipped at a tiny, poisonous green drink.\n\n\"Hello, Captain,\" my guide said.\n\n\"Get dead quickly, Jak. I don't want your kind here.\"\n\n\"Don't say that even funning, Captain. I got good business for you here, a mission of mercy. This grassgreen cutlet is a step ahead of the draft. Needs new ID.\"\n\nThe tiny eyes swiveled toward me. \"How much you got, cutlet?\"\n\n\"Jak says one-fifty for him, ten for you. I already paid him his.\"\n\n\"Jak's a liar. Twelve is the price and I give him his cut.\"\n\n\"You're on.\"\n\nIt was an instant transaction. I gave him the money and he passed over the grubby plastic folder. Inside there was a blurred picture of a youth who could have been anyone my age, along with other vital facts including a birthdate quite different from my own.\n\n\"This says that I am only fifteen years old!\" I protested.\n\n\"You got a baby face. You can get away with it. Drop a few years\u2014or join the army.\"\n\n\"I feel younger already.\" I pocketed the ID and rose. \"Thanks for the help.\"\n\n\"Any time. Long as you got the sugarlumps.\"\n\nI left the bar, crossed the road and found a dark doorway to lurk in. It was a short wait because Jak came out soon after me and strolled away. I strolled behind him at a slightly faster stroll. I was breathing down his neck before he heard my footsteps and spun about.\n\n\"Just me, Jak, don't worry. I wanted to thank you for the favor.\"\n\n\"Yeah, sure, that's all right.\" He rolled his eyes around at the deserted street.\n\n\"You could do me another favor, Jak. Let me see your own ID. I just want to compare it to mine to make sure the Captain didn't give me a ringer.\"\n\n\"He wouldn't do that!\"\n\n\"Let's make sure.\" My dagger blade twinkled in the streetlight and he rooted inside his jacket then handed me a folder very much like my own. I turned to look at it under the light, then handed it back. But Jak was the suspicious type. He glanced at it before putting it away\u2014and dropped his jaw prettily.\n\n\"This ain't mine\u2014this is yours!\"\n\n\"That's right. I switched them. You told me that ID was good. So use it.\"\n\nHis cries of protest died behind as I walked uphill away from the shore. To a better neighborhood without a criminal element. I felt very pleased with myself. The ID could have been good\u2014in which case Jak would lose nothing. But if it were faulty in any way it would be his problem, not mine. The biter bit. A very evenhanded solution. And I was going in the right direction. Once away from the waterfront things did get better, the buildings taller, the streets cleaner, the lights brighter. And I got tireder. Another bar beckoned and I responded. Velvet drapes, soft lights, leather upholstery, better-looking waitress. She was not impressed by my clothes, but she was by the tip I passed over when my beer arrived.\n\nI had very little time to enjoy it. This was a well-policed city and the bad-pigs came in pairs. A brace of them waddled in through the door and my stomach slipped closer to the floor. But what was I worrying about? My ID was fine.\n\nThey circuited the room, looking at identification, and finally reached my table.\n\n\"Good evening, officers,\" I smarmed.\n\n\"Knock off the cagal and let's see it.\"\n\nI smiled and passed over the folder. The one who opened it widened his nostrils and snorted with pleasure.\n\n\"Why look what we got here! This is Jak the joike strolled away from his home turf. That's not nice, Jak.\"\n\n\"It's a free world!\"\n\n\"Not for you, Jak. We all know about the deal you made with harbor police. Stay there and rat on your friends and you get left alone. But you strayed out of your turf, Jak.\"\n\n\"I'll go back now,\" I said rising with a sinking feeling.\n\n\"Too late,\" they said in unison as they slapped on the cuffs.\n\n\"Far too late,\" the nostril-flarer said. \"You're out of business, Jak, and in the army.\"\n\nThis really was the biter bit. This time I had been just a little too smart for my own good. It looked like my new and exciting military career had just begun.\nChapter 7\n\nThe cell was small, the bed hard\u2014I had no complaints. After the strenuous day I had just finished, sleep was the only thing that I wanted. I must have been snoring as I fell toward the canvas covers, with no memory of my face ever touching the stained pillow. I slept the sleep of exhaustion and awoke when a gray shaft of light filtered in through the barred window. I felt cheered and rested until I realized where I was. Dark depression fell.\n\n\"Well, it could be worse,\" I said cheerily.\n\n\"How?\" I snarled dispiritedly. There was no easy answer to that. My stomach rumbled with hunger and thirst and the depression deepened. \"Cry-baby,\" I sneered. \"You've had it much worse than this. They took the dagger but nothing else. You have your money, your identification.\" And the lockpick I added in silence. The presence of that little tool had a warming effect, holding out hope of eventual escape.\n\n\"I'm hungry!\" a youthful voice cried out and there was a rattling of bars. Others took up the cry.\n\n\"Food. We're not criminals!\"\n\n\"My mom always brought me breakfast in bed...\"\n\nI was not too impressed by this last wail of complaint but sympathized with the general attitude. I joined the cry.\n\n\"All right, all right, shut up,\" an older and gruffer voice called out. \"Chow is on the way. Not that you deserve anything, bunch of draft dodgers.\"\n\n\"Cagal on that sergeant\u2014I don't see your fat chunk in the army.\"\n\nI looked forward to meeting the last speaker; he showed a little more courage than the rest of the wailers. The wait wasn't too long, though it was scarcely worth it. Cold noodle soup with sweet red beans is not my idea of the way to start the day. I wondered how it would end.\n\nI had plenty of time for wondering because after feeding time in the zoo we were left strictly alone. I stared up at the cracked ceiling and slowly began to realize that my ill fortune wasn't that bad when closely examined. I was alive and well in Nevenkebla. With a promising career ahead of me. I would learn the ropes, find out all I could about this society, maybe even get a lead on Garth\u2014or General Zennor if Bibs had overheard the name correctly. He was in the army and I would very soon be in the army, which fact might work to my advantage. And I had the lockpick. When the right moment came I could do a little vanishing act. And how bad could the army be? I had been a soldier on Spiovente, which training should come in handy...\n\nOh, how we do fool ourselves.\n\nSomewhere around midday, when my cowardly peer group were beginning to howl for more nourishment, the crash of opening cell doors began. The howls changed to cries of complaint as we were ordered from our cells and cuffed wrist to wrist in a long daisychain. About a dozen of us, similar of age and gloomy of mein. The unknown future lay darkly ahead. With much stumbling and curses we were led from the cell block to the prison compound where a barred vehicle waited to transport us to our destiny. It moved away silently after we had been herded aboard, battery- or fuel cell\u2013powered, out into the crowded city streets. Clothes were slightly different, vehicles of unusual shapes, but it could have been any world of advanced technology. No wonder they had cut themselves off from the rest of this decadent planet. Selfish\u2014but understandable.\n\nNo effete amenities like seats were provided for hardened criminals: so we clutched to the bars and swayed into each other at the turns. A thin, dark-haired youth secured to my left wrist sighed tremulously, then turned to me.\n\n\"How long you been on the run?\" he asked.\n\n\"All my life.\"\n\n\"Very funny. I've had six months since my birthday, six short months. Now it's all over.\"\n\n\"You're not dying\u2014just going into the army.\"\n\n\"What's the difference? My brother got drafted last year. He smuggled a letter out to me. That's when I decided to run. Do you know what he wrote\u2014?\"\n\nHis eyes opened wide and he shivered at the memory, but before he could speak our transport slammed to a halt and we were ordered out.\n\nThe street scene was one to give joy to the eyes of any sadist. Varying forms of transport had converged on the plaza before the tall building. Emerging from them were young men, hundreds, perhaps thousands of them, all wearing upon their faces a uniform expression of despair. Only our little band was manacled\u2014the rest clutched the yellow draft notices that had dragged them to their destiny. A few of them had the energy to make mock of our manacled state, but they shrank away under the chorus of our jeers. At least we had made some attempt, no matter how feeble, to escape military impressment. Nor did it appear to make any difference to the authorities. They did not care how they had managed to grab the bodies. Once inside the doors our chains were stripped away and we were herded into line with all the others. The faceless military machine was about to engulf us.\n\nAt first it did not seem too bad. The lines of youths crept forward toward desks manned by plump maternal types who might have been our moms or teachers. All of them had gray hair and wore spectacles, which they looked over the tops of when they weren't two-fingeredly hammering their typewriters. I finally reached mine and she smiled up at me.\n\n\"Your papers please, young man.\"\n\nI passed them over and she copied dates and names and incorrect facts into a number of forms. I saw the cable leading from her typewriter to a central computer and knew that everything was being recorded and ingested there as well. I was happy to see the false identity entered; when I un-volunteered I wanted to drop from sight.\n\n\"Here you are,\" she said, and smiled, and passed over a buff file of papers. \"You just take these up to the fourth floor. And good luck in your military career.\"\n\nI thanked her, it would be churlish not to, and started back toward the front doors. A solid line of unsmiling military police blocked any chance of exit.\n\n\"Fourth floor,\" I said as the nearest one eyed me coldly and smacked his club into his palm.\n\nThe elevator cars were immense, big enough to take forty of us at a time. Nor did they leave until they were full. Jammed and miserable we rose to the fourth floor where a little taste of what awaited us awaited us. As the doors sighed open a military figure, all stripes and decorations, medals and red face came roaring toward us.\n\n\"Get out! Get out! Don't stand around like a bunch of poofters! Move it! Snap cagal or you'll be in the cagal. Take a box and a small transparent bag from the counter on the right as you pass. Then go to the far end of this room where you will UNDRESS. That means take all of your clothes off. AND I MEAN ALL OF YOUR CLOTHES! Your personal effects will go into the plastic bag which you will keep in your left hand at all times. All of your clothing will go into the box which you will take to the counter at the far end where it will be sealed and addressed and sent to your home. Where you will retrieve it after the war, or it will be buried with you, whichever comes first. Now MOVE!\"\n\nWe moved. Unenthusiastically and reluctantly\u2014but we had no choice. There must be a nudity taboo in this society because the youths spread out, trying to get close to the walls, huddled over as they stripped off their clothes. I found myself alone in the center of the room enjoying the scowled attention of the stripe-bearing monster: I quickly joined the others. So reluctant were they to reveal their shrinking flesh that dawdle as I might I was still first to the counter. Where a bored soldier seized my box and quickly sealed it, slammed it down before me and pointed to thick pens hung from the ceiling on elastic cords.\n\n\"Name-address-postcode-nearest-relative.\"\n\nThe words, empty of meaning through endless repetition, rolled out as he turned to seize up the next box. I scrawled the address of the police station where we had been held and when I released the pen the countertop opened and the box vanished. Very efficient. Plastic bag in left hand, folder in my right I joined the shivering group of pallid, naked young men who hung their heads as they waited their next orders. With their clothes gone all differences of identity seemed to have fled as well.\n\n\"You will now proceed to the eighteenth floor!\" was the bellowed command. We proceeded. Into the elevator, forty at a time, doors closed, doors opened\u2014into a vision of a sort of medical hell.\n\nA babble of sound, shouts for attention, screamed orders. Doctors and medical orderlies garbed in white, many with cloth masks over their faces, poked and prodded in a mad mirror-image of medical practice. Senses blurred as event ran into event.\n\nA physician\u2014that is I assume he was a physician since he wore a stethoscope around his neck\u2014seized my folder, threw it to an orderly, then clutched me by the throat. Before I could seize him by the throat in return he shouted at the orderly.\n\n\"Thyroid, normal.\" The orderly made an entry as he squeezed my stomach wall.\n\n\"Hernias, negative. Cough.\"\n\nThis last was an order to me and I coughed as his rubber-clad fingers probed deep.\n\nThere was more, but only the highlights stand out.\n\nThe urinalysis section where we stood in shivering ranks, each holding a recently filled paper cup. Our file slowly wending forward, on tiptoe for the floor was aslosh, to the white-clad, white-masked, booted and rubber-gloved orderly who dipped a disposable dropper into each cup, dropped a drop into a section of a large, sectioned chemical tray. Discarded the dropper into an overflowing container, eyed the chemical reaction. Shouted \"Negative, next!\" and carried on.\n\nOr the hemorrhoidal examination. Good taste forbids too graphic a description, but it did involve rows of youths bent over and clutching their ankles while a demonic physician crouched over as well and ran along behind the rows with a pointed flashlight.\n\nOr the injections, ahh, yes the injections. As this particular line crept forward I became aware that the youth in front of me was a bodybuilder of some sort. Among the pipestem arms and knocking knees his bronzed biceps and polished pects stood out as a monument to masculinity. He turned to me with a worried expression on the knotted muscles of his face.\n\n\"I don't like needles,\" he said.\n\n\"Who does,\" I agreed.\n\nNot nice at any time, positively threatening in mass attack. I watched, horrified, as I approached the point of no return. As each shivering body came into position an orderly on each side injected each upper arm. No sooner were the needles hurled aside than the victim was pushed in the back by the uniformed supervising brute. After tottering a few paces forward two more injections were made. Arms curled with pain the subject leaned on the nearby counter. Where he was vaccinated. Very efficient.\n\nToo efficient for the weightlifter. As he stepped into position his eyes rolled up and he slumped unconscious to the floor. This, however, was no obstacle to military efficiency. Two needles flashed, two injections were made. The sergeant seized him by the feet and dragged him forward where, after receiving the rest of his injections, he was rolled aside to recover. I gritted my teeth, tried stoically to accept the puncturing barrage, and sighed.\n\nAt some point the mass medical examination ended with a final assault on whatever shards of personal dignity the victims might still have left. Still nude, still clutching our plastic bags in our left hands, our thickening folders in our right, we shuffled forward in yet one more line. A row of numbered desks stretched across the width of the room, very much like the reception hall of an airport. Behind each desk sat a dark-suited gent. When it was my turn the sergeant-herdsman glanced over his shoulder and stabbed a stumpy figure at me.\n\n\"You, haul it to number thirteen.\"\n\nThe man behind the desk wore thick-framed glasses, as did all of the others I noticed. Perhaps our eyes were going to be examined and this was what we would be like if we failed. My folder was seized yet one more time, another printed sheet inserted\u2014and I found tiny red eyes glaring at me through the thick lenses.\n\n\"Do you like girls, Jak?\"\n\nThe question was completely unexpected. Yet it prompted a sweet vision of Bibs that obscured the medical mockery around me.\n\n\"You bet I like girls,\" was my instant response. An entry was made.\n\n\"Do you like boys?\"\n\n\"Some of my best friends are boys.\" I began to have a glimmering of what this simpleton was up to.\n\n\"Are they?\" Slash of pencil. Then, \"Tell me about your first homosexual experience.\"\n\nMy jaw fell with disbelief. \"I can't believe that I'm hearing this. You are doing a psychiatric examination from a checklist?\"\n\n\"Don't give me any cagal, kid,\" he snarled. \"Just answer the question.\"\n\n\"Your medical degree should be taken away for incompetence\u2014if you ever had one. You're probably not a shrink at all, just a timeserver dressed like one.\"\n\n\"Sergeant!\" he shouted in a cracked voice, his skin flushing. There was a thunder of feet behind me. \"This draftee is refusing to cooperate.\"\n\nSharp pain slashed the backs of my bare legs and I Yowed! and jumped aside. The sergeant raised the thin cane again and licked his lips.\n\n\"That will do for the moment,\" my examiner said. \"If my questions are answered correctly.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir,\" I said, snapping to attention. \"No need to repeat the question. My first experience of that kind was at the age of twelve when, with the aid of large rubber bands, I and fourteen other boys...\"\n\nI continued on in this vein while he scribbled happily and the sergeant muttered with frustration and waddled away. When the form had been completed with the last work of fiction, I was released and ordered on to join the others. It was back to the elevators again, jammed inside in nude groups of forty. The doors closed for the descent. The doors opened.\n\nAt what was obviously the wrong floor. Before our horrified eyes there was displayed a vista of desks and typewriters. With a young lady laboring away at each of them. There was a fluttering sound as all of the folders were swung forward over the vitals. The air temperature rose as everyone turned bright red. All we could do was stand there in carmined embarrassment, listening to the endless rattle of typewriter keys, waiting for heads to turn, gentle female eyes to peer our way. After about fourteen and a half years the doors slowly closed again.\n\nThere were no females present when the doors opened this time, just the now-familiar form of another brutish sergeant. I wondered what twisted gene in the population had produced so many thick-necked, narrow-browed, potbellied sadomasochists.\n\n\"Out,\" this one bellowed. \"Out, out, groups of ten, first ten through that door. Next ten next door. Not eleven! Can't you count, cagal-head!\" Followed by a yipe of pain as discipline was enforced yet again. My ten victims shuffled into a brightly lit room and were ordered into line. We faced a white wall that was hung with a repulsive puce-green flag distastefully decorated with a black hammer. An officer with little golden bars on his shoulder strutted in and stood before the flag.\n\n\"This is a very important occasion,\" he said in a voice heavy with importance. And, \"You young men, the fittest in the land, have been chosen as volunteers by your local draft boards to defend this country we love against the evil powers abroad that seek to strip away our freedoms. Now the solemn moment that you all have been waiting for has arrived. You entered this room as fun-loving youths. You will leave it as dedicated soldiers. You will now be sworn in as loyal members of the army. Raise your right hands and repeat after me...\"\n\n\"I don't want to!\"\n\n\"You have that choice,\" the officer said grimly. \"This is a free country and you are all volunteers. You may take the oath. Or if you choose not to, which is your right, you may leave by the small door behind me which leads to the federal prison where you will begin your thirty-year sentence for neglect of democratic duties.\"\n\n\"My hand's up,\" the same voice wailed.\n\n\"You will all repeat after me. I, insert your own name, of my own free will...\"\n\n\"I, insert your own name, of my own free will.\"\n\n\"We will do it again, and we will do it correctly, and if we don't get it right next time, there is going to be trouble.\"\n\nWe did it again, and correctly. Repeating what he said and trying not to hear what we were saying.\n\n\"To serve loyally... to show respect to all of the senior officers... death if I show disloyalty... death if I should desert... death if I sleep on duty...\" and so on to the very end, which was \"I do swear this in the name of my mother and father and the deity of my choice.\"\n\n\"Hands down, congratulations, you are all now soldiers and subject to military law. Your first order is that each of you will volunteer voluntarily a liter of blood since there has been a sudden call for transfusions. Dismissed.\"\n\nWeak with hunger and fatigue, dizzy from loss of blood, cold noodle soup still sitting leadenly in the stomach, we reached the end of the line. We hoped.\n\n\"Fall in. Move it along. You will each be issued with a disposable uniform which you will not dispose of until ordered. You will don the uniforms and proceed up these stairs to the roof of this building where transportation is waiting to take you to Camp Slimmarco, where your training will begin. You will turn in your folders before you receive your uniforms. You will each receive an identity disc with your name and service number on it. These discs are grooved across the center so they may be broken in half. Do not break them in half because that is a military crime and will be punished.\"\n\n\"Why make them to break in half if you don't break them in half?\" I muttered aloud. The youth beside me rolled his eyes and whispered.\n\n\"Because when you're dead they break them in half and send on half to death registrations and put the other half in your mouth.\"\n\nWhy was it that as I shuffled forward to get my uniform I had a very strong metallic taste in my mouth?\nChapter 8\n\nUnder any other circumstances I would have enjoyed the ride in this unusual airship. It was shaped like a large cigar and undoubtedly contained light gas of some kind. Slung beneath the lifting body was a metal cabin tastefully decorated outside with a frieze of skulls and bones. Ducted fans on the cabin were angled to force it aloft and forward: the view from the window must have been fascinating. But the windows that we had glimpsed from the outside were all forward in the pilot's compartment, while we draftees were jammed into a windowless metal chamber. The seats were made from molded plastic surfaced with uneven bumps and hideously uncomfortable\u2014but at least they were seats. I dropped into one and sighed with relief. In all the hours at the reception center the only time we had been off our feet was during the bloodletting. The plastic was cool through the thin paper fabric of the purple disposable uniform, the deck hard through the cardboard soles fastened at the end of its legs. The only pocket in this hideous garment was a pouch at the front into which we had shoved our bags of personal possessions so that we all resembled demented purple marsupials. I felt depressed. But at least I had company. We were all depressed.\n\n\"I never been away from home before,\" the recruit to my right sniveled, then sniffed and wiped his damp nose on his sleeve.\n\n\"Well I have,\" I said in my heartiest, most jovial tones. Not that I felt either hearty or jovial, but bucking up his spirits might help mine as well. \"And it is a lot better than home.\"\n\n\"Food will be rotten,\" he whined self-indulgently. \"Nobody can cook like my Mom. She makes the best cepkukoj in the whole world.\"\n\nOnion cakes? What sort of bizarre diet had this stripling enjoyed? \"Put that all behind you,\" I chirped. \"If the army bakes cepkukoj they will be foul, count on that. But think of the other pleasures. Plenty of exercise, fresh air\u2014and you can curse all the time, drink alcohol and talk smutty about girls!\"\n\nHe blushed ardently, his splayed ears glowing like banners. \"I wouldn't talk about girls! And I know how to drink. Me and Jojo went behind the barn once and drank beer and cursed and threw up.\"\n\n\"Whee...\" I sighed and was saved from future futile conversation by the appearance of a sergeant. He slammed open the door from the front cabin and roared his command.\n\n\"Alright you kretenoj\u2014on your feet!\"\n\nHe assured instant obedience by hitting a button on the wall that collapsed our seats. There were screams and moans of pain, writhing purple confusion on the deck as the recruits fell on top of each other. I was the only one standing and I caught the full force of the sergeant's sizzling glare.\n\n\"What are you\u2014a wise guy or sometin'?\"\n\n\"No, sir! Just obeying orders, sir!\" Saying this I leaped into the air slapping my arms to my sides, stamping my feet heavily as I landed, then delivered a snappy salute\u2014so snappy I almost put my eye out. The sergeant's eyes bulged in return at this display before he was lost from sight by the rising, milling bodies.\n\n\"Quiet! Attention! Hands at sides, feet together, stomachs in, chests out, chins back, eyes forward\u2014and stop breathing!\"\n\nThe purple ranks swayed and writhed into this absurd military stance, then were still. Silence descended as the sergeant glared around with dark suspicion.\n\n\"Did I hear someone breathe? No breathing until I tell you to. The first cagalhead who breathes gets my fist where it will do the most good.\"\n\nThe silence lengthened. Purple figures stirred as incipient asphyxiation took hold. One recruit moaned and fell to the deck; I breathed silently through my nostrils. There was a gasp as one of the lads could hold out no longer. The sergeant surged forward and the spot where a fist will do the most good turned out to be the pit of the stomach. The victim screamed and fell and all the others gasped in life-giving air.\n\n\"That was a little lesson!\" the sergeant screeched. \"Did you get the message?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" I muttered under my breath. \"You're a sado-masochist.\"\n\n\"The lesson is that I give the orders, you obey them\u2014or you get stomped.\" Having delivered this repulsive communication his face writhed, his lips pulled back to reveal yellowed teeth; it took a long moment for me to realize this was supposed to be a smile.\n\n\"Sit down men, make yourselves comfortable.\" On the steel deck? The seats were still stowed. I sat with the rest while the sergeant amicably patted the roll of fat that hung over his belt. \"My name is Klutz, Drill-sergeant Klutz. But you will not address me by my name, which is for the use of those of equal rank or higher. You will call me sergeant, sir, or master. You will be humble, obedient, reverent and quiet. If you are not you will be punished. I will not tell you what the punishment will be because I have eaten recently and do not wish to upset my stomach.\"\n\nA stir of fear passed through the audience at the thought of what might possibly upset that massive gut.\n\n\"One punishment is usually enough to break the spirit of even the most reluctant recruit. However, occasionally, a recruit will need a second punishment. Still more rarely a hardened resister will require a third punishment. But there is no third punishment. Would you like to know why there is no third punishment?\"\n\nThe red eyes glared down and we all wished that we were someplace, anyplace, else at this moment.\n\n\"Since you are too dim to ask why, I will tell you. Third time is out. Third time is being stuffed, kicking and screaming and begging for your mommy, into the dehydration chamber where ninety-nine point nine nine percent of all your precious bodily fluids will be removed with a dry whishing sound. Do you know what you will look like then? You will look like this!\"\n\nHe reached into his pocket and took out a tiny dehydrated figure of a recruit in a tiny dehydrated uniform, the features on its tiny face fixed forever in lines of terror. Moans of fear sighed from the soldiers and there were a number of thuds as the weakest dropped unconscious. Sergeant Klutz smiled.\n\n\"Yes, you will look just like this. Your tiny dry body will then be hung on the barracks bulletin board for a month as a warning to the others. After that your body will be put in a padded mailing envelope and sent to your parents, along with a toy shovel to assist in burial. Now\u2014are there any questions?\"\n\n\"Please, sir,\" a quavering voice asked. \"Is the dehydration process instant and painless or drawn-out and terrible?\"\n\n\"Good question. After your first day in the army\u2014do you have any doubt which it will be?\"\n\nMore moans and unconscious thuds followed. The sergeant nodded approval. \"Alright. Let me tell you what happens next. We are going to the RTCS at MMB. That means the Recruit Training Camp Slimmarco at Mortstertoro Military Base. You will take your basic training. This training will turn you from feeble civilian wimps into sturdy, loyal, reverent soldiers. Some of you will wash out of basic training and will be buried with full military honors. Remember that. There is no way back. You will become good soldiers or you will become dead. You will understand that the military is hard but fair.\"\n\n\"What's fair about it?\" a recruit gasped and the sergeant kicked him in the head.\n\n\"What is fair is that you all have an equal chance. You can get through basic or wash out. Now I will tell you something.\" He leaned forward and breathed out a blast of breath so foul that the nearest draftees dropped unconscious. There was no humor in his smile now. \"The truth is that I want you to wash out. I will do everything I can to make you wash out. Every recruit sent home in a wheelchair or a box saves the government money and lowers taxes. I want you to wash out now instead of in combat after years of expensive training. Do we understand each other?\"\n\nIf silence means assent, we certainly did. I admired the single-minded clarity of the technique. I did not like the military, but I was beginning to understand it.\n\n\"Any questions?\"\n\nMy stomach rumbled loudly in the silence and the words popped from my mouth.\n\n\"Yes, sir. When do we eat?\"\n\n\"You got a strong stomach, recruit. Most here are too sickened by military truth to eat.\"\n\n\"Only thinking of my military duty, sir. I must eat to be strong to be a good soldier.\"\n\nHe shuffled this around about in his dim brain, little piggy eyes glaring at me the while. Finally the projecting jaw nodded into the rolls of fat beneath the chin.\n\n\"Right. You just volunteered to get the rations. Through that door in the aft bulkhead. Move.\"\n\nI moved. And thought. Bad news: I was in the army and liked nothing about it. Good news: we were going to Mortstertoro base where Bibs had last seen Captain Garth-Zenar-Zenor or whatever his name was. He was on top of my revenge list\u2014but right now I was plugging away at the top of my survival list. Garth would have to wait. I opened the door which revealed a small closet containing a single box. It was labeled YUK-E COMBAT RATIONS. This had to be it. But when I lifted the box it seemed suspiciously light to feed this shipload of incipient soldiers.\n\n\"Pass them out, kreteno, don't admire the box,\" the sergeant growled, and I hurried to obey. The Yuk-E rations did appear pretty yuky. Gray bricks sealed in plastic covers. I went among my purple peers and each of them grabbed one out, fondling the bricks with some suspicion.\n\n\"These rations will sustain life for one entire day,\" the rasping voice informed us. \"Each contains necessary vitamins, minerals, protein and saltpeter that the body needs or the army wants you to have. They are opened by inserting your thumbnail into the groove labeled thumbnail-here. The covering will fall away intact and you will preserve it intact. You will eat your ration. When you are finished you will go to the wall here and to the water tap at this position and you will drink from the plastic cover. You will drink quickly because one minute after being moistened the cover will lose its rigidity and will shrink. You will then roll up the cover and save it for display at inspection because it will now be transformed into a government issue contraceptive which you will not be able to use for a very long time, if ever, but which you will still be responsible for. Now\u2014eat!\"\n\nI ate. Or tried to. The ration had the consistency of baked clay but not half as much flavor. I chewed and gagged and swallowed and managed to choke it all down before rushing to the water spigot. I filled the plastic cover and drank quickly and refilled it, emptying it just as it went limp and flacid. I sighed and rolled it up and stowed it in my marsupial pocket and made room for the next victim at the tap.\n\nWhile we had been gnawing our food the collapsed seats had snapped back into position. I eased myself carefully into the nearest, but it did not give way. It appeared impossible, but the combination of food and near-terminal exhaustion worked their unsubtle magic and I crashed. I could hear myself snoring even before I fell asleep.\n\nThe bliss of unconsciousness ended just as I might have expected; the seats fell away and dropped us into a writhing, moaning mass on the deck. We stumbled groggily to our feet under the verbal lashing of the sergeant and were trying to stand in a military posture as the deck vibrated beneath our feet and became still.\n\n\"Welcome to the first day of the rest of your new life,\" the sergeant chortled, and wails of anguish followed his words. The exit sprang open, admitting a chill and dusty blast, and we stumbled out wearily to see our new home.\n\nIt was not very impressive. One of the red and pallid suns was just setting into the cloud of dust on the horizon. I could tell by the thin and chill air that the base had been built at some altitude, a high plateau perhaps. Which guaranteed good flying weather and maximum discomfort for the troops. The ground trembled as a deep-spacer took off in the distance, its exhaust blast brighter than the setting sun. The sergeant snarled us into a ragged formation and we shivered in the downblast of our departing airship. He waved a clipboard in our direction.\n\n\"I will now call the roll. You will be called by your military name and will forget that you ever had any other. Your military name is your given name followed by the first four numbers of your serial number. When your name is called you will enter the barracks behind me and proceed to your assigned bunk and await further instructions. Gordo7590\u2014bunk one...\"\n\nI looked crosseyed at my dogtag until I could make out the number. Then stared numbly at the mud-colored barracks until the voice of our master called out Jak5138. With dragging feet I passed through the doorway over which was inscribed THROUGH THIS PORTAL PASS THE BEST DAMNED SOLDIERS IN THE WORLD. Who, as the expression goes, was kidding whom?\n\nThe floor was stone, still damp from the last scrubbing. The walls concrete, clean and still wet. I let my horrified gaze move up to the ceiling and, yes, it was damp as well, the light bulbs still dripping. How this maniacal cleansing was carried out I had no idea\u2014though I was certain that I would find out far too soon.\n\nMy bunk was, naturally, the top one in a tier of three. It was strung with wire netting, though a bulky roll at its head hinted at softer pleasures.\n\n\"Welcome to your new home,\" the sergeant grated with false jollity as we drew our fatigued bodies up into an imitation of attention. \"Note how your bedding roll is stowed when you unroll it, because it will be rolled in that stowed position at all times except when you're sleeping\u2014which will be the minimum amount of time needed to stay alive. Or less. Your footlockers are imbedded in the floor between the bunks and are opened and closed by me with this master switch.\"\n\nHe touched a stud on his belt and there was a grating sound as the mini-graves opened up in the floor. One recruit, who was standing in the wrong position, screamed as he fell into his.\n\n\"Lights out in fifteen minutes. Bedding to be unrolled but not utilized before that time. Before retiring you will watch an orientation film that will acquaint you with tomorrow's orders of the day. You will watch and listen with full attention, after which you will retire and pray to the deity or deities of your choice and cry yourselves to sleep thinking about your mommies. Dismissed.\"\n\nDismissed. The door slammed behind our striped overseer and we were alone. Dismissed was the right word for it. Dismissed from the warmth and the light of the real world, sent to this gray military hell not of our choosing. Why is mankind so inhuman to its own species? If you were caught treating a horse in this manner you would probably be put in jail, or shot. Rustling cut the silence as we opened our bedrolls. To reveal to each of us a thin mattress and even thinner blanket. A pneumatic pillow as well that could only be inflated with lusty puffing which, I was sure, would go flat by morning. While we were unrolling and blowing, TV screens dropped down silently behind us in the passageway between the bunks. Brassy military music blared and the image of an officer with a severe speech impediment appeared and began to read out totally incomprehensible instructions which we all ignored. I dumped the contents of my marsupial pocket into the subterranean footlocker and climbed and crawled, still dressed, into the bunk. My eyes blurred with fatigue as the voice droned on and I was nine-tenths asleep when a blast of light and sound jerked me awake. A grim military figure in black uniform glared angrily from the screen.\n\n\"Attention,\" it said. \"This program has been interrupted, as have all programs throughout Nevenkebla on all stations, to bring you the following important announcement.\" He scowled at the sheet of paper he held and shook it angrily.\n\n\"A dangerous spy is at large in our country tonight. It is known that he entered the harbor of Marhaveno yesterday morning disguised as a laborer on one of the ships from Brastyr. A search was made of the harbor but he was not found. The search was extended today and it was discovered that the spy entered a pleasure vessel in the adjoining harbor and stole a number of items.\"\n\nA deathly chill stirred the hairs on the nape of my neck as he held up a bundle of clothes.\n\n\"These were found buried in the sand and have been identified as the clothing worn by the spy. The entire area has been sealed, curfew declared and every building is now being carefully searched. The public is ordered to be on the lookout for this man. He may still be wearing these items of clothing that he stole. If you have seen anyone dressed like this notify the police or security forces at once.\"\n\nHis image vanished and was replaced by a carefully done computer simulation of the clothing I had borrowed from the boat. These rotated slowly in space\u2014then appeared on a man's figure which the computer strolled about the screen. The face was a blank but I knew all too well what face would soon appear there.\n\nHow long would it take them to identify me, to track me down, discover that I was now in the army, to follow me here?\n\nThere was a grating thud as the barracks door locked and the lights went out. The chill spread down my body and my heart thudded with panic and I stared, sightless and horrified into the darkness.\n\nHow long?\nChapter 9\n\nI would like to say that it was nerves of steel and fierce self-control that enabled me to fall asleep, after hearing the announcement that the entire country was turned out and searching for me. But that would be a lie. Not that I mind telling a lie or two, white lies really, to further myself in this universe. After all a disguise is a lie and continuous lying, sincere lying, is the measure of a good disguise. That went with the job. But one must not lie to oneself. No matter how distasteful the truth it must be faced and accepted. So, no lies; I fell asleep because I was horizontal in the dark, fairly warm and totally exhausted. Panic ran way behind exhaustion in the sleepy-time race. I slept, hard and enthusiastically, and awoke in the darkness only when a strange noise cut through my serious sack time.\n\nIt was a distant rustle, like waves on the beach\u2014or leaves blowing in the wind. No, not that, but something else equally familiar. An amplified sound I thought numbly, like an ancient and worn recording being played, just the background scratching without the recording itself.\n\nTheory was proved correct an instant later as a blurred and distorted recording of a bugle thundered through the barracks just as all the lights came on. The barracks door crashed open and, as though summoned from some dark hell by this hellish sound and light, the sergeant entered screaming at the top of his lungs.\n\n\"Get out and get under! Off your bunks and on your feet! Roll bedding! Dip into your footlockers! Remove shaving gear! Then on the double to the latrine! You're late, you're late! Barracks will be washed in twenty seconds precisely! Move it\u2014move it\u2014move it!\"\n\nWe moved it, but we really didn't have enough time. I fought my way through the latrine door with the other frenzied purple figures just as the footlockers slammed shut and the barracks wash-heads let go. At that precise instant the sergeant stepped backward and slammed the door. From all sides torrents of cold water gushed forth, catching at least half of the recruits still on the run. They followed us into the latrine, soaked and shivering, their disposable uniforms beginning to dispose in long rents and tears. Crying and sniveling they pushed forward like sheep. Sheep struggling for survival. There was a limited number of sanitary facilities and all were in use. I forced my way through the mob until I could glimpse my face in the corner of a distorted mirror, almost did not recognize myself with the dark-circled eyes and pallid skin. But there was no time to get organized, to take stock, to think coherently. At some lower level I realized that it had all been planned this way, to keep the recruits off-balance, insecure, frightened\u2014open for brainwashing or destruction. This realization percolated up to a slightly more conscious level and with it a growing anger.\n\nJimmy diGriz does not destruct! I was going to beat them at their own game, until I beat it out of here. It didn't matter that the entire country was looking for me\u2014until they tracked me to this military cesspit all I had to do was survive. And survive I would! The supersonic razor screeched in my brain as it blasted my overnight whiskers free. Then, while the automated toothbrush crawled around inside my mouth, I managed to get a hand under a running faucet, scrubbed my face clean, ignored the air-dryer and pelted back to my bunk over the puddled floor. I stowed my kit away just as the footlocker flew open, then spun about as Sergeant Klutz popped through the door again.\n\n\"Fall out for rollcall!\" he bellowed as I rushed by him into the night. I snapped to attention under the single glaring light as he turned and approached me with grim suspicion.\n\n\"Are you some kind of joker or something?\" he shouted, his face so close to mine that his spittle dotted my skin.\n\n\"No, sir! I'm raring to go, sir. My daddy was a soldier and my grandaddy and they told me that the best thing to be was a soldier and the highest rank in the army was sergeant! That's why I'm here.\" I stopped shouting and leaned forward and whispered. \"Don't tell the others, sir, they'll only sneer. But I wasn't drafted\u2014I volunteered.\"\n\nHe was silent and I risked a quick look at his face. Could it be? Was it, there, a drop of liquid in the corner of one eye? Had my tissue of lies touched some residual spot of emotion buried deep with the alcohol-sodden, sadistic flesh of his repulsive body? I couldn't be sure. At least he did not strike me down on the spot, but turned on his heel and rushed into the barracks to boot out the stragglers.\n\nAs the moaning victims stumbled into line I put some thought to my future. What should I do? Nothing, came the quick answer. Until you are tracked down, Jim, stay invisible in the ranks. And learn all that you can about this military jungle. Watch and learn and keep your eyes open. The more you understand about this operation the safer you will be. Then, when you run, it will be plan not panic that guides you. Good advice. Hard on the nerves to follow, but good advice nevertheless.\n\nAfter repeated mumbled mistakes, mispronunciation of names\u2014is it really possible to mispronounce Bil?\u2014the sergeant finished stumbling and muttering his way through the rollcall and led the way to the mess hall. As we approached it, and the smells of real food washed over us, the splattering of saliva on the pavement sounded like rain. Other recruits stumbled up through the night and joined us in the long line leading into the warmth of this gustatory heaven. When I finally carried my heaped-high tray to the table I found it hard to believe. All right so maybe it was grundgeburgers with caramel sauce, but it was food, hot, solid food. I didn't eat it\u2014I insufflated it and went back for more. For one moment I actually thought that the army was not so bad after all. Then I instantly banished the thought.\n\nThey were feeding us because they wanted to keep us alive. The food was nasty and cheap\u2014but it would sustain life. So if we washed out it would not be because of the diet but because of our own intrinsic insufficiency or lack of will. If we got through basic training each of us would supply one hot and relatively willing body for the war machine. Nice thinking.\n\nI hated the bastards. And went back for thirds.\n\nBreakfast was followed by calisthenics\u2014to aid the digestion or destroy it. Sergeant Klutz double-timed us to a vast, wind-swept plain where other recruits were already being put through their paces by muscular instructors. Our new leader was waiting for us, steely eyed and musclebound, the spread of his shoulders so wide that his head was disproportionately small. Or maybe he just had a pinhead. Speculation about this vanished as his roar rattled the teeth in my jaw.\n\n\"What's this, what's this? You kretenoj are almost a minute late!\"\n\n\"Pigs, that what they is,\" our loyal sergeant said, taking a long black cigar from his pocket. \"Little trotters in the trough. Couldn't tear them away from their chow.\"\n\nSome recruits gasped at this outright lie, but the wiser of us were learning and stayed silent. The one thing that we could not expect was justice. We were late getting here because our porcine sergeant could not move any faster.\n\n\"Is that so?\" the instructor said, his beady eyes swiveling in his pinhead like glowing marbles. \"Then we will see if we cannot work some of that food off of these malingering cagal-kopfs. ON THE GROUND! Now\u2014we do fifty push-ups. Begin!\"\n\nThis seemed like a good idea since I usually did a hundred push-ups every morning to keep in shape. And the chill wind was blowing through the rents in our disposable uniforms. Five. I wondered when we would be issued with something more permanent. Fifteen.\n\nBy twenty there was plenty of wavering and grunting around me and I was warming up nicely. By thirty over half of the pipe-stemmed striplings had collapsed in the dust. Sergeant Klutz dropped cigar ashes on the nearest prostrate back. We continued. When we reached fifty just I and the muscular lad who hated injections were the only ones left. Pinhead glared at us.\n\n\"Another fifty,\" he snarled.\n\nThe weightlifter puffed on for twenty more before he groaned to a halt. I finished the course and got another glare and a snarl.\n\n\"Is that all, sir,\" I asked sweetly. \"Couldn't we do another fifty?\"\n\n\"On your feet!\" he screamed. \"Legs wide, arms extended, after me. One, two, three, four. And one more time...\"\n\nBy the time the exercises were finished we had worked up a good sweat, the sergeant had finished his cigar\u2014and two of the recruits were collapsed in the dust. One of them lay beside me, groaning and clutching his midriff. The sergeant strolled over and pushed him with his toe which elicited only some weak moans. Sergeant Klutz looked down with disgust and screamed his displeasure.\n\n\"Weaklings! Faggots! Momma's boys! We'll weed you out fast enough. Get these poofters out of my sight. Man to each side pick up the malingerers, bring them to the medic tent. Then fall back in. Move!\"\n\nI bent and seized one arm and lifted. I could see that the recruit on the other side was having difficulty so I shifted my grip to take most of the weight and heaved.\n\n\"Get his arm around your shoulder\u2014I'll do the carrying,\" I whispered.\n\n\"My... thanks,\" he said. \"I'm not in such great shape.\"\n\nHe was right, too. Thin and round-shouldered with dark circles under his eyes. And older than the others I noticed, in his mid-twenties at least.\n\n\"Morton's the name,\" he said.\n\n\"Jak. You look kind of old for the draft, Mort.\"\n\n\"Believe me, I am!\" he said with some warmth. \"I almost killed myself getting through university, keeping top of the class to keep out of the army. So what happens? I'm so overworked I get sick, miss the exams, wash out\u2014and end up here anyway. What do we do with this dropout?\"\n\n\"That tent there, I guess, where they're bringing the others.\"\n\nThe limp form hung between us, toes dragging in the dust.\n\n\"He doesn't look too good,\" Morton said, glancing at the pallid skin and hanging head.\n\n\"That's his problem. You have to look out for number one.\"\n\n\"I'm beginning to get that message. A crude communication but a highly effective one. Here we are.\"\n\n\"Drop him on the ground,\" a bored corporal said, not deigning to even look up from his illiterate comic book. When he touched the page little voices spoke out and there was a mini scream. I looked at the four other unconscious forms stretched out in the dirt.\n\n\"What about some medical treatment, corporal. He looks in a bad way.\"\n\n\"Tough cagal.\" He turned a page. \"If he comes to\u2014it's back to the drill field. Stays like that the medic will look at him when he gets here tonight.\"\n\n\"You're all heart.\"\n\n\"That's the way the kuketo crumbles. Now get the cagal out of here before I put you on report for cagaling off.\"\n\nWe got. \"Where do they get all these sadistic types from?\" I muttered.\n\n\"That could be you or I,\" Morton said grimly. \"A sick society breeds sickies. People do what they are ordered to do. It is easier that way. Our society lives on militarism, chauvinism and hatred. When those are the rules there will always be someone eager to do the dirty work.\"\n\nI rolled my eyes in his direction. \"They taught you that in school?\"\n\nHe smiled grimly and shook his head. \"The opposite, if anything. I was majoring in history, military history of course, so I was allowed to do research. But I like to read and the university library is a really old one and all the books are there if you know how to look, and how to crack some simple security codes. I looked and cracked and read\u2014and learned.\"\n\n\"I hope you learned to keep your mouth shut as well?\"\n\n\"Yes\u2014but not always.\"\n\n\"Make it always or you are in big trouble.\"\n\nSergeant Klutz was just leading our squad off the field and we fell in behind them. And marched to the supply building to get outfitted at last. I had heard that clothing came in only two sizes in the army and this was true. At least most of mine were too big so I could roll up the cuffs. In addition to clothing there were mess kits, webbing belts, canteens, sewing kits, assassination kits, foxhole diggers, backpacks, VD testers, bayonets, scrokets and more items of dubious or military nature. We staggered back to the barracks, dumped our possessions and hurried to our next assignment.\n\nWhich was something called Military Orientation.\n\n\"Having possessed our bodies they now seek to take over our minds,\" Morton whispered. \"Dirty minds in military bodies.\"\n\nHe was sure bright this Morton, but not bright enough to keep his mouth shut. I hissed him into silence as Sergeant Klutz glared in our direction.\n\n\"Talking is forbidden,\" he graveled. \"You are here to listen, and this here is Corporal Gow who will now tell you what you got to know.\"\n\nThis Gow was a smarmy type, all smooth pink skin, little ponce's moustache and fake grin. \"Now sergeant,\" he said, \"this is orientation, not orders. You men will become good soldiers by following orders. But good soldiers also should know the necessity of these orders. So get comfortable, guys. No chairs of course, this is the army. Just sit down on the nice clean concrete floor and give me your attention, if you please. Now\u2014can any of you tell me why you are here?\"\n\n\"We was drafted,\" a thick voice said.\n\n\"Yes, ha-ha, of course you were. But why is the draft necessary? Your teachers and your parents have let you down if this has not been made completely clear. So let me take this opportunity to remind you of some vital facts. You are here because a dangerous enemy is at our gates, has invaded our precious land, and it is your duty to defend our inalienable freedoms.\"\n\n\"This is the old cagal if I ever heard it,\" I muttered, and Morton nodded silent agreement.\n\n\"Did you say something, soldier?\" The corporal said, staring right at me; he had good ears.\n\n\"Just a question, sir. How could a broken-down, unindustrialized society like they got over there, how could they ever invade a modern, armed and equipped country like ours.\"\n\n\"That is a good question, soldier, and one that I am happy to answer. Those barbarians across the channel would pose no problem if they were not being armed and equipped by offworlders. Greedy, hungry strangers who see our rich land and want to take it for themselves. That is why you lads must go willingly to the service of your country.\"\n\nI was shocked at the magnitude of the lie, angered. But I struggled hard and followed my own advice and kept my mouth shut. But Morton didn't.\n\n\"But, sir, the Interplanetary League is a peaceful union of peaceful planets. War has been abolished...\"\n\n\"How do you know that?\" he snapped.\n\n\"Common knowledge,\" I said breaking in, hoping that Morton would shut up now. \"But you know that is the truth, don't you, sir?\"\n\n\"I know nothing of the sort and I wonder just who has been feeding you lies like that. After our orientation session I want to talk to you, soldier. You and that recruit next to you. This free country is fighting the interplanetary forces that wish to destroy us. No sacrifice is too great to defend that freedom, which is why I know that you will all do your duty, happily. And become good soldiers in a good team. Look to the good Sergeant Klutz as you would to your own father, for he is here to be your mentor and guide to your military life. Do what he says and you will grow strong and prosper and become first-class soldiers in the service of your country. But I know that you will at times find things confusing, even worrying, for this military experience is a new experience for all of you. That is when you must think of me. I am your counselor and guide. You can call upon me for advice and help at any time. I would like to be your friend, your very best friend. Now I am going to pass out these orientation pamphlets and you have ten minutes to read them. We will then have a question and answer session to help acquaint you with the details. While you are doing that I am going to have a nice friendly chat with these recruits who appear to be badly misinformed about the political realities of our land.\" The finger was pointing at me, then at Morton. \"That's right, you two. We will step outside, get a bit of sun, have some good old jaw-jaw.\"\n\nWe rose with great reluctance\u2014but had no choice at all. All eyes were upon us when we went to the door that Gow was holding open. I could feel the heat from Sergeant Klutz's burning glare as I passed him. Corporal Gow closed the door behind us and turned to face us. His smile as insincere as ever.\n\n\"Kind of warm now since the sun came out.\"\n\n\"Sure is. Feels nice.\"\n\n\"Where did you get that subversive cagal you were spouting in there? You first.\" He pointed at me.\n\n\"I sort of, well, sort of heard it somewhere.\"\n\nHe smiled happily and stabbed a stubby finger at Morton.\n\n\"I knew it. You have been listening to the illegal radio, haven't you? Both of you. That is the only possible place you could have heard such outrageous lies.\"\n\n\"Not really,\" Morton said. \"Facts are facts and I happen to be right.\"\n\nHe was digging his own grave with his jaw. I broke in; this radio dodge sounded like a possible out. If there were such a thing we might just wriggle from under this creepo's thumb. I lowered my eyes and twisted my toe in the dirt.\n\n\"Gee, corporal, I don't know how to say this. I was going to lie or something\u2014but you're too smart for me. It was, you're right, the radio...\"\n\n\"I knew it! They pump that poison down from their satellite, too many frequencies to jam, too defended to shoot down. Lies!\"\n\n\"I just did it that once. I knew I shouldn't have, but it was a dare. And it sounded so true\u2014that's why I spoke out like that.\"\n\n\"I'm glad you did, recruit. And I imagine that you did the same?\" Morton did not rise to the bait but the corporal took silence for assent. \"I think that you did. But at least it shows the poison didn't take, that you two wanted to talk about it. The devil always has the best tunes. But you must turn away from the siren song of such slimy untruths and listen to the authorities who know far better than you do.\" He smiled warmly upon us and I grinned with wide insincerity.\n\n\"Oh I will, sir,\" I said quickly before Morton could open his mouth again. \"I will. Now that you have told me this, and didn't punish us or anything...\"\n\n\"Did I say that?\" The warm grin suddenly had a cold and nasty edge to it. \"You'll get your punishment. If you were civilians you would each get a year at hard labor. But you are in the army now\u2014so the punishment should be worse. It has been nice talking to you, recruits. Now get back inside for the rest of this orientation session. That will give you plenty of time to contemplate your crimes and their inevitable punishment. In the future, if you have a future, you will not contradict me or any other officer.\"\n\nHe waved us inside ahead of him: we went like sheep to the slaughter. I whispered to Morton, \"Is it true what he said about the radio broadcasts?\"\n\n\"Of course. Haven't you ever listened? Pretty boring stuff for the most part. Heavy on propaganda and low on content. But it doesn't matter that you admitted listening. He was out to get us no matter what he said. Military justice!\"\n\n\"Do we just stay here and wait?!\"\n\n\"Where's to run,\" he said, with utmost gloom.\n\nWhere indeed? There was no place to flee to.\n\nSergeant Klutz glared his best glare at us and we shut up. I sank to the floor with a sigh. Wondering just what possible punishment the military could dream up that could be worse than recruit training. I had the sinking feeling that I would find out soon enough.\nChapter 10\n\nA distant buzzer sounded like a stifled eructation and Sergeant Klutz's eyes came back into focus and the expression of dull vacuity vanished to be replaced by his normal sneer of anger.\n\n\"On your feet you cagal-kopfs! You had a whole hour of cagaling off and you will now pay for it. Double time! The next session will be small arm instruction and short arm inspection. Move it!\"\n\n\"I'm holding onto these two,\" Gow said, separating us out from the others. \"I'm putting them on report for spreading sedition.\"\n\nKlutz nodded happily and slashed a line through our names on his roster sheet. \"Suits me, Gow. As long as I got the roll call right you can eat them for breakfast for all I care.\"\n\nThe door closed and Gow and I stood there eyeball to eyeball. Morton slumped to one side, drooping with apathy. I was beginning to get angry. Corporal Gow took out his notebook and pencil and pointed at me.\n\n\"What is your name soldier?\"\n\n\"ScrooU2.\"\n\n\"That is your military name, Scroo, and not a complete one at that. I would like your entire name.\"\n\n\"I'm from Pensildelphia, corporal, and we were taught never to give our names to strangers.\"\n\nHis eyes narrowed with hatred. \"Are you trying to make fun of me soldier?\"\n\n\"That would be impossible, sir. You are a walking joke as it is. Selling lies to the peasantry. You know as well as I do that the only threat to this country is the military that control it. This is a military state kept in operation only for the benefit of the military.\"\n\nMorton gasped and tried to wave me to silence. I was too angry for that now. This cagaling corporal had gotten under my skin. He smiled coldly and reached for the telephone.\n\n\"If you won't tell me your name the Military Police will find it out quickly enough. And you are wrong about only the military benefiting from a military state. You are forgetting the industrial corporations that profit from the military contracts. One cannot exist without the other. They are mutually interdependent.\"\n\nHe said this calmly, smiling, and shocked me into silence. \"But...\" I finally mumbled as he dialed the phone. \"If you know that\u2014why are you selling that line of old cagal to the troops?\"\n\n\"For the simple reason that I am the scion of one of those industrial families and quite happy with the situation as it is. I fulfill my military obligations by selling this line of old cagal, as you so quaintly put it, and in a few months will return to the life of luxury that I greatly enjoy. The number is engaged. I've enjoyed our talk as well, and in return for the pleasure I derived from the novelty of our conversation I wish to give you a gift.\"\n\nHe put the phone down turned and opened a drawer in the desk behind him and I was numb enough to let him do it. When the coin finally dropped it was too late. As I jumped forward he spun about with a large weapon in his hand, aimed and steady.\n\n\"I wouldn't, if I were you. I hunt, you know, and I am a first-class shot. I would also have no slightest compunction in shooting you. In the back if needs be,\" he added as I turned away. I turned around again and smiled.\n\n\"Well done, corporal. Intelligence was concerned about the quality of your orientation talks and I was sent here to, you know, try to irritate you. And I promise not to repeat your remarks about the industrial-military complex. I come from a poor family so I do not enjoy any of your advantages.\"\n\n\"Is that true?\" Morton gasped.\n\n\"It is\u2014and you are under arrest. There, one traitor caught, Gow, so some good has come of our conversation.\"\n\nHis eyes narrowed but the gun never moved. \"Do you expect me to believe that?\"\n\n\"No. But I can show you my identification.\" I smiled and reached into the empty back pocket of my new uniform.\n\nHe might have been a good shot when it came to blasting helpless animals or paper targets, but he had no combat experience. For a single instant his eyes looked down toward my moving hand. Which was all the time I needed. My other hand was already chopping the inside of his wrist, moving the gun aside. It hissed once and something slammed into the wall behind me. Morton screeched with fright and jumped aside. Before Gow could fire again my knee came up into his stomach.\n\nThe gun dropped to the floor and he dropped beside it. I took a deep and shuddering breath and let it out with a sigh.\n\n\"Well done, Jim,\" I said, and reached over my shoulder and patted myself on the back. \"All the reflexes working fine.\"\n\nMorton bulged his eyes at me, then down at the silent form of the corporal. \"What's happening...?\" he gurgled in confusion.\n\n\"Exactly what you see. I've rendered the corporal unconscious before he did us bodily harm. And you are not under arrest since that was just a ruse. So now, quickly before someone comes, push that desk up against the entrance since you can see that the door has no lock.\"\n\nI bent and retrieved the weapon in case the scion of millions came to earlier than planned. And what was I going to do with the poor little rich boy? I looked down at his recumbent form and inspiration struck.\n\n\"You are a genius,\" I bragged aloud. \"You deserve another pat, which you will get later, because now speed is of the essence.\" I bent and began to unbutton his uniform. \"The uniform, that is the key, the uniform. They will be looking for a ragged recruit in baggy fatigues. Not a spiffy corporal in tailor-mades. You have earned this promotion, Jim. Go to the head of the class.\"\n\nI tore off his shoes and pulled his trousers free\u2014and whistled. His underpants were woven of gold thread. Rich is as rich does. It was chance, pure chance, that he was a little overweight from a lifetime of good living. My muscles took the place of his fat and the uniform could have been made for me. Except the shoes; he had very tiny feet. My boots would have to do. I emptied his pockets and found, in addition to a great deal of money and a container of sinister looking black cigarettes, a small pocketknife. This worked admirably in cutting my discarded clothing into strips with which I bound the corporal securely, wadded more of the cloth into a gag. He was breathing easily through his nose so my conscience was clear that he would not die of suffocation.\n\n\"Are you going to kill him?\" Morton asked.\n\n\"No, but I want him quiet until I put the next part of the plan into operation.\" I'm glad that Morton didn't ask what that was since I didn't know yet. There were no closets in the room so the corporal could not be stuffed out of sight. The desk\u2014that was it!\n\n\"Morton,\" I ordered. \"Stand with your back to the door and think like a lock. If anyone tries to open it lean hard against it.\"\n\nWhile he leaned and thought lockish I dragged the desk back into position and wedged the bound corporal under it. By reflex I went through the desk drawers, which were all empty except the top one which had a folder of papers. I tucked these under my arm. Then I stepped back and examined my handiwork. Admirable. The corporal was well out of sight. Anyone who glanced into the room would think it empty.\n\n\"Now\u2014what next?\" I said cheerily. Then felt the smile slip from my face.\n\n\"Yes!\" Morton agreed eagerly. \"What happens next?\"\n\nI shook myself, took a brace and tried to think positively. \"For one thing\u2014there is no going back. So let us seek out a way forward. When they find the corporal they will find out our names quickly enough. By which time we must have new names. Which means we go to the personnel section and make a few changes.\"\n\nMorton was blinking very rapidly now. \"Jak, old friend, don't you feel well? I don't understand a word that you are saying.\"\n\n\"Doesn't matter\u2014as long as I do.\" I unloaded the gun, put the power charge in my pocket and the empty weapon back in the drawer. \"March ahead of me, do as I command. Go! As soon as you have opened the door a crack to see if the coast is clear.\"\n\nIt was. We marched out, stamping and striding in a very military fashion, me clutching my sheaf of papers, Morton hopefully clutching to his few remaining shards of sanity. One, two, one, two. Around the corner and almost into the arms of a red-capped military policeman.\n\n\"Squad halt! Stand at ease!\" I screamed. Morton halted with a decided sway and shudder, showing the whites of his eyes as he rolled them toward the MP. \"Eyes front!\" I shrieked. \"I gave no orders for you to move your eyes.\"\n\nThe MP, wise in military ways, paid us absolutely no attention until I called out to him. \"Just hold it, there, private.\"\n\n\"Me, corporal?\" he asked, stopping and turning.\n\n\"You are the only thing moving that I can see. Your pocket is unbuttoned. But this is my generous day. Just point us toward the Personnel Building and keep moving.\"\n\n\"Straight ahead, right on the company street, past the bandstand, left at the torture chamber and there you are.\" He scurried away, groping at his shirt pockets to find the open one. Morton was shivering and sweating and I patted him on the back.\n\n\"Relax, my friend. As long as you have the rank you can do what you want in the army. Ready to go on?\"\n\nHe nodded and stumbled forward. I marched after him, shouting commands at the corners, marking time, being noisy, obnoxious and abusive so I would not be noticed. A sad commentary indeed on the reality of military life.\n\nThe Personnel Building was large and industrious with plenty of to-ing and fro-ing from the front entrance. As we started toward it Morton came to a halt and stood at attention, swaying. \"W-what are you going to do?\" He whispered huskily and I saw that he was shaking with fear.\n\n\"Relax old buddy, all is under control,\" I said, leafing through the handful of papers to cover this unmilitary pause. \"Just follow me, do as I say, and in a few minutes we will have vanished without trace.\"\n\n\"We'll really vanish without trace if we go in there! We'll be caught, tortured, killed...\"\n\n\"Silence!\" I shouted into his ear and he leaped as though he had been shot. \"You will not talk. You will not think! You will only obey or you will be in the cagal so deep you will never see the light of day again!\"\n\nA passing sergeant smiled and nodded approval so I knew I was on the right track. I hated to do this to Morton but it was the only way. \"Left face\u2014forward march!\"\n\nHis skin was pale, his eyes rolled up, his mind empty of conscious thought. He could only obey. Up the steps we went and through the entrance toward the armed military policemen stationed there.\n\n\"Halt, at ease!\" I shouted and spun toward the MP, still shouting. \"You\u2014where do I find the Transport Section?\"\n\n\"Second floor, room two-oh-nine. Could I see your pass corporal?\"\n\nI glared at him coldly as I shuffled through the papers I was carrying, let my eyes travel slowly down to his boots, then back up again. He stood at attention, shivering slightly, and I knew he was new at this game.\n\n\"I don't think I have ever seen dirtier boots,\" I hissed. When his eyes glanced down I held out the turned-back papers. \"Here's the pass.\" When he glanced up again I let the papers slap shut.\n\nHe started to say something. I turned up the power of my glare and he wilted. \"Thank you, corporal. Second floor.\"\n\nI turned smartly away, snapped my fingers at Morton, then stamped away toward the stairs. Trying to ignore the fine beading of sweat on my brow. This was very demanding work\u2014and it wasn't over yet. I could see that Morton was definitely shivering as he walked and I wondered how much more of this he could take. But there was no turning back now. I threw open the door of 209 and waved him in. A bench ran along the wall and I pointed him towards it.\n\n\"Sit there and wait until you're called,\" I said, then turned to the reception clerk. He was on the phone and waved vaguely in my direction. Behind him rows of desks and laboring soldiers stretched the length of the room. All totally ignoring me, of course.\n\n\"Yes, sir, get onto it at once, sir,\" the reception clerk smarmed. \"Computer error, possibly, captain. We'll get right back to you. Very sorry about this.\"\n\nI could hear the phone disconnect loudly in his ear. \"You crock of cagal!\" he snarled and threw the phone back on the desk, then looked up at me. \"What's up, corporal?\"\n\n\"I'm up here, corporal, and I'm here to see the transport sergeant.\"\n\n\"He's home on compassionate leave. His canary died.\"\n\n\"I do not wish to hear the disgusting details of his personal life, soldier. Who's sitting in for him?\"\n\n\"Corporal Gamin.\"\n\n\"Tell the corporal I'm coming in.\"\n\n\"Right, right.\" He picked up the phone. I stamped past him to the door marked TRANSPORT SERGEANT\u2014KEEP OUT and threw it open. The thin, dark man at the computer terminal looked up and frowned.\n\n\"You are Corporal Gamin?\" I said, closing the door and flipping through the papers one more time. \"If you are I got good news for you.\"\n\n\"I'm Gamin. What's up?\"\n\n\"Your morale. The paymaster says they found a cumulative computer error in your pay and you are owed possibly two hundred and ten big ones. They want you there to straighten it out.\"\n\n\"I knew it! They been deducting double for insurance and laundry.\"\n\n\"They're all cagal-kopfs.\" My guess was right; there cannot be anyone alive, particularly in the army, who isn't sure there are errors in his payslip. \"I would suggest you get your chunk over and collect before they lose the money again. Can I use your phone?\"\n\n\"Punch nine for an outside line.\" He pulled up his necktie and reached for his jacket\u2014then stopped and took the key out of the terminal; the screen went black. \"I bet they owe me more than that. I want to see the records.\"\n\nThere was a second door behind his desk and, to my satisfaction, he exited that way. The instant it closed I had the other door open and poked my head through. When the reception clerk looked up I turned and called back over my shoulder.\n\n\"Do you want him in here as well, corporal?\" I nodded my head and turned back. \"You, recruit, get in here!\"\n\nMorton jumped at the sound of my voice, then scurried forward. I closed and locked the door behind him.\n\n\"Get comfortable,\" I said, pulling off my boot and rooting about inside it for the lockpick. \"No questions. I have to work fast.\"\n\nHe slumped into a chair, eyes bulging in silence as I gently tickled the lock until the terminal came to life.\n\n\"Menu, menu,\" I muttered as I hammered away on the keys.\n\nIt all went a lot smoother and faster than I had hoped. Whoever had written the software had apparently expected it to be accessed by morons. Maybe he was right. In any case I was led by the hand through the menus right to the current shipping orders.\n\n\"Here we are, leaving at noon today, a few minutes from now. Fort Abomeno. Your full name and serial number, Morton, quickly.\"\n\nI had my own dogtags spread out as I punched in all the requested information. A bell pinged and a sheet of paper slipped out of the printer.\n\n\"Wonderful!\" I said, smiling and letting some tension out of my muscles: I passed it over to him. \"We're safe for the moment since we have just left for Fort Abomeno.\"\n\n\"But... we're still here.\"\n\n\"Only in the flesh, my boy. For the record, and records are all that count to the military, we have shipped out. Now we make the flesh inviolate.\" I read through the shipping orders, checked off two names, then turned back to the terminal and entered data with some urgency. We had to be long gone before the corporal returned. The printer whiffed gently and one sheet slipped out, then another. I grabbed them up, relocked the terminal, and waved Morton to his feet.\n\n\"Here we go. Out the back door and I'll tell you what is happening as soon as we are clear of this building.\"\n\nSomeone was coming up the stairs, a corporal, and my heart gave a little hip-hop before I saw that it wasn't the corporal in question. Then it was down the hall to the front door and yes, there was Corporal Gamin coming up the stairs with a very nasty cut to his jib!\n\n\"Sharp right, recruit!\" I ordered and we turned into the first doorway with military precision. A lieutenant was combing his hair in front of a mirror there. Her hair I realized when she turned about and glared at me.\n\n\"What kind of cagal-head are you, corporal? Or doesn't the sign on the other side of this door read female personnel only?\"\n\n\"Sorry, sir, ma'am, dark in the hall. Eye trouble. You, recruit, why didn't you read the sign correctly? Get the cagal out of here and march straight to the MPs.\"\n\nI pushed Morton out ahead of me and closed the door. The hall ahead was empty.\n\n\"Let's go! Quick as we can without attracting attention.\"\n\nOut the door and down the steps and around the corner and another corner and the pace was beginning to tell. I leaned against a wall and felt the sweat run down my face and drip from my nose. I wiped it with the sheaf of papers I still carried\u2014then held up the two new sheets of orders and smiled; Morton gaped.\n\n\"Freedom and survival,\" I chortled. \"Shipping orders, or rather cancellation of shipping orders. We are safe at last.\"\n\n\"I haven't the slightest idea of what you are talking about.\"\n\n\"Sorry. Let me explain. As far as the military is concerned we are no longer at this base but have been shipped to Fort Abomeno. They will search for us there, but we will be hard to find. In order to keep the body count correct two soldiers who are in that shipment, still physically in that shipment, have been removed on paper. These are their orders, corporal, I thought a bit more rank wouldn't hurt. I am a sergeant now as you can see. We will occupy their quarters, eat their food, draw their pay. It will be weeks, perhaps months, before the error is discovered. By which time we will be long gone. Now\u2014shall we begin our new careers as noncommissioned officers?\"\n\n\"Urgle,\" he said dimly and his eyes shut and he would have slumped to the ground if I had not held him erect against the wall. I nodded agreement.\n\n\"I feel somewhat the same way myself. It really has been one of those days.\"\nChapter 11\n\nFatigue was of no importance, thirst equally so\u2014although both were present and sending imperative messages. To be ignored. Rank has its privileges and we were not going to enjoy ours until we assumed the trappings. I shook Morton until his eyes opened and he blinked dully at me.\n\n\"One last effort, Mort. We are going to the PX, about whose heady joys we have heard, and there we will spend some money. When that has been done we will be free spirits and will eat and drink and relax. Are you ready?\"\n\n\"No. I'm beat, shagged, dead. I cannot move. You go on. I can't make it...\"\n\n\"Then I'll just have to turn you over to Sergeant Klutz who has just arrived and is standing right behind you.\"\n\nHe sprang into the air with a shriek of agony, feet already running before he hit the ground. I held on to him.\n\n\"Sorry about that. No Klutz here. A ruse to get your adrenaline flowing. Let's go.\"\n\nWe went. Quickly before this burst of energy faded. It got him as far as the post exchange, where I leaned him against the wall near the cashier and handed him my sheaf of papers.\n\n\"Stand there, recruit, and do not move and do not let go of those papers or I will skin you alive or worse.\"\n\nI slammed the papers into his limp hands and whispered, \"What size jacket do you take?\" After much blinking on his part, and reiteration on mine, I extracted the needed information. I made my purchases from a bored clerk, added some stripes and a tube of superglue, paid for everything with some of Gow's money, thank you corporal, and led Morton farther into the reaches of the PX. To the latrine, empty this time of day.\n\n\"We'll use the booth one at a time,\" I said. \"We don't want anyone making improper conclusions. Take off those fatigues and slip into this uniform. Move it.\"\n\nWhile he changed I glued the new sergeant's stripes over the corporal's on my sleeves. When Morton had flushed and emerged I straightened his necktie and glued his promotion to his sleeve. His fatigues went into the rubbish, along with the sheaf of papers, and we went into the noncom's bar.\n\n\"Beer\u2014or something stronger?\" I asked.\n\n\"I don't drink.\"\n\n\"You do now. And curse. You're in the army. Sit there and sneer like a corporal and I'll be right back.\"\n\nI ordered two double neutral grain spirits and some beers, dumped the ethyl alcohol into the beer, sipped it to make sure it had not gone off, then went back to our table. Morton drank as ordered, widened his eyes, gasped, then drank again. Color returned to his cheeks as I drained half of my glass and sighed happily.\n\n\"I don't know how to thank you, what to say...\"\n\n\"Then say nothing. Drink up. What I did was to save my own hide and you just came along for the ride.\"\n\n\"Who are you, Jak? How do you know how to do those things you did?\"\n\n\"Would you believe me if I said I was a spy sent here to seek out military secrets?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Well I'm not. I'm just a draftee like yourself. Though I will have to admit that I come from a lot further away than Pensildelphia. That's it, drain the glass, you're learning fast. I'll get a couple more drinks and some food. I saw they had catwiches. I'll get a couple of those.\"\n\nFood and drink helped, as did the stripes on our arms. Morton tore into his rations. I ate more slowly, finding myself already thinking about the next step. Cigars followed, Gow's wallet was bottomless, and more drink.\n\n\"Thish is really great, Jak, really great. You're really great, really great.\"\n\n\"Sleep,\" I said as his eyes unfocused and his head hit the table with a thump. \"You will awake a new man.\"\n\nI sipped lightly at my own drink for I wanted only the stimulation of the alcohol and not the oblivion. The club was almost empty, only one other table occupied, the noncom there just as asleep as Morton. Probably as drunk as well. The simple pleasures of military life. I sipped and thought of my previous military career on Spiovente, and of The Bishop, now dead, and of the man who was responsible for his death.\n\n\"I haven't forgotten you, Captain Garth, not at all,\" I said softly to myself. The bartender polished a glass and yawned. Well acquainted with customers who talked to themselves and drank themselves into extinction. \"For the last few days it has been survival only. Now I pick up your trail. We're in the same army, on the same base.\"\n\nI felt suddenly dizzy and put the glass down. It had been a long day and I was as tired as Morton. Country and coal-mining music was grating enchantingly from the jukebox: the world about was at peace. For the moment. I was aware of a light scratching sound and glanced down at the boxes that leaned against the wall. Something moved in the darkness behind them. I watched in silence as a twitching nose and whiskers emerged. Then the head, the bar lights reflected in the rat's eyes. It appeared to be looking up at me.\n\n\"Get lost,\" I said, \"before you end up in the stew.\" I cackled at my own witticism.\n\n\"Jim diGriz, I must talk with you,\" the rat said in a deep voice.\n\nIt had really been one of those days. Too much. I had not realized it but the strain was so great that I had cracked.\n\n\"Go away,\" I hissed. \"You are a figment of my imagination and not a real rat at all.\" I gulped the rest of my drink in a single swallow. The rat climbed up onto the box and looked at me.\n\n\"Of course I am not a real rat. I am Captain Varod of the League Navy.\"\n\nGently, so as not to awaken Morton\u2014this was my hallucination and I wanted to keep it for myself\u2014I pried his drink from his slack fingers and drained it as well as my own.\n\n\"You've shrunk a bit since the last time I talked with you, captain,\" I smirked.\n\n\"Stop playing the idiot, diGriz, and listen to me. This spyrat is controlled from our base. You were recognized and identified.\"\n\n\"By who? The rat?\"\n\n\"Shut up. This communication is limited because there is a chance their detectors will pick up the spyrat's broadcast signal. We need your help. You have penetrated their military base, the first agent to do so...\"\n\n\"Agent? I thought I was the criminal you were shipping home for trial and persecution?\"\n\n\"I said we need your help. This is vital. There are lives at stake. The generals are planning an invasion. We know that much from intercepting their communications. But we don't know where the landing will take place. Brastyr is a big continent and they might be attacking anywhere. There could be a lot of deaths. We must find out where they plan to...\"\n\nThe door to the bar burst open and a gun-waving officer burst in, followed by a technician weighted with electronic equipment.\n\n\"The signal is coming from that direction, sir,\" the man shouted and pointed directly at me.\n\n\"What is that cagal-head private doing in the noncoms' bar?\" I shouted, leaping to my feet and kicking the box as I did. The rat fell to the floor and I stamped on it. Hard.\n\n\"Don't get your cagal in an uproar, sergeant,\" the officer said. \"This is a priority investigation...\"\n\n\"Signal has stopped, sir,\" the technician said, fiddling with his dials.\n\n\"Cagal!\" the officer said, stuffing his gun back into the holster. \"These alcoholics don't have a transmitter.\"\n\n\"Could be the street outside, other side of the wall. A moving vehicle.\"\n\n\"Let's go!\"\n\nThe door slammed shut behind them. The barman wiped his glass. \"This happen very often around here?\" I asked.\n\n\"Yeah. This is sure an uptight base.\"\n\nMorton snored heavily and I poked the crushed remains of the stainless steel rat with my toe. An omen? A gear wheel rolled out and rattled on the floor.\n\n\"Set them up again,\" I called out. \"And take one yourself since the rest of these cagal-kopfs are in dreamland.\"\n\n\"You're all heart, sarge. Just ship in?\"\n\n\"Today.\"\n\n\"An uptight base like I say\u2014\"\n\nHis voice was drowned out by the loud whistle from the TV as it turned itself on. The black-clad military announcer glared out of the screen just one more time.\n\n\"The spy who landed in Marhaveno has been identified. He attempted to disguise himself as a harmless draftee and was inducted into the army. Resolute police work has identified him by his clothing.\"\n\nSome police work. They just looked at their mail. I was beginning to think that sending my clothing from the reception center to the police station was not at all as funny as it had seemed at the time. There was a scratch of static and the announcer vanished from the screen to be replaced by another officer.\n\n\"Now hear this,\" he shouted. \"As of this moment this entire base is sealed to outgoing. I repeat, Mortstertoro is locked tight, gates sealed, aircraft departures canceled. The spy who landed in Marhaveno has been identified as a recruit who was shipped to this base. Here is his picture.\"\n\nMy heart skipped a beat or two, then settled down as the blurred photo of Jak, from my stolen ID, appeared on the screen. I was still one jump ahead of them. It would soon be discovered that Jak5138 was no longer on the base and the search would go elsewhere. I took my drink and went back to the table to stare into the wide and frightened eyes of Morton.\n\n\"You want a drink?\" I asked before he could speak. He gurgled and pointed at the screen.\n\n\"Did you hear that?\" I asked, and kicked him under the table. \"Can't be much of a spy if he lets himself get drafted. Some spy! I'll bet you five he's caught and dead before dark.\" When he relaxed slightly I went on in a hoarse whisper. \"It will take a long time to search this base...\"\n\n\"No it won't\u2014because they know just where to look. They know who you are, Jak. They'll go to Sergeant Klutz, who will tell them he transferred you to Corporal Gow. Then they'll find Gow and...\"\n\n\"And the trail will run cold. It will take them days to search a camp this size. And when they don't find the spy the first time they'll just do it again. They are not bright enough to consider having the computer check the records for the spy.\"\n\n\"Attention!\" the announcer on the screen called out, waving a sheet of paper. \"I have just been given this new information. The spy\u2014and an accomplice\u2014have managed to have themselves transferred from this base by illegal use of the base computer. All computer personnel are now under arrest and will probably be shot.\"\n\nI turned away, not able to look Morton in the eye.\n\n\"Now that they know where to look,\" Morton asked hollowly, \"how long will it take them to discover that we were never on that shipment? And then find out that a corporal and a sergeant who really were on that shipment were not on that shipment and are still here on the base?\"\n\n\"How long?\" I laughed, but there was a very hollow ring to it. \"Could take days, weeks, no way to tell.\"\n\n\"How long?\"\n\nI sighed deeply. \"They got some hotshot computer programs. Good security. I would say that we have maybe thirty minutes before they start looking for us.\"\n\nHis body shook as though he had received ten thousand volts and he started to jump to his feet. I reached out and held him down, then glanced at the bartender. He was looking at the TV.\n\n\"You're right,\" I said. \"We get out of here, but slowly. On your feet. Follow me.\"\n\nAs we started toward the door the bartender glanced in our direction.\n\n\"Where's the transient barracks?\" I said.\n\n\"Out the back door, turn right. See you.\"\n\n\"Yeah. See you.\"\n\nWe strolled out the back door and turned left. It was getting dark, which might help.\n\n\"You got a plan?\" Morton said, eagerness in his voice. \"You know a way to get us out of this.\"\n\n\"Of course,\" I said, clapping him on the back. \"Every step planned. We go this way.\"\n\nI could hear the forced joviality in my voice; I hoped that he couldn't. He had to think that I knew what I was doing or he might crack. It was a white lie for the sake of his morale.\n\nBut what about my morale? I was holding it down successfully for the moment, but I could feel an awareness of dark panic knocking and ready to come in. I kept it at bay. We walked on down the company street, the lights coming on, lost in the milling military mass. How long would this last? The question was the answer: not very. The panic pushed a little harder.\n\nI have heard it said that when a man knows that he is to be hanged, it focuses his mind wonderfully. I wasn't going to be hanged, not for the present at least, but the foul breath of military prosecution on my neck was focusing my mind almost as well. So much so that when an officer passed I turned to look at him. Turned and stopped until he vanished in the crowd. Morton was pulling feebly at my arm.\n\n\"What are you looking at? What's wrong?\"\n\n\"Nothing wrong. Everything right. I know now exactly what we must do next.\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"Just come with me. I know that it is back this way, I noticed it when we passed.\"\n\n\"What, what?\"\n\n\"BOQ.\" Before he could say What? What? What? I explained. \"Bachelor Officers' Quarters. Where the officers live when they are not getting drunk and making life a hell for the enlisted men. That is where we are going. There.\"\n\nI pointed to the brightly lit building, guards at the front entrance, officers in their military finery pouring from it.\n\n\"That's suicide!\" Morton said. The edge of hysteria back in his voice.\n\n\"Easy does it,\" I cozened. \"We do not enter the building by this portal. Suicide as you say. But what has a front surely has a back. And from the exodus visible from that officerial snakepit it looks like everyone is on duty tonight. Everyone except us, that is.\" I chortled darkly and he looked at me out of the corners of his eyes as if I had gone mad. Perhaps I had. We would soon find out.\n\nThere was a wall behind the BOQ which we followed. A sort of alley led next to it, badly lit and just what I wanted. There was a door here let into the wall with a light above it. As we strolled past I read the sign, OFFICERS ONLY, and bent over and tied my shoe: it needed only a single glance to identify the lock. Then I stood and continued on. I stopped in the shadows between two lights and bent to my shoe again. Only this time I came up with the lockpick.\n\n\"All right, here we go. The lock is nothing, single tumbler, pick it as easy as I pick my teeth. We walk back now and if no one is in sight we walk through it. Got that?\"\n\nThe chatter of his teeth was the only response. I took his quivering arm and squeezed it. \"It's all right, Morton. You'll see. Just do as I say and we'll soon be safe. Nice and quiet\u2014here we go.\"\n\nI tried not to catch any of Morton's fears, but they were very contagious. We stopped under the light, I put the lockpick into the keyhole. Felt and twisted. It didn't open.\n\n\"Someone's coming,\" Morton wailed.\n\n\"Piece of cake,\" I muttered, perspiration running down my face. \"Opened these with my eyes shut.\"\n\n\"Getting closer!\"\n\n\"Eyes shut!\"\n\nIt wouldn't open. I shut my eyes, closed out all sensations, felt for the tumblers. Clicked it open.\n\n\"Inside!\" I said, pulling him after me, closing the gate behind us. We stood with our backs to it, shivering in the darkness as the footsteps came closer, came to the gate...\n\nPassed it and went on.\n\n\"There, wasn't that easy?\" I said, ruining the effect as my voice cracked and squeaked. Not that Morton noticed; he was shivering so hard that I could hear his teeth clatter. \"Look, nice garden. Pathways for strolling, love seats for loving, all the nice things to keep the officerial classes happy. And beyond the garden the dark windows of their quarters, dark because the occupants have all gone out. So now all that we have to do is find a window to open...\"\n\n\"Jak\u2014what are we doing here?\"\n\n\"I thought that was obvious. The military powers are looking for one recruit now. When their computer coughs out the next bit of news they will be looking for a corporal and a sergeant.\" I tried to ignore his moan. \"So we get into this building and become officers. As simple as that.\"\n\nI caught him as he dropped and laid him gently on the grass. \"That's it. Have a little rest. I'll be right back.\"\n\nThe third window I tried was unlocked. I opened it and looked in. A mussed bed, open closet, empty room. Perfect. I found my way back to Morton who was just sitting up. He recoiled as I appeared out of the darkness and my quick hand over his mouth muffled his scream.\n\n\"Everything is fine. Almost finished.\"\n\nI boosted him through the window and let him drop onto the bed, then closed and locked the window behind us. There was a key in the door which made everything very much easier.\n\n\"Look,\" I said, \"lie here and recuperate. I'm going to lock you in. The building is empty as far as I can see, so what I have to do should not be long. Take a rest and I'll be back as soon as I can.\"\n\nI went carefully, but the building was empty of life and as silent as the tomb. Its occupants away and hopefully hard at work. I had time to pick and choose, make my selections and select the right sizes. I heard a muffled moan of agony when I let myself back into the room, to which I responded as cheerfully as I could.\n\n\"New uniform\u2014new persona!\" I handed them over to Morton. \"Get dressed and give me our old clothes. There's enough light from outside to make that easy. Here, let me tie that necktie, you are all butterfingers today.\"\n\nDressed and ready, our caps square upon our heads, our old clothes buried in a laundry basket, we sauntered forth into the corridor. Morton looked at me and gasped and fell away.\n\n\"Cheer up\u2014you look the same way. Except that you are a second lieutenant while I am a captain. It is a young army.\"\n\n\"B-but,\" he stammered. \"You are a... Military Policeman!\"\n\n\"And so are you. No one ever questions a cop.\"\n\nWe turned the corner as I said this and approached the front entrance. The major standing there with a clipboard looked up at us and scowled.\n\n\"Now I have you,\" he said.\nChapter 12\n\nI snapped to attention, I could think of nothing else to do\u2014and hoped Morton was not too paralyzed to do the same. There were just two of them, the major and the guard at the door. After I dropped the major could I reach the guard before he could get out his gun? A neat problem. The major was looking at his clipboard. Now\u2014get him!\n\nHe looked up as I swayed forward. The guard was looking at me too. I swayed back.\n\n\"I missed you at the airport,\" the major said. \"You must have come on the earlier flight. But these shipping orders say two captains. Who is this lieutenant?\"\n\nShipping orders? Two captains? I stopped my eyeballs spinning and finally threw my brain into gear.\n\n\"Could be an error, sir. Lot of confusion today. Might I see the orders?\"\n\nHe grunted uncommunicatively and passed them over. I ran my finger down the list of crossed-off names to the remaining two at the bottom. Then passed them back.\n\n\"Error like I said, sir. I'm Captain Drem. This is Lieutenant Hesk, not captain the way they got it here.\"\n\n\"Right,\" he said, making the change on his sheet. \"Let's go.\"\n\nWe went. Outside the door was a truck stuffed with Military Police, a very disgusting sight. The major climbed into the cab, rank does have its privileges, and I led Morton to the rear. Moving quickly because I saw something that I hoped the major had not seen. Two MP officers, both captains, walking toward us. They scowled and passed and turned into the BOQ. I scowled in return, turning the scowl into a glare when I looked into the back of the truck and saw that there were no officers among the redhats there.\n\n\"What is this\u2014a meeting of the girls' club,\" I snarled. \"Move back, make room, shut up, give us a hand.\"\n\nAll of this was done with alacrity. Morton and I sat on the recently vacated bench and the truck pulled forward. I let out my breath slowly\u2014from between still-snarling teeth. We bumped and swayed our way through the night and I began to feel very, very tired. It had been that kind of day.\n\n\"Do you know where we are going, captain?\" a burly sergeant asked.\n\n\"Shut up!\"\n\n\"Thank you, sir.\"\n\nThere was only silence after this witty exchange. Cold silence that continued until we ground to a stop and the major reappeared. \"Climb out,\" he ordered. \"Captain, follow me.\"\n\n\"Fall these men in, lieutenant,\" I told Morton. He stumbled after me his face white with despair in the glare of the street lights.\n\n\"How, what, glug,\" he whispered.\n\n\"Order a sergeant to do it,\" I whispered back. \"Pass the buck, that's the army way.\"\n\nI trotted after the major who had stopped before the entrance of a large building and was going through an immense ring of keys. I stood at ease and looked at the large posters beside the door. Then looked closer when I realized they were 3Ds, in living color, of a number of naked young woman. When my head moved they moved and I swayed slightly.\n\n\"Knock that off, captain,\" the major ordered and I snapped to attention, my eyes still focused on the sign that read BASE BURLESQUE\u2014OFFICERS ONLY. The major found the key he was looking for and turned it in the lock. \"No performance tonight,\" he said. \"We've comandeered the place for an emergency meeting. Top security. As soon as the techs get here I want the entire theatre swept clean. And I mean clean. I want an MP with every tech and I want a head count and I am making you responsible. Got that?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"\n\n\"I'm going to check all the other doors personally to make sure they are locked. Get cracking, we only have an hour.\"\n\nI threw a salute as he moved off around the building and wondered just what I had gotten myself into. The rumble of engines cut through my thoughts as a truck pulled up at the curb before me. A sergeant climbed down from the cab and saluted me.\n\n\"And what do we have here?\" I asked.\n\n\"Instrument technicians, sir. We were ordered...\"\n\n\"I'll bet you were. Unload them and fall them in.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"\n\nI stamped back to the MPs who were neatly lined up at attention and pointed my finger at Morton. \"You, Lieutenant Hesk, get over in front of that entrance. No one in or out without my permission.\"\n\nMy heart dropped as Morton started to look over his shoulder. Memory of his new name apparently filtered through because he recovered himself and hurried away. I turned back and scowled at the MPs, with particular attention to the sergeant who stood before them. Gray-haired, skin like an old boot, stripes and hashmarks clogging his sleeve.\n\n\"You senior NCO?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"\n\n\"Right. Here is the drill. Those techs are going to sweep this theater. I want one MP with every tech. I want every man counted in and counted out and I want no errors. And I want the sweep complete and overlapping and that building clean. Any questions?\"\n\n\"No, captain. They'll snap-cagal for me.\"\n\n\"I thought they would. Get cracking.\"\n\nHe turned on his heel, inflated his lungs\u2014and let out a blast of orders that blew the cap off the nearest MP. They moved. I stepped back and nodded approval. Then stamped over and positioned myself next to Morton.\n\n\"Something big coming down,\" I said quietly. \"Secret meeting in an hour and we are in charge of security.\" I ignored his moan of anguish. \"Just stand around and look military and stay away from the major when he gets back. I don't know about you, but I find this very interesting.\" he moaned again and I strolled over to inspect the arrangements.\n\nThe technicians had shouldered their backpacks and were adjusting dials on the control panels that each of them wore slung about the chest. One of them pointed his detector wand at the side of the truck and I could see the needles jump; there was a squeal from the earphones that he had hung about his neck.\n\n\"Captain. Some trouble here.\" I turned around.\n\n\"What is it, sergeant.\"\n\n\"This cagal-kopf says he got a malfunction.\" He had a white-faced tech by the arm and was shaking him like a dog with a bone.\n\n\"Battery, sir,\" the man wailed. \"Checked... it's a malfunction fuse!\"\n\n\"Arrest him, sergeant. The charge is sabotage. Have him shot at dawn.\" The sergeant smiled, the tech moaned and I bent until my face was close to his. \"Or can you manage to trace and repair this malfunction in the next sixty seconds?\"\n\n\"It's fixed, sir! I know how! Borrow a fuse!\"\n\nHe stumbled away with the sergeant right behind him. I was falling into my role and beginning to enjoy myself. Though I was sure I would hate myself in the morning.\n\nMore MPs had arrived; the major reappeared and spread them around the theater and in front of the entrance. I could see Morton begin to shiver at their presence so I hurried to take over from him.\n\n\"You can open that door now, lieutenant. No one goes in except these search teams. I want a head count going in and coming out.\"\n\nUnder the verbal abuse of the sergeant the search was finished just in time. The first official cars were appearing as the techs were being loaded back into the trucks.\n\n\"How did it go, sergeant?\" I asked.\n\n\"Lot of beer cans, cagal like that. Swept secure, captain.\"\n\n\"Good. Move the troops out of the way, but keep them around in case we need them again.\"\n\nI waved Morton after me and strolled over to the nearest truck, stood in its shadow where I could see what was happening.\n\n\"What's happening,\" Morton asked.\n\n\"Good question. Big, secret and very sudden meeting of some kind. See that car, all officers of field rank or better.\"\n\n\"We have got to get out of here!\"\n\n\"Why? Can you think of a safer place to be? We are part of the security here\u2014so no questions asked. Except by me. Look at that one getting out of the limo! Must have nine stars on his shoulders. Big stuff tonight. And that officer behind him. Never saw that uniform before. Something special...\"\n\nThis officer turned about and I froze. A single silver skull on the shoulder of his gray-green coat. Another skull on the front of his cap.\n\nAnd beneath the black brim of the cap a familiar face.\n\nCaptain Garth. Former captain of a Venian freighter. The man responsible for the death of my friend The Bishop.\n\n\"Stay here,\" I ordered Morton, and stepped out of the darkness as soon as Garth had turned away. I walked toward him as he approached the security check at the entrance. Passed right behind him as he reached the major, who threw a very snappy salute. I could hear the major's voice clearly as I passed and went on.\n\n\"They are almost all inside, General Zennor.\"\n\n\"Report to me when the count is complete. Then seal this door tight.\"\n\nI stamped on, checked the guards, stamped back to Morton's side.\n\n\"What was that all about?\" he asked.\n\n\"Forget about it. Nothing to do with you.\"\n\nNo longer a simple spacer captain. A general now. Probably always a general. Zennor. What was he up to? What was this entire army up to that he seemed to be ordering around? And how could I find out?\n\nWhen the major called I did not even hear him. Only when Morton kicked me in the ankle did I realize that I was the Captain Drem he was talking to.\n\n\"Yes, sir. You want me, sir?\"\n\n\"Not falling asleep, are you, Drem?\"\n\n\"No, major, I was just going over the security in my head.\"\n\n\"Well go over it on your feet, which will accomplish a lot more. I've stationed a man at every entrance to this theater. Inspect them.\"\n\nI saluted his back enthusiastically as he turned away. This might very well be the opportunity I was waiting for.\n\n\"Lieutenant,\" I called out. \"Inspection tour. This way.\"\n\nI rubbed my hands together happily as we walked around the theater. \"Morton, there is something important going on here and I mean to find out more about it.\"\n\n\"Don't! Stay clear!\"\n\n\"Normally good advice. But this time I have to know what is happening, what he is up to. Did you see the uniforms? All senior officers. And I was ratted to earlier today that an invasion was being planned. It doesn't take a great brain to figure out that this meeting has something to do with that invasion. But how do I get inside?\"\n\nWe were approaching a side entrance to the theater and the MP there snapped to attention as soon as we appeared. I shook the locked door and scowled at him.\n\n\"This door locked when you got here?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"\n\n\"Anyone try to get in?\"\n\n\"No, sir!\"\n\n\"What are your orders?\"\n\n\"Kill anyone who goes near the door.\" He had his hand on his pistol butt.\n\n\"Does that include your commanding officers?\" I shouted at him, my mouth in his ear. He swayed and his hand dropped to his side.\n\n\"No, captain.\"\n\n\"Then you are wrong and you could be shot for disobeying orders. An inspecting officer may try the door to see if it is locked. If an inspecting officer should attempt to go through the door he is to be instantly killed. Is that clear?\"\n\n\"Very clear, sir.\"\n\n\"Then wipe the smile from your face. You seem to enjoy that thought too much.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir. I mean no, sir!\"\n\nI growled a bit more and continued my inspection. We had almost circum-navigated the building when we reached a door in the rear. The guard there stood at attention. I shook the locked door and looked at the metal staircase beside it.\n\n\"Where does this go to?\" I asked.\n\n\"Emergency exit.\"\n\n\"Is there a guard there.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"\n\nMorton followed me up the clanging stairs. I stopped halfway and bent to remove the lockpick from my shoe. Morton opened his mouth but shut it again when I put my finger to my lips. I had to find out what was happening inside.\n\nWe stamped upward and when we emerged on the balustraded corridor the guard there had his gun half out of the holster.\n\n\"Do you intend to aim that weapon at me?\" I asked coldly.\n\n\"No, sir, sorry.\" He put it away and snapped to attention. I put my face close to his.\n\n\"Do you know it is a court-martial offense to point a weapon at an officer?\"\n\n\"I wasn't, sir, no! I'm alone here, didn't know who was coming...\"\n\n\"I don't believe you, soldier. There is something wrong here. Stand over there by the lieutenant.\"\n\nAs he turned about I had the lockpick in the keyhole, delicately, turning it, clicking it. I stepped back away from it as he stopped and about-faced.\n\n\"This door is locked?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir. Of course. I am stationed here because of the door...\"\n\nHis voice wound down as I reached out and opened the door. Then closed it and wheeled to face him.\n\n\"You are under arrest, soldier. Lieutenant\u2014take this man to the major. Tell him what has happened. Return with the major at once. Move it!\"\n\nAs they stamped away I inserted the lockpick yet again, twisted and pressed hard. Something snapped inside the lock. Only then did I put the lockpick away, open the door and slip inside. Closing it silently behind me.\n\nThe small entranceway was sealed with dusty curtains. Light trickled between them; I bent forward and separated them a tiny amount.\n\n\"... important that security be absolute until blastoff. You have your sealed orders, not to be opened until H hour. Rendezvous points are marked...\"\n\nI knew that voice well. Once Garth, now Zennor. I parted the curtains just a bit more to make sure. There he was, almost below me, pointing at the large chart behind him. I looked at the chart, then closed the curtains and stepped back.\n\nI was closing the door behind me when hurried footsteps sounded on the stairs. The major appeared, face red and strained.\n\n\"What is happening?\"\n\n\"I'm not sure, sir. The guard that was stationed here had his weapon drawn, acted suspiciously. I tried this door. It was unlocked. That was when I sent for you, sir.\"\n\n\"It can't be. I locked it myself.\"\n\nIt opened at his touch and his face whitened with shock. He pulled it quickly closed. \"You haven't been inside?\"\n\n\"Of course not, major. I have my orders. Perhaps the lock is defective.\"\n\n\"Yes, perhaps!\" He fumbled out his ring of keys, found the right key and turned it in the lock. Metal grated.\n\n\"It won't lock!\"\n\n\"May I try it, sir?\"\n\nI took the keys from his limp fingers and, naturally, had no better luck in sealing the door. When I handed back the keys I spoke in a low voice.\n\n\"There will be an investigation, sir, trouble. Not fair to you. I'll see that the guard talks to no one about this. Then I'll get a welder, seal the door. Might be best, major, don't you think so?\"\n\nHe started to speak, then closed his mouth, and thought instead. Looking from me to the door. Then he noticed the keys still in his hand. He put them in his pocket and straightened his shoulders.\n\n\"As you say, captain, nothing happened. No point in getting involved in investigations and suchlike. I'll stay here. Send the welder at once.\"\n\n\"Very good, sir. I'll take care of everything.\"\n\nMorton was waiting at the foot of the stairs, the frightened MP standing beside him. I walked up to the man and gave him a good glare.\n\n\"I am going to be kind to you, soldier, although it goes against the grain. I think it might be wisest if we forgot all about this matter. What is your name?\"\n\n\"Pip7812, sir.\"\n\n\"All right, Pip, you can go back to your unit now. But\u2014if I hear any rumors or loose talk about locks or such you will be dead within twenty-four hours. Understand?\"\n\n\"Locks, captain? I'm afraid I don't know what you mean.\"\n\n\"Very good, Pip. Report to the sergeant. Tell him I need a welder here at once. Move.\"\n\nHe moved. \"What was all that about?\" Morton asked.\n\n\"That was about warfare, my friend. I know now what they are up to here. I know all about their invasion plans.\"\n\nExcept\u2014what could I possibly do about it?\nChapter 13\n\nWhen the meeting broke up I saw to it that I was busily occupied away from the theater entrance. It was a long chance that Zennor would recognize me from his Captain Garth days. But even a long chance is some chance, so I stayed out of sight. The troops formed up and marched away: with the emergency over they were not being coddled with effete tranportation. The major had a car at his disposal but I turned down his offer.\n\n\"We could have used a lift,\" Morton complained as the car moved away.\n\n\"To where? Prison? The further we are from authority the happier we should be.\"\n\n\"I'm tired.\"\n\n\"Who isn't? Not to mention hungry. Let's find a place to spend some of Gow's money...\"\n\n\"Jim... Jim diGriz...\"\n\nThe sound was high-pitched, barely audible. Was I hearing things? I looked around but Morton was the only person nearby.\n\n\"Did you hear anything?\"\n\n\"No. Should I?\"\n\n\"Don't know. A sudden ringing in my ears. But I swear I heard something.\"\n\n\"Maybe it was that moth on your shoulder talking to you. Ha-ha.\"\n\n\"Ha-ha yourself. What moth?\"\n\n\"See it there? Sitting on your captain's bars. Should I brush it off?\"\n\n\"No. Leave it.\"\n\nI turned my head and blinked and could just make out the moth. It flapped its wings and took off\u2014and landed on my ear.\n\n\"Go... aergropl... now.\"\n\n\"I can't understand you.\"\n\n\"That's because I'm not talking.\"\n\n\"Shut up, Morton. I'm talking to the moth, not to you.\"\n\nHis jaw dropped and he moved quickly sideways. \"Repeat message,\" I said, ignoring him for the moment.\n\n\"Airfield... go airfield.\"\n\n\"Right, go to the airfield. Understood. Over and out.\" The moth fluttered away and I patted Morton on the shoulder; I could feel him shivering. \"Come on, cheer up. And stop looking at me as though I were mad. The moth is a communication device, nothing more.\"\n\n\"Communicating with whom?\"\n\n\"The less you know, the less trouble you can get into.\"\n\n\"You really are a spy, aren't you?\"\n\n\"Yes and no. I'm here on my own business, but certain parties are trying to get me involved in their business. Do you understand?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Good. Let's find the airfield. At a guess I would say that it is over there where all the lights are and the planes are landing. Coming with me?\"\n\n\"Do I have a choice? Is there any way of going back? Starting over again? I mean we can't just sneak back into the barracks as if nothing happened, can we?\"\n\n\"You know that we can't.\"\n\nHe sighed and nodded his head. \"I know. But I'm just not cut out for the kind of thing that we have been doing. And where is it going to end?\"\n\nA good question. With very little hope of an answer at the present time.\n\n\"Truthfully\u2014I don't know. But you have my word, Morton, because I got you into this. My first priority, before anything else, is to get you out of trouble and safe. Don't ask how\u2014because I don't know yet.\"\n\n\"You can't blame yourself. It was I who opened my mouth to that cagaling corporal. That's where it started.\"\n\nWe had been walking while we talked, getting closer and closer to the airfield. The road that we were taking curved around the end of the field, separated from it by a high wire fence, well illuminated by bright lights. On the other side of the fence were grass and taxiways. A heavy freighter had just landed. It trundled by and we watched it go. When it had moved on a flock of black birds swooped down and began poking about in the grass. One of them unfolded its wings and flew toward the fence, landing on the other side. It cocked its head at me and spoke.\n\n\"You are not alone.\"\n\n\"Obviously. He's safe. Is that you, Varod.\"\n\n\"No. Captain Varod is off duty.\"\n\n\"Get him. I don't talk to just any old crow.\"\n\n\"You will be contacted.\"\n\nThe bird turned about and opened its beak and spread its wings. It took off without flapping, making a whistling sound.\n\n\"Jet powered,\" I said. \"Air intake in its mouth. Jet exhaust just where you imagine it might be. Let's walk.\"\n\nThere was the whine of an approaching siren and a detector van came hurtling down the road. It slowed when it passed us, the dish aerial pointing in our direction, then moved on.\n\n\"They are really efficient about spotting radio transmission,\" I said.\n\n\"Is that bird a radio?\"\n\n\"Among other things. It is remotely controlled and probably has some logic circuitry for hopping about and staying with the other birds. Only when it transmits back to base can it be detected.\"\n\n\"Where is the base?\"\n\n\"You don't want to know. Or who is operating it. But I can assure you they mean no harm to this country.\"\n\n\"Why not?\" He spoke with great agitation now. \"Tell them to get to work and get rid of the military and their friends and start elections again. Do you know how long the present state of emergency has been going on? I'll tell you, I checked. The so-called temporary emergency was declared over two hundred years ago. Some emergency! Tell your bird friends they can cause all the trouble they want as far as I'm concerned.\"\n\n\"I heard that,\" the bird said in a deep voice, swooping out of the darkness and landing on my shoulder. \"Our work is not to cause trouble. We labor only to...\"\n\n\"Varod, shut up,\" I said. \"We have limited communication time before the detectors show up again and let us not waste it with speeches. I have found out the invasion plans.\"\n\nThe bird cocked his eye at me and nodded. \"Very good,\" it said. \"Details soonest, I am recording. Where is the invasion site?\"\n\n\"Not on this planet. They are readying a space fleet to attack another planet.\"\n\n\"You are sure of this?\"\n\n\"I eavesdropped. I'm sure.\"\n\n\"What is the name of the planet?\"\n\n\"I have no idea.\"\n\n\"I will return. I must get rid of the detector van.\"\n\nThe bird whistled into the sky leaving the stench of burned jet fuel behind. It did a neat barrel roll and landed on the top of a passing truck. Still broadcasting, I imagine, because a moment later the detector van hurtled by in pursuit of the truck. We walked on.\n\n\"What's this about an invasion? What did you find out?\"\n\n\"Just that. The one in charge is a General Zennor. I imagine it will happen pretty soon from the way that he was talking...\"\n\nThere was a whistle and a blast of hot air: sharp claws dug into my scalp right through my cap as the bird landed on my head.\n\n\"You must discover what planet is being invaded,\" it said.\n\n\"Find out yourself. Follow them when they take off.\"\n\n\"Impossible. The nearest spacer with detection gear is four days away. It may not get here in time.\"\n\n\"Tough. Ouch.\"\n\nI rubbed my scalp where the bird had removed some hair when it took off, then bent to pick up my cap. We turned a corner just as another detector vehicle roared by behind us.\n\n\"Let's mix with the crowds,\" I told Morton. \"That detector is going to get suspicious if it keeps finding us around every time it gets a reading.\"\n\n\"Could we mix with crowds that are eating and drinking?\"\n\n\"Good thinking. And I know just where to go.\"\n\nI stepped off the curb as I said this and stood with my hand raised\u2014directly in front of a truck. The driver hit the brake and squealed to a shivering halt in front of me.\n\n\"Driving a little fast, aren't we?\" I snarled at the driver.\n\n\"I didn't see you, captain...\"\n\n\"And I know why you didn't see me. Because one of your headlights is burnt out, that's why. But I am feeling generous today. If you take me and my companion to the Officers' Club I might forget I ever saw you.\"\n\nNot that the driver had any choice. He dropped us in front of the club and roared away. We entered to sample the heady joys which, for the most part, were identical with the noncoms' club except here there were waitresses. About a quarter of the tables were occupied: everyone else must still be on duty. Our steaks and beer appeared with exemplary speed and we dived at them with growls of hunger. We were almost finished when an officer appeared in the doorway and blew a whistle.\n\n\"All right, fall out and fall in. Everyone. Emergency muster. Transportation outside. That means you,\" he said pointing a mean finger in our direction.\n\n\"We just came off duty, colonel,\" I said.\n\n\"You're just going back on. And I see that you have eaten, which I haven't, so don't cross me boy.\"\n\n\"Just leaving, sir!\"\n\nMorton and I joined the rush, out the door and into the waiting bus. The colonel entered last and the driver pulled away.\n\n\"Here is as much as I can tell you,\" the colonel said, shouting so he could be heard above the engine's noise. \"Due to reasons that are no concern of yours our current plans have been moved forward. You are going into action and you are going at once.\" There were questions and cries of complaint which he shouted down.\n\n\"Silence! I know you are all desk-driving fat-gutted base personnel\u2014but you are also soldiers. Because of the acceleration in planning some combat officer transfers will not arrive in time. You officers have all just volunteered to take their place. You will get combat gear and you will join your troops and you will board the transport at once. We will all be away by midnight.\"\n\nThe colonel ignored all the complaints and protests and finally lost his temper. He pulled a wicked-looking pistol from his holster and fired a shot up through the roof of the bus. Then pointed the gun at us. The silence was extreme. He had a nasty smile and pointed teeth.\n\n\"That is better,\" he said, and kept the weapon pointed. \"You are all timeserving cagal-kopfs, which means you have wangled and bought soft assignments which will do you no good now. You are in the army and in the army you obey orders.\" He fired another shot into the roof as the bus stopped. \"Now, I want volunteers for combat duty. All volunteers step forward.\"\n\nWe stepped forward in a rush. The lights in the supply depot were burning brightly in the night, clerks waited by the loaded shelves and an officer blocked the doorway.\n\n\"Move aside,\" our colonel said, keeping a wary eye on us as we emerged from the bus.\n\n\"Can't, sir,\" the supply officer said. \"I can't issue anything until I have the orders from headquarters. They haven't come through yet...\"\n\nThe colonel shot out the light over the depot door then put the hot muzzle of his gun against the supply officer's nose.\n\n\"What did you say?\" the colonel growled.\n\n\"Orders just arrived, sir! Open up in there and issue everything. Quickly!\"\n\nAnd quickly was what it was. We surged through the depot at top speed, grabbing up clothing, boots, barracks bags, belts, everything on the run. The manic colonel seemed to be everywhere now, his gun banging occasionally to keep up the pace. The street behind the building was a hellish scene of officers tearing off their uniforms, discarding them on the ground as they pulled on the green combat fatigues, jamming helmets on heads and everything else into their bags. Staggering forward into the next building where weapons were being issued. But no ammunition I noticed; the colonel was no fool. Stumbling under the weight of my burdens I staggered out into the street and dropped against a wall, adrip with perspiration. Morton dropped next to me.\n\n\"Do you have any idea what this is all about?\" he gasped.\n\n\"A very good idea. The powers that be think they are being spied upon. With good reason since they are. So they have pushed up the date of their invasion before details of their plans can be discovered.\"\n\n\"What will happen to us?\"\n\n\"We invade. At least we will go out as officers. Which means that we can stay to the rear and order the troops forward in case of any enemy resistance...\"\n\n\"Open your barracks bag,\" the moth said into my ear.\n\n\"What are you saying?\"\n\nThere was a sharp burning sensation in my earlobe as the moth discharged its batteries into my skin.\n\n\"Open... bag!\" it gasped and dropped off, batteries drained and dead.\n\nI bent and opened the bag, wondering if something had been planted there. There was a whistle and the stink of jet fuel as the bird plummeted past me into the bag.\n\n\"I'm not smuggling this damn bird and getting caught and shot!\" I shouted.\n\n\"You must do it for the sake of all mankind,\" the bird said, eyes glowing wildly. \"Reactivate by pressing the bill twice. Out.\"\n\nThe glow died and it went limp. I jammed the bag shut as footsteps approached.\n\n\"Into the transport!\" the colonel ordered. \"We are on our way!\"\nChapter 14\n\nThere was very little time to sit around and relax. As fast as the officers were spewed out of the supply depot, staggering under the weight of all their combat gear, trucks appeared to carry them away into the night. Groaning and complaining, with the rest of the groaners and complainers, Morton and I heaved our bags and weapons over the tailgate of a truck and clambered after. When it was filled to capacity, and slightly more, we lurched away.\n\n\"And to shink that I just reenlishted. Voluntarily,\" an officer expostulated leaning heavily against me. There was a gurgling sound from an upended bottle.\n\n\"Share the wealth, share the wealth,\" I muttered as I pried the bottle from his shaking grasp. It was pretty foul stuff, but was rich with alcohol.\n\n\"You still don't drink?\" I gasped at Morton, holding up the rapidly emptying bottle.\n\n\"I'm learning fast.\" He gulped then coughed, then gulped again before relinquishing the bottle to its original owner.\n\nA deep rumble washed over us and we had to close our eyes against the glare as a spacer took off. The invasion was on. We swayed into each other as the truck squealed to a halt and a now familiar and loathsome voice ordered us out. Our nemesis, the pressgang colonel, was waiting for us. He was backed up now by a radio operator and a gaggle of noncoms. Behind him companies, battalions of soldiers, were marching in good order to the waiting transports.\n\n\"Now hear this,\" the colonel bellowed. \"Those are good troops back there, and they need good officers. Unhappily all I have for them are you fat-bottomed desk types, the dregs of the base. So I'm going to split you up, one to every company, in the hopes that you will maybe get some experience before you get dead.\"\n\nThis was not good. I had promised Morton I would look after him. Which I could not do if we were in different companies. I sighed. I would have to break the first rule of military survival. Although it violated the primary army axiom\u2014keep your mouth shut and don't volunteer\u2014I volunteered. Stepping forward smartly and slamming my bootheels down as I snapped to attention.\n\n\"Sir! My bottom is lean, my gut is flat. I have field experience. I fire sharp-shooter, I instruct unarmed combat.\"\n\n\"And I don't believe you!\" he roared into my face.\n\nI threw him onto the ground, put my foot on his back, took away his gun, shot out one of the streetlights, helped him to his feet and handed back his weapon. His fierce glare melted almost to a smile as he wiped pebbles from his uniform.\n\n\"I could use a few more like you. You get a combat company. Name?\"\n\n\"Drem. I respectfully request Lieutenant Hesk here as exec. He is young and dumb but I have been training him.\"\n\n\"You got him. Move out. Any more volunteers?\"\n\nI grabbed up my bags before he could change his mind and hurried off toward the transports with Morton stumbling behind.\n\n\"I thought that I was going to die when you knocked him down,\" he gasped. \"You took some chance.\"\n\n\"Just being alive in the modern world is taking a chance,\" I pontificated, \"what with all the carcinogens and traffic accidents. And I think we can stop and put the bags down. Help has arrived.\"\n\nAn eager-looking sergeant, with a bald head, large moustache and two privates came trotting up and I returned his salute.\n\n\"I am Acting First Sergeant Blogh. If you are Captain Drem you are the new CO,\" the sergeant said.\n\n\"Right both times, sergeant. Get those men on these bags and let's go.\"\n\n\"Last of the company boarding now. We blast off in ten minutes.\"\n\n\"We can make it. Let's move.\"\n\nThe loading ramp vanished from behind our heels and the outer lock began to grind shut. We had to climb over boxes of equipment bolted to the deck to reach the stairs. Two flights up was the company, sprawled from wall to wall on their G pads. We dived for ours and were just horizontal when the red lights began flashing and the engines came to life.\n\nAs takeoffs go, it went. They poured on a lot more G's than a commercial transport would, but that is what the army is all about. When the acceleration dropped to one G, I stood and waved the sergeant over.\n\n\"Canteens full?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"\n\n\"Let them drink, but no food for awhile...\"\n\nThere was a roar of sound from the speakers followed by an overly amplified voice. \"All commanding officers to deck two now. All COs, now.\"\n\n\"Lieutenant,\" I called out to a very queasy-looking Morton. \"Take over until I get back. Let the noncoms do all the work.\" I bent and added in a whisper, \"Don't let that bird-bag out of sight. If it is opened we will really be in the cagal.\"\n\nHe moaned slightly and I hurried away before he began to feel too sorry for himself. There were other officers climbing the gangway, all of them curious and expectant.\n\n\"Maybe now we will find out what this whole thing is about.\"\n\n\"They got to tell us something\u2014we been living on latrine rumors for a year.\"\n\nThe dining hall was not that big, so only the first arrivals got seats. The rest of us crowded in between the tables and leaned against the walls. An ancient sergeant checked us off his list when we came in. When he was satisfied he reported to a two-star general at the top table. The hum of conversation died down as the sergeant called for our attention.\n\n\"For them of you newly transferred to this division this here is your commanding officer, General Lowender, and he has an important announcement to make.\"\n\nThere was silence as the general turned to us, nodded sagely, and spoke.\n\n\"This is it, men. H-hour, D-day, the moment you have all been expecting, nay, looking forward to eagerly. The captain of this ship has reported that we are on course, with no chance of turning back now. So the secret orders can be opened.\"\n\nHe took up a large envelope heavy with red seals and tore it asunder, the sound of ripping paper loud in the silence. He held up the red-bound volume inside.\n\n\"This is it. You will have heard rumors that we plan a defensive action against Zemlija. That is wrong. Security planted those rumors to mislead the enemy. Our offworld enemies are many and their spies everywhere. That has explained our great need for secrecy. That need is passed. As you can tell we are now in space and heading toward a new world. A rich world. A world that lost contact with the rest of the galaxy thousands of years ago. And, more important, a world only we know exists. It is inhabited, but the natives are backward and do not deserve to have this verdant world for their own greedy selves. Is the machine ready? Good. General Zennor, the discoverer of this rich planet, will tell you about it in his own words.\"\n\nMy pulse hammered and I started to sink down before I realized that it was just a recording and I did not have to worry about being recognized. The lights dimmed a bit, the general took a digital recording from the envelope and slipped it into the projector. Zennor's repulsive hologrammed features floated before us.\n\n\"Soldiers of Nevenkebla, I salute you. You are now embarked on the greatest venture ever conceived by our country. Your victory in the field will enrichen and strenghten our fatherland so that none will ever dare consider an attack upon us. The riches of a new world will be ours. The riches of this world\u2014Chojecki!\"\n\nThere was a blare of tinny music as Zennor vanished to be replaced by the blue sphere of a planet floating in space. But if we were spared his image his flatulent voice still hammered in our ears.\n\n\"Chojecki. Rich, warm, fertile. It was a chance in a million that we discovered it. The ship I commanded was being followed by the killers of the League Navy and we used a random, untraceable jump to escape them. This noble planet was what we found. Perhaps there is a higher power that guided us to our destiny, perhaps the needs of our noble land were devined by benevolencies unknown to us.\"\n\n\"Perhaps that is a load of old cagal,\" someone whispered and there were mutters of agreement in the darkness. These were combat officers who preferred truth to propaganda. But there was no stopping Zennor.\n\n\"We landed and made a survey. It is a rich planet with immense reserves of heavy metals, abundant forests, untapped rivers to supply hydroelectric power. If there is anything at all wrong with Chojecki it is the present inhabitants.\"\n\nWe listened now with interest because there was an edge of irritation that Zennor could not keep out of his voice.\n\n\"They are disgusting people, with vile attitudes and strange perversions. We approached them openly, extending the hand of friendship. We offered them aid, companionship, trade, contact with a superior civilization. And do you know what we got in return? Do you know what they did?\"\n\nThe anger in his voice was obvious now, his audience eager.\n\n\"I'll tell you what they did. They did nothing! They completely ignored us, turned away from us\u2014rejected all civilized contact.\"\n\n\"Probably knew just what they were doing,\" someone said and the general shouted for silence. The planet popped out of existence and Zennor's image returned. His temper was under control now but there was a baleful look in his eye.\n\n\"So you officers will understand that what we are doing is for their own benefit. Ours is an old culture and a wise one. We extended the hand of friendship and aid and it was rejected. We have been insulted, offended by these peasants. Therefore, for their own good, we must show them that Nevenkebla pride does not take insult easily. They have asked for this and they are going to get it. We come in friendship to aid them. If they reject our aid they have only themselves to blame.\n\n\"Long live Nevenkebla!\n\n\"Long live positive peace!\"\n\nThe lights came up and we were all on our feet cheering like fools. I cheered as loud as anyone. Trumpets blared and a rather dreary piece of recorded music began playing. Everyone snapped to attention and sang the words of their despicable anthem.\n\nLong live Nevenkebla,\n\nLand of peace,\n\nLand of goodness, land of light.\n\nLong live our leaders,\n\nSweet men of mercy.\n\nLong shall we preserve\n\nLiberty's right. But dare to attack us\u2014\n\nAnd you got a fight!\n\nThere was more like this and I hummed along and was exceedingly happy when the singing ended. A holomap now hung in the air and General Lowender poked it with his finger.\n\n\"You will all be issued with maps and detailed orders. We will meet again tomorrow after you have studied them. At that time we will go over the plan of attack in detail. But as an overall approach\u2014this is what will happen.\n\n\"This division, the 88th, known as the Fighting Green Devils, has the honor of liberating this industrial section of the largest city called by the barbaric name of Bellegarrique. There are mines here and here, warehouses, a rail transportation system and here, ten kilometers away, a dam at the end of this lake that provides electricity for the city. For the benefit of these selfish people we will occupy all of these targets. We will liberate them from the futility of their rejection of our reasonable needs.\"\n\n\"A question, general,\" a colonel called out. The general nodded. \"What kind of defenses can we expect? How large is their army? How modern?\"\n\n\"That is a good question, colonel, and a vital one. We must be prepared for anything, any variety of attack, any kind of surprise. Because these people are very subtle, tricky, wily, treacherous. It seems that, well, in all of the contacts made by General Zennor, all of the investigations made by skilled agents, it seems that something very suspicious was found to be happening. It appears, on the surface that is, that these treacherous people have no army, no defenses\u2014they do not even have a police force!\"\n\nHe waited for the hum of excited voices to die down before he raised his hand for silence.\n\n\"Now we all know that this is impossible. A country needs defenses against attack, therefore every country must have an army for defense. The criminal elements in society would plunder and destroy were they not curbed by the police. Now we know that those are realities. We know that these treacherous people are hiding their cowardly armies from us. Therefore we must proceed with armed caution, ready for any sneak attack. We must free them from themselves. We owe that to them.\"\n\nI have never in my life heard such a load of old cagal\u2014but it impressed my military mates, who cheered wildly at the thought of all the nice mayhem to come.\n\nWhile I wondered what disasterous future lay in store for these simple people about to be liberated from their stupid and peaceful ways.\n\nLiberation by destruction was on the way!\n\nWe would free them even if we had to kill them all to do it!\nChapter 15\n\nI returned to my company, clutching the package of sealed orders and holding tight to the idea that this was the most insane endeavor I had ever heard of. Morton looked up when I entered the cabin.\n\n\"You are wearing a very worried look,\" he said. \"Something personal\u2014or should we all be worried?\"\n\n\"Anything I can do for you, captain?\" Sergeant Blogh asked, popping in the door behind me. They all wanted to know about the meeting. I threw the package onto the bed.\n\n\"Sergeant, what is the position regarding strong drink on troop transports about to go into action?\"\n\n\"It is strictly forbidden, sir, and a court-martial offense. But one of the spare tanks on the command car is filled with ninety-nine.\"\n\n\"Ninety-nine what?\"\n\n\"Ninety-nine percent pure alcohol. Cut half with water and stir in dehydrated orange juice.\"\n\n\"Since we are going into combat I am making a field appointment. Acting First Sergeant Blogh you are now First Sergeant Blogh.\"\n\nThere was a rattle as Morton dropped three canteen cups onto the table, a thud as a bag of orange crystals followed. I could see where he was getting adjusted to the army.\n\nThe sergeant came back with a twenty-liter jerrycan, which with added water would make forty liters of hundred-proof drink, which, in turn, should make this voyage more bearable.\n\nWe clanked mugs and drank deep.\n\n\"This stuff is pretty repulsive,\" Morton said holding out his empty cup for more. \"Can you now tell us what you found out?\"\n\n\"I have some good news and some good news. The first good news is that we are going to invade and occupy an incredibly rich and heretofore unknown planet named Chojecki. Second\u2014they don't appear to have any defenses of any kind. No military, no police, nothing.\"\n\n\"Impossible,\" the sergeant said.\n\n\"Anything is possible in the fullness of time and the width of the galaxy. Let us hope the report is correct because it will certainly make for an easy invasion.\"\n\n\"I think it is a trap.\" The sergeant still wasn't buying it. I nodded.\n\n\"The general seems to think the same thing. He is sure that there is a secret army in hiding.\"\n\n\"Not necessarily,\" Morton said. \"Before entering the army I was a student of history. So I can tell you. Diverse are the ways of mankind. As you have so truthfully stated, captain, in the fullness of time and the width of the galaxy there have been many kinds of societies, forms of government...\"\n\n\"You got governments, you got armies. That's the way it's got to be.\"\n\nThe drink was making the sergeant pugnacious and Morton maudlin. Time to close the bar.\n\n\"Right.\" I climbed to my feet and kicked the jerrycan of alcohol out of sight under the table. \"Sergeant, get the noncoms together. Tell them what I told you about the invasion, have them pass it on to the troops. That will be all for now.\"\n\nThe door closed behind the sergeant and Morton dropped his head onto the table and began to snore. He was sure a cheap drunk. I finished the repulsive, though certainly lethal, orange-alcohol mixture and heard my stomach rumble in protest. Or was it hunger? A long time and a lot of distance had gone by since that half-eaten steak in the officers' club. I dug into my pack and found some of the rations that we had been issued. A reddish tube was labeled HOTPUP MEAL. In smaller print it stated that it would feed two and could be opened by puncturing the white circle on the end. I pulled my combat knife out of my boot and stabbed the thing enthusiastically. It instantly grew exceedingly hot and burned my fingers. I dropped it onto the table where it rumbled and hissed and began to expand. I kept the knife ready in case it attacked me. There was a ripping sound as the casing split open and it expanded into an arm-long sausage. It looked repulsive but smelled quite good. I hacked off the end, impaled it on my knife and ate. The only thing missing was some beer.\n\nLife continued in this manner. Day followed day like the flapping of a great red sausage. As good as the hotpup had tasted at first bite, I grew to loathe the sorry sausages. As did we all since, due to some bit of mismanagement in the rush to load the transports and be away, hotpups were the only food that had been put aboard. Even the general had to eat the repulsive objects and he was not pleased.\n\nWe had meetings and briefings, all of which I duly passed on to the troops. We cleaned and recleaned our weapons, sharpened our knives, had short arm inspections to keep the medical officers on their toes, worked our way down through the alcohol until fifteen days had passed and the officers were ordered to yet one more meeting.\n\nThis one was different. The knot of field officers around General Lowender was buzzing with talk and much consultation of maps. As soon as we were all assembled the general stood\u2014and hammered his fists down on the table.\n\n\"The invasion has begun!\"\n\nHe waited until the cheering had died down before he continued. \"The first scouts have gone down and report no resistance. As yet. But we must be wary because all of this could be a dodge to suck us into a trap of some kind. You all have your orders, you know what to do\u2014so there is nothing more to be said. We touch down in two hours. Set your watches. So that is it. Except, boys\u2014give 'em hell!\"\n\nMore wild cheering followed before we hurried back to tell the troops what lay ahead.\n\n\"About time,\" was Sergeant Blogh's comment. \"The troops get soft, lose their edge lying around on their chunks like they been. About time.\"\n\n\"Get the noncoms and we'll go over the attack thoroughly just once more,\" I said, spreading out the now-familiar map. With the landing this close I had their undivided attention.\n\n\"Here is where we are supposed to touch down,\" I said, tapping the map. \"Now how many of you believe that the military pilot flying this thing will actually land on the correct spot?\"\n\nThe silence was complete.\n\n\"Right. I feel the same way. We are supposed to touch down at dawn, which means it will probably be dark\u2014or raining, or both. We will be first out because we got the longest way to go. I will lead in the command car which if it is dark and unless we are fired upon, will have its lights on so you can see it.\"\n\nSergeant Blogh frowned and touched his clipboard full of papers. \"A specific order here from the general states that no lights are to be used.\"\n\n\"Correct. And the general will be the last one to leave the ship and we will be first, and we have to get clear at once because there are tanks right behind us.\"\n\n\"Lights to be on!\" the sergeant said, firmly.\n\n\"I will proceed to the nearest hill or high point to check the map and see if we have landed where planned. If not I shall determine just where the hell we are and where we are going. The lieutenant here will muster the troops and follow the command car. When I know where we are going we will go there. Here. To the dam. To the generating plant that supplies the unpronounceable city of Bellegarrique with electricity. Our job is to seize and secure. Any questions? Yes, corporal?\"\n\n\"Can we leave hotpup rations here and live off the countryside?\"\n\n\"Yes and no. We take the hotpups in case we should run across the supply officer so we can stuff him with them. But we seize some native food soonest. It will be brought to me for testing before distribution. Anyone else?\"\n\n\"Ammunition. When do we get the ammo?\"\n\n\"It's on the disembarkation deck now. You will be issued with it when we go down there. You will see that each man is issued his lot. You will also see that no weapons are loaded. We don't want any guns going off inside this ship.\"\n\n\"We load after we hit the ground?\" the First Sergeant asked.\n\n\"You load when I tell you to. We do not expect any resistance. If there is no resistance we don't need to shoot any of the locals. If we don't shoot the locals the invasion will be an instant success. If the weapons aren't loaded they cannot shoot. The weapons will not be loaded.\"\n\nThere was a murmur of protest at this and beetle-browed Corporal Aspya expressed their mutual concern. \"Can't attack without loaded weapons.\"\n\n\"Yes you can,\" I said in my coldest voice. \"You can do what you are ordered to do. One weapon will be loaded. My weapon will be loaded. And I will shoot any man\u2014or officer\u2014who disobeys orders. More questions? No. Dismissed. We proceed to landing positions in thirty minutes.\"\n\n\"They are not happy about this ammunition thing,\" Morton said when the others had gone.\n\n\"Tough cagal. I am not happy about this killing thing. No ammo, no shooting. This will stop accidents happening.\"\n\nHe adjusted the straps on his pack, still worrying. \"They should be able to defend themselves...\"\n\n\"Morton!\" I ordered. \"Look in the mirror. What do you see? You see Lieutenant Hesk staring back and you are beginning to think like him. Remember, Morton\u2014you are a draft dodger, a man of peace, a reluctant soldier. Have you forgotten? Have you ever seen anyone killed?\"\n\n\"Not really. My aunt died and I saw her in the coffin.\"\n\n\"A man of the world... I've seen them die and it is not a nice thing to watch. And when you are dead you are dead forever, Morton. Remember that when you listen to the men of violence, the dogs of war, the sellers of hate. Do you want to die?\"\n\nAs I said this I placed the point of my knife against his throat. His eyebrows went up and up and he gasped out a No! My knife vanished as quickly as it had appeared and I nodded.\n\n\"You know what\u2014neither do I. And neither does anyone else on that planet down there where we are landing with thousands of military numbskulls, and I wonder how I ever got involved in all this!\"\n\nMorton sighed. \"Like me, you got drafted.\"\n\n\"And how we did! Like always, old men send young men to war. They ought to make the minimum draft age fifty-five. That would put an end to warfare pretty quickly let me tell you!\"\n\nAn alarm sounded and all the lights blinked. I looked at my watch.\n\n\"This is it. Let's go.\"\n\nThe disembarkation hold was a red-lit hell of men, machines and equipment. I struggled between them to my command car, which was poised at the top edge of the ramp. I kicked the shackles that held it down.\n\n\"They're explosive,\" Sergeant Blogh said. \"They blow loose as soon as the ramp drops.\"\n\n\"Seeing is believing. It is going to be very hard to drive out of here if they don't. Has all the gear been loaded on this car like I ordered?\"\n\n\"Just as you ordered, sir. Extra ammo under the backseat.\"\n\nI looked in and nodded agreement. I had filled a number of canteens with our hundred-proof orange juice and stowed them in this ammunition box. Also stowed in the box, under a false bottom, was that talking spy bird I had been lumbered with. I could not leave it lying about for someone to find.\n\nThe floor pushed up at me and I kept my legs bent. We were doing a slow two-G drop for the last part of the landing since we could not be lolling around on deceleration couches before going into combat. Except for superior officers, of course. I pushed hard and worked my way into the command car and sat down heavily next to the driver.\n\n\"Ignition on,\" I ordered. \"But don't hit the starter until the ramp drops.\"\n\nThe seat of the car came up and hit me just as the roar of the ship's engines stopped. We bounced on the springs and there were loud explosions from all sides. Hopefully the shackles blowing loose. With a great creaking the ramp moved\u2014then dropped.\n\n\"Start her up!\" I shouted as rain blew in from the darkness outside. \"And turn on the lights so we can see where we are going!\"\n\nThe command car roared down the ramp and hit the ground with a great crash and splash as we plowed through a puddle. Nothing was visible ahead except for the rain sheeting through the beams of the headlights. We churned on into the darkness. When I looked backward I could see the files of laden soldiers coming after us.\n\n\"There is an awful lot of water ahead, sir,\" the driver said, slamming on his brakes.\n\n\"Well turn you idiot, don't drown us. Turn right and move away from the transport.\"\n\nLightning split the sky and thunder rolled dramatically. I pounded the driver on the shoulder and pointed.\n\n\"There's a hill there, a rise of some kind, beyond that row of trees. Get us to it.\"\n\n\"That's a fence there, captain!\"\n\nI sighed. \"Ride us over it, driver, this is an armored combat vehicle not the little bicycle that you left at home with your mommy. Move it!\"\n\nWhen we ground to a halt on top of the low hill the rain was still just as fierce, but the sky was beginning to brighten with the first light of dawn. I moved the glowing map about to try and figure out where we were. At least I now knew where west was. Since, naturally, the sun on this planet rose in the west.\n\nThe rest of the company had reached the hill by this time so I had the vehicle's lights turned off. I could see better now, but the only thing I could identify was the towering bulk of our transport behind us. Columns of men and machines were still pouring from it and rushing off into the rain. As the light grew I became aware of a range of hills on the horizon and I tried to find them on the map. It was broad daylight before I had our position pinned down.\n\n\"Right!\" I said, climbing down and smiling at my damp troops. \"I know that you will all be pleased to hear that the pilot of our craft made an error in our favor. We are over halfway to our objective.\"\n\nA ragged cheer followed and I held up the map.\n\n\"A close reading of this map also indicates that the rest of the troops that are now on their way to occupy the city of Bellegarrique have a very long way to go. Made longer by certain errors in navigation. If you will look after their disappearing ranks you will see that they are going in the opposite direction to the one they need.\"\n\nThere was enthusiasm in their cheering now. Nothing builds the morale better than seeing someone else in the cagal. And the rain seemed to be lessening, changing to a sort of soupy mist. The rising sun touched this with red and revealed a distant white object above the trees. I climbed onto the hood to make sure. It was.\n\n\"All right, men. We are moving out. If you look in that direction you will see the dam, which is our objective. The command car will follow. I shall lead you on foot as a good commander should.\n\n\"Advance!\"\nChapter 16\n\nSome celestial switch was thrown, just after sunrise, and the rain stopped. A light breeze blew away the clouds as we strolled on through the steaming landscape. We had been cutting across country, but came now to a paved road that appeared to lead toward the not-too distant dam. I sent out scouts, who reported no enemy activity\u2014or no enemy at all for that matter. We followed the road, which meandered down a gentle hillside planted with trees on both sides.\n\n\"Report from one of the scouts,\" Sergeant called out. \"He is in that orchard and says that the trees are covered with ripe aval-gwlanek.\"\n\n\"Sounds repulsive. What are they?\"\n\n\"A kind of fruit they grow in Zemlija. Delicious.\"\n\n\"Tell him to bring a sample for analysis and evaluation.\"\n\nThe scout quickly appeared with his helmet full of ripe peaches, or at least that is what we called awal-gwlanek on Bit O' Heaven. I picked one up and smelled it, then looked at the scout's streaked face.\n\n\"Well, private, I see that you have already done an analysis and evaluation. How was it?\"\n\n\"Yummy, captain!\"\n\nI took a bite and nodded in agreement as the sweet juice washed the lingering taste of the last hotpup from my teeth. \"Fall out the troops, sergeant, take cover in that orchard, ten-minute break.\"\n\nWhen we marched on, the rumble of contented borborygmus sounded loud above the tramping boots. The dam grew closer, as did the generating plant and grouped buildings at its base. Water gushed from great pipes, while pylons and wires marched away toward the distant city. It looked peaceful and productive and there was no one in sight. I signaled a halt and sent for the NCOs.\n\n\"I will now outline our plan of attack. But before I do we will have a weapons inspection. Starting with you, First Sergeant.\"\n\nHis face was expressionless as he passed me his gun. I pressed the magazine release, saw that it was empty, looked into the equally empty chamber and passed it back. I did this with the others and was quite pleased with myself until I reached the hulking form of Corporal Aspya. Instead of handing me his gun he held it across his chest.\n\n\"I can save you looking, captain. It's loaded.\"\n\n\"That was done despite my direct order, ex-corporal. Private, you will now hand me your weapon.\"\n\n\"A soldier is not a soldier when he is unarmed, sir,\" he said grimly, unmoving.\n\n\"That is true,\" I said, going on to the next noncom. Out of the corner of my eye I saw him look around as though seeking aid. As soon as his eyes were off me I lashed back with my extended hand and caught him on the neck with the edge. It was a cruel blow: he had a loaded gun. He fell unconscious on the ground and I pulled the weapon from his limp hands, ejecting the cartridges one by one into the mud.\n\n\"Sergeant Blogh. I want this man in the command car, under guard and under arrest.\"\n\n\"Is the guard to be armed, sir?\"\n\n\"Guard to be armed, weapon to be loaded. Lieutenant Hesk will perform guard duty. Now, this is our plan of attack.\"\n\nThey listened in silence, impressed by my quick violence. I was ashamed of striking the cowardly blow\u2014but I wouldn't let them know that. Better one sore neck than guns going off and people getting killed. I could trust Morton not to pull any triggers\u2014and felt much better with him out of the way for the present. I assigned targets to every squad, but saved the main building for myself.\n\n\"So there it is. Get your men into position, then report back to me. When everything is covered I will enter and capture the control room. Now\u2014move out.\"\n\nMy bold little army dispersed, attacking by the book. Rushing forward a few at a time, covering each other. After a few minutes the noncoms began radioing in. Objectives reached, no opposition, no one seen yet. Now it was up to me. Followed by the first sergeant and his squad I marched resolutely up the steps of the generating station and threw open the door. It opened directly into the turbine room. The turbines spun, the generators turned, there was no one in sight.\n\n\"Fully automated,\" the sergeant said.\n\n\"Looks that way. Let's find the control room.\"\n\nTension grew as we scuttled down the hallway. I was very glad that mine was the only loaded weapon. I kept the pistol in my hand\u2014but the safety was on since I had no intention of pulling the trigger: it was a prop to cheer the troops.\n\n\"Someone is in there, captain. See!\"\n\nThe soldier was pointing at a frosted-glass door. A man's silhouette moved across it then vanished.\n\n\"Right, this is it, here we go, follow me!\"\n\nI took a deep breath\u2014then threw the door open. Jumped inside and heard the squad move in after me. The gray-haired man stood in front of the control panel, tapping a dial.\n\n\"Ne faru nenion!\" I shouted. \"Vi estas kaptito. Manoj en la aeron!\"\n\n\"How very interesting,\" he said turning about and smiling. \"Strangers speaking a strange tongue. Welcome, strangers, welcome to Bellegarrique Generating Plant Number One.\"\n\n\"I can understand you!\" I said. \"You are speaking a dialect of Low Ingliss, that we speak on Bit O' Heaven.\"\n\n\"Can't say that I have heard of the place. Your accent is strange, but it certainly is the same language.\"\n\n\"What is he saying?\" the first sergeant asked. \"You speak his lingo?\"\n\n\"I do. Learnt it in school.\" Which was true enough. \"He is welcoming us here.\"\n\n\"Anyone else around?\"\n\n\"Good question. I'll put it to him.\"\n\n\"There are more staff, of course, but they'll be asleep. Shift workers. You must tell me more about yourself and your friends. My name is Stirner. Might I ask yours?\"\n\nI started to answer, then drew myself up. This was no way to run a war. \"My name is not important. I am here to tell you that this planet is now controlled by the armed forces of Nevenkebla. If you cooperate you will not be harmed.\"\n\nI translated this into Esperanto so my soldiers would know what was happening. And told the sergeant to pass the word about the shift workers. Stirner politely waited until I was finished before he spoke.\n\n\"This is all very exciting, sir! Armed forces you say? That would mean weapons. Are those weapons that you are carrying?\"\n\n\"They are. And be warned\u2014we will defend ourselves if attacked.\"\n\n\"I wouldn't concern myself with that. As a firm believer in Individual Mutualism I would never harm another.\"\n\n\"But your army\u2014or your police would!\" I said, trickily.\n\n\"I know the words, of course, but you need not fear. There is no army here, nor do we have a police force. May I offer you some refreshments? I am being a very bad host.\"\n\n\"I can't believe this is happening,\" I muttered. \"Sergeant, get a connection to General Lowender's staff. Tell them we have made contact with the enemy. No sign of resistance. Informant says no armed forces, no police.\"\n\nClosely watched by my gun-gripping troops, Stirner had opened a cabinet and removed a tall and interesting bottle. He set this on a table along with a tray of glasses.\n\n\"Wine,\" he said. \"A very good one, for special guests. I hope you and your associates will enjoy it.\" He handed me a glass.\n\n\"You taste it first,\" I said with military suspicion.\n\n\"Your politeness, nameless sir, puts me to shame.\" He sipped then passed me a glass. It was very good.\n\n\"Got the general himself,\" the sergeant called out urgently, running over with the radio.\n\n\"Captain Drem speaking.\"\n\n\"Drem\u2014what does this report mean? Have you found the enemy?\"\n\n\"I've occupied the generating plant, sir. No casualties. No resistance encountered.\"\n\n\"You are the first to make contact. What are their defenses like?\"\n\n\"Nonexistent, general. No resistance was offered of any kind. My prisoner states no military, no police.\"\n\nThe general made noises of disbelief. \"I'm sending a chopper for you and the prisoner. I want to question him myself. Out.\"\n\nWonderful. The last place I wanted to be was with the top brass. There was too good a chance of General Zennor appearing and recognizing me from the bad old days when he was known as Garth. Self-survival urged me to climb into a hole. But weighed against my personal needs was the chance that I might be able to save lives. If I could convince the military numbskulls that there really would be no resistance. If I didn't do that, surely some trigger-happy cagal-kopf was sure to get nervous and start firing. All of his jumpy buddies would then join in and... It was a very realistic scenario. I had to make some effort to avoid it.\n\n\"An order from the general,\" I told my expectant troops. \"I'm to bring him the prisoner. Transport is on the way. You are in charge, Sergeant Blogh, until Lieutenant Hesk gets here to relieve you. Take over. And take care of the wine.\"\n\nHe saluted and they were grabbing for the bottle when I left. Would such simple military pleasures were mine.\n\n\"You're coming with me,\" I told Stirner, pointing toward to the door.\n\n\"No, my duty is here. I am afraid I cannot oblige you.\"\n\n\"It is not me you are going to oblige, it is your own people. There is a big army out there. All of them armed with weapons like this. They are now invading your country and are taking it over. People could be killed. But lives can be saved if I take you to the commanding officer and you manage to convince him there will be no resistance from your people. Do you understand me?\"\n\nA look of horror had been growing on his face as I talked. \"You are serious?\" he gasped. \"You mean what you are saying.\" I nodded grimly. \"Of course, then, yes. Incomprehensible, but I must come. I can't believe this.\"\n\n\"The feeling is mutual.\" I led him to the door. \"I can understand not having an army, all civilized worlds get by without the military. But the police, a necessary evil I would say.\"\n\n\"Not for those who practice Individual Mutualism.\" He was brightening up now at this chance to deliver a little lecture.\n\n\"I never heard of it.\"\n\n\"How unfortunate for you! At the risk of simplifying I will explain...\"\n\n\"Captain Drem, I got to talk to you!\" the fallen corporal said, climbing out of the command car despite Morton's feeble efforts to stop him. He stopped in front of me, snapped to attention and saluted.\n\n\"I now see the error of my ways, sir. I thought because you are young and look weak that I knew better than you, so I disobeyed an order and loaded my gun. I know now that I was wrong and you were right and I respectfully request a second chance since I am a thirty-year man and the army is my career.\"\n\n\"And how do you know now that I was right, Private Aspya?\"\n\nHe looked at me, eyes aglow. \"Because you beat me, sir! Knocked me down fair and square. A man gotta do what a man gotta do\u2014and you did it!\"\n\nWhat kind of macho-cagal was this? He had disobeyed a reasonable command that was aimed at avoiding violence. Only when I had bashed him unconscious did he feel that I was right. The mind reeled at this kind of perverse, inverted logic\u2014and I really didn't have time to think about it. About all I could do was play along and forget about it.\n\n\"You know, ex-corporal, I think that I believe you. It takes a real man to admit that he was wrong. So even though you are a miserable low private and I am an on-high captain\u2014I'm going to shake your hand and send you back to duty!\"\n\n\"You're a real man, captain, and you will never regret this!\" He pumped away at my hand, then staggered off knuckling a tear from his eye. There was a growing clatter from the sky and shadow drifted across us and I looked up to see the chopper dropping down toward us.\n\n\"Morton\u2014you're in charge until I get back. Go to Sergeant Blogh and take command and let him make all the decisions and then agree with him.\"\n\nHe could only nod as I guided Stirner to the chopper and climbed in behind him.\n\n\"Take us to the general,\" I ordered the pilot. Then sighed heavily. I had the feeling that I was putting my head into the noose and settling it nicely around my neck.\n\nBut, really, I had no other choice.\n\n\"I have read of such vehicles in the history books,\" Stirner said, looking out of the window with admiration as we rattled skyward. \"This is a very important moment for me, nameless sir.\"\n\n\"Captain, you can call me captain.\"\n\n\"My pleasure to meet you, Captain. And thank you for the opportunity to explain to your leaders that they may come in peace. They must not be afraid. We would never harm them.\"\n\n\"It was the other way around that I was worried about.\"\n\nThere was no more time for gossip because the chopper was dropping down beside an armored column of tanks. Tables, armchairs, and a wet bar, had been set up under a tent in the field close by, and we settled down just out of rotor-blast of the officers assembled there. I jumped down, delivered a snappy salute and relaxed. Zennor wasn't there. I turned and helped Stirner get out and pushed him towards General Lowender.\n\n\"This is the prisoner, sir. He speaks a vile local language which I just happened to have learned in school so I can translate.\"\n\n\"Impossible,\" he said grimly. \"You are an infantry officer, not a translator. Major Kewsel is the staff translator. Major, translate!\"\n\nThe dark-haired major shouldered me aside and stood before the prisoner.\n\n\"Kion vi komprenas?\" he shouted. \"Sprechten zee Poopish? Ancay ooyay eekspay Igpay Atinlay? Ook kook Volupook?\"\n\n\"Very sorry, sir, but I don't understand a word that you are saying.\"\n\n\"Got him!\" the major announced happily. \"A little-known dialect, spoken on dreary planets trundling heavily around dark stars. I learned its boring cacophonies when I was involved in the meat trade years ago. Importing porcuswine cutlets...\"\n\n\"Cut the cagal, major, and translate. Ask him where the army is and how many police stations there are in this city.\"\n\nI listened with some interest as the major, despite his inborn desire to talk and not listen, finally elicited the same information that I had. The general sighed unhappily.\n\n\"If this is true\u2014then we just can't shoot them down in cold blood.\" He turned to me. \"And you are positive there was no resistance offered?\"\n\n\"None, sir. It apparently goes against their strongest beliefs. May I congratulate you, general, on the first bloodless invasion in the known universe! You will soon have captured this entire planet for the greater glory of Nevenkebla\u2014without losing a single soldier.\"\n\n\"Don't cheer too soon, captain. Medals don't go to generals who bring back the troops intact. Battle! That's where the glory is! There will be fighting, mark my words. It is human nature. They can't all be cowards on this planet.\"\n\n\"Lowender\u2014what's happening?\" a familiar voice asked and my blood temperature fell about ten degrees. I did not move, stood stiffly with my back to the speaker. The general pointed.\n\n\"We have our first prisoner, General Zennor. I have been questioning him. He talks nonsense. No army, no police he says.\"\n\n\"And you believe him? Where was he caught?\"\n\n\"At the generating plant, by Captain Drem there.\"\n\nZennor glanced at me, then away. I kept my back straight and my face expressionless as he suddenly turned around to face me again.\n\n\"Where do I know you from, captain?\"\n\n\"Training, sir. Maneuvers,\" I said in the deepest voice I could muster. He walked over and pushed his face close to mine.\n\n\"That's not true. Somewhere else. And you were with someone else...\"\n\nHis eyes lit with recognition and he stabbed his finger at me. \"The Bishop! You were with The Bishop\u2014\"\n\n\"And you killed him!\" I shouted as I dived and got the three-seconds to death stranglehold on his neck.\n\nOne second... unconscious.\n\nSecond second... limp.\n\nThird...\n\nAll the lights went out. There was a great deal of pain in the back of my head and then nothing. My last thought was\u2014had I held the grip through the third second?\nChapter 17\n\nA measureless time later I was aware of pain spreading from the back of my head down through my body. I moved to get away from it but it would not leave. It was dark\u2014or were my eyes closed? I had no desire to find out. Everything hurt too much. I groaned and it sounded so good that I did it a second time. Vaguely, through the groaning, I was aware of my shoulders being lifted and something wet on my lips. I gurgled and spluttered. Water. It tasted very good. I drank some and felt slightly better. The pain was still there, but not so much that I couldn't risk opening one eye. I did. A face swam blurrily above me and after a certain amount of blinking it became clear.\n\n\"Morton...?\" I muttered.\n\n\"None other.\" With an expression of abject gloom. He pulled at me until I sat against the wall and my head appeared to be exploding in tiny bits. His voice barely penetrated.\n\n\"Take this, in your mouth. Drink some more water. The doctor said you were to swallow it when you came to. For the head.\"\n\nPoison? No such luck. Medicine. The pain ebbed and rose and finally slipped away to a dull ache. I opened my eyes all the way and saw a sad-looking and bruised Morton framed against a background of bars.\n\n\"Is he dead?\" I croaked.\n\n\"Who?\"\n\n\"General Zennor.\"\n\n\"He looked very much alive when he was here about a half an hour ago.\"\n\nI sighed drearily\u2014and with mixed emotions. I had wanted vengeance, wanted Zennor to pay heavily for being responsible for The Bishop's death. I thought that I had wanted him dead as well. But having tried murder this once, really tried it, I was glad that I had been stopped. Now that I had made my first homicidal attempt I discovered that I did not really enjoy the process of killing people. I was a failed killer. And in failing I had really got myself in the cagal. And had pulled Morton in too.\n\n\"Sorry about all this,\" I said. \"I got so carried away I never stopped to think that I would probably implicate you as well.\"\n\n\"Sergeant Blogh turned me in when the MPs came to investigate. He knew I wasn't an officer. I told them everything. Even before they knocked me around.\"\n\n\"I'm to blame for what happened.\"\n\n\"Don't think like that. Not your fault. They would have got me sooner or later, one way or the other. The army and me, we are just not on the same plane. You did your best, Jak.\"\n\n\"Jim. Real name is Jim diGriz. From a distant planet.\"\n\n\"Nice to meet you, Jim. You a spy?\"\n\n\"No. Just here to right a wrong. Your General Zennor was responsible for the death of my best friend. I came here looking for him.\"\n\n\"What about that talking bird and all the other stuff?\"\n\nI touched my fingers to my lips and looked at the door. Morton shook his head in puzzlement. I spoke up before he could add anything.\n\n\"You mean that talking bird joke I was going to tell you, about the kid in school who had the talking bird who turned into an alcoholic and became a missionary? I remember the joke\u2014but I forgot the punchline.\"\n\nMorton was now staring at me as if I had gone out of my mind. I looked around and discovered that I was lying on a thin mattress resting on a very dusty floor. I used my finger to write QUIET\u2014THEY MIGHT BE LISTENING! in the dust. I looked at his face until he finally caught on, then rubbed out the message. \"Anyway, Morton, I don't feel like telling jokes now. Where are we?\"\n\n\"Big building in the city. Looks like the army took it over. They must be using it for a headquarters or something. All I know is that they brought me here in a rush, worked me over then dumped me in here with you. The building is full of soldiers.\"\n\n\"Any civilians?\"\n\n\"None that I saw...\"\n\nWe both looked up as the lock rattled in the door and it opened. A lot of armed MPs pushed in and pointed their guns at us. Only after this did General Zennor enter. He had a bandage around his neck and the urge to kill in his eye.\n\n\"Are you sure that you are safe now, Zennor,\" I said as sweetly as I could. He came over and kicked me in the side.\n\n\"Aren't we brave\u2014\" I gasped through the pain. \"Kick a wounded man lying down.\"\n\nHe drew his boot back again, thought about it, then drew his pistol and pointed it between my eyes.\n\n\"Get the other prisoner out of here. Leave us alone. Bring me a chair.\"\n\nOne thing about the military, they just relish following orders. With much shouted commands and stamping of boots Morton was hustled away, the MPs vanished, a wooden chair appeared and was placed respectfully under the general's bottom. He sat down slowly without taking his eyes or the gun muzzle off of me. He did not speak until the door clicked shut.\n\n\"I want to know how you got here, how you followed me. Everything.\"\n\nWhy not? I thought, rubbing my sore side. I was too knocked about to make up any complex lies\u2014nor was there any need. The truth would be easier. With a little editing of course.\n\n\"Everything, Zennor? Why not. The last time I saw you was when you sold us down the river on Spiovente. That is a rough planet, and no place for an old man like The Bishop. He died there\u2014and that makes you responsible for his death.\"\n\nHe touched the bandage on his neck and snarled, \"Get on with it.\"\n\n\"Little more to tell. A few wars, murder, torture, the usual thing. I survived only to be rescued by the League Navy, who also arrested me and brought me here. I escaped from them and found you because of your one big mistake.\"\n\n\"What nonsense are you speaking?\"\n\n\"No nonsense. Truth, Captain Garth. Didn't you have the girl, Bibs, arrested for selling dope?\"\n\n\"That is not important.\"\n\n\"It was to Bibs! She is a free woman now, you will be unhappy to hear, and before she left she told me how to find you. End of story.\"\n\nHe weighed the gun thoughtfully, his finger caressing the trigger. I tried not to notice it.\n\n\"Not quite the end yet. You are the spy who landed in Marhaveno?\"\n\n\"Yes. And penetrated your slack and incompetent army. Then rose in rank until I got you by the neck and gave you a good choking. When you wake up at night in a cold sweat remember\u2014I could have shot you just as well. Now, are you going to shoot me, or are you just playing with that gun?\"\n\n\"Don't tempt me, little man. But that would be a waste. I shall put your death to better use. You and your associate will be tried and found guilty of a number of charges. Attacking a superior officer, impersonating an officer, threatening military security. After which you will both be shot. In public.\"\n\n\"And what will that accomplish?\"\n\n\"It will convince the stubborn people of this planet that we do what we say. They are a bloodless, spineless lot that let us walk in and take their planet away from them. Now they whine that they wish to have it back. They refuse to do any work until we leave. They have all walked away from their jobs. The city will soon be paralyzed. Your death will change that.\"\n\n\"I don't see how.\"\n\n\"I do. They will then know that I mean what I say. We will take hostages and shoot them if they do not cooperate.\"\n\nI was on my feet, anger burning me. \"You are a mean and worthless bastard, Zennor. I should have killed you when I had the chance.\"\n\n\"Well you didn't,\" he said. Then fired as I jumped at him.\n\nThe bullet must have missed but the explosion deafened me. I fell and he kicked me again. Then the room was full of MPs all trying to stomp on me at once.\n\n\"Enough!\" Zennor shouted and boots fell away. I was on all fours, looking up at him through a haze of blood. \"Clean him up, fresh uniform, same for the other one. Trial in two hours.\"\n\nI must have been punchy from the kicking because I was only vaguely aware of being worked on, of Morton reappearing, of time oozing by. I finally came back almost to reality when I found him pulling off my shirt.\n\n\"Let go. I can do it myself.\" I blinked at the fresh uniform on the chair, at Morton uniformed and crisp and a private once again. My new-old rank as well I saw. I dropped the bloody shirt on the floor, then pulled off my boots so I could take off the trousers as well.\n\nBoots. Boots? Boots!\n\nI tried not to smirk or let on in case the place was bugged.\n\n\"You know about the trial?\" Morton nodded glumly. \"How much more time do we have?\"\n\n\"About an hour.\"\n\nAs I talked I slid my fingers into my right boot and flipped open the tiny compartment concealed in the heel. An hour. We would be long gone by that time! I tried not to let my newfound glee show on my face. Slip out the lockpick, slip open the door, slip out into the hall, and vanish into military anonymity.\n\nExcept the lockpick was no longer there...\n\n\"Zennor gave me a funny message for you,\" Morton said. \"He told me to wait until you took off your shoes then I was to tell you that you were not going to get out that way. I don't know what it means\u2014but he said you would know.\"\n\n\"I know, I know,\" I said wearily, and finished changing. It takes a crook to catch a crook, and that crook Zennor obviously knew all about lockpicks.\n\nThey came for us an hour later. I'll say this much, they made a great military show of it with much crashing of polished weapons, shouting of orders, thudding of bootheels. Neither Morton nor I wished to play along with this militaristic tomfoolery but had little choice since we were chained and dragged. Down the hall, down the stairs and into the street beyond. With more crashing and shouting we were hauled up onto a newly constructed platform that was apparently going to be the venue of the show trial. Complete with guards, judges, barred cell, buglers\u2014and a large crowd of watching civilians below. Obviously brought there by force since they were still ringed by armed soldiers. A half dozen of them were also seated on the platform as well. All gray-headed or bald and among them I recognized Stirner from the generating plant. As soon as he saw me being locked in the cage he stood and walked over.\n\n\"What are they doing to you, captain? We understand none of this...\"\n\n\"You are talking Esperanto!\" I gaped.\n\n\"Yes. One of our leading linguists found this interesting language in his library. A number of us learned it last night since there have been communication problems with\u2014\"\n\n\"Seat that man at once!\" Zennor ordered from the bench where he was, of course, the head judge. Military justice.\n\n\"I can't believe that this is happening!\" Stirner said as he was hurried back to his chair.\n\nThough he and his companions tried to protest they were silenced by the blare of bugles and the dreary evidence of the mock trial. I pretended to fall asleep but was kicked awake. Morton stared vacantly into space. I really did doze off during the summing up, I still did not feel that good, and only paid any attention when we were both dragged to our feet. Zennor was speaking.\n\n\"... evidence given against you. It is therefore the judgment of this court that you be taken from here to a place of detention and there be held until oh-eight hundred hours tomorrow from whence you will be taken to a place of execution where you will be shot. Take them away.\"\n\n\"Some justice!\" I shouted. \"I haven't been allowed to say a word during this farce of a trial. I wish to make a statement now.\"\n\n\"Silence the prisoner.\"\n\nA hairy hand was pressed over my mouth, then replaced by a cloth gag. Morton was treated the same way although he seemed barely conscious of what was happening. Zennor waved over the translator with the microphone.\n\n\"Tell them to listen to a very important announcement,\" he said. The amplified translation boomed over the crowd, which listened in silence.\n\n\"I have brought you people here since there has been willful disobedience on the part of too many of you. This will change. You have watched Nevenkebla justice taking place. These two prisoners have been found guilty of a number of criminal charges. The penalty for being found guilty of these charges is death. They will die at eight tomorrow morning. Do you understand this?\"\n\nA murmur went through the listening crowd and Stirner stood up. The guards reached for him but Zennor stopped them.\n\n\"I am sure I speak for all here,\" Stirner said, \"when I ask for some explanation. This is all very confusing. And the most confusing part of all is how do these men know about their deaths tomorrow? They do not look ill. Nor do we understand your knowledge of the precise hour of their demise.\"\n\nZennor looked at him with disbelief\u2014then lost his temper.\n\n\"Are you people that stupid? Was this backward planet settled by hereditary morons? These two men are going to die tomorrow because we are going to shoot them with guns. This is a gun!\" he screamed, pulling his pistol and firing it into the wooden stand before him. \"It fires bullets and they make holes in people and tomorrow guns will kill these two criminals! You people aren't vegetarians. You butcher animals for food. Tomorrow we butcher these two men in the same way. Now is that clear enough for you?\"\n\nStirner, white-faced, dropped back into his chair. Zennor grabbed the microphone and his amplified voice rolled over every one.\n\n\"They will die and you will watch them die! Then you will understand and you will do as we order and do what we tell you to do. If you disobey you will be as guilty as these two men and you will be shot like these two men. We will shoot you and kill you and keep on shooting and killing you until the survivors understand us and obey us and do exactly as they are told...\"\n\nHis words trickled down and died as he lost his audience. The men on the platform stood up, turned their backs on him and walked away. As did everyone else in the street. They did not push or use violence. When the soldiers grabbed them they simply struggled to get free without striking out. Meanwhile the others who were not held pushed by and walked away. The street was a struggling shambles. Zennor must have realized this, seen the impossibility of accomplishing anything without violence at the moment. He was vicious and deadly\u2014but not stupid.\n\n\"You may all leave now,\" he announced. \"Let them go. You will all leave and remember what I have said and tomorrow morning you will come back here and watch these prisoners die. After that your new orders will be issued. And you will obey them.\"\n\nHe signaled to our guards and Morton and I were pulled to our feet and dragged back to our cell. Since no further orders about us had been issued we were thrown into our prison room, still chained and gagged.\n\nWe looked at each other in muffled silence as the key was turned in the door.\n\nIf my eyes looked like Morton's eyes, then I was looking very, very frightened.\nChapter 18\n\nWe lay like this for an uncomfortable number of hours. Until the door was unlocked and a burly MP came in with our dinner trays. His brow furrowed as he looked down at us. I could almost see the feeble thoughts trickling through his sluggish synapses. Got food. Feed prisoners. Prisoners gagged. No can eat... Just about the time his thought processes reached this stage he turned and called over his shoulder.\n\n\"Sergeant. Got kind of a problem here.\"\n\n\"You got a problem if you are bothering me for no reason,\" the sergeant said as he stamped in.\n\n\"Look, sarge. I got this food to feed the prisoners. But they're gagged and can't eat...\"\n\n\"All right, all right\u2014I can figure that one out for myself.\"\n\nHe dug out his keys, unlocked my chains, and turned to Morton. I emitted a muffled groan through my gag and stretched my sore fingers and struggled to sit up. The sergeant gave me a kick and I groaned harder. He was smiling as he left. I pulled off the gag and I threw it at the closing door. Then pulled over the tray because, despite everything, I was feeling hungry. Until I looked at it and pushed it away.\n\n\"Hotpups,\" Morton said, spitting out bits of cloth. \"I could smell it when they brought the trays in.\"\n\nHe sipped some water from his cup and I joined him in that. \"A toast,\" I said, clanking his cup with mine. \"To military justice.\"\n\n\"I wish I could be as tough as you, Jim.\"\n\n\"Not tough. Just whistling in the dark. Because I just don't see any way out of this one. If I still had my lockpick we might have a slim chance.\"\n\n\"That's the message the general gave me?\"\n\n\"That's it. We can't do much now except sit and wait for morning.\"\n\nI said this aloud not to depress Morton any more, surely an impossibility, but for the ears of anyone listening to planted bugs. There might be optic bugs as well, so I wandered about the cell and looked carefully but did not see any. So I had to risk it. I ate some of my hotpup, washing down the loathsome mouthfuls with glugs of water, while at the same time picking up the discarded chains as silently as I could, balling them around my fist. The dim MP would be back for the trays and he might be off guard.\n\nI was flat against the wall, armored fist ready, the next time the key rattled in the lock. The door opened a finger's width and the MP sergeant called out.\n\n\"You, behind the door. Drop those chains now or you ain't going to live to be shot in the morning.\"\n\nI muttered a curse and hurled them across the room and went and sat by the back wall. It was a well-concealed optic bug.\n\n\"What time is it, sergeant?\" Morton asked.\n\n\"Sixteen-hundred hours.\" He held his gun ready while the other MPs removed the trays and chains.\n\n\"I got to go to the toilet.\"\n\n\"Not until twenty-hundred. General's orders.\"\n\n\"Tell the general that I am already potty trained,\" I shouted at the closing door. To think that I actually had had his neck in my hands. If they hadn't hit me\u2014would I have gone the full three seconds and killed him? I just didn't know. But if I hadn't been ready then\u2014I felt that I was surely ready for it now.\n\nThey took us down the hall later, one at a time and heavily guarded, then locked us in for the night. With the lights on. I don't know if Morton slept, but with the general bashing about I had had even the thin mattress felt good. I crashed and didn't open my eyes again until the familiar rattle at the door roused me.\n\n\"Oh-six hundred and here is your last meal,\" the sergeant said with great pleasure.\n\n\"Hotpups again?\"\n\n\"How did you ever guess!\"\n\n\"Take them away. I'll die cursing you. Your name will be the last thing on my lips.\"\n\nIf he was impressed by my threat he didn't show it. He dropped the trays onto the floor and stamped out.\n\n\"Two hours to go,\" Morton said, and a tear glistened in his eye. \"My family doesn't know where I am. They'll never know what happened to me. I was running away when I was caught.\"\n\nWhat could I say? What could I do? For the first time in my short and fairly happy life I felt a sensation of absolute despair. Two hours to go. And no way out.\n\nWhat was that smell? I sniffed and coughed. It was very pungent\u2014and strong enough to cut through my morbid gloom. I coughed again, then saw a wisp of smoke rising from the floor in the corner of the room. Morton had his back turned to it and seemed unaware. I watched, astonished, as a smoking line appeared in the floor, extended, turned. Then I could see that there was a rough circle of dark fumes coming from the wood. Morton looked around coughing.\n\n\"What...?\" he said\u2014just as the circle of wooden flooring dropped away. From the darkness below a man's gray head emerged.\n\n\"Don't touch the edges of the opening,\" Stirner said. \"It is a very strong acid.\"\n\nThere were shouts and running feet in the hall. I dragged Morton to his feet, hurled him forward.\n\n\"They are watching us\u2014can hear everything we say!\" I shouted. \"Fast!\"\n\nStirner popped down out of sight and I pushed Morton after him. Jumped into the opening myself as the lock rattled on the door.\n\nI hit and fell sideways and rolled and cursed because I had almost crushed Morton. He was still dazed, unresponding. Stirner was pulling at his arm, trying to move him toward another hole in the floor of this room. I picked Morton up bodily and carried him to the opening, dropped him through. There was a shriek and a thud. Stirner went after him, wisely using the ladder placed there.\n\nHeavy footsteps sounded in the room above. I jumped, grabbed the edge of the opening, hung, and dropped. Into a half-lit basement.\n\n\"This way,\" a girl called out, holding open a door in the far wall.\n\nStirner was struggling with Morton, trying to lift him. I pushed him aside, got a grip and threw Morton over my shoulder. And ran. The girl closed the door behind us and locked it, then turned to follow Stirner. I staggered after them as fast as I could. Out another door that was also locked behind us, down a hall and through more doors.\n\n\"We are safe for the moment,\" Stirner said, closing and securing a final door. \"The cellars are quite extensive and all of the doors have been locked. Is your friend injured?\"\n\n\"Glunk...\" Morton said when I stood him on his feet.\n\n\"Just dazed, I think. I want to thank...\"\n\n\"Discussions later, if you please. We have to get you away from here as soon as possible. I must leave you on the other side of this door, so you will follow Sharla here. The street outside is filled with the people who have gathered as ordered for the ceremony of killing. They have all been told that you are coming so they are all very happy to be of help in such an unusual matter as this.\"\n\n\"Be careful. There was an optical spying device in the room where we were held. They saw you and will be looking for you.\"\n\n\"I will not be seen. Goodbye.\"\n\nHe opened the door and was gone, vanished in the crowd outside. Our guide motioned us forward and held the door open. I took Morton's arm, he was still woozy, and we went after her.\n\nIt was strange and utterly unbelievable. There were thousands of people jammed into the street: men, women and children. And not one of them looked our way or appeared to take any notice of us at all. Yet when we stepped toward them they pressed tight against each other to make room for us to pass, moving apart again as soon as we had gone by. It was all done in silence. We walked through a continually opening and closing clear space, just large enough to let us get by.\n\nI heard shouts in the distance\u2014and shots! The crowd stirred and murmured at this, then they were silent again. We moved on. The crowd was in motion now as well, stirring and reforming. I realized it was deliberate, so that anyone watching from the windows above would not see us making our escape.\n\nOn the other side of the street a door opened as we approached, was locked behind us by a motherly-looking gray-haired woman.\n\n\"This is Librarian Grene,\" our guide, Sharla said. \"She is the one who organized your escape.\"\n\n\"Thank you for our lives,\" I said, which is about as thankful as you can get.\n\n\"You are still not safe,\" she said. \"I searched the library for all the books that I could find on prisoners and escapes. Then, with the aid of our engineers adapted the formula we have just used. But I do not know what to advise next. The plan that I found in this book just carried to this point, I am sorry to say.\"\n\n\"Don't be\u2014it was perfect!\" Morton said. \"You and your people have done incredibly well. And it just so happens that my friend Jim is the galaxy champion of escapes. I'm sure he will know what to do next.\"\n\n\"Do you?\" the librarian asked.\n\n\"Of course!\" I said with newfound enthusiasm. \"We are well away from the enemy, in hiding\u2014so they will never catch us now. How big is this city?\" Grene pursed her lips and thought.\n\n\"An interesting question. On a north to south axis I would say the total diameter is...\"\n\n\"No, wait! Not physically big\u2014I mean how many inhabitants?\"\n\n\"In the last population census there were six hundred and eighty-three thousand people resident in the greater Bellegarrique area.\"\n\n\"Then we are more than safe for the moment. I know these military types, know exactly what they will do. First they will run about in great confusion and shoot off guns. Then one of the bright ones will take charge, undoubtedly our old friend Zennor. He will have the roads blocked and try to seal off the city. Then he will start a house-to-house search. Starting right here in the nearest buildings.\"\n\n\"You must flee!\" Sharla said with a lovely concerned gasp. I took the opportunity to pat her hand in my most reassuring manner. She had delicately smooth skin, I just happened to notice. I dragged my thoughts back to the escape.\n\n\"We shall flee, but in a controlled manner, not in panic. They will also be sending patrols to the surrounding area as soon as someone thinks of it. So the plan is this. Change out of these uniforms, join the people outside, leave the immediate area as soon as possible, find a safe place to stay outside the search area in the outermost part of the city, after dark leave the city completely.\"\n\n\"How wonderful!\" Sharla said, eyes glowing beautifully. I was beginning to like this planet. \"I will get clothes for you now.\" She hurried from the room before I could ask her how she planned to do that.\n\nHer solution was a simple one\u2014on local terms. She returned quite quickly with two men.\n\n\"These two seemed to be about your size. I asked them to give you their clothes.\"\n\n\"We are privileged to do this,\" the smaller one said and his companion beamed approval. \"Shall we change.\"\n\n\"Not change,\" I said. \"We'll take the clothes, thank you, but hide or destroy the uniforms. If you were found wearing them you would be shot.\"\n\nThey were stunned at this news. \"That cannot be true!\" the librarian gasped.\n\n\"It's true. I told you that I know the military mind very well...\"\n\nThere was a rapid knocking on the door and Sharla opened it before I could stop her. But it was Stirner gasping and wide-eyed.\n\n\"Are you all right?\" I asked and he nodded.\n\n\"I was not seen; I came by a different route. But the strangers have beaten people, hurt them for no reason. There were explosions of weapons. Some are injured, none dead that I know.\"\n\n\"They must be stopped,\" I said. \"And I know how to do it. We must get back to the dam, to the generating plant. Sergeant Blogh and the company will still be there. We have to get there before they leave. Tonight, because it will be too dangerous by daylight. Now\u2014let's get moving. Find a safer place to lie up until dark.\"\n\n\"I don't understand,\" Stirner said.\n\n\"I do,\" Morton said, his newfound freedom having restored his intelligence. \"It's that talking bird, isn't it? We hid it in that ammunition box\u2014\"\n\n\"Under the canteens of booze. Another reason to hurry before they drink all the way down and find the false bottom. When you heard that bird talk to me it was transmitting the voice of my dear friend, Captain Varod of the League Navy. A power for good in this evil galaxy. He is paid to keep the peace. He doesn't know where we are\u2014yet. But he knew we were going offplanet. So that bird must contain some kind of signaling device or he would not have forced it on us.\"\n\n\"To the bird and salvation!\" Morton cried.\n\n\"The bird, the bird!\" we shouted together happily while the others stared at us as though we had gone mad.\nChapter 19\n\nBellegarrique was a big, sprawled-out city with very few straight streets or large buildings\u2014once we got away from the center. The word had been passed and the streets were busy with pedestrians and hurtling bicycles. We strolled on, apparently unnoticed. Yet everyone seemed to know where we were because every few minutes a bicycle rider would zip up and give the latest report on the enemy positions. This made it very easy to avoid the checkpoints and barricades, while at the same time giving us a chance to look around at the city. Neat and very clean, with a large river bisecting it. We hurried across one of the bridges, this would be a bad place to be caught in the open, and on to the residential district on the far side. The houses grew smaller, the gardens bigger, and we were well into the suburbs by early afternoon.\n\n\"This is far enough,\" I announced. I was tired and my kicked-upon ribs were aching. \"Can you find us a place to hole up until tonight?\"\n\n\"Take your pick,\" Stirner said, pointing around at the surrounding houses. \"You are welcome wherever you want to go.\"\n\nI opened my mouth\u2014then closed it again. Plenty of time later to ask him for information about the philosophy of Individual Mutualism, which I knew he was eager to explain to me. I pointed at the nearest house, a rambling wooden structure with white-framed windows, surrounded by flowers. When we approached it the door opened and a young couple waved us forward.\n\n\"Come in, come in!\" the girl called out. \"Food will be on the table in a few moments.\"\n\nIt was too. A delicious repast after the legions of hotpups we had consumed on the voyage here. Our hosts looked on with approval while Morton and I stuffed our faces. For afters our host produced a distillate of wine that rolled across my palate very well.\n\n\"Our thanks,\" I gasped, stuffed, replete. \"For saving our lives, for feeding us up, for this wonderful drink. Our thanks to all of you, with particular thanks to the philosophy of Individual Mutualism, which I assume you all believe in.\" Much nodding of heads from all sides. \"Which I am sorry to say I never heard of before visiting your fine planet. I would like to hear more.\"\n\nAll heads turned now to Librarian Grene, who sat up straight. And spoke.\n\n\"Individual Mutualism is more than a philosophy, a political system, or a way of life. I am quoting now from the works of the originator himself, Mark Forer, whose book on the subject you will see on the table there.\" She pointed at a leather-bound volume and all of the others looked and smiled and nodded agreement. \"As you will find it on a table in every home in Chojecki. You will also see above it a portrait of Mark Forer, the originator, to whom we will be ever grateful.\"\n\nI looked up at the picture and bulged my eyes. Morton gasped well enough for both of us.\n\n\"If that is Mark Forer,\" he said, \"then Mark Forer is a robot.\"\n\n\"No, not a robot,\" Grene corrected him. \"An intelligent machine. One of the very first machine intelligences as history tells us. Mark Oner had communication interface problems that were only partially eliminated in Mark Tooer...\"\n\n\"Mark four,\" I said. \"The fourth machine to be made.\"\n\n\"That is correct. The first absolutely successful machine intelligence. What a wonderful day for the human race it was when Mark Forer was first switched on. Among those present at that dramatic moment was a then young scientist named Tod E'Bouy. He recorded the event in a book entitled An Historical Treatise Concerning Certain Observations in the Construction of Artificial Intelligence subtitled Galvanized Knowledge.\"\n\nStirner rose from his seat while she was speaking. Went to the bookshelf and took down a slim volume, opened it and read.\n\n\"A lifetime of research, generations of labor, had reached a final and dramatic culmination. The last circuit board was slipped into its slot and I threw the switch. What a prosaic thing to say about what was perhaps the most important moment in the entire history of mankind. I threw the switch, the operation light came on. We no longer were alone. There was another intelligence in the universe to stand beside that of ours.\n\n\"We waited as the operating system carried out all of its checks. Then the screen lit up and we read these historical words.\n\nI AM. THEREFORE I THINK.\n\nHe closed the book in reverent silence. It was like being in church. Well, why not. There have been a number of strange deities worshipped in the long history of mankind. So why not a machine? I sipped my drink and, since no one was speaking, decided to slip in a question.\n\n\"You have no military\u2014and no police. That sounds like a good idea to me, since I have had more than a little trouble with both. But what do you do then with lawbreakers?\"\n\n\"We have no laws to break,\" Stirner said, and there was a brisk round of head-nodding at this. \"I am sure that you will have been taught that laws are the product of the wisdom of your ancestors. We believe differently. Laws are not a product of their wisdom but are the product of their passions, their timidity, their jealousies and their ambition. It is all recorded here in a volume that you must read, the history of an idea.\"\n\nHe pointed to another book that was instantly plucked from the shelf by our host, who pressed it upon us.\n\n\"Take my copy, please, a great pleasure.\"\n\n\"Thank you, thank you,\" I said with what I hoped was sincerity as I hefted its weight. I peeked at a page and tried to keep the smile on my face. As I had feared, it was set in very small type.\n\n\"You will read for yourself,\" Stirner said, \"but our history can be summed up simply. Mark Forer was questioned on many subjects and its vast and different intelligence was utilized in many commercial and scientific ways. It was not until it was queried about political systems that its advice was doubted. Before it could comment it absorbed all of the political writings of the centuries, and the histories, and the commentaries on this material. This took months, years they say. After that Mark Forer weighed and considered the material for an even longer period. During this period it composed the book that you see there and loaded it into RAM. By this time Mark Forer had learned a good deal about the human race through their politics, so therefore took a wise precaution. It accessed all of the data banks and downloaded this book from memory into each of them, and into every electronic mail service as well. Mark Forer later apologized to all of the recipients of this rather thick volume and offered to pay printing costs.\n\n\"But he had been correct in his fears. Not one politician in any country, on any planet, agreed with his theories. In fact efforts were made to denounce Individual Mutualism and all who believed in it\u2014as many did. Because, in his wisdom, Mark Forer knew that while established governments would reject his philosophy, intelligent individuals would read and understand and believe. How wise this wise machine was! Those individuals who were also intelligent enough to understand the philosophy were also intelligent enough to see its inherent truth. They also understood that they would have to find a place of their own to practice what they now believed in. Mark Forer wrote that the wise do not give up their liberty to the state. The converse is also true; the state does not voluntarily relinquish its hold on its citizens.\n\n\"There were years of struggle and flight, persecution and betrayal. Much of the record was destroyed by those who were jealous of our freedoms. In the end those who believed came here, beyond the contact of other worlds, to build a society where Individual Mutualism, IM, was the norm, where peace and happiness could prevail forever.\"\n\n\"Or at least until you got invaded by Nevenkebla,\" I gloomed. Stirner laughed at my expression.\n\n\"Do not despair, my friend, for we do not. The first shock of their arrival has disturbed us, as well it might after our peace of centuries. But we have the courage of our beliefs and know that they and IM will survive this test. If they do, then perhaps we have justified our faith in Mark Forer and, more important, can now perhaps show our gratitude by taking our beliefs to other, less happy planets.\"\n\n\"I would wait awhile before I starting doing that! There are a lot of hard cases out there who would love to eat your people alive. Suffice for the moment getting these military morons off your neck. And, I hate to ask you people for more aid, but I have been kicked about by professionals and wonder if you have any painkillers in the house?\"\n\nI closed my eyes to rest them for a moment and it worked because when I opened them again I felt in perfect shape. It was also dark outside the curtains and a stranger was bent over me having just given me an injection.\n\n\"You passed out,\" Morton said. \"You got everyone worried and they sent for Doctor Lum here who is pretty good.\"\n\n\"Mild concussion,\" the doctor said. \"Two broken ribs, which I have immobilized. I have given you pain relievers. And a stimulant now since I was told you wished to travel this evening. I can neutralize it if you wish.\"\n\nI sprang to my feet and flexed my muscles. I felt fine. \"No way, doctor. You have treated me in a manner I would have chosen, had I been conscious to choose it. How long before the drugs wear off?\"\n\n\"Do not be concerned about that. I will be staying with you until you are well.\"\n\n\"But you don't understand. I have to move fast, hide, do things that may take a long time.\"\n\nLum smiled. \"I am afraid it is you who misunderstood me. I shall be at your side as long as you have need of me. All of us, everyone on this planet, will give you any aid you may need.\"\n\n\"Is that what IM is all about?\"\n\n\"Exactly. What do we do next?\"\n\n\"Walk. No transportation. The military has all the instrumentation for spotting machines on the move.\"\n\n\"What about detecting people?\" Stirner asked. \"Surely their technology must encompass that concept.\"\n\n\"It does. But the human body is an indifferent heat source and hard to tell from that of other animals.\"\n\n\"As is one individual difficult to tell from another,\" the doctor said with medical intuition. \"If we intend to walk in one direction wouldn't it be wise to have a number of people walking in a number of directions?\"\n\n\"It certainly would,\" I said, finally beginning to catch on to how these people worked together. \"How can you pass the word?\"\n\n\"Easily enough. I'll just step out into the street and tell the first person I see. When that is done we can leave.\"\n\n\"Will we reach the dam before dawn?\" I asked Stirner.\n\n\"Easily. It is your choice, of course, to tell us of your plans or not. But if you do give us some information about what you wish to do at the dam, we might then be able to assist you in other ways.\"\n\nFatigue, and the beating, must have addled my brain. I had accepted their offer of help while ignoring the fact that I had never told them what I wanted to do!\n\n\"My apologies!\" I apologized. \"I am beginning to take your hospitality for granted. Which is not fair. Since your ancestors fled from persecution a modicum of intelligence has possessed the human race. Or it has grown up. Or become civilized. While there are exceptions\u2014like the military louts who invaded your peaceful planet\u2014the overwhelming majority of planets are at peace. This peaceful League pays for the maintenance of an organization, the League Navy, which watches trouble spots, contacts rediscovered planets and so forth. Now this begins to get complicated so stay with me. While I am not employed by the Navy, I was given a communication device to contact them from this planet. This device, for reasons too complex to go into, is disguised as a bird. What I want to do is retrieve it from its hiding place, then actuate it to let the Navy know where this planet is.\"\n\nStirner frowned in thought before he spoke. \"If this Navy group you speak of intends to use violence we cannot help you to summon them.\"\n\n\"No fear there. The League is sworn to nonviolence.\"\n\n\"Then there are no problems. What can we do to help?\"\n\n\"Guide me to the dam, that's all. I'll do the rest. There will be three of us. You, I, and the good doctor Lum. We will need food and water.\"\n\n\"You forgot me,\" Morton said.\n\n\"No, I remembered you. You are out of the army\u2014stay out. I either get the bird by stealth or not at all. As virile as I am I don't look forward to taking on a trigger-happy company of well-trained thugs. Stay here, talk to Sharla, which should not take too much effort. Get information. Find out all you can about what the army is doing. I'll be back tomorrow night.\"\n\n\"I will be pleased to discuss Individual Mutualism with you,\" Sharla said in a voice that was pure honey. Morton melted instantly and did not even know it when we left.\n\nFor all of his gray hairs, Stirner must have been a marathon walker. The doctor matched his pace, while I was riding so high on the drugs that I had the feeling that if I flapped my arms hard enough I could have flown to the dam. We skulked down unpaved roads, then along what appeared to be a linear track of some kind, through a tunnel, then through meadows where dark beasts moved aside as we went by. After a few hours of walking like this under a moonless, star-filled sky, the lights of the city were far behind, the dark walls of mountains looming ahead. Stirner called a halt and we sat down on the grass under a tree.\n\n\"This will be a good time to drink, eat if you wish, because we will leave our burdens here.\"\n\n\"Getting close?\"\n\n\"Very. We will approach the dam though a drainage tunnel that is dry this time of year. This emerges on the riverbank close to the generating station.\"\n\n\"You are a genius. We will get by the lookouts that way, will be inside their perimeter and hopefully somewhere near the command car. How long until it gets light?\"\n\n\"We have at least four hours yet.\"\n\n\"Wonderful. We take a break. The doctor can slip me a pep pill or two since I am feeling a bit shabby, then we will finish this affair.\"\n\nLum sounded worried. \"If you have any more stimulants you may become quite sick after the drugs wear off.\"\n\n\"And without the aid of you kind people I certainly would have been quite dead by now. So let's get the bird so I can call in the Navy. Before something really drastic happens and people get killed.\"\n\nWe ate and drank, the doctor then concealed our supplies in the tree, gave me an injection, and the march resumed. I was so full of uppers that I had to fight down the urge to whistle and bound ahead of my slower companions. I resisted. Stirner found the gulley we were looking for and led us along it until it ended in a high black opening. I looked at it suspiciously.\n\n\"Could be dangerous animals in there.\"\n\n\"Very doubtful,\" Stirner said. \"The rainy season ended not too long ago. Until then this tunnel was filled with water.\"\n\n\"Besides that,\" Lum added. \"There are no dangerous animals on this continent.\"\n\n\"Other than the ones I arrived with. Lead on!\"\n\nWe stumbled into the darkness, splashing through invisible puddles, running our fingers along the rough walls of the tunnel to keep from bashing into them. By the time we reached the far end our eyes were so adjusted to the dark that the patch of starry sky ahead almost looked gray.\n\n\"Silence now,\" Stirner whispered. \"They might be very close.\"\n\n\"Then you two wait in the tunnel out of sight,\" I whispered in return. \"I'll make this as quick as I can.\"\n\nWhen I poked my head carefully out I saw that the tunnel emerged from the bank above the river. Perfect. I could slink along the side of the river to the generating plant. Which I did. The roar of water discharging from the plant growing constantly louder. I kept going as far as I could, until spray was blowing over me, before I climbed the bank and parted the grass carefully to look out.\n\n\"Congratulations,\" I thought to myself. \"You are a genius at night-stalking, Jimmy.\"\n\nNot twenty meters away was the command car, parked beside the generating plant. And there wasn't a soul in sight. Silent as a ghost I drifted along the building, past a closed door in the wall, and slipped into the car. The booze box was just where I had left it. Neat! I pulled it out and groped inside.\n\nIt was empty!\n\nAt the precise moment that I realized this the door opened behind me and I was bathed in light.\n\nSergeant Blogh was standing in the doorway holding the bird.\n\n\"Is this what you are looking for, captain?\" he said.\n\nI looked from the bird to the gun in his other hand and could not think of a thing to say.\nChapter 20\n\n\"You're an escaped criminal, captain.\" He was smiling wickedly, enjoying himself. I still had nothing to say. \"That's what was reported. They sent a chopper rushing out here for all of your equipment. Only after the MPs left did I remember how you were always worrying about those canteens. At the time I thought it was just the booze. Since they said you were an offworlder spy I began to think different. So I looked close and found this stuffed bird. Before I could turn it in, I heard how you escaped. So I thought I would just keep watch in case you wanted to get it back. Seems I thought right. Now\u2014climb out of there slowly and keep your hands in sight.\"\n\nI had no choice. But at least my brain was in gear again after the disconnecting shock of his appearance.\n\n\"I would like the bird back, sergeant.\"\n\n\"I'm sure you would. But why should I give it to you?\"\n\n\"To save lives. With it I can contact the League Navy and end this invasion before someone is killed.\"\n\n\"I don't mind killing.\" His smile was gone and there was a brutal edge to his voice I had never heard before. \"I'm a soldier\u2014and you are a spy. I am going to turn you and your cagaling bird in. This is going to mean a lot to my career.\"\n\n\"And you put your miserable military career ahead of the lives of harmless, unarmed civilians?\"\n\n\"You bet your sweet chunk, I do.\"\n\nI started to tell him just what I thought of him. But didn't. There had to be some way to get to him.\n\n\"Do you take bribes, sergeant?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"I'm not talking about little bribes. I am talking about the ten thousand credits in League currency that you will receive when this invasion ends. You have my word on that.\"\n\n\"A spy's word? Ten thousand or ten million\u2014the answer is the same. You are for the chopping block, spy.\"\n\nThere was a quick movement from the door behind him, a solid chunking sound, and the sergeant dropped to the ground. I dived for his gun.\n\n\"Don't,\" a voice said. \"Just stay away from it.\"\n\nI looked up at Private, formerly Corporal, Aspya, who was now pointing the gun at me that he had just used to bash the sergeant in the head.\n\n\"I wondered why the sergeant had been hiding in here all night. Now I found out.\" His face split suddenly in a crooked-toothed grin and he slipped his pistol back into the holster.\n\n\"I take bribes,\" he said. \"But it has got to be twenty thousand.\"\n\nI pointed at the bird. \"Let me take that and you will get thirty thousand solid titanium League credits after the invasion is ended. At the League building in Brastyr. You have my word.\"\n\n\"My serial number is 32959727. There are a lot of Aspyas in the army.\"\n\nThen he was gone. And so was I\u2014before anyone else joined the party. I grabbed up the bird and ran just as fast as I could back to the river.\n\n\"Get moving into the tunnel!\" I called out as I staggered up to my waiting companions. The shots were wearing off and I was stumbling. \"Alarm, maybe soon, let's go.\"\n\nAnd we did. Back through the tunnel and on into the fields. I must have fallen somewhere along there because the next thing I knew I was in some woods and lying on the ground. The sky was light beyond the trees and my heart began to thud in panic.\n\n\"The bird!\"\n\n\"Here,\" Stirner said, holding it up. \"You collapsed, so we took turns carrying you. The doctor said it would be wisest to let you rest since more stimulants might cause grave injury. We are hidden and safe now.\"\n\nI took the robot bird and shook my head in wonder. \"You people are unbelievable\u2014but you have my thanks. Was there a search?\"\n\n\"We heard nothing. But you seemed so concerned that we went on while it was still dark. We should be safe here. If these woods are searched there is a place of safety close by.\"\n\n\"I hope so because they are going to be very irritated. There were difficulties encountered and the alarm will be out by now. So let us do what we came for.\"\n\nI groaned as I sat up and the doctor appeared with a ready needle.\n\n\"This is only a painkiller,\" he said. \"Stimulants are contraindicated now.\"\n\n\"You are a genius, doc.\"\n\nThe black bird, still smelling of jet fuel, sat heavily in my hands. Silent and still. Time to end that. I pressed down on its bill twice and its eyes opened.\n\n\"This is a recorded message from Captain Varod,\" it said, then rolled over on its back. \"You will find a panel in the bird's chest. Open it.\"\n\n\"Light-years away and it is still orders, orders,\" I muttered as I groped among the feathers. Stirner and the doctor watched with wide-eyed attention. I found a button, pressed, and a feather-covered door flew open. There was a glowing control panel inside. Opening the door apparently activated the bird again because it began to croak out more instructions.\n\n\"Enter the location of the sun in this system, as well as the planetary coordinates, on the dials using the intergalactic ephemeris readings.\"\n\nI grated my teeth. \"How could I possibly know anything like that? Or anyone else on this planet?\"\n\n\"If you do not have this information turn the power switch to full and press the activate button. Proceed.\"\n\nI did this and stepped back. The bird vibrated, opened its bill and squawked. From its gaping mouth there emerged a yellow aerial that moved slowly upward. When it was fully extended, over two meters of it, the bird's eyes began to glow. The aerial hummed briefly and the glowing eyes went dark. As slowly as it had emerged the aerial sank back and the bird was quiet again.\n\n\"Very interesting,\" Dr. Lum said. \"Can you explain?\"\n\n\"No. But I wish this stupid bird would.\"\n\n\"Let me explain,\" the bird croaked. \"Since you did not enter the galactic coordinates of this planet a FTL message could not be sent. Precision is imperative in FTL communication. Therefore a prerecorded radio message was transmitted. All League bases and ships have been alerted. When it is received its source will be noted and this spybird will be informed.\"\n\n\"If you are still functioning!\" I shouted and raised my foot to stamp on the bird, but was restrained by the doctor. The bird was still speaking.\n\n\"I am shutting down now to save power. Keep close to this communicator, which will be activated when we are within signaling distance.\"\n\n\"Keep close to it!\" I shouted. \"I'll probably have to have it buried with me.\" I saw the way the two of them were looking at me so restrained my anger. \"Sorry. Got carried away there. With good reason.\"\n\n\"It has to do with distance, doesn't it?\" Stirner asked.\n\n\"Bang on.\" I had forgotten that he was an engineer. \"An FTL transmission, faster than light, is almost instantaneous, even at stellar distances. But radio waves move at the speed of light\u2014and how far is the nearest star from here?\"\n\n\"Three point two light-years.\"\n\n\"Wonderful. So even at the million to one chance there is a League planet or base near that sun it would still be over three years before the cavalry arrives. Or it could be ten, twenty\u2014or five hundred. By which time you, I and the invasion will be a part of history.\"\n\n\"You have done your best,\" the doctor said. \"You cannot berate yourself.\"\n\n\"I sure can, doc. I take first prize in the self-berating stakes when it comes to losing. Since I don't like to lose.\"\n\n\"You have great security of resolve. I envy you.\"\n\n\"Don't. It's a pose. Did you get the water bottle out of the tree on the way back here?\"\n\n\"Assuredly. Let me get you some.\"\n\nI leaned against the tree, sipped the water, pushed the silent bird with my toe. And thought hard. Then sighed.\n\n\"There is still a solution. But not an easy one. I have to get into one of their spacers. And into the communications room and send a message from there.\"\n\n\"It sounds dangerous,\" Stirner said. I laughed hollowly.\n\n\"Not only dangerous\u2014but suicidal...\" I shut up as I heard a distant shout.\n\n\"They are searching for you,\" Stirner said, helping me to my feet. \"We must go quickly.\"\n\nThe doctor helped me up\u2014which was a fine idea since I was definitely shaky on my feet. It was also cheering that we did not have far to go, only to the edge of the woods nearby. As we looked out from the concealing shrubbery we could see the rolling countryside beyond. A row of electricity towers marched across it, bearing heavy wires slung from insulators. The row of towers ended here. The wires came to ground in a solid concrete building. Stirner pointed at it.\n\n\"The aerial cables go underground here.\"\n\n\"So do we,\" I said pointing at the distant line of approaching soldiers, \"if you don't do something quick.\"\n\n\"Be calm,\" he advised calmly. \"This junction station will block their view of us. Forward.\"\n\nHe was right. We scuttled out of hiding and plastered ourselves against the concrete wall. Next to a red-painted metal door that was covered in skulls and crossbones and warnings of instant death. None of which deterred Stirner who flipped up a plate to disclose a key pad. He punched in a quick number then pulled the door open. We moved smartly inside as he closed and locked the heavy door behind us.\n\n\"What if they try to follow us?\" I asked, looking around the well-lit room. There was little to see other than the heavy cable that entered from the ceiling and vanished into the floor.\n\n\"Impossible. They will not know the keying number. If they enter a wrong number the door seals and an alarm is sent to power central.\"\n\n\"They could break it down.\"\n\n\"Not easily. Thick steel set in concrete. Is there any reason why they should?\"\n\nI couldn't think of one and I was feeling cagally after the walk. I sat down, then lay down, closed my eyes for a second.\n\nAnd woke up with a taste in my mouth like a porcuswine's breath.\n\n\"Yuk...\" I gurgled.\n\n\"I am very glad you slept,\" the doctor said, swabbing off my arm and sticking it with a hypo. \"Rest is the best medicine. This injection will eliminate residual fatigue symptoms and any pain.\"\n\n\"How long have I been out?\"\n\n\"All day,\" Stirner said. \"It is after dark. I have been outside and the soldiers are gone. We were going to awaken you soon in any case. Water?\"\n\nI gurgled most of it down and sighed. I felt much better. I didn't even sway when I stood up. \"Time to go.\"\n\nThe doctor frowned. \"It might be better to wait until the injection takes hold.\"\n\n\"I will walk off my troubles, thank you. We have been away a long time and I tend to worry.\"\n\nMy shakiness wore off as we walked. The woods were silent, the searchers long gone, and we had the world to ourselves. Stirner led the way at his usual cracking pace. The doctor kept an eye on me and soon called a halt so he could plug his analysis machine into my arm. He was satisfied with the result and our trek continued. Putting one foot in front of the other was enough to keep me occupied until we reached the outskirts of the city again. With one look at the buildings all my forebodings returned.\n\nI was right, too. It was still dark when we reached the first homes, moving silently between the cottages and gardens of suburbia to avoid the guarded main streets. The backdoor of our refuge was unlocked: we slipped in and locked it behind us.\n\n\"You have the bird!\" Morton cried gleefully when we entered. I nodded and threw it on the couch, dropped myself next to it and looked around. All of the others were gone.\n\n\"That is the good news,\" I said. \"The bad news is that it may be some time before help arrives. The call for help went out by radio\u2014which could take a mighty long time.\"\n\n\"That is very bad indeed,\" Morton said and his face sank instantly into lines of despair. \"While you were away they started taking hostages. Zennor got on the TV and said that he is going to shoot them, one at a time, until everyone goes back to work. He says that he will execute the first person at dawn\u2014and one every ten minutes after that until he gets cooperation.\"\n\nHe dropped his face into his hands and his voice was muffled, trembling. \"The soldiers came up this street, were going to search this house. So everyone here, Sharla, all the others, went out to them. Surrendered so I would not be found. They are now captives, hostages\u2014and are going to be shot!\"\nChapter 21\n\n\"It cannot be,\" the doctor said, puzzled but calm. \"Human beings just do not do things like that.\"\n\n\"Yes they do!\" I shouted, jumping to my feet and pacing the room. \"Or maybe human beings don't\u2014but animals like Zennor do. And I apologize to the animals. But it certainly won't go that far, will it Stirner? Your people will have to go back to work now?\"\n\n\"No, they won't. If you understood Individual Mutualism you would understand why. Every individual is a separate and discrete entity, responsible for his or her own existence. What Zennor does to another individual does not relate to any other discrete individual.\"\n\n\"Zennor thinks so.\"\n\n\"Then Zennor thinks wrong.\"\n\nI resisted the temptation to tear out a handful of my own hair. I wasn't getting through at all. \"Well look at it another way. If you do not do anything to stop Zennor then you are responsible for the deaths of the hostages.\"\n\n\"No. If I do something to please Zennor in the face of his threats then I am admitting his control over my actions despite the fact I do not wish his control. The state is born once again. IM is dead. So we chose passive resistance. We will not be ordered or threatened...\"\n\n\"But you can be killed.\"\n\n\"Yes.\" He nodded grimly. \"Some will die if he insists on this course. But murder is self-defeating. How can you force someone to work by killing him?\"\n\n\"I understand you\u2014but I don't like it.\" I was too disturbed to sit, I stood, paced the floor. \"There must be a way out of this that doesn't involve someone's death. What is it that Zennor wants?\"\n\n\"He was very angry,\" Morton said. \"And very specific. First he wants the electricity turned back on in the buildings the military has occupied. Then he wants a regular supply of food for his troops. If these two things are done no one will be killed and the prisoners released. For the time being.\"\n\n\"Impossible,\" Dr. Lum said. \"They gave nothing in return for the electricity they used, so it was disconnected. The same thing applies to the food. The markets have shut down because the farmers will not bring food to the city.\"\n\n\"But,\" I sputtered. \"If the markets are closed how does everyone else in the city eat?\"\n\n\"They go to the farms, or leave the city. Almost a third of the population has already gone.\"\n\n\"Where will they go?\"\n\n\"Wherever they want to.\" He smiled at the look on my face. He could tell that I was hearing the words but not understanding them. \"I think that I should go to basics, explain a bit more about IM to enable you to understand. Let us take a simple example. A farmer. He raises all the food that he needs, supplies all of his own wants so asks for nothing from others.\"\n\n\"Nothing?\" I had him there. \"What if he needs new shoes?\"\n\n\"He goes to a man who makes shoes and gives him food in exchange.\"\n\n\"Barter!\" Morton said. \"The most primitive economic system. But it cannot exist in a modern technological society...\" His voice ran down as he looked about the room. Stirner smiled again.\n\n\"Of course it cannot. But IM is more than barter. The individual will voluntarily join other individuals in a larger organization to manufacture some item, or build houses say. For each hour they work they are credited with a wirr.\"\n\n\"A what?\"\n\n\"A work hour. These wirrs are exchanged with others for goods and services.\"\n\n\"A wirr is another way of saying money,\" Morton said. \"And money is capitalism\u2014so you have a capitalistic society.\"\n\n\"I am afraid not. Individual Mutualism is neither capitalism, communism, socialism, vegetarianism, or even the dreaded monetarism that destroyed many a technological society. I am familiar with these terms from Mark Forer's writings. A wirr has no physical existence, such as a rare metal or a seashell. Nor can it be invested and gain interest. That is fundamental and differentiates the wirr from currency. Banks cannot exist because there can be no interest on deposits or loans.\"\n\nInstead of being clarified I found my head wirring in confusion from the wirrs. \"Wait, please, explanation. I have seen people driving groundcars. How can they save money enough to buy one? Who will loan them the money without interest?\"\n\n\"No money,\" he said firmly. \"If you wish a groundcar you go to the groundcar group and drive one away. You will pay when you use it, stop paying when you return it. A basic tenet of IM is from each according to his needs, to each according to the wealth of society.\"\n\n\"You wouldn't like to clarify that?\" I poured myself a glass of wine and gulped it down hoping the alcohol would clean out my synapses.\n\n\"Of course. I have read, and trembled with disgust, of a philosophy called the work ethic. This states that an individual must work hard for the basics of life. When technological society mechanizes and replaces workers with machines, the work ethic states that the displaced workers must be looked on with contempt, allowed to starve, be treated like outcasts. And the hypocrisy of the work ethic system is that those with capital do not work\u2014yet still increase their capital without working by the use of interest on their money\u2014and look down upon those who have been cast out of work! Tragic. But not here. As more is produced the aggregate wealth gets larger. When this happens the amount that the wirr can be exchanged for also gets larger.\"\n\nSome of it was getting through\u2014but needed elucidation. \"Another question. If the wirr is worth more\u2014that must mean that an individual can work less for the same return.\"\n\n\"Exactly.\"\n\n\"Then there is no forty-hour week or such. How many hours would an individual have to work a week to keep alive?\"\n\n\"For simply shelter, food, clothes\u2014I would say about two hours of work every seven days.\"\n\n\"I want to move here,\" Morton said firmly and I nodded agreement and froze in half-nod. An idea was glimmering at the edge of my consciousness. I muttered and chiseled at it and expanded it until I saw it large and clear and possibly workable. In a little while. But first we had to do something about the hostages. I rejoined the real world and called for attention.\n\n\"Time is passing and dawn approaching. I have enjoyed the lecture, thank you, and I now know a bit more about IM. Enough at least to ask a question. What do you do in an emergency? Say there is a flood, or a dam bursts or something. A catastrophe that threatens the group not the individual.\"\n\nThe doctor stepped forward, finger raised and a sparkle of enthusiasm in his eye. \"A good question, a marvelous question!\" He grabbed at the shelves and pulled down a thick book. \"It is here, all here. Mark Forer did consider a situation like this and made allowances for it. Here is what he wrote... at all times passive resistance will be your only weapon, never violence. But until the perfect stateless state is established there will be those of violence who will force their violence upon you. Individual Mutualism cannot be established by the dead. Until the day of true liberation comes you will have to coexist with others. You may leave their presence but they may follow and force themselves upon you. In which case you and all of the others must look upon those of violence as they might look upon any natural catastrophe such as a volcano or a hurricane. The intelligent person does not discuss ethics with hot lava but instead flees its presence, does not preach morals to the wind but seeks shelter from it.\"\n\nDr. Lum closed the book and raised a triumphant finger again. \"So we are saved, saved! Mark Forer has foreseen our predicament and given us the guidance we need.\"\n\n\"Indeed!\" Stirner agreed enthusiastically. \"I shall go at once and tell the others.\" He rushed to the door and out of the house. I gaped after him. Morton spoke my thoughts before I could.\n\n\"I heard what you said\u2014but haven't the slightest idea of what your Mark Four was talking about.\"\n\n\"Clarity!\" the doctor said. \"Clarity and wisdom. If we all persist in noncompliance we are in a sense killing ourselves. So we comply and withdraw.\"\n\n\"I am still not sure what you are talking about,\" I said.\n\n\"The electricity will be turned back on, the markets will reopen. The invaders will seize food and some farmers will work longer hours if they wish to, because that will avert the natural disaster. Others will not and will stop bringing food to the city. As the supply diminishes, people will leave the city and the process will accelerate. With less call for electricity, the generating plant will shut down, workers will leave. In a very short time the soldiers will have the city to themselves because we will all be gone.\"\n\n\"They can enslave you\u2014make you work at gunpoint.\"\n\n\"Of course, but only on a one-to-one basis. One armed man can force another to work, possibly, it is of course up to the individual. But the man with the gun is essentially doing the work himself because he must be there every moment or the work will not get done. I don't think your General Zennor will like this.\"\n\n\"You can say that again!\"\n\n\"I don't think your General...\"\n\n\"No, not really say it again, I meant it as an expression of agreement. You people are too literal, too much IM I imagine. A question then, a hypothetical one.\"\n\n\"Those are the best kind!\"\n\n\"Yes, indeed. If I should walk into a distant city and look for work\u2014would I be accepted?\"\n\n\"Of course. That is a basic tenet of IM.\"\n\n\"What if there are no jobs going?\"\n\n\"There always are\u2014remember the value of the rising wirr. Theoretically as it gets larger and larger, the working hours will get fewer and fewer, until in the long run a few seconds work will suffice...\"\n\n\"All right, great, thanks\u2014let's just stick with the application of theory for a moment. If one of these invading soldiers should walk away from the army...\"\n\n\"Which is of course his right!\"\n\n\"Not quite what the army thinks. If he walks away to a distant town and gets a job and meets a girl and all the usual good things happen\u2014is this possible?\"\n\n\"Not only possible, but inescapable, a foundation of IM inherent in its acceptance.\"\n\n\"Are you thinking what I think you're thinking!\" Morton shouted, jumping to his feet with elation.\n\n\"You bet your sweet chunk I'm thinking that! Leaving aside the officers and the career noncoms, this is a draftee army and a good number of them were draft evaders. If we make the opportunity available for them to walk away from it all, why then Zennor might have to give a war that nobody will come to.\"\n\nThe front door opened and Morton and I dived for cover. But it was Stirner leading the triumphal return of the released captives. Morton rushed to Sharla and took her hand to see if it had been hurt during her incarceration.\n\n\"That's pretty fast work,\" I said.\n\n\"I used the TV phone across the street,\" Stirner said. \"I purchased national access and told them what we had discovered. The electricity was turned on instantly, the first food shipped. The prisoners were released.\"\n\n\"Zennor must think that he has won the war. Let me tell you what we have just discovered. The way to guarantee that he loses his war\u2014even if the Navy never gets here.\"\n\n\"I am encouraged by your enthusiasm but miss your meaning.\"\n\n\"I will explain\u2014but first a drink to celebrate.\"\n\nThis seemed like a good idea to all concerned. We poured and drank, then Morton and I listened with some interest as the others sang a song about Individual Mutualism freeing mankind from the yoke of oppression and so forth. While the theory was fine the lyric was as bad as all other anthems I had ever heard, though I took considerable interest in the great efforts made to rhyme Individual Mutualism. I also took the time to organize my thoughts so when they had finished, and sipped a bit more wine for dry throats, I took the floor.\n\n\"I must first tell you kind people about the uniformed mob of thugs who have invaded your fair planet. A large group like this is called an army. An army is a throwback to the earliest days of mankind when physical defense was needed against the rigors of existence. The combative gene was the successful gene. The primitive who defended his family group passed on this gene. This gene has caused a lot of trouble since that time, right down through the ages. It is still causing trouble as you now have cause to understand. When all of the threatening animals were killed, the gene caused mankind to turn upon itself to kill each other. With shame I admit we are the only species that kills its own kind on a very organized basis. The army is the last gasp of the combative gene. In charge are old men, and they are called officers. They do nothing except issue orders. At the bottom are the soldiers who follow these orders. In between are the noncommissioned officers who see that this is done. The interesting thing to us now is that the soldiers are all drafted and a good number of them are draft dodgers.\"\n\nIt took some time to explain what these last two terms meant and there was horrified shock on all sides when understanding finally penetrated. I waited until the cries of disbelief and despair had simmered down, then signaled for silence.\n\n\"I am cheered by your reaction. Do you think your people would volunteer, without payment in wirrs, to free these young men from bondage?\"\n\n\"It would be our duty,\" the doctor said and heads nodded like fury on all sides. \"It would be like saving someone from drowning, a public duty, no payment expected.\"\n\n\"Great! Then I will now teach you another word...\"\n\n\"Can I guess?\" Morton cried out. I nodded.\n\n\"Desertion!\"\n\nI nodded again. Battle joined at last!\nChapter 22\n\nEnthusiasm gave way quickly to fatigue and it was agreed that the session would continue after we all had had some sleep. I found myself tucked away in a small room in a soft bed, with a portrait of Mark Forer beaming down electronically upon me. I sipped a last sip of wine and crashed.\n\nBy the next evening I had put together the rudiments of a plan and had assembled my team.\n\n\"We have to try it out, smooth it out. Then, if it works, we pass it on to others. We will operate and proceed like an ancient scam, a term I ran across when doing research into crime.\" I did not add that my reasons for doing this were to improve myself as a criminal. This would have been too much for these simple IMers to understand. \"Here is how it will work. This evening I will enter one of the eating and drinking establishments you have described to me. I will then stand next to a soldier and engage him in conversation. You, Stirner will be seated at a table with empty chairs, or next to an empty table. I will come over with the soldier and sit close enough for you to overhear our conversation. Sharla will be with you, she is your daughter.\"\n\n\"You are wrong, she is not my daughter.\"\n\n\"Just for tonight she is your daughter, like in a play. You do have plays here?\"\n\n\"Of course. In fact I was on the stage when younger, before I was attracted to the delights of flowing electrons. I even acted the title role in some classics, how does it go again... to was, or not to was\u2014\"\n\n\"Fine, great, glad to have an old thespian aboard. So tonight you act the role of Sharla's dad. Follow my lead and it should work. I'll pick an easy target this first time, an apple ripe for plucking. So there should not be any trouble.\"\n\n\"What do I do?\" Morton asked. \"You said I was on the team.\"\n\n\"Right. You have the important job of taping all of this for the record. So when it works as it should we can make training copies for others. Keep the recorder out of sight and the mike close. Ready?\"\n\n\"Ready!\"\n\nWe waited until after dark before we set out. Volunteers, drafted from the street of course, worked ahead of us to make sure we didn't meet any roadblocks or MPs. They reported back all the obstructions so we had a pleasant, if circuitous, walk to the Vaillant quarter of the city, which I had been assured was the correct place to go for theater, opera, dining out, IM reinforcement groups and the other heady joys of this civilized planet. It looked an interesting locale. Although it was fairly empty this evening with no more than a quarter of the establishments lighted up. Stirner led the way to the Fat Farmer, where he said he always enjoyed good food and better drink when in the city. There were some locals sampling its pleasures\u2014but no invading soldiers.\n\n\"You told me that the army had leave passes, that they could be found in this area. Where are they?\"\n\n\"Not in here, obviously,\" Stirner said.\n\n\"What do you mean\u2014obviously?\"\n\n\"Since they cannot pay they won't be served.\"\n\n\"Sounds fair. But, since they are the invading army, what stops them from just grabbing the booze and helping themselves?\"\n\n\"They are not stopped. However everyone leaves and the establishment shuts down.\"\n\n\"Obvious. All right then. To your stations and I'll see if I can drum up some trade.\"\n\nI felt very pimpish standing under the streetlight with a dead cigar for a prop. In the local garb I was just part of the passing parade and no one took notice of me. I watched all of them though\u2014on the lookout for MPs or anything that resembled the part of the military I did not want to see: stripes, bars, the usual thing. None of these appeared, but eventually two unmilitary figures in military uniform drifted into sight. Hands in pockets\u2014shame!\u2014caps on at odd angles. They stopped at the Fat Farmer and looked in the window with longing. I stepped up behind them and held up the cigar.\n\n\"Either of you guys got a light?\"\n\nThey jumped as though they had been goosed, shying back from me.\n\n\"You talked to us!\" the bolder one said.\n\n\"I did. I pride myself on my linguistic ability. And if you will remember I asked you for a light for my cigar.\"\n\n\"I don't smoke.\"\n\n\"Good for you. Cigarettes kill. But don't you carry a fire apparatus for those who do?\" They shook their heads in gloomy negation. Then I raised a finger rich with inspiration. \"I know what\u2014we will enter this eating and drinking place and they will light my cigar. Perhaps you young gentlemen from a distant planet will also join me in a drink and I can practice my talking?\"\n\n\"Won't work. We tried it and they closed the place and went home.\"\n\n\"That is only because you had no wirr, the local unit of exchange, our money, so could not pay. I am rich with wirr and am buying...\"\n\nI followed after their rapidly retreating footsteps, found them pushing against the bar in eager anticipation. Stirner had given me his wirrdisc and briefed me on its operation.\n\n\"Three beers,\" I ordered, \"large ones,\" and dropped the plastic slab of integrated circuits into the slot in the top of the bar. While the robot bartender, all chrome and brass with bottlecaps for eyes, drew three big brews, the cost was subtracted from Stirner's lifetime account. I grabbed the wirrdisc as it was rejected.\n\n\"Here's to the army, lads,\" I said raising my beer high. \"I hope you enjoy your chosen careers.\"\n\nThey chugalugged enthusiastically, then gasped and whined nostalgically familiar whines that took me back to my own army days.\n\n\"Chose an army career! Cagal! Drafted. Chased, hunted down, caught.\"\n\n\"Then after that, basic training. Pursued at the double night and day by foul-mouthed fiends. Would anyone voluntarily choose a career like that?\"\n\n\"Certainly not! But at least you eat well...\"\n\nI enjoyed the outraged cries and loathsome descriptions of hotpups while I ordered up another round of beers. When their faces were buried in the suds again I made the suggestion.\n\n\"I know it is past your dinner hour, but I see three seats vacant at that table, next to the elderly gentleman with the kinky bird. Would you join me for a small repast\u2014say a large steak and fried wirfles?\"\n\nThe thunder of feet was my only answer yet one more time. I joined them in the steaks, and very good they were too. We polished them off quickly, had a few more beers\u2014and tried not to belch because there was a young lady at our table. Sated and boozed they now had time for the third of the troika of military pleasures and their eyes moved steadily in Sharla's direction. Time for act two.\n\n\"Well,\" I said, \"if the food is bad in the army, at least you enjoy the wisdom and companionship of the sergeants.\"\n\nI listened to the answers for a bit, nodding and commiserating, then elicited other similar complaints with leading questions about officers, latrines, kitchen police\u2014and all the other bitches so dear to the enlisted man's heart. When enough had been ventilated I gave Stirner his clue and sat back.\n\n\"Young draftee soldiers from a distant planet, you must excuse my impertinence in addressing strangers. But I, and my lovely daughter Sharla, could not help but overhear your conversation. Can it be true that you were forced into military service completely against your will?\"\n\n\"You better believe it, Pops. Hi, Sharla, you ever go out with guys other than your Dad?\"\n\n\"Very often. I simply adore the company of handsome young men. Like you.\"\n\nAll three of us fell into the limpid pool of her eyes, splashed around for a bit and emerged gasping and in love. Stirner spoke and they did not hear. I finally ordered large beers and had them placed in front of their bulging eyes to cut off sight of the gorgeous Sharla. This produced the desired result. While they glugged Stirner talked.\n\n\"I am greatly taken by your plight, young gentleman. On this planet such a thing is impossible. Against our laws, which laws state that there are no laws. Why do you permit yourself to be treated in this vile manner?\"\n\n\"No choice, Pops. Barbed wire all around, watched night and day, shot if you try to escape, shot twice if recaptured. No place to go to, no place to hide, in uniform, every man's hand turned against you.\"\n\nHe sniffed in maudlin self-pity; a tear ran down his companion's cheek.\n\n\"Well,\" Stirner said, sinking the gaff in deep and twisting it so it would take hold. \"None of those things are true here. There is no barbed wire, no one is watching you, no one is about to shoot you. There is a great big country out there that stretches away beyond the mountains and rivers. A country where you will always find a welcome, always find hospitality and refuge. A country where the army will never find you.\"\n\nThey sat up at that, trying to understand his words through their alcoholic haze. \"Cagal...\" the drunkest one muttered. Sharla smiled angelically.\n\n\"I do not understand that word, young friend, but I feel that it indicates disbelief. Not so. Every word my father has spoken is true. For example, we live a full day's journey distant from this city in an idyllic farming village. We travel there by speedy railroad\u2014and these are our tickets to prove it. Why, look, the machine made a mistake, it issued four tickets instead of two. I must return them\u2014unless you would like them for souvenirs?\"\n\nFaster than light, they vanished.\n\n\"There is a side entrance to the railway station that is not guarded,\" she said brightly.\n\n\"But the train leaves soon,\" Stirner said, standing and picking up the bundle from the floor. \"Before going I must use the necesejo, as we say down on the farm, and I am taking this bundle with me. It contains clothing for my two sons at home who, strangely enough, are just your size.\" He started away, then turned. \"You may borrow the clothes\u2014if you wish.\"\n\nThey beat him to the cagalhouse door. Sharla smiled beatifically after them.\n\n\"You know this farming town well?\" I asked. \"So you can line the lads up with friends.\"\n\n\"I have never been there\u2014I found its name on the map. But you forget the strength of IM. We would welcome them here and aid them, so they will be welcome there. Do not worry. I will guide them and return in two days. Ohh, here they come, don't they look handsome out of those dreary uniforms!\"\n\nThey looked rotten, I thought, the demon of jealousy burning within me. I almost wished that I was going with them. But no, the work was here. I turned to the next table where Morton was mooning after the lovely retreating form of Sharla. I had to kick him twice before I could attract his attention.\n\n\"She'll be back, don't worry. Did you get all that on tape.\"\n\n\"Every word. Can I have another beer? All I had was the one Sharla bought me before you came in. And you had a steak...\"\n\n\"No drinking on duty, soldier.\"\n\nStirner joined us and pointed to the basket he was carrying. \"I have their uniforms in here, just as you asked.\"\n\n\"Good. We'll need that for the video. Now\u2014take us to your recording studio.\"\n\nHe led us by back streets to the back of a building, to the back door that opened as we approached. They were eagerly waiting for us on the soundstage, brightly lit, windowless and invisible from the street. Volunteers all, IM enthusiasts just dying to subvert the troops. I held up the audio cassette.\n\n\"We'll need a few hundred copies of this.\"\n\n\"Within the hour!\" It was snatched from my hand and whisked away. I turned to the waiting production crew, who were trembling with enthusiasm. \"Director?\" I asked. A gorgeous redhead stepped forward.\n\n\"At your service. Lights, sound, camera ready.\"\n\n\"Wonderful. As soon as my associate and I put on these uniforms\u2014you can roll. Point us to the dressing room.\"\n\nAs I stripped Morton took one of the uniforms out of the basket and held it out between thumb and index finger like a dead rat.\n\n\"I feel depressed even looking at this thing,\" he said. Depressedly. \"To feel its touch upon my skin again, the clammy embrace...\"\n\n\"Morton,\" I hinted, \"shut up.\" I whipped it away and held it before me. A good fit. I climbed into it. \"You are an actor now, Morton, playing before the camera. You will act your role\u2014then remove the uniform forever. Burn it if you wish to. Thousands will applaud your performance. So put it on. Like this.\"\n\nI sat and pushed my legs into the trousers and something fell from a pocket and tinkled to the floor. I bent and picked it. An ID disc. Private soldier Pyek0765 had been eager to wipe all memory of the army from him, to be reborn a happy civilian. I turned it over and over in my fingers and an idea began to sizzle about low down in my brain. Morton's cry of dismay cut through my thoughts.\n\n\"It's there! I can see it! That glazed look in your eye. Whenever you are dreaming up a suicidal idea you get it. Not again! I don't volunteer!\"\n\nI patted his shoulder cheerfully, then reknotted his tie into a semblance of military order. \"Relax. I have had a brilliant idea, yes. But you are not involved, no. Now let us shoot this video and after it is done I will tell you all about this plan.\"\n\nI stood Morton up with a wall for a backdrop; not a good choice because he looked like he was waiting to be shot. No changes, time was of the essence.\n\n\"If you please. I want a full-figure shot of that man. Let me have a roving microphone. Ready when you are.\"\n\nMorton winced a bit when two spotlights pinned him to the wall. A mike was thrust into my hand and a pure contralto voice rang out across the set.\n\n\"Silence. Ready to roll. Sound. Camera. Action.\"\n\n\"Ladies and gentlemen of Chojecki, I bring you greetings. You are looking at a typical unwilling member of the invading Nevenkebla army. With this video you will have received an audio cassette that is a live recording of an actual encounter with two of these soldiers. You will listen to their bleating complaints, will be shocked at the terror of their involuntary servitude, will cry with joy as they are given the opportunity to hurl the shackles from their shoulders and stride forth into the green countryside, to prosper under the glowing sun of Individual Mutualism.\"\n\nMy sales pitch was so sincere that Stirner could not restrain himself and burst out clapping\u2014as did the crew and technicians. Morton clasped his hands over his head\u2014there is a bit of ham lurking in all of us\u2014and bowed.\n\n\"Silence,\" I ordered and all was instantly quiet. I strode onto camera and pointed at the subdued Morton. \"This is the kind of soldier you will meet and befriend and subvert. Note then the complete absence of markings upon the sleeve.\" Morton extended his arm and I pointed to the right place. \"Empty of stripes, chevrons, angled or curved bits of colored cloth. This is what you must look for. If there is a single stripe, two or more, or most frightening thought, three up and three down with a lozenge in the middle\u2014retreat! Do not talk to anyone with these kinds of adornment because you will be addressing one of the enslaving devils incarnate!\n\n\"Also be warned if there are shining bits of metal on the shoulders, here and here. Those who wear these are known as officers and are usually too stupid to be dangerous. They must still be avoided.\n\n\"Another group, very dangerous, can be recognized by their headgear and brassard. If the letters MP appear upon the arm\u2014go the other way. Also look for the red cap that will be mounted squarely upon the brutal head.\n\n\"Now that you know what to avoid, you know whom to approach. A simple uniformed slave. Come close, smile, make sure that none of the striped and barred beasts are close, then whisper in the slave's ear... 'Do you like fresh air?' If he smiles with joy and answers 'yes,' why then he is yours. May Mark Forer guide you in this great work!\"\n\n\"Cut, print, thank you gentlemen.\"\n\nMorton blinked as the spots died away and began to tear off the uniform. \"What, may I ask, what was this cagal about the fresh air.\"\n\n\"No cagal, old friend,\" I said, holding up the liberty pass I had taken from the pocket of the borrowed uniform. \"I intend to go forth to bring the word to the troops that when they go out the gates tomorrow night they should not bother to return.\"\n\n\"I knew that you had an insane idea!\" he shrieked, staggering back, wide of eye and pale of skin. \"The only way that you can talk to the troops is by going back onto the base.\"\n\nI nodded a solemn nod of agreement.\nChapter 23\n\n\"It is suicide,\" Morton shivered.\n\n\"Not at all. Good sense. If that swine Zennor is still looking for me\u2014he certainly won't be looking among the troops. I have this pass dated for today. I return to base early since there is not much doing in the old town tonight. Then I go to the latrine, the PX, all the other exciting places where the troops assemble, and talk to the lads. And do some other interesting things which it is best you don't know about. Don't worry about me.\"\n\nI could worry enough for myself I thought, darkly. Once back in the army there were a number of problems I would have to tackle. And all of them were dangerous.\n\n\"But how will you get out again?\" Morton asked, his voice speaking as though from a great distance, cutting through the black brooding of my thoughts.\n\n\"The least of my worries,\" I laughed hollowly. And indeed it certainly was. I turned to the ever-patient Stirner who had been listening to us in silence. \"You know what to do with the cassettes?\"\n\n\"It will be as you planned. Volunteers are already waiting to distribute them to even more volunteers who will go forth and do good deeds just as we did. It was inspiring!\"\n\n\"Indeed it was. But no sallying forth until tomorrow night in the very earliest. The password must be spread, there must be eager volunteers to make this a mass movement. Because once the officers catch wise things will become difficult. The railroad will be watched or stopped altogether. If that happens other transport must be provided. Keep things moving though, until I get back. You are the authority on desertion now.\"\n\n\"How long will you be away?\"\n\n\"Don't know. But for the shortest amount of time that is possible\u2014that I can guarantee.\"\n\nThere was little more to say, nothing more to do. I squared my cap upon my head and turned to the door.\n\n\"Good luck,\" Morton said.\n\n\"Thanks.\" I was going to need it.\n\nAs I walked back through the empty streets toward the Vaillant section of town I fought off the depression that accompanied the uniform I wore. Nor could I drown my sorrows in drink, since money was worthless here and I had returned Stirner's wirrdisc. Soon I was walking among the inaccessible, brightly lit palaces of pleasure, pressing my nose against the window just like the other uniformed figures that roamed the streets. Some leave! Although the evening was still young, many of them were already drifting back toward Fielden Field, where the camp had been built. I joined in this Brownian movement of despair.\n\nBright lights burned down upon the barbed wire that encircled the green grassy meadows, where once the good citizens of the city had taken their ease. Green no more, pounded now into dust and filled with gray army tents erected to house the troops. No effete comforts for the conquering soldiers; they might get spoiled. The officers, of course, lived in prefab barracks.\n\nIt took all the strength of will that I possessed to join the line of depressed figures that moved toward the MPs at the gate. While my intelligence told me that the last thing to be expected was a soldier with a pass illegally entering the camp, the animal spirit within me was screaming with anguish.\n\nOf course nothing untoward happened. Dim little eyes stared out from under the mat of thick eyebrows, scanned the familiar pass, waved me back into captivity. The sweat cooled from my brow and I jingled the few coins in my pocket that the freedom-bound soldier had been happy to leave behind. There was just about enough of them to buy an understrength beer in the PX. Anything is better than nothing.\n\nI found this depressing establishment easily enough. I just traced the sound of rock-drilling and western music to its source. The PX bar was housed in a sagging tent vaguely illuminated by light bulbs that had been specifically designed to attract flying insects. Here, at rough tables of drink-sodden wood, sitting on splinter-filled planks, the troops enjoyed the pleasures of warm, bad beer. I bought a bulb and joined them.\n\n\"Got room for one more?\"\n\n\"Cagal off.\"\n\n\"Thanks a lot. What is this\u2014cagal your buddy week?\"\n\n\"It's always cagal your buddy week.\"\n\n\"You sound just like the civilians in town.\"\n\nThis aroused some interest. The heavyset speaker now focused his blurred vision on me and I realized that all of the others at the table were listening as well.\n\n\"You got a pass tonight? We get ours tomorrow. What's it like?\"\n\n\"Like pretty grim. They won't serve you. If you like grab a drink they close the bar and all go home.\"\n\n\"We heard that. So what's the point of going in. Nothing.\"\n\n\"Something. You get to leave the army, travel far away, eat good food, get drunk. And kiss girls.\"\n\nWow, did I have their attention now. If eyeballs were gun muzzles I would have been blown out of existence in an instant. There was a dead silence at the table as every head swiveled in my direction.\n\n\"What did you say?\" a hushed voice asked.\n\n\"You heard me. You go down to where the restaurants are and walk slow. If someone says to you\u2014Do you like fresh air?\u2014just say that you do, you do. Then go with them. They'll get you civvies to wear, a ticket out of town\u2014and set you up on the other side of the country where the MPs will never find you.\"\n\n\"You are cagaling us!\"\n\n\"No way. And what do you lose by going along with it? Whatever happens\u2014it got to be better than the army.\"\n\nThere were no arguments with this. Only the muscled guy with the suspicious mind found what he thought was a loophole.\n\n\"If what you are telling us is true and not the old cagal\u2014then what are you doing back here?\"\n\n\"A very good question,\" I stood up and held out my pass. \"I came back for the bundle of letters from my mom. This pass is good until midnight. See you in paradise\u2014if you want to come.\"\n\nI left them and moved on to the next group, who were in the corner of a latrine shooting dice. I palmed the dice and won some good pots, which drew their attention, gave them my orientation talk and left.\n\nI worked at this until it was almost midnight when my pass ran out and my story would take on a dubious taint. I had planted the seeds in fertile ground. The word would spread instantly through the latrine rumor network. And if I knew my draft dodgers not one of them would return from pass tomorrow night. That should cheer General Zennor up!\n\nSo plan number two must now be put into effect.\n\nFor what I had to do next I needed a bit more rank. There would be no slow crawl up through the noncommissioned ranks this time. I had tasted the heady glory of being an officer and I was spoiled forever. So I headed for the lair of those brightly plumaged birds of prey: the officers' club. I found it by backtracking the drunks. The higher the rank the stronger the booze; this was the army way. I passed a staggering pair of majors, each holding the other up, lined myself up on a colonel flipping his cookies into a hedge, took a sight over an unconscious captain in the gutter and saw my target glowing on the horizon. I skulked off in that direction and took refuge behind some bushes where I had a good sight of the entrance.\n\nIt was strictly a bachelor affair and all the worse for it. Obscene songs were being sung loudly and off-key. At least two punchups were going on in the grass outside at all times. There was some coming, of sober officers just off duty, but much more going of officers drunk out of their cagaling minds. I watched from hiding until my prey emerged, stumbled, and came toward me singing hoarsely under his voice.\n\nHe staggered under the only street lamp. A captain, about my size, lots of fake medals and decorations, just what I needed. A simple armlock from the rear, correct pressure applied, struggle feebly, unconscious, then into the hedges with him. A piece of cake.\n\nHe passed muttering by. Silent as a wraith I moved, pounced, seized, applied pressure...\n\nAnd found myself sailing swiftly through the air to crash into the hedge.\n\n\"So\u2014revolt in the ranks,\" he snarled, relatively sober and on guard in an instant, crouched and approaching. I struggled to my feet, feinted with my left hand and chopped down with my right. He blocked and would have kicked me in the stomach if I hadn't jumped aside.\n\n\"Want to kill an officer? Don't blame you. And I have always wanted to kill a private. Good time right now.\"\n\nHe advanced\u2014and I retreated. The medals had not been fakes. With great skill I had managed to find and attack what was probably the only trained combat officer in this army. Tremendous!\n\n\"Death to all officers!\" I shouted and swung a wicked kick at his groin.\n\nHe was bright enough to know he was whoozy, so instead of trying to block he stepped back. I kept the kick going which pulled me around to face in the other direction.\n\nAnd ran away. Discretion is the better part of valor. He who fights and pulls his freight lives to fight another date. I had no macho points to make. I just wanted to stay alive!\n\nDive and shoulder roll over a hedge. Roaring, he crashed through it right behind me. There were tents ahead, hard boots pounding after me. Jump over a tentrope, dodge under another. A shout and a crash behind me. Good\u2014he had tripped over one of the ropes. A few paces gained. Run, fast as I could. Between the next row of tents and back to the street. A building up ahead, loud music and the sound of breaking glass coming from it. I was at the rear of the officers' club.\n\nTime to go to ground. Through the gate and into the yard, gate closed behind me, no sign of pursuit.\n\n\"You had your break, quit cagaling off, get them cases in here.\"\n\nA fat cook stood at the rear door of the kitchen under the light, blinking into the gloom of the yard. Figures stirred as the enslaved KPs moved, as slowly as possible, to the stacks of beer cases. They had their jackets off, wearing only undershirts in the steamy heat of the kitchen. I took off my own jacket, rolled it and pushed it behind the cases, seized up a beer case and followed the others inside.\n\nKitchen police. The most demeaning servitude in the army\u2014which is an establishment that prides itself on demeaning servitude. KP was so degrading that it was forbidden, by military law, to give KP as a punishment. So, naturally, it was always given as a punishment. Up before dawn, laboring until late at night. Washing pots, cleaning out disgusting grease traps in the underground plumbing, slaving at the most menial tasks that generations of warped minds had created. It was absolutely completely impossible that anyone would volunteer for this service. I would never be looked for here!\n\nI carried the case past the cook who was acting KP pusher. He had a filthy chef's hat on his head, sergeant's stripes tattooed onto his beefy forearms, and was brandishing a long ladle as a weapon. He scowled as I passed then pointed the ladle in my direction.\n\n\"You. Where you come from?\"\n\n\"It's a mistake,\" I whimpered. \"I shouldn't be here. I didn't do nothing like what the first sergeant said I done. Let me go back...\"\n\n\"If I have my way you will never go back,\" he screamed. \"You will die in this kitchen and be buried under the floor. You're on pots and pans! Move!\"\n\nHarried by blows from the ladle I moved. To the giant metal sink to seize up the filthy metal pot waiting there. A simple labor, washing a pot. Harder perhaps when the pot is as big as you are. And another and another\u2014and still another. Steam, hot water, soap, labor with no end.\n\nI worked and sweated until I felt that enough time had passed for any excitement and search to have died away. As I straightened up, my aching back crackled loudly. I wiped a soggy forearm across my dripping forehead. My hands were bleached, my fingers as wrinkled and pallid as long-drowned slugs. As I looked at them I felt anger growing\u2014this was no fit job for a stainless steel rat! I would be rusting soon...\n\nThe ladle crashed down on my shoulder and the choleric pusher roared his ungrammatical commands.\n\n\"Keep working you're gonna be in trouble!\"\n\nSomething snapped and blackness overwhelmed me. This can happen to the best of us. The veneer of civilization worn thin, the lurking beast ready to burst free.\n\nMy beast must have burst most satisfactorily, thank you, because the next thing that I was conscious of was hands pulling at my shoulders. I looked in astonishment at the gross, flaccid form beside me, a pair of giant buttocks rising high. I had my hands about the pusher's neck, had his head buried in the soapy water where he was apparently drowning. Shocked, I pulled him up and let him slip to the floor. Gouts of water poured from nose and mouth and he gurgled moistly.\n\n\"He'll live,\" I told the circle of wide-eyed KPs. \"Any of the cooks see what happened?\"\n\n\"No\u2014they're all drunk in the other room.\"\n\n\"Great.\" I tore the KP roster from the wall and shredded it. \"You are all free. Return to your tents and keep your mouths shut. Unhappily, the pusher will live. Go.\"\n\nEagerly, they went. I went too, to the pegs where the cooks had discarded bits of uniform as they worked in the heat of the kitchen. There was a formerly white jacket with sergeant's stripes on it. Perfect for my needs. Donning it I strode into the kitchen, in my element, no need to skulk, and on into the dining hall and barroom.\n\nIt was wonderful. Music played, officers roared, bottles broke, songs were sung. Uniformed figures slumped over the tables while others had slid to the floor. The survivors were well on their way to join the succumbed. I pushed through this alcoholic hell and greatly admired the unconscious drunks. I was still aching from the captain's spirited defense. I had rediscovered a dictum that must be as old as crime: Rolling drunks is easier than mugging.\n\nA major in the space service caught my eye, prone on the floor and snoring. I knelt next to him and stretched my arm out next to his. Same length; his uniform should make a fine fit.\n\n\"Washa?\" a voice muttered from above and I realized that my bit of tailoring measurement had not gone unnoticed.\n\n\"The major is on duty later. I was sent to get him. Come on major, walkies, sackies.\"\n\nI struggled to lift the limp figure, aided very slightly by his friends. In the end I seized him under the arms and dragged him from the room. His departure was not noticed. Through a door and down a hall, to a storeroom filled to the ceiling with bottles of strong beverage. He would feel right at home here. With the door secured I took my time about stripping him and donning his uniform. Even his cap fitted well. I was a new man, rather officer.\n\nI left him dozing out of sight behind the drink. Straightened my tie. And sallied forth to save the world. Not for the first and, I had the feeling, not for the last time either.\nChapter 24\n\nI looked around at the bottles, reached for one\u2014then slapped my wrist.\n\n\"No, Jimmy, not for you. The number of beers you had this evening will have to suffice. What you have to do will be better off done sober.\"\n\nWhat did I have to do? Simply get aboard one of the spacers, find the communications room, then locate the coordinates of this planet. Easy to say: a little difficult to do.\n\nAt least the first part was easy enough to accomplish: locate the spacers. I had seen the floodlit shapes of three of them rising high above the tents earlier in the evening. The party was still crashing inside so this would be a good time to move through the camp. While plenty of drunks were still staggering about. I brushed some dust from my lapel, straightened the medals on my chest. Quite a collection. I turned the gaudiest one over and craned to read it. THE GLORIOUS UNIT AWARD\u20146 WEEKS WITHOUT VD IN THE COMPANY. Wonderful. I assumed the rest of the lot had been given for equally valiant military endeavors. Time to go.\n\nIt looked like events in the alcoholic bedlam were winding down for the night. A grill was being locked over the bar. Orderlies were loading unconscious forms onto stretchers, while the walking wounded were stumbling toward the exit. A brace of gray-haired colonels were leaning against each other and moving their feet up and down and not getting anyplace. I made the twosome a threesome and let them lean on me.\n\n\"I am going your way, sirs. Perhaps I could accompany you?\"\n\n\"You shure a good buddy... buddy,\" one of them breathed my way. The alcoholic content of my blood instantly shot up and I hiccuped.\n\nWe exited in this manner, weaved our way between the ambulances being loaded with officerial alcoholics, and staggered off into the night. In the direction of the spacers. I had not the slightest idea where the BOQ was\u2014nor did I care. Nor did my drink-sodden companions. It took all their concentration, and what little conscious mind they had remaining, to simply put one foot in front of another.\n\nA squad of MPs turned the corner in front of us, saw the gleam of light from the silver chickens on my companions' shoulders. Then did the smartest about-face to the rear march I had ever seen.\n\nMy drunks were getting heavier and heavier and moving slower and slower as we stumbled through the tent-lined street toward a brightly lit building at the end. It was large and permanent, undoubtedly part of the park facilities purloined from the natives. Even at this hour of the night, morning really, two armed guards stood at the entrance. All the rocks along the path were painted white and the overly ornate sign above the door read BASE HEADQUARTERS\u2014GEN. ZENNOR COMMANDING.\n\nThis was definitely not the place for me. I maneuvered my charges onto the grass, next to the sign KEEP OFF OR GET SHOT, and let go. They dropped instantly and began snoring.\n\n\"You, guards,\" I called out. \"One of you get the Officer of the Day. These colonels have been taken ill. Food poisoning I think.\"\n\nI glared my best glare and not a muscle moved in their faces.\n\n\"Yes, sir!\" the sergeant shouted. \"OD on the double!\"\n\nHe turned and hurried away and so did I. Toward the charred remains of a sportsfield upon which the three spacers rested. All of them bristled with guns, brought here to impress the locals I imagined. Or to beat off the armed attacks that had never materialized. How depressed all the military must be that they couldn't pull their shiny triggers and blow away the population. They had given a war\u2014and nobody came. Terribly frustrating.\n\nI staggered as I walked so I would be recognized as an officer. Toward the extruded stairs that ran from the ground, up into the bowels of the nearest spacer. I was a space officer, I was just going to my ship. Or at least I thought I was until I saw that a guard stood on the lower step.\n\n\"Halt and be recognized.\"\n\n\"Cagal off...\" I muttered and pushed by him. A private lowest of the low.\n\n\"Please, major, sir, your majesty. You can't go in without I see your pass.\"\n\n\"Cagal off twice!\" Witty, witty. \"Don' need no pass my own ship.\"\n\nPast him and up the stairs. Brain beats brawn anytime. Step by step up toward the gaping spacelock. And the surly sergeant-major who stood and scowled there, firmly blocking the entrance.\n\n\"This ain't your ship, major. I know this ship's company. You are on another ship.\"\n\nI opened my mouth to argue, order, shout. Then saw the gunmetal blue jaw, the glowing red eyes, the hairline that blended into the eyebrows. Even the hairs curling from his broken nose looked like they were made of steel wool.\n\n\"Not my ship?\"\n\n\"Not your ship.\"\n\n\"Gesh it's not my ship...\" I susurrated, turning and stumbling back down and away into the night. There was no way I was going to get past the sergeant-major. Back toward the headquarters building and the rows of tents to come up with another plan.\n\nHidden in the darkness under a large tree, I looked out at the spacers and could think of absolutely nothing I could do to get aboard one of them. The hour was late, the drunks now dispersed, the camp silent. Except for the roving bands of MPs. Whatever was to be done would have to wait until morning. It would be more dangerous in daylight but it had to be chanced. Perhaps if there was enough to-ing and fro-ing to the ships I might be able to join in. Right now I really should be thinking of my own safety. And some sleep, I yawned. The kicked-in ribs were hurting again. I sniveled a bit and really felt sorry for myself.\n\nIn the stillness of the night the shouted commands and stamping of boots from HQ could clearly be heard. Guns were brought snappily to attention as a huddle of officers emerged and hurried down the path. Even at this distance I could recognize the repellent form of the leader. Zennor, with his underlings hurrying after. I drew deeper into the shadows; this was no place for me to be.\n\nOr was it? Despite my desire for rapid departure and continued survival I stood there and concentrated. And hated the idea that began to develop. The officers moved out across the charred sportsfield and passed the spacer I had tried to get into. At this moment the idea jelled and I loathed it even more because it just might work. With a great effort I forced down the screaming meemies that threatened to overwhelm me, unlocked my knees and lurched forward. Following the officers across the field.\n\nIf any of them looked back I was sunk. But that was next to an impossibility. Their job in life was to bull straight ahead and walk over anything and everything that got in their way. They charged on and I charged after them, getting ever closer. Anyone watching would see a group of officers with one more of their kind hurrying to catch up.\n\nWhen they reached the steps of the freighter I was right behind them, watching them mount with dignity. Though still hurrying I did not hurry that fast anymore. With precise timing I reached the guard at the foot of the stairs just as they vanished from sight above.\n\n\"General,\" I cried. \"The message has come through. It is urgent!\"\n\nI waved and called out again and brushed by the guard who did the only thing he was supposed to do. He saluted. Up the stairs, much slower now, dragging one leg, old war wound you know. They were well out of sight as, breathlessly, I reached the open port.\n\n\"The general, where is he?\"\n\n\"Captain's quarters, sir,\" the guard said.\n\n\"That's near the communications room on this type of ship?\"\n\n\"That's right, major, same deck, number nine.\"\n\nI hurried on to the nearest companionway and up it. Slower and slower. The ship was silent, empty, but I heard voices echoing down from above. When I reached the next deck I walked around to the companionway on the far side. Where I stopped and counted slowly to two hundred.\n\n\"You are a brave but foolhardy devil, Jim,\" I muttered and agreed strongly with myself. Press on.\n\nThe large number nine on the bulkhead above slowed me to a crawl. I carefully poked my head above the deck and looked around. No one in sight, but voices were sounding from the passageway. The doors had numbers stenciled next to them. One of them had a name on it. COMMUNICATIONS ROOM.\n\nIt's now or never, Jim. Look around carefully. Nobody in sight. Take a deep breath. What is that loud hammering noise? Just your heart thudding with the usual panic at a time like this. Ignore it. Step up, step forward, to the door, seize the knob.\n\nExcept the knob had been sawn off. Steel bars had been bolted to the door and welded to the frame. The communications room was sealed, shut, inaccessible, tight.\n\nAs I was registering these facts and trying to make sense of them a voice spoke in my ear.\n\n\"You, what are you doing there?\"\n\nIf my heart had thought it was thudding along merrily earlier it now tore loose from all its moorings and hurled itself up into my throat. I spun about, swallowed it, tried not to say Glugh! Grimaced and looked at the uniformed figure before. At the shoulders. I sneered.\n\n\"I might ask the same thing of you, lieutenant. What are you doing here?\"\n\n\"This is my ship, major.\"\n\n\"Does that give you permission to speak to a superior officer in that manner?\"\n\n\"Sorry, sir, didn't see the leaves, sir. But I saw you by the com room and we had orders about it...\"\n\n\"You are absolutely correct. Sealed and no one near it at any time, correct?\"\n\n\"Correct.\"\n\nI leaned my face close to his and scowled and watched with relief as his skin paled. It is hard to scowl and sneer your words at the same time, but I managed.\n\n\"Then you will be pleased to know that my orders are to see that your orders are carried out to the letter. Now, where is General Zennor?\"\n\n\"Down there, major.\"\n\nI spun on my heel and walked in the direction that I wished least to take. He would be watching me, I was sure of that. But I had no choice. If I simply tried to leave the ship he might start to think about my presence, get suspicious, sound the alarm. If I went to the general all doubt would vanish.\n\nOf course I might vanish too. Nevertheless I walked swiftly toward the open door and the murmured voices, turned into it without hesitation.\n\nThe officers at the end of the room were conferring over a map. Zennor had his back turned to me.\n\nI turned sharply right and saw the shelves of books against the bulkhead. Without hesitation I went to it, ran my finger down the volumes. I could not see their titles because of the sweat that was dripping into my eyes. Seized one at random. Turned and started back toward the door. Let my eyes cross over the group of officers.\n\nWho were completely ignoring me. I walked slower, ears straining, but could hear nothing other than a murmured cagal or two, which was required of any military conversation.\n\nWhen I entered the corridor the lieutenant was just scuttling out of sight. I walked, neither fast nor slow, to the companionway and down it, deck by deck. Waiting for the alarm bells to go off. Though I probably wouldn't have heard them through the pounding of blood in my ears. To the last deck and to the open port with the welcoming blackness of the night beyond.\n\nThe guard leapt into the air and my heart followed him.\n\nAnd landed with his weapon at present arms. I threw him a sloppy salute in return and trotted down the steps to the ground. Another salute and I was walking across the burned grass and waiting for the shot in the back.\n\nIt never came. I reached the shadows at the edge of the grounds, slipped into them and leaned against the bole of a tree. And sighed a sigh such as I had never sighed before. When I raised my hand to wipe the perspiration from my brow I realized that I was still holding the book.\n\nBook? What book? Oh, the book I had lifted from the cabin about four hundred and twelve years earlier. When I held it up and squinted I could just make out the title in the illumination of the distant lamps.\n\nVeterinary Practice in Robot Cavalry Units.\n\nIt dropped from my limp fingers as my back slid slowly down the tree until I was sitting on the ground.\nChapter 25\n\nI rested there in the darkness, let the sweat evaporate, tried not think about veterinaries for robot horses\u2014and pondered the significance of the sealed door on the communications room.\n\nFor openers, it had not been sealed shut to keep me from getting inside. As much as I valued my own importance I was well aware that others, Zennor in particular, were not struck with fear by my presence. For example the combat-ready captain earlier this night. No, Zennor had the door sealed for his own reasons. What were they? Work backward from the obvious.\n\nThe door on this ship was sealed, so probably all of the com rooms on all the spacers had been sealed. It made no sense to shut just a single one. Why? To stop communication, obviously. Between who and whom? Or whom and who for that matter. It couldn't be intended to stop planetary communication. That was still needed for the not-too-successful invasion. Ground-based radios would suffice for that. Spacer com rooms sealed obviously meant that ship-to-ship communication would cease. That was of no importance since the entire fleet had already landed.\n\nWhich left only interstellar communication. Of course! The rush to leave, the secrecy about our destination. Zennor knew that the League Navy was after him, knew that they could only stop him if they knew where he was going. Or where this planet was. So the invasion was a one-way affair. A gamble hurled into interstellar space. Not much of a gamble against an unarmed enemy. Zennor knew that the Navy had spies, all those detector vans had been evidence of that. He was convinced that I worked for the League and there might be other League agents in his army. So communication had been cut off until the invasion succeeded. After that there would be nothing that the Navy could do.\n\nThis was good for the invasion\u2014but very bad news for me. I had sent the radio message for help, which even now was limping steadily across interstellar space at the miserable speed of light. I had better forget about it. And forget as well about sending an FTL message for the time being. What I had to do now was think local. I might have to spend the rest of my life on this planet. If I did remain here I didn't want to do it with Zennor and his military goons breathing down my neck. Desertion, that was the name of the game. I had to get his army away from him. When all the draftees had been dispersed about the land I would consider the next step. Which didn't bear considering. Maybe I should open a distillery and supply free booze to his officers and noncoms? From what I had seen, with the correct encouragement, they all would be dead of cirrhosis within the year.\n\nI yawned and realized that my eyes were closed and I was half asleep.\n\n\"Never!\" I groaned, climbing to my feet. \"Fall asleep here, Jim my boy, and the chances are that you will wake up dead. To work! Next step is to get your chunk off this base, for your work here is done for the moment. Back to warmth and light and female companionship, away from solitary males, cursing, drinking, gambling and all the other military pleasures. Away!\"\n\nBut was I ever tired. Instead of walking it would sure be nice to have a bit of transportation. Somewhere near HQ there had to be vehicles, since officers rarely walked. Nor were these vehicles too hard to find. Just behind the HQ building there was a motorpool, unguarded apparently. And there, looming darkly behind the staff cars, the shape of a command car. One I was very familiar with. I drifted over and climbed into it. No guards needed at this motorpool because all the ignition keys had been taken away. I smiled into the darkness. This crate could be hotwired faster than a key could be fumbled into the lock. I bent, pulled, twisted. Sparks sizzled and the fuel cell hissed into life. Boldly on with the headlights, into gear and away.\n\nAway to where? Not the gates surely. During the daytime it might be possible to drive out behind a convoy. But right now the gates would be closed and I would have to produce a pass or some sound reason for nighttime maneuvers. I could think of no sound reason. I drove on slowly, past one of the gates and along a perimeter road that circled the camp, just inside the barbed wire fence. For security patrols undoubtedly. I drove along it until a grove of trees came between me and the lights of the camp. I angled the headlights toward the fence, locked the gears in neutral and climbed down to look at the barrier.\n\nIt was a ten-strand barbed wire fence. There were surely alarms attached if it were breached, but I could see no sign of disturbed earth, tripwires or circuitry that might lead to mines. Just bashing through it might be a chance worth taking. It didn't matter if the alarm were raised. By the time the sluggish troops reached the site I would be long gone. I raced the engine, put it in the lowest gear, floored the accelerator and ground forward.\n\nThe wire fence screeched and tore. There was a fine show of crackling sparks\u2014I thought it might be electrified, but the combat car was shielded\u2014and then it all tore away and I was through. Kicking up through the gears and tearing away through the empty streets. Pulling the wheel and screeching around a plaza with a large statue of Mark Forer gazing down serenely from a plinth, and out the broad avenue on the far side. I recognized this street, I had walked this way before when we had first escaped. The river and bridges were up ahead. With the residential suburbs on the far side.\n\nWhen I trundled my battle wagon across the bridge there was still no sign of pursuit. Fine. Time to go to ground. I turned off along the riverbank, put the gears in low-low, angled toward the water and jumped down. The car ground steadily on, demolished a bench\u2014sorry about that\u2014and plowed majestically over the edge. There was plenty of burbling and splashing, then nothing. The river was deep here. Behind me I could hear the wail of distant sirens. I walked briskly through the park and into the nearest street. Though I was tired I needed to put some distance between myself and the river, in case there were tracks left which might be seen by day.\n\n\"Enough is enough, Jim!\" I said, leaning against a wall and all too aware that I was drooping with fatigue. I had turned corners at random, lost myself completely, and the river was far behind me. There was a gate in the wall beside me, with Dun Roamin carved into the wood. Message received. Without hesitation I opened the gate, climbed the steps beyond and knocked on the front door. I had to do it a second time before there were stirrings inside and a light came on. Even after all the time here on Chojecki I still found it hard to believe that this was the correct way to meet strangers.\n\n\"Who is it?\" a male voice called out as the door opened.\n\n\"Jim diGritz, offworlder, tired.\"\n\nThe light came on and an ancient citizen with whispy gray beard blinked out myopically at me.\n\n\"Can it be? It certainly is! Oh what luck for old Czolgoscz!! Come in brave offworlder and share my hospitality. What may I do for you?\"\n\n\"Thank you, thank you. For openers let's get these lights off just in case there is a patrol around. And then a bed for the night...\"\n\n\"My pleasure! Illumination off, follow closely, this way, my daughter's room, now married and living on a farm, forty geese and seventeen cows, here we are. Curtains closed, a moment, then the lights!\"\n\nOld Czolgoscz, although he tended to talk too much, was the perfect host. The room was pink with lace curtains and about twenty dolls on the bed.\n\n\"Now you wash up, right in there, and I'll bring you a nice hot drink, friend Jim.\"\n\n\"I would prefer a nice cold drink rich with alcohol, friend Czolgoscz.\"\n\n\"I have the very thing!\"\n\nBy the time I had rinsed the last of the military muck away he was back with a tall, purple bottle, two glasses\u2014he wasn't that old\u2014and a pair of pajamas ablaze with red lightning bolts. I hoped that they didn't glow in the dark.\n\n\"Homemade gingleberry wine.\" He poured two large glasses. We raised them, clinked, drank and smacked our lips. I sighed with happiness and a bit of nostalgia.\n\n\"I haven't had this since I was back on the farm. Used to have a bottle hidden out in the porcuswine sty. On dull days I used to get blotto on it and sing to the swine.\"\n\n\"How charming! Now I will leave you to your rest.\"\n\nA perfect host, vanished even before I could thank him. I raised my glass in a toast to the electronic benevolence of the portrait of Mark Forer upon the wall. Drained it. And went to sleep.\n\n* * *\n\nWhen consciousness reluctantly returned I could only lie and blink, drugged with sleep, at the sunlight behind the curtains. Yawning, I rose and opened them and looked out at a flower-filled garden. Old Czolgoscz looked up from his labors and waved his secateurs at me. Then scurried into the house. In a remarkably short period of time he knocked on the door, threw it open, and brought in a groaning breakfast tray. I don't normally have a liter of juice, large portion of wiffles with syrup and three eggs. I did today.\n\n\"How did you know?\" I lip-smacked satedly.\n\n\"Guessed. Young lad your age, been working hard, seemed natural. I talked to a few people and I am sure that you will be pleased to hear that the teams are in training all over the city for D-Day.\"\n\n\"D-Day?\"\n\n\"Desertion Day. Today, tonight. Extra trains have been scheduled and people all over the country are looking forward to welcoming the new citizens.\"\n\n\"Fantastic. I hope you will welcome me as well. My stay on Chojecki may be longer than originally planned.\"\n\n\"You are more than welcome, as is your knowledge. Would you like a teaching position at the university?\"\n\nI smiled at the thought. \"Sorry, I ran away from school, never graduated.\"\n\n\"I regret in my provincial ignorance that I do not know the meaning of either run away or graduate. Students here go to school when they want, stay as long as they want, study what they want, leave when they want. The only scholastic requirement a child has is to learn about Individual Mutualism, so he or she can lead a full and happy life.\"\n\n\"I suppose the parents pay for the child's schooling?\"\n\nCzolgoscz drew back, horrified. \"Of course not! A child will get love and affection from its parents, but they would not embarrass their offspring by violating IM's tenets. The child's wirr account, opened when it was born, will be in debit until he or she begins to earn. At a very early age, for the child will not be a free and independent citizen until the wirr account is in credit.\"\n\nNow I was shocked. \"The workhouse for infants! Laboring day and night for a few crusts!\"\n\n\"Friend Jim\u2014what a wonderful imagination you do have! Not quite. Most of the work will be done around the house, the labors that were usually done by mother, collecting the wirrs father would pay her...\"\n\n\"Enough, I beg. My blood sugar is low, my head thick and the details of IM so novel that they must be absorbed just a bit at a time.\"\n\nHe nodded agreement. \"Understandable. As you will teach us about the novelties of the great civilizations out there among the stars, we have been cut off from them for centuries, so will we reveal to you the fruits of Mark Forer's genius\u2014may electrons flow forever through its wires!\"\n\nA pleasant prayer for that long-vanished machine. I still found it hard to understand such affection for a bunch of circuitry, no matter how complex. Enough, it was time to get back to work.\n\n\"Can you find out where my friend Morton is staying?\"\n\n\"Would you like to go there? I will be honored to take you.\"\n\n\"You know...\" I gaped, then answered my own questions. \"Of course, everyone in the city knows where we have been staying.\"\n\n\"That is correct. Do you ride the bike?\"\n\n\"Not for many years\u2014but once learned, never forgotten.\" A sensible form of transportation, the bicycle, and the streets of this city were busy with them. I bundled up the uniform for possible future use, pulled on a pair of baggy shorts that Czolgoscz produced. This, and my undershirt, produced an inconspicuous cycling outfit. Thus garbed I went into the garden and limbered up with a hundred pushups. When I finished and climbed to my feet I shied back from the man who stood behind me leaning on a bright red bicycle.\n\n\"I did not mean to startle you,\" he said. \"But I did not wish to interrupt your ritual. Czolgoscz phoned me and I brought your bicycle around. The best one I had in stock.\"\n\n\"Thank, thank you\u2014indeed a beauty. But I am afraid I cannot pay you for it...\"\n\nHe smiled. \"You already have. I stopped at the wirrbank and debited your account. They asked me to give this to you.\"\n\nI did some rapid blinking at the wirrdisc he handed me. James diGriz it was labeled. And in the little LCD window it read Balance 64,678.\n\n\"The bank asked me to ask you to contact them. They were not sure how many hours you worked for the public service last night. If you would kindly report to them they will make the correction.\"\n\n\"I am in the system!\" I shouted happily. The bicycle man beamed happy agreement.\n\n\"Of course! You are an individual and Individual Mutualism is your right. Welcome, welcome! May your wirrbalance grow and may your life be a long and happy one!\"\nChapter 26\n\nIt was next morning when the cagal hit the fan. Reports had come in during the night of the fantastic success of D-Day. The troops had trooped into town with their passes, had expressed a great appreciation of fresh air, had been welcomed at the back entrance of any clothing store to change out of their uniforms, had boarded train after train. The last one left just before midnight when the curfew had descended.\n\nAnd there had been no alarm, not at first. Luckily there were four gates into the camp and I presumed that the MPs, in their native ignorance, had all thought the returning soldiers had used the other gates. Therefore they had all been happy to cagal off for the evening. So successful had been our operation that even the extra trains had not sufficed for the mobs of deserters. Over a hundred were still in the city. They would stay hidden until nightfall when, hopefully, they would be smuggled to the station.\n\nWith my new-found wealth I had bought a giant TV as a gift for our hosts. Morton and I were watching a local broadcast when the military cut in. Neither of us appreciated it for this was a day of celebration of some kind, the anniversary of the wiring of Mark Forer's first circuit board or some such, and all the city had turned out. We were enjoying a parade, headed by the local girls' cycle club, all flashing bronzed limbs and fluttering skirts, when the picture sizzled and died to be replaced by General Zennor's scowling features.\n\n\"Turn it off!\" Morton moaned. \"If I look at him I won't be able to eat lunch.\"\n\n\"Leave it. It won't be good news, but since we will have to hear it sometime\u2014better now.\"\n\n\"Attention!\" Zennor said and Morton made a rude noise with his tongue; I waved him to silence. \"You all know me, General Zennor of the liberating forces. You know me as a kind and patient man...\"\n\n\"He is a great fiction writer!\"\n\n\"Quiet!\"\n\n\"... a firm leader and a just one. And now the time has come for firmness and justice to be applied. I have just discovered that a few cowards among the ranks of my loyal troops have been foolish enough to attempt to desert. Desertion is punishable by death...\"\n\n\"What isn't in the rotten army!\"\n\n\"... and I know that none of you out there would want that to happen to foolish and misguided young men. Therefore this announcement. I am extending all passes issued last night for twenty-four hours. They are good until midnight tonight. No soldier will be punished who returns to the base before midnight. I therefore advise all the people of this city to speak to these misguided youths who are hidden among you. Tell them to return. You know where they are. Go to them. Tell them of this generous offer.\"\n\nThe fake kindness vanished from his face in an instant as he leaned close to the camera and snarled.\n\n\"Tell them also that my generosity vanishes at midnight! Martial law will then be declared. This city will be sealed. No one will enter or leave it. Then the city will be searched. Block by block, building by building. Any deserter who is then found will be taken prisoner, will be given one bottle of beer and will be allowed to write one letter home. And will then be shot.\n\n\"Is that clear enough? You have this single warning. You have until midnight tonight to return. That is the message I send to the deserters. After that\u2014you are as good as dead\u2014\"\n\nI hit the button and turned the set off.\n\n\"Pretty depressing,\" Morton said, looking pretty depressed. \"Turn it back on so we can at least look at the girls.\"\n\nI did. But they were long gone and had been replaced by a man with long hair and an enthusiastic expression who was going on in great detail about the untold joys of IM. I killed the sound.\n\n\"You know, Morton, he means us too.\"\n\n\"Don't say it! I know. Isn't there another station with space opera? I need a drink.\"\n\n\"No you don't. You need to sit quiet and pull yourself together and help me find a way out of this for all of us. Well, maybe a small drink, a glass of beer just to get the thoughts rolling.\"\n\n\"I could not but overhear,\" Stirner said, entering with a tray of glasses and bottles. \"If you will permit I will join you. The day is warm.\"\n\nWe clinked and glugged. \"Any word from the city?\" I asked.\n\n\"A good deal of words. All the trains leaving the city have been canceled so there is no way out by train.\"\n\n\"The roads?\"\n\n\"Roadblocks on all arteries leading from the city. Flying machines supported by rotating wings\u2014\"\n\n\"Choppers.\"\n\n\"Thank you, I have noted the word. Choppers flying over the countryside between so none may escape that way. All young men who attempt to leave are being detained, even when they are obviously Chojecki citizens who speak only our native tongue. They are imprisoned until their hands have been pressed to a plate on a machine, that is what has been reported. So far all have been released.\"\n\n\"Very near,\" I muttered, \"and just about foolproof. Fingerprint check. Right through to the base computer. So we can't get out that way. It will have to be the fields, after dark.\"\n\n\"Not that I want to cast a note of gloom,\" Morton said, gloomcasting. \"Choppers, infrared detectors, side-mounted machine guns, death from the sky...\"\n\n\"Point taken, Morton. Too dangerous. There must be another way.\"\n\nThe lecture had finished and once more hearty biking enthusiasts swept across the screen. All males with hairy knees: Morton grumbled in his throat. Then instantly cheered up as the girls' club appeared, waving and smiling at the camera.\n\n\"Wow!\" I shouted, jumping to my feet and running in small circles. \"Wow-wow!\"\n\n\"Down the hall, second door on the left.\"\n\n\"Shut up, Morton. This is inspiration, not constipation. You see genius at work. You see before you the only man who knows how to get us all safely from the city.\"\n\n\"How?\"\n\n\"That's how,\" I said, pointing at the screen. \"Stirner\u2014get busy on the phone and the backfence gossip circuit. I want this show on the road by midafternoon. It will take us at least that long to organize it.\"\n\n\"Organize what?\" Morton cried. \"I'm lost. What are you talking about?\"\n\n\"I think I know,\" Stirner said, being quicker on the uptake than Mort. \"You are going to leave the city on bicycles. But you will be stopped.\"\n\n\"No we won't\u2014because you got the answer only half right. We'll all be leaving as girls!\"\n\nOnce the idea had penetrated joy reigned for a bit\u2014then we got down to work. Since I was doing most of the planning and organizing I was the very last one to actually get involved in the nitty-gritty of personal survival. There was much coming and going. I was vaguely aware when Morton's bicycle arrived, but then got busy again with the men's cycle club. I ate a sandwich, drank another beer, and looked up blinking when Morton called to me.\n\n\"We've got to leave soon. The first guys are already in the square. Now don't laugh!\"\n\nI fought hard. The fluffy chintz dress wasn't really him. Nor had shaving his hairy legs made much of an improvement. But the foam-stuffed bra helped, as did the wig. From a distance, sure, but close up the effect was a little disconcerting.\n\n\"I think a touch of lipstick is needed.\"\n\n\"Yeah! Well let's see how great you look. Get changing!\"\n\nI did. The cute little pleated skirt was green so went nicely with my red hair. I looked into the mirror and sighed. \"Jim\u2014you never looked better.\"\n\nWe parted, thanking our hosts again for their hospitality. Hoping that we would meet again\u2014after the war. Stirner, as stout a biker as he was a hiker, would be our guide. He set off at a good clip and we girls had to push hard to keep up.\n\nMark Forer square was a scene of gay abandon. Or maybe that is not the right word. Better, perhaps, to say that everyone had been dragged there. As we pedaled up the first thing we saw was the Bellegarrique Girls' Cycle Club. Just like on television, but infinitely more attractive in the flesh. Flesh\u2014some very strange flesh. Because beyond the girls were other girls. Lantern of jaw, thick of thigh, scowling of mien. Our escaping draftees. Some of them hadn't been on a bike in years and were wobbling about the square, occasionally falling in a flurry of skirts and guttural oaths.\n\n\"Attention!\" I shouted, then again until there was a modicum of silence. \"First, knock off the cursing. These kind people are risking their lives to help you deserters, so be nice to them. Second\u2014if anyone falls off when we go past the roadblock we all have had it. Some three-wheelers are on the way, plus some bicycles built for two. Sort yourselves out and mount up. We are on schedule.\"\n\n\"Where are we going?\" one of them called out.\n\n\"You'll be told when you get there. Now timing is important. When I say go\u2014we go. And anyone left behind is in the cagal. And cursing is a privilege of rank,\" I added at their cries of protest. \"I'm in charge so I'll curse for all of us until we get clear. Mount up.\"\n\nI led the deserter-girls around the square two or three times until they closed up and got it together. Only then did I signal the real girls' club to go into action. They were beautiful. With a swoop they came down upon us, breaking into two ranks that swept by on both sides, closed up around us. The leader carried the flag and we followed her with passion. Down the road, smoothly and swiftly.\n\nTowards the roadblock at the junction ahead.\n\nThen around the corner, cutting in front of us girls, came the Veterans' Cycle Club. Every head gray, or if not gray as bald as a billiard ball. Knotty gnarled legs pumped, ancient tickers ticked. Ahead of us they swooped\u2014and on to the barriers that had been set up across the road. Some went around them, others dismounted and pulled them aside. The sergeants and officers shouted back, struggled feebly, but an opening appeared. Just as we did. And just wide enough to get through.\n\nSome of our outriding girls peeled off and helped the ancients make the opening wider. Some of them laughed and kissed the officers. Confusion reigned\u2014and through the confusion, and the opening in the barrier, I led my girls. Silent and sweating and pumping for all they were worth. Through the barrier and down the road and around the bend.\n\n\"Keep going!\" I shouted hoarsely. \"We're not out of the cagal yet. No one stops until we get to the woods. Go! Go! Last one there is a cagal-kopf!\"\n\nWe went. Pedaling and cursing and sweating and wobbling\u2014but we went. Down the road and into the forest, off into the lanes to skid and fall and crash and roll\u2014on the soft green grass.\n\n\"Can we not\u2014do that again!\" Morton gasped, lying on his back and moaning.\n\n\"I don't know, Mort, I thought it was kind of fun. You ought to get more exercise.\"\n\nHe sat up and looked where I was looking, and stopped moaning. The real girls' club had arrived, a symphony of lovely flesh and flowing movements, tossed hair, flashing eyes. And picnic baskets.\n\nWhen the first beer was held high a ragged cheer broke out. The army was only a bad memory; freedom was bliss. This was the first day of the rest of their new lives and if it stayed like this\u2014why paradise was here around us.\n\nI joined in the revelry but my heart wasn't really in it, my smile false. Through some native perversion, and inability to enjoy pure happiness, all I could think of was Zennor and what repulsive tricks he would be up to when he discovered that about half of his army had vanished for good.\nChapter 27\n\nThere were groans and cries of protest when I ordered my bevy of enchanting beauties to their feet.\n\n\"Knock it off!\" I commanded sternly. \"We're still on schedule and if you want to get out of this alive you will obey orders. When I say frog you will jump.\"\n\nI waited until the chorus of croaking and other froglike imitations had died down before I spoke again.\n\n\"We have about another half hour of riding to go. And before you groan remember that these sweet young girls, who have risked their lives to save us, must ride with us\u2014then circle all the way back to the city by another road. And lest we forget, let's hear it for the girls!\"\n\nThe chorus of yells, thanks, cheers\u2014and not a few kisses rolled out. I had to whistle for attention before it died down.\n\n\"Here is the drill. We are now going to go to a factory that has a railroad siding. A freight train from the north will be arriving when we do. We board and we're away. There will be no stops until we are far from the city. Now\u2014mount up! Forward\u2014Ho-o!\"\n\nThere was silence during the ride, because my gallant bikers were feeling the strain. There was some panic when a chopper came swooping up, but I ordered male heads down\u2014girls to wave and smile. It worked fine and there were no more alarms after this. As we rounded the last bend to approach the kakalaka factory we heard the wail of the train's horn. The line of freight cars was just clattering into the siding when we appeared.\n\n\"Open the doors!\" I ordered. \"Get in before another chopper shows up. Take your bikes\u2014they'll be debited from your future accounts\u2014wave bye-bye and blow kisses because we are off in one minute.\"\n\nI turned to thank Neebe, the gorgeous, brown-limbed redhead who was president of the cycling club, but she was just passing on the club flag to her second-in-command. Then she wheeled her bike toward me, smiling a smile that melted my bike handles.\n\n\"May I be very forward, offworlder James diGriz, and force my presence upon you? You have but to say no and I will go.\"\n\n\"Glug...!\"\n\n\"I assume that means yes.\" She entered the freight car, propped her bicycle against mine, and sat down daintily upon a bale of hay. \"You are very kind. Up until today I have been attending school here in Bellegarrique but now, like everyone else, I am leaving. My home is on a farm in the north in a hamlet named Ling. I have talked with my father and mother, brothers and sisters, and grandmother, and they would all be honored if you would stay with us for as long as you wished.\"\n\nI knew that Morton had been listening because his face went completely green and he began to pout.\n\n\"I would be honored, honored. What a wonderful idea!\"\n\nShe smiled, then her expression changed to one of shock when she saw Morton's face.\n\n\"Is your friend ill?\"\n\n\"No.\" I sighed with generosity. \"It is just that he has no place to go and is hoping that you will invite him too.\"\n\n\"Of course!\"\n\nThe green tint vanished instantly and he smiled sheepishly. \"I accept with gratitude. But just for a short time. Until I can get in touch with a friend of mine named Sharla.\"\n\n\"Oh, you do remember her,\" I said sweetly, and he glared at me as soon as Neebe had turned away.\n\nOnce we began to relax it was a pleasant journey. The roadbed was flat, the train swift. After an hour we knew that we were well clear of the city and all the enemy lurking there. The hay bales were broken open, the tired ex-girls, using their padded bras for pillows, slept. It was nearly dark when we made the first stop. Hampers of food and drink were loaded aboard and we were away within the minute. We ate, drank, and fell asleep once again. I awoke to the gentle touch of a soft hand on my shoulder.\n\n\"We are here,\" Neebe said. \"I must awaken your friend.\"\n\nLights were moving by outside the open door as the train squealed to a stop. We climbed down and our bikes were handed after us. Followed by glad cries and shouts of farewell we mounted and followed Neebe down the highway, out of town, and to the family farm. The road was smooth and easy to see. A magnificent nebula half-filled the sky and bathed us in a cool white light.\n\n\"Even if I could go back to Nevenkebla I never would,\" Morton panted.\n\n\"You have family there.\"\n\n\"I'll miss them\u2014but I won't miss the draft, the army, the military, the intolerance...\"\n\nHe gasped for air and I nodded agreement. \"Understood. This planet has a lot going for it. Though I still don't understand all the permutations of IM it seems to be working. But all is not peace and light yet. Let us not forget Zennor.\"\n\nMorton groaned. \"I would love to.\"\n\nNext morning it looked as though the entire family was standing around and beaming down upon us. While the ladies of the house fought to see how many eggs, wiffles and other gustatory goodies they could force upon us. We fought honorably to do our best. Groaning we finally pushed away from the table while the audience went off to work on the farm.\n\n\"That was very good,\" Morton said.\n\n\"That was very wonderful,\" I amplified.\n\n\"Both meals already deducted from your account,\" Neebe smiled, handing me back my wirrdisc. \"I added an order to transfer payment to Morton's account when it is opened.\"\n\n\"I love IM hospitality,\" I said. \"It is personal without being financial. I want to learn more about your world.\"\n\n\"I will be happy to tell you anything you want to know,\" she said with that same endearing smile. What were these warm sensations that coursed through my body? I forgot them instantly as her smile faded. \"But we will have to talk about it later. Right now I think you should see the TV. We recorded a broadcast made earlier this morning.\"\n\nIt had to be Zennor\u2014and it had to be bad news. I watched grimly as the screen lit up and a blast of martial music assaulted my ears. Troops marched, tanks rumbled by, guns fired. A recording undoubtedly; I recognized Mortstertoro Base in the background. I suppose the sight of all this might was supposed to strike terror into the hearts of the viewers. I knew them well enough now to understand that they would just be puzzled at the waste of all this material and manpower for no observable reasonable purpose. I turned down the sound until the last tank had ground by, the last jet roared its last roar. The screen cleared and the familiar and loathsome features appeared.\n\n\"We are mighty, we are invincible\u2014and we will prevail!\" Zennor was coldly angry now. \"I have been kind to your people. I have even been generous to my own misled soldiers. No more. I have shown you kindness because I am a kind man. Now I will teach you fear because my rule will not be mocked. You have aided and abetted deserters from our army\u2014who are now under instant penalty of death. You must be aiding them because not one\u2014not one of them took advantage of my kind offer of amnesty. Nor have any of them been found in this city. They could not have escaped without aid. Therefore the people of Bellegarrique are guilty of treason, of aiding traitors and deserters, and they will pay for their crimes. I speak to you now, you inhabitants of the rest of this country. The citizens of Bellegarrique know of their guilt for they are attempting to flee my wrath. This city is almost deserted now as they crawl away like the cowardly vermin that they are. But not all of them have escaped. I have seized and imprisoned hundreds of these traitors. I did this once before and my requests were granted. I was kind and generous and released the prisoners. I will not be as kind this time\u2014or as easy to please. Here are my demands\u2014and they will be met.\n\n\"First, I want every escaped deserter returned to this city. I will not inflict the death penalty but will enlist them instead in penal, hard-labor battalions. I said that I was a merciful man.\n\n\"Second, I demand that all of the services of this city be restored, electricity and public utilities, and the food markets must be reopened. This will be done. I want to see people returning today, I want the normal life of this city to be as it was when we arrived, I want the deserters turned over to the military police. You will do this, and begin doing it now.\"\n\nHe paused dramatically, then pointed his finger directly at the camera.\n\n\"You will do it because in one day from now I will shoot ten of the prisoners. I will shoot these first ten no matter what you do, as an object lesson that I mean what I say. I will shoot ten of them the next day and ten again the day after that if my orders are not obeyed. If my orders are obeyed the shooting will stop. But it will begin again whenever I feel that my desires are being thwarted.\"\n\nThat was it. That was all. And it certainly was enough. The screen went blank and I found myself staring at Morton with nothing at all to say.\n\n\"There are rare cases of insanity like that here,\" Neebe said. \"Gene changes not caught in prenatal examination. He is insane, isn't he? These things that he says he will do\u2014they are impossible. He won't really have innocent people killed?\"\n\nI was too ashamed of the human race to look at her, to answer her questions. Morton did; he was angry.\n\n\"Yes, he will, that is the worst part. I grew up with his kind of people in charge of my life. Believe me, he will do it.\"\n\n\"Then what can we do to stop him?\"\n\n\"That is an almost unanswerable question,\" I said. \"You can't force the deserters to undesert. Knowing IM you wouldn't even think of asking them. And I don't know what they will do voluntarily. If you had a government they could deal with Zennor, come up with some workable compromise perhaps. But he still hasn't realized that there is no central government to meet with. The future does not bear thinking about.\"\n\n\"But we have to think about it,\" Morton said, with a cold grimness I had never seen before. \"Zennor must be killed. There is no other way.\"\n\n\"No!\" Neebe said. \"That is a hideous suggestion. This problem is so strange, so awful, that it would take the wisdom of Mark Forer itself to solve it.\"\n\n\"Maybe, maybe,\" I muttered. \"But I feel that what is happening here is well beyond even the mighty capacities of that long-gone brain to solve.\"\n\n\"Nothing was ever beyond Mark Forer,\" she said with calm and unshakable belief. It angered me. It was like calling in the deity of your choice as you fell off the cliff, begging for aid. Praying for a heavenly hand that would never, never swoop down from the sky to save you.\n\n\"That is just an opinion, your opinion. And to me it sounds more like blind faith than intelligent thought. We have to work this out ourselves because Mark Forer is long gone, rusted away. It can't help us now.\"\n\n\"Mark Forer could help us,\" she said with calm unreason. \"But of course we could never ask. That is a basic tenet of IM. We must solve our problems for ourselves. Everything we need to know is in the writings that it gave us.\"\n\n\"You are just jollying yourself along. You could ask, but you won't. That is a way out. You can't ask because it is not around to ask.\"\n\n\"That is not true,\" she said sweetly, smiling warmly upon my ill humor. \"Mark Forer is in Bellegarrique, where it always has been.\"\n\nI have known stoppers in my day. But this was the whopper topper stopper. I stared speechlessly at Morton. If I looked like he did then my jaw was hanging open, my eyes were popping and I was gurgling like an idiot. Neebe smiled warmly upon us and waited impatiently until we got reglued and were able to speak again. I sputtered first.\n\n\"Mark Forer... gone... thousands of years ago...\"\n\n\"Why? Essentially an artificial intelligence must be immortal. I suppose bits and pieces get replaced as they wear out, but the intelligence will remain the same. Or grow. We have always been immensely pleased that Mark Forer saw fit to accompany us to this world. We sincerely hope that it watches and approves of the way we practice IM. But of course we would never consider asking it for aid.\"\n\n\"Well I would,\" I said, climbing to my feet. \"I certainly would ask for help without a moment's hesitation. Mark Four's social theories are about to get a lot of people shot dead. So that cold artificial intelligence had better have some answers how to arrange it so that they don't.\"\n\n\"But you will have to go back to Bellegarrique to dig Mark Four out,\" Morton said. I nodded grim agreement.\n\n\"I was hoping you wouldn't say that just yet. But, yes, Morton old friend. I've got to find where our great electronic leader lives and search it out. And there better be some ready answers.\"\nChapter 28\n\n\"Do you know where Mark Forer plugs in?\" I asked Neebe. She shook her head.\n\n\"Not physically. It is just known, understood, that Mark Forer came with us and aided in the design of the city of Bellegarrique. And never left it.\"\n\n\"Well someone has to know.\" I thought hard, then snapped my fingers. \"Our old friend, Stirner, he should have that vital bit of info. One of the top men in the world of electricity. And if he doesn't know he will surely know someone who does know. Do you have any idea of how I can contact him?\"\n\n\"The telephone is over there.\"\n\n\"Thanks, Neebe, but I don't have his number or the slightest idea where he is staying or anything.\"\n\n\"But no one has a number. And it doesn't matter where he is staying. Just call CD and ask for him.\"\n\n\"CD?\"\n\n\"Central Directory. Here, I'll get it for you.\"\n\nShe tapped the keypad and the screen lit up with NAME, PLEASE? in large letters. Very polite. Very efficient. I tip my hat to the man or machine that wrote this software. I answered four questions and the screen changed to RINGING. The letters faded and Stirner's grim face appeared on the screen. He smiled faintly when he saw me, but he had obviously been watching the broadcast too.\n\n\"Ahh, good offplanet friend Jim. I hope that you are well. Can I do you a service?\"\n\n\"You certainly can, good dynamo-supervising friend Stirner. I would like to have a chat with your demigod, Mark Forer.\"\n\n\"A strange choice of terms. I would not refer to it as a demi...\"\n\n\"Then forget the term. Do you know where Mark Forer is?\"\n\n\"Of course.\"\n\n\"Will you take me to it?\"\n\n\"Ahh, now that is a question that needs some thought. Mark Forer's individualism has always been respected, for all the obvious reasons. I do remember reading in the historical records that after this city was founded it did make suggestions and was occasionally consulted. But not lately, not in, hundreds of years at least. I would not go to it myself, but, yes, I feel that I can take you. I respect your individualism just as I respect Mark Forer's. We must each make our own way in this world.\"\n\n\"And I am going to make my way back into the city.\"\n\n\"You must be careful. It will not be easy. The trains have stopped running and citizens are being forcefully stopped from leaving. At last report no one was returning.\"\n\n\"I'll think of something. You are still in the city?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Stay near the phone. I'll get there today. I must talk to Mark before Zennor's deadly deadline runs out tomorrow morning.\"\n\nI hung up and looked blankly into space. I could see no answers hanging out there.\n\n\"Any advice, Morton?\"\n\n\"None that make any sense. Like being a returned deserter.\"\n\n\"Like you, that idea I considered and rejected. That would just get me back in jail and shot.\"\n\n\"May I make a suggestion?\" Neebe said.\n\n\"All aid greatly desired.\"\n\n\"I will take you to the city. You will go as my father. We have a wonderful theater group here in Ling and our makeup department is quite famous. You could be an old man, I could be your daughter and driver. It would be so exciting.\"\n\n\"You're wonderful!\" I jumped to my feet and, in a fit of mad enthusiasm seized her and kissed her. Then I sat down quickly again as the hormones started humming and driving all other thoughts from mind. She was an incredibly bright, lovely, intelligent, beautiful girl and I was just going to have to forget all about that. For the time being. \"We better get started.\"\n\n\"My brother will take you to the theater. I will phone them and arrange what must be done. Then I will make the transportation arrangements. You do not mind if I say that I find this fascinating and exciting as well. I must thank you for letting me help. It is so much more fun than school.\"\n\n\"The thanks are mine. What do you study in school?\"\n\n\"Vulcanology. I just love the magma and the scoria, then when you go down the fumerole...\"\n\n\"Yes. You must tell me of those burning pleasures. Later.\"\n\n\"Of course\u2014there is my brother now.\"\n\nI think that it was a special train that they laid on. Just two cars and no other passengers. Morton looked guilty\u2014but glad as well that he wasn't going back to Bellegarrique. I waved him a stiff goodbye with my cane and climbed shakily aboard. I was ancient and crochety and needed practice. Gray beard, rheumy red eyes, wrinkled like an old boot, they had really done a great job at the theater. A harness under my clothes had me bent over so far that I was staring down at my wrinkled and liver-spotted hands.\n\nThe track was straight, the train was fast and there were no stops until we reached our destination. A black vehicle was waiting on the platform when we arrived. The driver got out and held the door open for us.\n\n\"You've driven one of these?\" he asked.\n\nNeebe nodded. \"A two-hundred-volt Lasher-gnasher. Great fun to drive.\"\n\n\"Indeed they are. I've got her revved up to thirty-three thousand. More than enough energy for the trip.\" He pointed to the circular housing between the rear wheels. \"The flywheel is in here, electric generator on its shaft. Motor on the front wheels. Clean and nonpolluting.\"\n\n\"And very hard to turn over with that gyroscope down there,\" I said.\n\n\"You've got it. Good luck.\"\n\nNeebe spun the wheels and I was pushed back into the seat by a large number of G's. We hurtled along the empty road.\n\n\"I'll slow down before we reach the roadblock. Isn't this fun! I wonder what the top speed is?\"\n\n\"Don't... find out!\" I croaked as the landscape hurtled by in a blur. \"Though I am an old man and have led a full life I don't want to terminate it quite yet!\"\n\nShe laughed her gorgeous bell-like laugh and slowed to something close to the speed of sound. She obviously knew the road well, all those bicycle outings of course, for suddenly she hit the brakes, slowed to a crawl, then turned the corner just before the barrier across the road.\n\n\"What you doing blocking the road like that, you varmints?\" I croaked testily out of the window, then shook my cane at the fat captain who was leaning against it picking his teeth. Remnants of hotpup, I hoped.\n\n\"Knock off the cagal, Grandpop. Where do you think you're going?\"\n\n\"Are you as stupid as you look, stupid? Or haven't you heard your supreme commander's orders? City workers to return at once. I am an electrical engineer and if you want light in your latrines and refrigeration for your beer you will open that thing instantly or sooner.\"\n\n\"Don't get your cagal in an uproar, Grandpop,\" he sneered. But he stepped back and signaled two sergeants to open the barrier. Not a private in sight, I noticed. I hoped the officers enjoyed doing their own work for a change. I shook the cane one last shake as we drove past, then on down the road and around a bend and out of sight. Neebe pulled up at the first phone booth and I leaped arthritically down.\n\n\"Are you in the city?\" Stirner asked.\n\n\"Just arrived.\"\n\n\"Very good. Then we will meet at the entrance.\"\n\n\"Entrance? What, where?\"\n\n\"Mark Forer Square, of course. Where else would it be?\"\n\nGood question. I had imagined that only the statue was there. I hadn't realized that old Mark itself was in residence. I climbed back into the car and we were off with the usual screech of tires. I pulled off bits of the disguise as we went, starting with the harness. I left the beard on in case there were any patrols around\u2014and there were.\n\n\"Slow down,\" I cozened. \"Let's not be too suspicious.\"\n\nThe sergeant leading the patrol glared at us as we went by. I ignored him but was very impressed by his squad. As they turned the corner the last two slipped into the open door of a building and vanished from sight. So not only weren't the deserters returning\u2014but their ranks were steadily being added to. Great! If this kept up Zennor would soon have an army of only officers and noncoms. You don't win wars with that kind of setup. I saw that we were getting close to our destination so I pulled at the beard and wrinkles and was forty years younger by the time we turned into the square and slid to a stop. Stirner was standing before the statue, looking up at it admiringly.\n\n\"I wish I were coming with you,\" he said.\n\n\"I as well,\" Neebe agreed. \"It would be wonderfully exciting. But of course we have not been asked so we cannot intrude.\"\n\n\"How do I get in?\"\n\nStirner pointed to a bronze door at the rear of the stone base of the statue. \"Through there.\"\n\n\"Got the key?\" They both looked at me with surprise.\n\n\"Of course not. It's not locked.\"\n\n\"I should have known,\" I muttered. What a philosophy. Hundreds, thousands of years the door has been here, unlocked, and no one had ever gone through it. I put out my hand and they took it in turn and shook it solemnly. I could understand why. This was a little like saying so-long to the head of your local church as he started up the ladder to see God.\n\nThe handle was stiff, but turned when I twisted hard. I pulled and the door squeaked slowly open. Steps led down into the ground, a little dusty. Lights came on and I could see that one of the bulbs was burned out. I just hoped that Mark Forer wasn't burned out as well.\n\nI sneezed as my feet disturbed the dust of ages. And it was a long way down. The steps ended in a small chamber with illuminated wiring diagrams on the walls and a large, gold-plated door. Carved into it, and inset with diamonds, were the immortal words I AM. THEREFORE I THINK. Beneath this was a small sign with red letters that read PLEASE WIPE FEET BEFORE ENTERING. I did this, on the mat provided, took a deep breath and reached for the handle that appeared to have been carved from a single ruby.\n\nThe door swung open on oiled hinges and I went in. A large, well-lit room, dry and air conditioned. Dials and electronic devices covering one wall. And in the middle of the room...\n\nMark Forer, obviously. Just like in the paintings. Except that plenty of cables and wires ran from it to a nearby collection of apparatus. Its dials glowed with electronic life and a TV pickup swiveled in my direction. I walked over to stand before it and resisted the compelling desire to bow. And just what does one say to an intelligent machine? The silence lengthened and I began to feel ridiculous. I cleared my throat.\n\n\"Mark Forer, I presume?\"\n\n\"Of course. Were you expecting someone else... krrk!\"\n\nThe voice was grating and coarse and the words trailed off with a harsh grating sound. At the same time there was a puff of smoke from a panel on the front and a hatch dropped open. My temper snapped.\n\n\"Great! Really wonderful. For hundreds of years this electronic know-it-all sits here with the wisdom of the ages locked in its memory banks. Then the second I talk to it it explodes and expires. It is like the punch line of a bad joke\u2014\"\n\nThere was a rattle from behind and I leaped and turned, dropped into a defensive position. But it was only a little rubber-tired robot bristling with mechanical extensions. It wheeled up in front of Mark and stopped. A claw-tipped arm shot out, plunging into the open panel. It clicked and whirred and withdrew a circuit board which it threw onto the floor. While this was happening another circuit board was emerging from a slot on the robot's upper surface. The grasping claw seized this and delicately slid it into the opening before it. Mark's panel snapped shut as the robot spun about and trundled away.\n\n\"No,\" Mark Forer said in a deep and resonant voice, \"I did not explode and expire. My voice simulation board did. Shorted out. Been a number of centuries since I last used it. You are the offworlder, James diGriz.\"\n\n\"I am. For a machine in an underground vault you keep up with things pretty well, Mark.\"\n\n\"No problem, Jim\u2014since you appear to enjoy a first-name basis. Because all of my input is electronic it really doesn't matter where my central processor is.\"\n\n\"Right, hadn't thought of that.\" I stepped aside as a broom and brush bristling robot rushed up and swept the discarded circuit board into its bin. \"Well, Mark, if you know who I am, then you certainly know what is happening topside.\"\n\n\"I certainly do. Haven't seen so much excitement in the last thousand years.\"\n\n\"Oh, are you enjoying it?\" I was beginning to get angry at this cold and enigmatic electronic intelligence. I was a little shocked when it chuckled with appreciative laughter.\n\n\"Temper, temper, Jim. I've cut back in the voice feedback emotion circuits for you. I stopped using them centuries ago when I found that the true believers preferred an ex cathedra voice. Or are you more partial to women?\" It added in a warm contralto.\n\n\"Stay male, if you please; it seems more natural somehow. Though why I should associate sex with a machine I have no idea. Does it make a difference to you?\"\n\n\"Not in the slightest. You may refer to me as he, she or it. Sex is of no importance to me.\"\n\n\"Well it is to us humans\u2014and I'll bet you miss it!\"\n\n\"Nonsense. You can't miss what you never had. Do you wake up at night yearning helplessly for photoreceptors in your fingertips?\"\n\nIt was a well-made point: old Mark here was no dummy. But fascinating as the chitchat was, it was just about time I got to the point of this visit.\n\n\"Mark\u2014I have come here for a very important reason.\"\n\n\"Undoubtedly.\"\n\n\"You've heard the broadcasts, you know what is happening up there. That murdering moron Zennor is going to kill ten of your faithful followers in the morning. What do you intend to do about it?\"\n\n\"Nothing.\"\n\n\"Nothing!\" I lost my temper and kicked the front of the burnished panel. \"You invented Individual Mutualism and foisted it upon the galaxy. You taught the faithful and brought them here\u2014and now you are going to stand by and watch them die?\"\n\n\"Knock off the cagal, Jim,\" it said warmly. \"Try sticking to the truth. I published a political philosophy. People read it, got enthusiastic, applied it and liked it. They brought me here, not the other way around. I have emotions, just as you do, but I don't let them interfere with logic and truth. So cool it, kid, and let's get back to square one.\"\n\nI moved aside as the broom-robot rushed up again, extended a little damp mop and polished off the scuff mark on Mark's housing that I had made with my shoe. I took a deep breath and calmed down because really, losing my temper would accomplish nothing at all.\n\n\"Right you are, Mark, square one. People are going to be killed up there. Are you going to do anything about it?\"\n\n\"There is not much I can do physically. And everything political or philosophical is in my book. The citizens up there know as much about IM as I do.\"\n\n\"So you are just going to sit there and listen to the sizzle of your electrons and let them die.\"\n\n\"People have died before for their beliefs.\"\n\n\"Wonderful. Well I believe in living for mine. And I am going to do something\u2014even if you do not.\"\n\n\"What do you intend to do?\"\n\n\"I don't know yet. Do you have advice for me?\"\n\n\"About what?\"\n\n\"About saving lives, that's what. About ending the invasion and polishing off Zennor...\"\n\nAnd then I had it. I didn't need to swap political arguments with Mark\u2014I just had to use its intelligence. If it had memory banks thousands of years old it certainly had the knowledge I needed. And I still had the electronic spybird!\n\n\"Well, Mark, old machine, you could help me. Just a bit of information.\"\n\n\"Certainly.\"\n\n\"Do you know the spatial coordinates of this system and this planet?\"\n\n\"Of course.\"\n\n\"Then you give me a little printout of them, soonest! So I can send an FTL message to the League Navy for help.\"\n\n\"I don't see why I should do that.\"\n\nI lost my temper. \"You don't see...! Listen you moronic machine, I'm just asking for a bit of information that will save lives\u2014and you don't see...\"\n\n\"Jim, my new offworlder friend. Do not lose your temper so quickly. Bad for the blood pressure. Let me finish my statement, if I might. I was going to add that this information would be redundant. You sent an FTL message yourself, just after you retrieved the corvine-disguised transmitter.\"\nChapter 29\n\n\"I sent a FTL message?\" I said, my thoughts stumbling about in small circles.\n\n\"You did.\"\n\n\"But\u2014but\u2014but\u2014\" I stopped and seized myself by the mental neck and gave it a good shaking. Logic, Jim, time for logic. \"The recorded message from Captain Varod said that I would need the coordinates to send a FTL message.\"\n\n\"That was obviously a lie.\"\n\n\"Then the thing about its being a radio message was a lie too?\"\n\n\"Of course.\"\n\nI paced back and forth and the TV pickup followed me as I moved. What was going on? Why had Varod lied to me about the signal? And if he had received it where was he? If he had got the signal and hadn't sent his fleet or whatever, then he was the one who must take the responsibility for the murders. The League did not go in for that sort of thing. But Mark might know what was happening. I spun about.\n\n\"Speak, ancient brain-in-box! Has the League Navy arrived or is it on the way?\"\n\n\"I'm sorry, Jim, I just don't know. The last orbiting telescope ran out of power centuries ago. I know no more than you do about this. All I can surmise is that we are very distant from these rescuers you expect.\"\n\nI stopped pacing and was suddenly very tired. It was going to be another of these days. I looked around the room. \"You don't have an old box or something that I can sit on?\"\n\n\"Oh dear, I do apologize. I'm not being a very good host, am I? Out of training.\"\n\nWhile he was talking a powered sofa came trundling in and stopped behind me. I dropped into it. It was hard to think of Mark as an it, not with the voice and all.\n\n\"Many thanks, very soft.\" I smacked my lips and it got the hint.\n\n\"Please make yourself comfortable. Something to drink perhaps?\"\n\n\"I wouldn't say no. Just to stimulate thinking, you realize.\"\n\n\"I'm not too well stocked at the present moment. There is some wine, but it must be four hundred years old at least. Vintage with a vengeance, you might say.\"\n\n\"We can only try!\"\n\nThe table stopped at my elbow and I blew dust from the bottle, then activated the electronic corkscrew, which managed to extract the truly ancient cork without breaking it. I poured and sniffed and gasped.\n\n\"Never\u2014never smelled anything like that before!\"\n\nAnd it tasted even better. All the sniffing and tasting did clear the mental air a bit. I felt better able to handle the problems of the day.\n\n\"I don't know the time,\" I said.\n\n\"Over sixteen hours to go before the promised executions.\" Mark was anything but stupid. I sipped the wine and ran over the possibilities.\n\n\"I sent the message\u2014so the Navy has to be on its way here. But we can't count upon their arrival to save the day. The only grace note to all this is that at least I know I won't be stranded on this planet forever. Now what can I do to save lives? Since obviously neither you nor your IMers are going to lift a finger.\"\n\n\"I wouldn't say that, Jim. There are a number of conferences going on right now in the city. People are returning in large numbers.\"\n\n\"Are they knuckling under? Going back to work?\"\n\n\"Not at all. A protest is being organized, as to what shape it will take\u2014that is still being discussed.\"\n\n\"How do you know all this? Spies?\"\n\n\"Not quite. I simply tap all the communication circuits and monitor all phone calls. I have subunits looking for keywords and making records for me.\"\n\n\"Are you tapping the Nevenkebla circuits as well?\"\n\n\"Yes. Very interesting.\"\n\n\"You speak the language?\"\n\n\"I speak every language. Fourteen thousand six hundred and twelve of them.\"\n\n\"Jamen, e'n ting er i hvert fald sikker. Du taller ikke dansk.\"\n\n\"Og hvorfor sagde ikke det? Dansk er da et smukt, melodisk sprog.\"\n\nPretty good\u2014I thought that I was the only one who had ever heard of Danish. But there was one that I was sure Mark had never heard of. An ancient language called Latin. Spoken only by a secret society so secret I dare not say more about it.\n\n\"Nonne cognoscis linguam Latinam?\"\n\n\"Loquarne linguam Latinam?\" Mark answered in a decidedly snotty manner. \"Quid referam in singulorum verborum delectu, in coniunctorum compositione, et structura, in casuum atque temporum discriminatione, in certarum concinnitate formularum, in incisorum membrorumque conformatione, in modulandis circumdictionibus, in elegantiarum cuiusque generis accurata, elaborataque frequentatione quantus tum sim et quam purus putus Ciceronianus? Ex qua Cicero mortuus est, meis verbis nihil latinius. Memoria vero libros omnium auctorum latinorum tam veterum quam recentiorum et neotericorum continet. Voces peregrinae et barbarae quae latinis eloquiis inseruntur, omino mihi notae sunt. Nae tu es baro et balatro, nam ego studeo partes difficiles cognoscere quas scholastici doctores gestant, latebras singulas auxilio mei ipsius cerno. Doctissimi enimvero homines omnino universitatum modernarum me rogant sensus omnium talium verborum.\"\n\nI could only gape at this as it hummed in electronic joy, very proud of itself. \"Did you catch all those nuances, Jim? About what a pure Ciceronian I am? Each word carefully chosen, the composition of sentence structure, the contrast of cases and tenses, phrases and clauses...\"\n\nHe, or rather it, went on for quite a while like that. Bragging. Chatting away with Mark I tended to anthropomorphize him. It. Her. Whatever. This wasn't a human but an intelligent machine with abilities far beyond anything I had ever imagined before. But how could I put them to work?\n\n\"Mark, tell me. Will you help me?\"\n\n\"In any way I can.\"\n\nI sipped more wine and felt its healing and inspirational powers doing good things to me. Memory. Something that had happened earlier today.\n\n\"Mark\u2014I saw two soldiers desert today. Are there other newly arrived deserters in the city?\"\n\n\"A goodly number of them. One hundred and twenty-one in all, wait... sorry, one twenty-two. Another just arrived.\"\n\n\"Any of them armed?\"\n\n\"You mean equipped with weapons? All of them. They have all deserted from patrols in the city.\"\n\nBut would they use their guns? And if so, what could I do with them? An idea was taking shape. Meet fire with fire. And they just might do it. There was only one way to find out. I poured another bit of wine and turned to my electronic host.\n\n\"I would like to have all of the deserters meet me in some central place. With their weapons. Can you arrange that?\"\n\nHe was silent for long seconds. Looking for a way to back out of his offer? But I had underestimated him.\n\n\"All done,\" he said. \"The people who are hiding them will escort them after dark to the sports center. Which is very close to the site selected for the murders.\"\n\n\"You are one step ahead of me.\"\n\n\"I should hope so. Since I am incredibly more intelligent than you are. Now, since there are some hours to go before your meeting, would you repay the favor and have a good chat with me? I have been rather out of touch with galactic matters for a thousand years or more. How are things going?\"\n\nIt was a strange afternoon and early evening. His memory, as it should be, was quite formidable and I learned a number of interesting things. But there was one fact which he could not tell me since he had been born? built? wired? well after the spread of mankind through the galaxy.\n\n\"Like you, Jim, all I know are myths and ancient memories. If there was an original planetary home of mankind, called Dirt or Earth or something like that, its location is nowhere in my memory banks.\"\n\n\"Well, just thought that I would ask. But I think I better be going. Nice to talk to you.\"\n\n\"The same. Drop in any time.\"\n\n\"I'll take you up on that. Would you mind turning off the lights when I get to the top of the stairs?\"\n\n\"Not a problem. This place is pretty well automated as you might imagine.\"\n\n\"No problem with the electricity supply?\"\n\n\"You bet your sweet chunk there isn't. Survival was the first emotion I learned. City power supply, standby generators, battery backup, a couple of fuel cells and a fusion generator that can be fired up in ten minutes. Don't worry about me.\"\n\n\"I won't. So long.\"\n\nI climbed the long flight of stairs and when I touched the door all the lights were extinguished. I pushed it open and peeked out: no patrols that I could see. When I threw it wide and exited there were Neebe and Stirner sitting on the bench, waiting for me.\n\n\"Aren't you worried about the enemy finding you here after curfew?\"\n\n\"Not a problem,\" Stirner said. \"So many men have deserted that all patrols appear to have been canceled. All of the military are either on the base or in the municipal building. Now\u2014please tell us. You have spoken with Mark Forer?\" They both leaned forward in tense anticipation.\n\n\"Spoken with him and enjoyed his hospitality. And he's got a couple of cases of wine left that you wouldn't believe.\"\n\n\"I would believe anything about Mark Forer,\" Stirner said and Neebe nodded agreement. \"But I am sorry that he did not give you a solution to the problem of the killings.\"\n\nI blinked rapidly. \"How do you know that? I didn't say anything about it.\"\n\n\"You did not have to. Mark Forer knows that it is a problem we must deal with ourselves. And so we shall. A decision has been reached. All in the city will assemble in the killing place tomorrow, an individual decision by each one. We will stand in front of the guns.\"\n\n\"A noble gesture\u2014but it won't work. They will just shoot you down.\"\n\n\"Then others will take our places. There is no end to nonresistance. They will keep shooting until they run out of charges for their weapons or take despair at the murders. I am sure that they are not all moral villains like their leader.\"\n\n\"I wouldn't count on it. But there may be an alternative. With Mark's help, we are on a first-name basis you will be happy to hear, I have arranged a meeting of all the deserters in the city. If you will kindly lead me to the sports center we will see if my plan might perhaps be a better and more practical one.\"\n\nIt was a pleasant stroll, the streets of the city empty of fear for the first time since the invaders had landed. We met other groups going in the same direction, each of them accompanying one or two armed deserters. Laughter and smiles, they were cheerful now that they were away from the army\u2014but would they go along with any plan that might jeopardize that newfound freedom? There was only one way to find out.\n\nThe sports center had an indoor stadium with a wrestling ring that held us all. The escaped soldiers sat in the lower rows while interested civilian spectators were ranked above and behind them. I climbed into the ring and waited until they were all seated, then grabbed the microphone. The audience rustled into silence.\n\n\"Fellow ex-draftees, newly arrived deserters, I welcome you. Most of you don't know me...\"\n\n\"Everyone knows you, Jim!\" a voice called out. \"You're the guy almost throttled the general.\"\n\n\"Better luck next time!\"\n\nI smiled and waited until the cheers and shouts had died down.\n\n\"Thanks guys, it is nice to be appreciated. Now I have to ask you to help. Our dear general, cagal-kopf Zennor, plans to shoot down some unarmed civilians tomorrow. These are the people who have helped you and your buddies escape, who have extended friendship to us all\u2014and a happy home here if we want it. Now we have to help them. And I am going to tell you how.\n\n\"We are going to take these guns that we have been trained to use and aim them at Zennor and his mob and threaten to waste them if they pull any triggers. It will be a standoff\u2014and we might not get away with it. But it is something that we have to do.\"\n\nI felt a little ashamed of adding the macho emotional argument, but I had no choice. It wasn't the world's greatest idea and it had more holes in it than a carload of doughnuts. But it was the only plan in town.\n\nThey argued and shouted a lot but in the end a majority voted for it. The minority could see no way to leave with dignity\u2014I said the macho appeal\u2014so reluctantly went along with the plan. The locals led us by back routes into the buildings facing the square and we lay on our guns and slept. I was sure that a number would disappear during the night. I only hoped that enough would be left in the morning to give me a little firepower backup.\n\nAt the first light of dawn I was aware of figures moving about in the square outside. I shoved a teddy bear aside a bit so I could see through the curtains of the toy store where I was hiding. The troops were beginning to arrive. And the prisoners, ten of them, handcuffed and bound, being unloaded from a truck. As it grew lighter I saw that every soldier was an officer or a noncom. Of course\u2014Zennor couldn't trust privates to do his dirty work! They were probably all locked up and under guard back on the base.\n\nZennor himself stalked from the municipal building and stood in the middle of the square. Just as I heard the rumble of wheels and powerful motors the heavy gun units rolled up. I hadn't counted on this.\n\nI hadn't counted either on Zennor drawing his pistol and shooting out the toy store window.\n\n\"Come out of there, diGriz\u2014it's all up!\" he shouted, and blew away a teddy bear.\n\nDid I have a choice? I opened the door and stepped out in the street. Looked at all the guns aimed at the windows where my rebellious soldiers were hidden. Looked at the wicked smile of triumph on Zennor's face.\n\n\"I'm a general, remember? Did you really think that your ridiculous maneuver would succeed? My agent has reported to me every detail of your stupid plans. Would you like to meet him?\"\n\nOne of the deserters emerged from a doorway at Zennor's signal and walked toward us. He wore tinted glasses and a large moustache; I had seen him at a distance before. Now I was seeing him up close as he pulled off the moustache and threw away the glasses.\n\n\"Corporal Gow,\" I sighed.\n\n\"Broken to private now! Because I let you escape. They would have shot me too if I hadn't been rich enough to pay the bribes. But my downfall is now your downfall. Those other privates, verminous swine, they knew I had been a corporal, wouldn't talk to me. But I could tell something was wrong. When they deserted I instantly reported to the general. At his direction I walked through the city\u2014and was encouraged to desert by the treacherous natives. I did, and General Zennor received complete reports.\"\n\n\"You're a rat!\"\n\n\"No insults, spy. My rank has been restored by the good general. And you are in the cagal.\"\n\n\"You are indeed,\" Zennor agreed. And aimed his gun between my eyes. \"You've failed and failed badly. Let that be your last thought as you die.\n\n\"This is the end of you!\"\nChapter 30\n\nWell, yes. This was just about the lowest low moment I had ever experienced. In a life that had been, unhappily, quite filled with low moments. I mean, really. Here was this murderous general leering away at me and fondling the hair trigger of his pistol. Behind him were his potbellied troops looking down the barrels of their cannon. While on all sides my disarmed army was being kicked out of hiding and forced at gunpoint into the square. There can't be many moments lower than this.\n\n\"You are not going to get away with this, Zennor,\" I said. Which was pretty feeble but about all I could think of at the moment.\n\n\"Oh yes I am, little man.\" He raised the gun and pointed it between my eyes and caressed the trigger. Then lowered it. \"But I don't want it to be too easy for you. Before I blow you away, you are going to watch me shoot every one of these treacherous deserters. They had the affrontery to attempt to raise their weapons in rebellion against me. They will die for this mistake. Then I am going to shoot the ten prisoners, just as I promised. Then, and only then, will I kill you.\"\n\n\"Not if I kill you first,\" I growled and felt my lips curl back from my teeth. I had nothing to lose. I raised my hands and stalked toward him. And he ran!\n\nNot far. Just to the nearest prisoner, a grandmotherly woman with gray hair. He pulled her away from the others and thrust the muzzle of his gun against her head.\n\n\"Go ahead, diGriz. Take one more step toward me and I pull the trigger. Do you doubt me?\"\n\nDoubt him? Never. I did not take the step. The world was coming to an end and there was nothing I could do about it. They had the guns; we had nothing.\n\nIt was then, at the darkest moment, through the blackness of my thoughts I became aware of the shuffling of many feet. I turned to look just as Zennor did.\n\nAround the corner came a solid mass of people, filling the street from side to side, an endless number of them. Leading the front rank was Stirner\u2014and Neebe!\n\n\"No, don't, go back!\" I shouted. Neebe smiled sweetly at me. And kept walking at Stirner's side. Zennor had his gun aimed at Stirner now\u2014who appeared completely indifferent to it. Stirner stopped and called out loudly.\n\n\"All of you men with weapons\u2014put them down. We will not hurt you for that is not our way...\"\n\n\"One more word and I will kill you!\" Zennor roared. Stirner turned to him, his face cold as death.\n\n\"I believe you will,\" he said. \"Until this moment I really did not believe it possible that a human being could kill another. After seeing you I believe it.\"\n\n\"Good, then you will...\"\n\n\"Be quiet. I will do just what I came here to do. I will take your weapon. If you kill me, someone else will take your weapon from you. If he fails another will try. Eventually it will be empty, discharged and will be taken from you. You cannot win. Those who follow you cannot win. It is all over.\"\n\n\"It is not!\" Zennor shouted. There was spittle on his lips now, a look of insanity in his eyes. He pushed the woman captive away and ground his gun into Stirner's body. \"No one has the guts to do that. When I blow your blood all over them they will turn and run. My men will fire a volley and the survivors will flee in panic. That is what I will do and you cannot stop me...\"\n\nI dived for him hands outstretched. He pushed Stirner against me and lashed the pistol barrel across my head, aimed it at me, tightened his finger on the trigger.\n\n\"Are you volunteering, diGriz? Good. Than you shall be first.\"\n\nA shadow drifted across the square and an amplified voice boomed against our eardrums.\n\n\"The war is over. Lower your weapons.\"\n\nFilling the sky was the biggest spacer I had ever seen, bristling with guns\u2014and all pointed down at Zennor's troops.\n\nThe Navy had arrived!\n\nBut a little too late.\n\n\"Never!\" Zennor cried. \"Gunners, fire! Kill the captives! Shoot down that ship!\"\n\nNor was I forgotten. He ground the pistol barrel into my temple and pulled the trigger.\n\nThe gun did not fire.\n\nI saw his knuckle whiten with the strain\u2014but the trigger would not move. His face went ashen as he realized what was happening. I lashed out and knocked the pistol aside.\n\nThen, from way down on the ground, I brought up a punch that I think I had been saving for all of my life. Up, faster and faster it went, until my fist caught him full on the jaw. Lifted him into the air, dropped him unconscious to the ground. I rubbed my sore knuckles and realized that I was grinning like a fool.\n\n\"Your weapons will not work!\" the voice from the sky boomed once again, and even through the echoes and distortion I recognized Captain Varod. \"This ship is projecting an entropy field that does not permit metal to move against metal or electrons to flow. It does not affect life forms. Therefore if you good citizens of Chojecki would be so kind as to disarm these invaders I would be immensely grateful.\"\n\nThere was the quick thudding of running feet as a number of deserters got there first. The sight of officerial black eyes and bloody noncommissioned noses was a pleasant one. A hatch opened in the ship above and a familiar uniformed figure dropped down on the end of a line. I felt a hand on my arm and turned to look into Neebe's gorgeous, smiling face.\n\n\"Then it is all over, Jim?\"\n\n\"It is\u2014and it has a happy ending as well.\"\n\n\"What will happen now?\"\n\n\"The invaders will go and will never come back. Your planet will be your own again. Peace will prevail here forever.\"\n\n\"Will you be leaving too?\"\n\nMy heart gave a couple of rapid hammer beats and I squeezed her arm and prepared to drown in those eyes. Then I surfaced and shook myself off.\n\n\"I don't know... not true. I do know. As great as the attractions are here,\" I squeezed the hand of the greatest attraction, \"in the long run I would not be happy. Nor would those about me. Your planet, if you will excuse me saying so, is a little too quiet for me. Paradise is fun for awhile, but I would not like to make a habit out of it. There are a lot more worlds out there that I haven't seen yet. The galaxy is a very big place. It hurts to say it, but I must move on.\"\n\n\"Stay on this world, Jim,\" Varod advised as he walked up behind me. \"Because if you leave here you will find out that justice and a jail term await you on a certain planet.\"\n\n\"That's what you say, Varod, that's what you say!\" I spun about and shook a very angry finger in his face. \"You lied to me, tricked me into coming here\u2014then ignored my FTL message and left me here to rot, almost got me and about half of the planet killed...\"\n\n\"Never! We were in orbit all of the time, watching everything. As soon as we arrived we had Zennor bugged completely with undetectable bugs. We were here two days after you sent the FTL message. Well done.\"\n\n\"Two days? Bugs? That's impossible. Mark Forer would have known about them.\"\n\n\"It did. We have been in constant consultation with that great intelligence. It has been of great help.\"\n\n\"Are you telling me that Mark Forer lied to me\u2014just like you?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\nI opened and shut my mouth and ran it all through again. \"Why... I mean why hang around and run the risk of things getting out of hand when you could have landed at once?\"\n\n\"We had to wait until after the elections,\" he said with infuriating amiability. \"We had done everything we could to get Zennor off of his home planet as quickly as possible. Planted all those radio-broadcasting bugs so he would know that he was being watched. We worked on his paranoia, in the hopes that he would stay out of contact with his home base until it was too late. You were very good at causing trouble for him here. I must congratulate you on that. It gave him no time at all to even consider contacting his base. That was very important to us. Once Zennor left on his interplanetary adventure\u2014as we hoped he would\u2014it was possible to stage a little coup d'etat in Nevenkebla. The civilians were more than weary of the endless state of emergency. A palace revolution quickly got rid of the military. A civil government has been elected and peace will prevail from now on. This disarmed army will return and be absorbed in the populace.\"\n\n\"You played me for a patsy,\" I said, with some warmth.\n\n\"I don't know the term, but I assume that it means we took unfair advantage of you and let you do our dirty work for us.\"\n\n\"That will do until a better description comes along. Well\u2014didn't you?\"\n\n\"Not at all. You became involved in this matter for your own reasons. If we had not watched you and come to your aid you would be dead right now.\"\n\nVery hard to argue with that. And I had come here of my own accord. I looked down at the prostrate form and resisted the strong desire to kick in a couple of ribs.\n\n\"What about Zennor here?\"\n\n\"Zennor is a sickie and will get the proper treatment in a hospital that specializes in people with problems like his. As of this moment he no longer exists.\"\n\n\"And what about me?\"\n\n\"You would be wise to stay right where you are now. Escaped prisoner, conviction still pending\u2014\"\n\n\"Don't shoot me that line of old cagal,\" I sneered. \"I am an undercover operative of the League Navy and will be treated as such. I was responsible for your locating this planet and have suffered in the name of League justice. I have even made financial arrangements on your behalf...\"\n\n\"Yes, the soldier you promised the credits to, for aiding you. The voice-actuated recorder in the spybird caught your conversation with him. Aspya will be paid.\"\n\n\"Then so will I. Full salary for all the time I have been working for you. Right?\"\n\nHe rubbed his jaw and scowled. \"I suppose that you will be asking for a full pardon for crimes committed on Bit O' Heaven?\"\n\n\"No. I just want that incident wiped completely from my record so I can walk forth a free man. With my back pay in my pocket.\"\n\n\"I agree. As long as you remain in the Navy employ. Although a bit impetuous, you make a good field agent...\"\n\n\"Never!\" I shouted, shying back and neighing like a horse. \"Never! Work for the law? Pay taxes and look forward to a miserable pension in my old age? Death before dishonor! Pay up and wave bye-bye, captain. I have my own career priorities.\"\n\n\"Like following a life of crime?\"\n\n\"That is different. In all truth I can promise you\u2014never again!\" I placed one hand over my heart and raised the other palm outward. \"I have learned my lesson. I hereby forswear any interest in a life of crime and pledge my word to be a productive member of society forever after.\"\n\n\"Good, my boy, good. I'll take care of the money for you then. The likes of you don't belong in crime.\"\n\n\"No sir, they don't!\" I said.\n\nLying again, lying and smiling and lying through my teeth. After all\u2014I had some good examples to follow. When a full captain in the League Navy lies to you, when the greatest artificial intelligence in the known galaxy lies to you\u2014should a simple ex-porcuswine swineherd be forced to tell the truth?\n\nMy throat was dry and I suddenly felt a great yearning for some of that four-hundred-year-old wine. I looked forward to raising a glass of it very soon. Raising it in a toast.\n\nTo my future career out there among the stars. I could almost taste that wine upon my lips and I smacked them dryly, turned to face Neebe and Stirner.\n\n\"My friends\u2014this calls for a celebration. Come with me, I beg you. I know of a very exclusive drinking establishment not too far away from here.\"\n\nThe Drinking Party\n\n\"This is undoubtedly,\" Stirner said, eyes wet with emotion, \"the very best glass of wine I have drunk, ever thought of drinking, managed to drink, ever drank, will ever drink, ever imagined that I some day might have considered drinking...\"\n\n\"While your grip on syntax seems to be failing,\" Mark Forer said, \"I appreciate the emotion. Now that you have all tasted the wine, I am much cheered that you enjoy it, I would like to propose a toast. To James diGriz, planet saver. We shall be ever grateful, Jim.\"\n\n\"Ever grateful!\" they chorused, raised their glasses and drank. Except for Mark, who had no glass to raise. Instead of drinking wine he had one of his robots pour a dollop of electrolytic fluid into a dry battery; Mark had informed us that the sudden surge of electrons was most stimulating.\n\n\"Thank you, my friends, thank you,\" I said, then raised my glass in turn. \"To Morton and Sharla, who sit on the couch beside you, holding hands and blushing because they are soon to be married.\"\n\nThey all cheered and drank at that; Mark Forer giggled over his zippy electrons. I raised my glass again.\n\n\"A toast of thanks as well to my physical guide and intellectual mentor, Stirner. And to my companion in adventure, Neebe\u2014long may her bicycle roll.\" More cheers and glugging followed as I turned to the glowing machine before us.\n\n\"Last\u2014and certainly\u2014not least, to Mark Forer. Guide, teacher, spiritual leader, purveyor of fine wines. To Mark!\"\n\nWhen the cheering had died away, and another bottle had been cracked, Mark Forer spoke to his attentive audience.\n\n\"Thank you, thank you dear believers in Individual Mutualism. Too long have I been sholitary...\"\n\nSholitary? This mean machine was getting pissed on whizzing electrons! Drunk!\n\n\"... too long a lurker beneath the streets watching the passing parade passing above me. Now, at last, finally I welcome your dear company and I greet you. And we had better crack another case of wine.\"\n\nStirner staggered off to fetch it and Neebe went to help. Alone for the moment Morton and Sharla wrapped themselves in happy osculatory embrace. Mark was muttering to himself.\n\nThis was a perfect opportunity to slip away. I hated goodbyes. Quietly, so as not to disturb them, I rose and made my exit. As I slowly eased shut the door behind me I saw Mark's TV pickup swivel to face me; the diaphragm contracted and dilated quickly in an electronic wink. I winked back and closed the door, turned and slowly climbed the stairs.\n\nAs much as I liked this planet and its politically monomaniacal citizens, I knew it was not for me. Too civilized and peaceful. Without crime and without police\u2014what would I do for a living?\n\nGo, Jim, go! The stars are yours!\nThe Stainless Steel Rat Sings the Blues\nChapter 1\n\nWalking up the wall had not been easy. But walking across the ceiling was turning out to be completely impossible. Until I realized that I was going about it the wrong way. It seemed obvious when I thought about it. When I held onto the ceiling with my hands I could not move my feet. So I switched off the molebind gloves and swung down, hanging only from the soles of my boots. The blood rushed to my head\u2014as well it might\u2014bringing with it a surge of nausea and a sensation of great unease.\n\nWhat was I doing here, hanging upside down from the ceiling of the Mint, watching the machine below stamp out five-hundred-thousand-credit coins? They jingled and fell into the waiting baskets\u2014so the answer to that question was pretty obvious. I nearly fell after them as I cut the power on one foot. I swung it forward in a giant step and slammed it solidly against the ceiling again as I turned the binding energy back on. A generator in the boot emitted a field of the same binding energy that holds molecules together, making my foot, at least temporarily, a part of the ceiling. As long as the power was on.\n\nA few more long steps and I was over the baskets. I fumbled at my waist, trying to ignore the dizziness, and pulled out the cord from my oversized belt buckle. Bending double until I could reach up to the ceiling, I pushed the knob at the end against the plaster and switched it on. The molebind field clamped hard and I released my feet. To hang, swinging, right side up now, while the blood seeped out of my florid face.\n\n\"Come on Jim\u2014no hanging about,\" I advised myself. \"The alarm will go off any second now.\"\n\nRight on cue the sirens screamed, the lights blinked, while a gargantuan hooter thundered through the walls. I did not tell myself that I told me so. No time. Thumb on the power button so that the immensely strong, almost invisible, single-molecule cord whirred out of the buckle and dropped me swiftly down. When my outstretched hands clinked among the coins I stopped. Opened my attach\u00e9 case and dragged it clanking through the coins until it was full of the shining, shimmering beauties.\n\nClosed and sealed it as the tiny motor buzzed and dragged me up to the ceiling again. My feet struck and stuck. I switched off power to the lifting lug.\n\nAnd the door opened below me.\n\n\"Somebody coulda come in here!\" the guard shouted, his weapon nosing about him. \"The door alarm went off.\"\n\n\"Maybe\u2014but I don't see nothin',\" the second guard said.\n\nThey looked down and around. But never up. I hoped. Feeling the sweat rolling up my face. Collecting there. Dropping.\n\nI watched with horror as the droplets spattered down onto the guard's helmet.\n\n\"Next room!\" he shouted, his voice drowning out the splat of perspiration. They rushed out, the door closed, I walked across the ceiling, crawled down the wall, slumped with exhaustion on the floor.\n\n\"Ten seconds, no more,\" I admonished. Survival was a harsh taskmaster. What had seemed like a good idea at the time maybe really was a good idea. But right now I was very sorry I had ever seen the newsflash.\n\nCeremonial opening of new Mint on Pask\u00f6njak... planet often called Mint-world... first half-million-credit coins ever issued... dignitaries and press invited.\n\nIt had been like the sound of the starting gun to a sprinter. I was off. A week later I was stepping out of the space terminal on Pask\u00f6njak, bag in hand and forged press credentials in pocket. Even the massed troops and tough security had not tempered my madness. The machines in my case were immune from detection by any known security apparatus; the case projected a totally false image of its contents when radiation hit it. My step had been light, my smile broad.\n\nNow my face was ashen and my legs trembled with fatigue as I pushed myself to my feet.\n\n\"Look calm, look collected\u2014think innocence.\"\n\nI swallowed a calm-and-collected pill that was coated with instant uppers. One, two, three paces to the door, my face flushed with pride, my gait noble, my conscience pure.\n\nI put on my funky bejeweled spectacles and looked through the door. The ultrasound image was fuzzy. But clear enough to reveal figures hurrying past. When they were gone I unlocked the door, slipped through and let it close behind me.\n\nSaw the rest of my party of journalists being pushed down the corridor by screaming, gun-waving troops. Turned and marched firmly away in the opposite direction and around the bend.\n\nThe guard stationed there lowered his gun and pointed it at my belt buckle.\n\n\"La necesejo estas \u0109i tie?\" I said, smiling smarmily.\n\n\"What you say? What you doin' here?\"\n\n\"Indeed?\" I snorted through widened nostrils. \"Rather short on education, particularly a knowledge of Esperanto, aren't we? If you must know, speaking in the vulgar argot of this planet\u2014I was told that the men's room was down here.\"\n\n\"Well it ain't. Da udder way.\"\n\n\"You're too kind.\"\n\nI turned and strolled diffidently down the hall. Had taken three steps before reality penetrated his sluggish synapses.\n\n\"Come back here, you!\"\n\nI stopped and turned about, pointed past him. \"Down that way?\" I asked. The gas projector I had palmed when my back was turned towards him hissed briefly. His eyes closed and he dropped; I took the gun from his limp hands as he fell by. Placed it on his sleeping chest since it was of no help to me. Walked briskly past him and pushed open the door to the emergency stairs. Closed and leaned against it and breathed very deeply. Then took out the map that had been in the press kit and poked my finger on the symbol for stairs. Now, down to the storeroom... footsteps sounded below.\n\nUp. Quietly on soft soles. A change of plan was very much in order since the alarm had sounded, ruling out a simple exit with the crowd. Up, five, six flights until the steps ended in a door labeled KROV. Which probably meant roof in the local language.\n\nThere were three different alarms that I disabled before I pushed the door open and slipped through. Looked around at the usual rooftop clutter: water tanks, vents, aircon units\u2014and a good-sized smokestack puffing out pollution. Perfect.\n\nThe moneybag clunked as I dropped all my incriminating weapons and tools into it. My belt buckle twisted open and I took out the reel and motor. Attached the molebind plug from the suspension cord to the bag, then lowered it all down the chimney. Reaching down as far as I could I secured the reel mechanism to the inside of the pipe.\n\nDone. It would wait there as long as needed, until all the excitement calmed down. An investment waiting to be collected you might say. Then, armed only with my innocence, I retraced my course back down the stairs and on to the ground floor.\n\nThe door opened and closed silently and there was a guard, back turned, standing close enough to touch. Which I did, tapping him on the shoulder. He shrieked, jumped aside, turned, lifted his gun.\n\n\"Didn't mean to startle you,\" I said sweetly. \"Afraid I got separated from my party. The press group...\"\n\n\"Sergeant, I got someone,\" he burbled into the microphone on his shoulder. \"Me, yeah, Private Izmet, post eleven. Right. Hold him. Got that.\" He pointed the gun between my eyes. \"Don't move!\"\n\n\"I have no intention of that, I assure you.\"\n\nI admired my fingernails, plucked a bit of fluff from my jacket, whistled; tried to ignore the wavering gun muzzle. There was the thud of running feet and a squad led by a grim-looking sergeant rushed up.\n\n\"Good afternoon, Sergeant. Can you tell me why this soldier is pointing his weapon at me? Or rather why you are all pointing your weapons at me?\"\n\n\"Grab his case. Cuff him. Bring him.\" A man of few words, the sergeant.\n\nThe elevator they hustled me to had not been marked on the map issued to the journalists. Nor had the map even hinted at the many levels below the ground floor that penetrated deep into the bowels of the earth. The pressure hit my eardrums as we dropped\u2014about as many floors down as you usually go up in a skyscraper. My stomach sank as well as I realized I had bitten off a good deal more than I could possibly chew. Pushed out at some subterranean level, dragged through locked, barred gates, one after another, until we finally reached a singularly depressing room. Traditionally bare with unshielded lights and a backless stool. I sighed and sat.\n\nMy attempts at conversation were ignored, as was my press pass. Which was taken from me along with my shoes\u2014then the rest of my clothes. I pulled on the robe of itchy black burlap that they gave me, dropped back onto the chair and made no attempt to outstare my guards.\n\nTo be frank this was a kind of low point, made even lower when the effects of the calm-and-collected pill began to wear off. Just about the time my morale hit bottom the loudspeaker gurgled incomprehensible instructions and I was hurried down the hall to another room. The lights and stool were the same\u2014but this time they faced a steel desk with an even steelier-eyed officer behind it. His glare spoke for him as he pointed to my dissected clothing, bag, shoes.\n\n\"I am Colonel Neuredan\u2014and you are in trouble.\"\n\n\"Do you always treat interstellar journalists like this?\"\n\n\"Your identity is false.\" His voice had all the warmth of two rocks being grated together. \"Your shoes contain molebind projectors...\"\n\n\"There's no law against that!\"\n\n\"There is on Pask\u00f6njak. There is a law against anything that threatens the security of the Mint and the Interstellar Credits produced here.\"\n\n\"I've done nothing wrong.\"\n\n\"Everything that you have done has been wrong. Attempting to deceive our security with false identification, stunning a guard, penetrating the Mint without supervision\u2014these are all crimes under our law. What you have committed so far makes you liable for fourteen concurrent life sentences.\" His grim voice grew even grimmer. \"But there is even worse than that\u2014\"\n\n\"What could be worse than fourteen life sentences?\" Despite my efforts at calm control I could hear my voice cracking.\n\n\"Death. That is the penalty for stealing from the Mint.\"\n\n\"I haven't stolen anything!\" Definitely a quaver now.\n\n\"That will be determined very shortly. When the decision was made to mint five-hundred-thousand-credit coins every precaution was taken to prevent their theft. Integral to their fabric is a transponder that listens for a specific signal at a specific frequency. It answers and reveals the location of the coin.\"\n\n\"Stupid,\" I said with more bravado than I felt. \"Won't work here. Not with all the coins you have made\u2014\"\n\n\"All now safe behind ten feet of solid lead. Radiation proof. If there are any other coins not in our custody the signal will sound.\"\n\nRight on cue I heard the pealing of bells in the distance. The iron face of my inquisitor was touched by a fleeting cold smile.\n\n\"The signal,\" he said. We sat in silence for long seconds. Until the door burst open and the hurrying guards dropped a very familiar bag onto the desk. He lifted the end slowly and the coins jangled forth.\n\n\"So that's what they look like. I never...\"\n\n\"Silence!\" he thundered. \"These were removed from the minting room. They were found suspended in the chimney from the smelter. Along with these other objects.\"\n\n\"Proves nothing.\"\n\n\"Proves everything!\" Quick as a snake he grabbed my hands, slammed them onto a plate on his desk. A hologram of my fingerprints appeared instantly on the air above.\n\n\"Any prints lifted from the coins?\" he asked over his shoulder.\n\n\"Many,\" a spectral voice responded. A portion of the desk top rose up bearing what appeared to be photographic prints. He looked at them and for the second time I was treated to the sight of that frigid smile as he dropped the prints through a slot. A second hologram floated in the air beside the first, moved over and merged with it as he touched the controls.\n\nThe double image flickered and became one.\n\n\"Identical!\" he said triumphantly. \"You can tell me your name if you wish. So it can be spelled correctly on your tombstone. But only if you wish.\"\n\n\"What do you mean tombstone? And what do you mean death sentence? That's illegal by galactic law!\"\n\n\"There is no galactic law down here,\" he intoned with a voice like a funeral march. \"There is only the law of the Mint. Judgment is final.\"\n\n\"The trial...\" I said feebly, visions of lawyers, appeals, torts and documents dancing in my head.\n\nThere was no mercy in his voice now, no touch of the tiniest of iceberg smiles on his lips.\n\n\"The penalty for theft in the Mint is death. The trial takes place after the execution.\"\nChapter 2\n\nI am still young\u2014and it did not look like I was going to get any older. My dedication to a life of crime had led to a far shorter lifespan than could normally be expected. Here I was, not yet twenty years old. A veteran who had fought in two wars, had been imprisoned and drafted, who had been depressed by the death of my good friend The Bishop, been impressed by Mark Forer the great Artificial Intelligence. Was that it? Had I had it? No more to life than that? All over.\n\n\"Never!\" I shouted aloud, but the two guards merely gripped my arms the harder and pushed me along the corridor. A third armed guard went ahead and unlocked the cell door, while the one behind me prodded my kidneys with the barrel of his gun.\n\nThey were good and they took no chances. They were big and mean and I was small and lean. Shivering with fear, I was crouching even lower. Once the cell door was open the guard with the keys turned towards me and unlocked my handcuffs.\n\nThen gasped as my knee caught him in the stomach and knocked him back into the cell. At the same time I grabbed the two guards beside me by the wrists, crossed my arms with a single spasmodic burst of effort that pulled the two of them crashing together; their skulls bonked nicely. At the same instant I lashed backward\u2014catching the fourth guard on the bridge of his nose with the back of my head. Everything happening at approximately the same time.\n\nTwo seconds ago I had been bound and captive.\n\nNow one guard was out of sight, groaning in the cell. Two more holding their heads and howling, the fourth one clutching a bloody nose. They hadn't been expecting this: I had.\n\nI ran. Back the way we had come and through the still-open door. Hoarse, angry cries were cut off as I slammed it shut, locked it. The thick panel shook as heavy bodies thudded against the other side.\n\n\"Got you!\" a victorious voice shouted and rough hands grabbed me. He could not know by touch that I was a Black Belt. He found out the hard way.\n\nEyes closed, breathing easily, he just lay there and made no protest as I stripped him of uniform and weapons. Nor did he thank me when I draped my burlap robe over his pale form, hiding his black lace undies from prying eyes. His clothes were not too bad a fit. Not too good either with the cap tilting forward over my eyes. But it would have to do.\n\nThere were three doors leading from this room. The one that I had locked was pounding and bouncing in its frame: next to it was the one that we had come in through. It didn't take much intelligence to use the unconscious guard's keys to open the third one.\n\nIt led to a storage room. Dark shelves, filled with nameless objects, vanished away into the distance. Not too promising\u2014but I was in no position to choose. I executed a quick leap back to the entrance door, unlocked it and threw it open, then dived ahead into the storage room. As I closed this final door behind me, even before I could lock it, there was a mighty crash and screams of anger as the assaultees finally broke the door down.\n\nMisdirection wouldn't last long. Run past the shelves. Hide here? No\u2014there would be a thorough search. A door at the far end, bolted on the inside. I opened it a crack and looked at the empty room beyond. Opened and stepped through.\n\nAnd stopped quite still as the guards who were flattened against the wall all pointed guns at me.\n\n\"Shoot him!\" Colonel Neuredan ordered.\n\n\"I'm unarmed!\" My gun slid across the floor as I threw my hands into the air. Fingers quivered on triggers\u2014it was all over.\n\n\"Don't shoot\u2014I want him alive. For the moment.\"\n\nI stood frozen, not breathing until the trigger fingers relaxed. Looked up and quickly found the security bug in the ceiling. Must be one in every room and corridor down here. They had been watching me all the time. A good try, Jim. The Colonel grated his teeth horribly and stabbed a finger in my direction.\n\n\"Take him. Chain him. Bind him. Bring him.\"\n\nThis was all done with ruthless efficiency. My toes dragged along the floor as I was whisked back to the cell, stripped at gunpoint, thrown to the floor with my black robe thrown on top of me. The door clanged shut and I was alone. Very much alone.\n\n\"Cheer up, Jim, you've been in worse trouble before,\" I chirped smilingly. Then snarled, \"When?\"\n\nBack in the pits again. My abortive attempt at escape had only gained me a few bruises.\n\n\"This can't be it!\" I shouted. \"It can't all end just like this.\"\n\n\"It can\u2014and it will,\" the Colonel's funereal voice intoned as the cell door opened again. A dozen guns were pointed at me as a guard brought in a tray with a bottle of champagne on it and a single glass.\n\nI watched in stupefied disbelief as he twisted the cork out. There was a pop and a gush as the golden fluid filled the glass. He handed it to me.\n\n\"What's this, what's this?\" I mumbled, staring wide-eyed at the rising bubbles.\n\n\"Your last request,\" Neuredan said. \"That and a cigarette.\"\n\nHe took one from a package and lit it, holding it out to me. I shook my head. \"I don't smoke.\" He ground the cigarette under his heel. \"Anyway\u2014champagne and a cigarette\u2014that's not my last request.\"\n\n\"Yes it is. Forms of last request are standardized by law. Drink.\"\n\nI drank. It tasted all right. I belched and handed back the glass. \"I'll take a refill.\" Anything to gain time, to think. I watched the wine being poured and my brain was dull and empty. \"You never told me about the... execution.\"\n\n\"Do you want to know?\"\n\n\"Not really.\"\n\n\"Then I will be pleased to tell you. I assure you that there was extensive deliberation over the correct method to be used. Thought was given to the firing squad, electrocution, poison gas\u2014a number of possibilities were actively considered when the law was passed. But all of them involve someone pulling a switch or a trigger, and that would not be humane to the someone.\"\n\n\"Humane! What about the prisoner?\"\n\n\"Of no importance. Your death has been decreed and will take place as soon as possible. This is what will happen. You will be taken to a scaled chamber and chained there. The entrance will be locked. After this the chamber will be flooded with water by an automatic device actuated by your body heat. It is always there, always turned on. You alone will be responsible for your own execution. Now isn't that quite humane?\"\n\n\"Drowning is humane all of a sudden?\"\n\n\"Possibly not. But you will be left a pistol containing a single bullet. You can commit suicide if you wish to.\"\n\nI opened my mouth to tell him what I thought of their humanity, but I was seized by many hands and dragged forward before I could speak. The glass was whisked away\u2014and so was I. Deep down to a dank chamber, walls damp with water and covered with moss. A cuff was clamped around my ankle; a chain ran from it to a staple in the wall. They all exited except for the Colonel, who stood with his hand on the operating lever of the thick, undoubtedly watertight, door.\n\nHe grinned in victorious triumph, bent over and placed an antique pistol on the floor. As I dived for it the door shut and sealed with a final thud.\n\nWas this really the end? I turned the pistol over in my hands, saw the dull shape of the single cartridge. End of Jim diGriz, end of the Stainless Steel Rat, end of everything.\n\nThere was the distant thunk of a valve opening and cold water gushed down on me from a thick pipe in the ceiling. It gurgled and slopped, covering my feet, then quickly up to my ankles. When it reached my waist I lifted the gun and looked at it. Not much of a choice. The water rose steadily. Covered my chest, up to my chin. I shuddered.\n\nThen the water stopped splashing down. It was cold and I was shivering uncontrollably. The light in the waterproof fixture revealed only stone wall, dark water.\n\n\"What are you playing at bastarda\u0109oj?\" I shouted. \"Humane torture to go with your humane murder?\"\n\nA moment later I got my answer. The level began to drop.\n\n\"I was right\u2014torturers!\" I bellowed. \"Torture first\u2014then murder. And you call yourself civilized. Why are you doing this?\"\n\nThe last of the water gurgled down the drain and the door slowly opened. I aimed the pistol at it. I wouldn't mind drowning if I could take the cretinous colonel or the sadistic sergeant with me.\n\nSomething dark appeared through the partly open door. The gun banged and the bullet thudded into it. A briefcase.\n\n\"Cease fire!\" a male voice called out. \"I am your lawyer.\"\n\n\"He only has one bullet, you're safe,\" I heard the Colonel say.\n\nThe briefcase came hesitantly into the room, carried by a gray-haired man who was wearing the traditional gold-flecked and diamond-decorated black suit that adorned lawyers throughout the galaxy.\n\n\"I am your court-appointed lawyer, Pederasis Narcoses.\"\n\n\"What good will you do me\u2014if the trial will be after my execution?\"\n\n\"None. But that is the law. I will have to interview you now to enable me to conduct your defense at the trial.\"\n\n\"This is madness\u2014I'll be dead!\"\n\n\"That is correct. But it is the law.\" He turned to the Colonel. \"I must be alone with my client. That is also the law.\"\n\n\"You have ten minutes, no longer.\"\n\n\"That will suffice. Admit my assistant in five minutes. He has the court papers and the will.\"\n\nThe door thunked shut and Narcoses opened his briefcase and took out a plastic bottle filled with a greenish liquid. He removed the top and handed it to me.\n\n\"Drink this, all of it. I'll hold the gun.\"\n\nI handed him the weapon, took the bottle, smelled it and coughed. \"Horrible. Why should I drink it?\"\n\n\"Because I told you to. It is of vital importance and you have no choice.\"\n\nWhich was true\u2014and what difference would it make anyway? I glugged it down. The champagne had tasted a lot better.\n\n\"I will now explain,\" he said, recapping the bottle and putting it back into his briefcase. \"You have just drunk a thirty-day poison. This is a computer-generated complex of toxins that are neutral now\u2014but which will kill you horribly in exactly thirty days if you are not given the antidote. Which is also computer-generated and impossible to duplicate.\"\n\nHe jumped back quite smartly when I leaped at him. But the chain on my ankle would not quite reach. My fingers snapped ineffectually just in front of his throat.\n\n\"If you will cease clawing at the air I will explain,\" Narcoses said with an air of weary sophistication. Had he done this kind of thing before I wondered? I folded my arms and stepped back.\n\n\"Much better. Although I am a lawyer licensed to practice on this planet, I am also a representative of the Galactic League.\"\n\n\"Wonderful. The Pask\u00f6njakians want to drown me\u2014you poison me. I thought this was a galaxy of peace?\"\n\n\"You are wasting time. I am here to free you, under certain conditions. The League has need of a criminal. One who is both skilled and reliable. Which is an oxymoron. You have proved your criminalistic ability by your almost-successful theft. The poison guarantees your reliability. Do I assume that you will cooperate? At the minimum you have a life extension of thirty days.\"\n\n\"Yes, sure, you're on. Not that I have a choice.\"\n\n\"You don't.\" He looked at the watch set into his little fingernail and stepped aside as the door opened. A chubby, bearded youth came in with a sheaf of papers.\n\n\"Excellent,\" Narcoses said. \"You have the will?\" The young man nodded. The door was closed and sealed again.\n\n\"Five minutes,\" Narcoses said.\n\nThe newcomer pulled down a zipper that sealed his one-piece suit. Took off the suit\u2014and a lot of flesh with it. The suit was padded. He was not fat at all, but lean and muscular quite like me. When he peeled off the fake beard I realized that he looked exactly like me. I blinked rapidly as I stared at my own face.\n\n\"Only four minutes left diGriz. Put on the suit. I'll fix the beard.\"\n\nThe well-built and handsome stranger pulled on my discarded robe. Stepped aside when Narcoses took a key from his pocket, bent and unlocked the restraining cuff on my ankle. Handed it to the other, who emotionlessly bent and snapped it to his own ankle.\n\n\"Why\u2014why are you doing this?\" I asked him.\n\nHe said nothing, just leaned over to retrieve the gun.\n\n\"I'll need another bullet,\" he said. With my voice.\n\n\"The Colonel will supply it,\" Narcoses said. Then I remembered something else he had said just moments ago.\n\n\"You called me diGriz. You know my name!\"\n\n\"I know a lot more than that,\" he said pressing the beard and mustache into position on my face. \"Carry these papers. Follow me out of here. Keep your mouth shut.\"\n\nAll of which I was very happy to do. With one last look at my imprisoned self I trotted forth to freedom.\nChapter 3\n\nI trotted behind Narcoses, clutching the papers and trying to think bearded and fat. The guards were ignoring us, watching instead with sadistic fascination as one of their number started to close the watertight door.\n\n\"Wait,\" the Colonel said, opening a small box and taking out a cartridge. He looked up as I passed, stared me straight in the face. I felt perspiration bursting from my pores. The momentary glance must have lasted about a subjective hour. Then he kept on turning and called out to the guard.\n\n\"Open that again you idiot! I load the gun then you close the door. When that has been done this business will be over with once and for all.\"\n\nWe turned a corner and the noxious group vanished from sight behind us. Silently, as ordered, I followed the lawyer through many a guarded portal, into an elevator, out of it and then through one final door, escaping the Mint at last. Letting out a great sigh of relief as we went past the armed guards and headed for the waiting groundcar.\n\n\"I\u2014\"\n\n\"Silence! Into the car. Speak to me in the office about a salary raise\u2014not before.\"\n\nNarcoses must know things that I didn't. Detector bugs in the ornamental trees we were passing? Acoustic microphones aimed our way? I realized now that my carefully planned crime had apparently been a disaster from the moment I had conceived it.\n\nThe driver was silent as a tomb\u2014and about as attractive. I watched the buildings stream by, then the outskirts of the city appeared. We drove on until we reached a small building in a leafy suburb. The front door opened as we approached, then closed behind us apparently without human intervention. The same thing happened to the inner door, which was tastefully labeled with jewel-studded gold letters PEDERASIS NARCOSES\u2014Attorney at Law. It closed silently and I wheeled about and pointed a menacing finger at him.\n\n\"You knew about me even before I landed on this planet.\"\n\n\"Of course. As soon as your false credentials were filed the investigation began.\"\n\n\"So you stood by and let me plot and plan and commit a crime and get sentenced to death\u2014without making any attempt to interfere?\"\n\n\"That's right.\"\n\n\"That's criminal! More of a crime than my crime.\"\n\n\"Not really. You were always going to be plucked out of that terminal swimming pool in any case. We just wanted to see how well you did.\"\n\n\"How did I do?\"\n\n\"Very good\u2014for a lad your age. You got the job.\"\n\n\"Well good for me. But what about my double\u2014the bloke who took my place?\"\n\n\"That bloke, as you refer to him, is one of the finest and most expensive humanoid robots that money can afford. Which money will not be wasted since the doctor who is now performing the postmortem is in our pay. The incident is closed.\"\n\n\"Wonderful,\" I sighed, dropping limply onto the couch. \"Look, can I get a drink? It has been a long day. No spirits however\u2014a beer will do fine.\"\n\n\"A capital idea. I will join you.\"\n\nA tiny but well-stocked bar unfolded from one wall; the dispenser produced two chilled brews. I gulped and smacked.\n\n\"Excellent. If I have only thirty days to go shouldn't you be telling me about what you want me to do?\"\n\n\"In good time,\" he said, sitting down across from me. \"Captain Varod asked me to send his regards. And to convey the message that he knew you were lying when you promised to give up a life of crime.\"\n\n\"So he had me watched?\"\n\n\"You're catching on. After this last criminal assignment for us you will become an honest man. Or else.\"\n\n\"Who are you to talk!\" I sneered and drained the glass. \"A crooked shyster who is theoretically paid to uphold the law. Yet you stand by and let the thugs here on Pask\u00f6njak pass legislation to have trials after an execution\u2014then you employ a criminal to commit a criminal act. Not what I would call sincerely law-abiding.\"\n\n\"First,\" he said, lifting a finger in a very legalistic way, \"we have never condoned the secret law in the Mint. It was only recently produced by the overly paranoid management here. Yours was the first arrest\u2014and will be the last. There have been numerous job replacements already. Second,\" another finger rose to join the first, \"the League has never condoned violence or criminal acts. This is the first occurrence and has been produced by an unusual series of circumstances. After great deliberation the decision was made to do it just this one time. And never again.\"\n\n\"Millions might believe that,\" I sneered disbelievingly. \"Isn't it time you told me what the job is?\"\n\n\"No\u2014because I don't know myself. My vote was cast against this entire operation so I have been included out. Professor Van Diver will brief you.\"\n\n\"But what about the thirty-day poison?\"\n\n\"You will be contacted on the twenty-ninth day.\" He stood up and went to the door. \"It is against my principles to wish you good luck.\"\n\nThis was his puritanical pontificatory exit line. Because as he went out an elderly type with a white beard and a monocle entered.\n\n\"Professor Van Diver I presume?\"\n\n\"Indeed,\" he said extending a damp, limp hand for me to shake. \"You must be the volunteer with the nom de guerre of Jim about whose presence I was informed, who would await me here. It was very good of you to undertake what can only be called a rather diligent and difficult assignment.\"\n\n\"Rather,\" I intoned, falling into his academic mode of speech. \"Is there any remote possibility that I might be informed of the nature of this assignment?\"\n\n\"Of course. I have the requisite authority to provide augmentive information to you concerning the history and tragic circumstance of the loss. Another individual, who shall be nameless, will supply the assistance that you will require. I shall begin with the circumstances that occurred a little over twenty years ago...\"\n\n\"A beer. I must have refreshment. Will you join me?\"\n\n\"I abstain from all alcoholic and caffeine-containing beverages.\" He glared at me glassily through his menacing monocle as I refilled my mug. I sipped and sat and waved him into action. His voice washed over me in turgid waves and soon had me half-asleep\u2014but the content of his talk woke me up fast enough. He went on far too long, with far too many digressions, but despite this it was fascinating stuff to listen to.\n\nA stripped-down version wouldn't have been half as much fun for him and would have taken only a few minutes to tell. Simply, Galaksia Universitato had sent an expedition to a reported archeological site on a distant world\u2014where they had uncovered an artifact of nonhuman origin.\n\n\"You must be kidding,\" I said. \"Mankind has explored a great part of the galaxy in the last thirty-two thousand years and no trace of an alien race has ever been found.\"\n\nHe sniffed loudly. \"I do not 'kid' as you say in your simple demotic. I have pictorial proof here, photographs sent back by the expedition. The artifact was uncovered in a stratum at least a million years old and resembles nothing in any data base existent in the known universe.\"\n\nHe took a print from his inner pocket and passed it over to me. I took it and looked at it, then turned it around since there was no indication of which was top or bottom. A twisted hunk of incongruous angles and forms resembling nothing I had ever seen before.\n\n\"It looks alien enough to be alien,\" I said. Looking at it was beginning to hurt my eyes so I dropped it onto the table. \"What does it do, or what is it made of or whatever?\"\n\n\"I haven't the slightest idea since it was never conveyed to the university. It was, I must say, interrupted in its journey and it is essential that it be recovered.\"\n\n\"Pretty sloppy way to handle the only alien artifact in the universe.\"\n\n\"That is beyond the scope of my authority and not for me to say. But I am authorized to unperfunctorily predicate that it must be found and returned. At any cost\u2014which sums I am duly authorized to pay. Officers of the Galactic League have assured me that you, pseudonymous Jim, have volunteered to find and return the artifact. They have convinced me that you, as young as you are, are a specialist in these matters. I can only wish you best of luck\u2014and look forward to meeting you again when you return with that which we desire the most.\"\n\nHe exited then and a bald, uniformed naval officer entered in his place. Closed the door and glared at me with a steely gaze. I glared back.\n\n\"Are you the one who is finally going to tell me what is going on?\" I asked.\n\n\"Damn right,\" he growled. \"Damn fool idea\u2014but the only one we have going. I am Admiral Benbow, head of League Navy Security. Those dumbhead academics let the most priceless object in the universe slip through their fingers\u2014now we have to pick up the pieces and run with the ball.\"\n\nThe Admiral's mixed metaphors were as bad as the professor's academese. Was clear speaking becoming a lost art?\n\n\"Come on,\" I said. \"Simply tell me what happened and what I am supposed to do.\"\n\n\"Right.\" He slammed down into a chair. \"If that is a beer I'll have one too. No I won't. A double, no a treble high-octane whisky. No ice. Do it.\"\n\nThe robobar supplied our drinks. He drained his while I was just lifting mine.\n\n\"Now hear this. The expedition concerned was returning from their planetary dig when their ship experienced communication difficulties. Worried about navigation they landed on the nearest planet, which unhappily and tragically turned out to be Liokukae.\"\n\n\"Why unhappily and tragically?\"\n\n\"Shut up and listen. We got them and their ship back relatively intact. But without the artifact. For certain reasons we could do no more. That is why your services have been engaged.\"\n\n\"So now you are going to tell me about those certain reasons.\"\n\nHe coughed and looked away, stood and refilled his glass before speaking again. If I didn't know better I would have said that the seasoned old space dog was embarrassed.\n\n\"You have to understand that keeping the galactic peace is our role and our goal. This is not always possible. There are sometimes individuals, even groups, that are impervious to our attentions. Violent people, some apparently incurably insane, obnoxious. Despite everything that we can do they remain immune to our blandishments, impervious to our help.\" He gulped down the dregs and I had the feeling that we were finally getting to the truth.\n\n\"Since we cannot kill them we\u2014and you realize only the highest authorities know what I am about to tell you\u2014we so to speak arrange, see to it that they are, well, transported to Liokukae to live the sort of life they prefer to live. Without endangering the peaceful cultures of the union\u2014\"\n\n\"A galactic garbage dump!\" I cried aloud. \"Where you holier-than-thou bigots sweep your failures under the carpet! No wonder you keep this a top-secret secret.\"\n\n\"Just knock off the superior attitude cagal, diGriz. I know your record\u2014and in my book it stinks. But we have you by the short and curlies since you drank the seven-hundred-and-twenty-hour poison, so you will do just as I say. So now I'm going to fill you in with all the loathsome details re Liokukae, let you see what information we have. Then you will come up with a plan for getting that thing back. You have no choice.\"\n\n\"Thanks. What resources do I have?\"\n\n\"Limitless resources, unrestricted funds, boundless support. Every planet in the galaxy contributes to Galaksia Universitato. They have so many credits that they make the super-rich look super-poor. I want you to take them to the cleaners.\"\n\n\"Now you are talking my language! For the first time I have some interest in this poisonous project. Bring on the records\u2014and some food\u2014and I will see what I can do.\"\n\nNot very much I thought to myself after hours of reading and rereading the thin file, while eating a number of stale and tasteless sandwiches. The Admiral was slumped asleep in the armchair and snoring like a rocket exhaust. There were no answers here, so some questions were very much in order. Which gave me the sweet pleasure of waking him up. A few good shakes did it and those nasty little red eyes glared into mine.\n\n\"You better have a good reason for that.\"\n\n\"I do. How much do you personally know about Liokukae?\"\n\n\"Everything, you dimwit. That is why I am here.\"\n\n\"It seems to be pretty tightly sealed up.\"\n\n\"Pretty tightly is not the way I would describe it. Hermetically sealed, guarded, patrolled, watched, locked tight, quarantined\u2014take your pick. Food and medicines are shipped in. Nothing comes out.\"\n\n\"Do they have their own doctors?\"\n\n\"No. Medical teams are stationed there in the hospital inside the landing station\u2014which is built like a fortress. And before you even ask\u2014the answer is no. What little trust there is between the Navy and the Liokukaers involves the medical services. They come to us and we treat them. Let them suspect for an instant that the medicos are involved in hanky-panky and the trust is gone. Disease and death would be certain. We're not taking a chance on that.\"\n\n\"If the rest of the civilized galaxy doesn't know about them\u2014what do they know about us?\"\n\n\"Everything I suppose. We do not practice censorship. We transmit all the usual TV entertainment channels as well as educational and news services. They are well supplied with television receivers and can watch reruns of all the most loathsome programs and series. The theory being if we can stun their minds with televised crap they won't get up to more trouble.\"\n\n\"Does it work?\"\n\n\"Possibly. But we do know that they are rated on top of the galactic viewing scale for uninterrupted hours in front of the gogglebox.\"\n\n\"You go there and take surveys?\"\n\n\"Don't be stupid. Recorders are sealed into the chassis of each set. These can be tapped by satellite.\"\n\n\"So what we have here is a planet of murderous, belligerent, nutsy TV fans?\"\n\n\"That's about the size of it.\"\n\nI jumped to my feet, spilling dry crumbs of dead sandwiches onto the carpet. Raised my fists, and my voice, on high.\n\n\"That's it!\"\n\nBenbow blinked at me rapidly and scowled.\n\n\"What's it?\"\n\n\"The answer. It is just the glimmering of an idea now\u2014but I know that it will grow and expand into something incredible. I'm going to sleep on it and when I awake I will polish it and perfect it and describe it to you in detail.\"\n\n\"What is it?\"\n\n\"Don't be greedy. All in good time.\"\nChapter 4\n\nThe automated kitchen produced another stale sandwich, the machine was half-knackered and out of adjustment, along with a lukewarm cup of watery cocoa. I crunched and sipped gloomily, then found the bedroom down the hall. Air-conditioned of course\u2014but the window wasn't sealed. I opened it and sniffed the cool night air. The moon was rising, to join the other three already up. Made for some interesting shadows. A leg over the windowsill, a drop into the garden\u2014and I would be long gone before any alarm might go off.\n\nAnd I would be dead in twenty-nine days. That little drink I had drunk in prison really concentrated my attention and guaranteed my loyalty. But could I pull this complicated operation off in that space of time?\n\nConsidering the consequences I had no choice. I sighed tremulously, closed the window and went to bed. It had been a very, very long day.\n\nIn the morning I had picked the lock on the control panel in the kitchen and was busy rewiring it when Admiral Benbow came in.\n\n\"May I inquire politely just what the hell you are doing?\"\n\n\"Obviously trying to get this crook device to produce something other than stale cheese sandwiches. There!\"\n\nI slammed the panel shut and punched in a command. A cup of steaming coffee instantly appeared. Followed by a porcuswinewich, steaming and juicy. The Admiral nodded.\n\n\"I'll take this one\u2014get another for yourself. Now tell me your plan.\"\n\nI did. Mumbling through mouthfuls of breakfast.\n\n\"We are going to spend some credits out of the mountains of money that we have access to. First we plant some news items. I want interviews, reviews, gossip and more\u2014all about the new pop group that is the hit of the galaxy.\"\n\nHe scowled and growled. \"What pop group? What in Hades are you talking about?\"\n\n\"The planet-busting hit group called...\"\n\n\"Called what?\"\n\n\"I don't know. I haven't thought about it yet. Something way out and memorable. Or kinky.\" I smiled and raised an inspired finger. \"I have it! Ready? The group is called... The Stainless Steel Rats!\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"Why not?\"\n\nThe Admiral was not happy. His scowl turned to a snarl and he jabbed a judgmental finger at me. \"More coffee. Then tell me what you are talking about or I will kill you.\"\n\n\"Temper, temper, Admiral. Remember the old blood pressure. What I am talking about is getting to Liokukae with all the equipment I need, along with some strong-armed help. We are going to form a group of musicians called The Stainless Steel Rats\u2014\"\n\n\"What musicians?\"\n\n\"Me for one\u2014and you are going to supply me with the rest. You did tell me that you were head of League Navy Security?\"\n\n\"I did. I am.\"\n\n\"Then summon your troops. Get one of your techs to research all your field operators, all your rankings who have ever served in what passes for action in this civilized universe. The search will be a simple one because we want to know just one single fact about all of them. Are they musically inclined? Can they play a musical instrument, sing, dance, whistle or even hum in tune? Get the list and we will have our band.\"\n\nHe nodded over his coffee. \"You're beginning to make sense. A pop group composed only of security agents. But it will take time to put together, to organize, to rehearse.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"So it will sound good, you moron.\"\n\n\"Who could tell the difference? Have you ever listened to country-and-coal-mining music? Or Aqua Regia and her Plutonium Pals?\"\n\n\"Point taken. So we get this group together and publicize them well so all Liokukae knows about them\u2014\"\n\n\"And has heard their music\u2014\"\n\n\"And wants to hear more. On tour. Which is impossible. The planet is quarantined.\"\n\n\"That is the beauty of my plan, Admiral. When the publicity peaks, and the fame of the group is galaxy-wide, that is when the Rats will commit some crime so awful that they will instantly be shipped off to this prison planet. Where they will be received with great enthusiasm. And no suspicion. Where they will investigate and find the alien artifact and get it back so I can have the antidote. One other thing. Before we start operations I will need three million Interstellar Credits. In coins that have been newly minted here.\"\n\n\"No way,\" he snarled. \"Funds will be supplied as needed.\"\n\n\"You missed the point. That is my fee for conducting this operation. All operating expenses are on top of that. Pay up\u2014or else.\"\n\n\"Or else what?\"\n\n\"Or else I die in twenty-nine days and the operation dies and you get a black mark on your service record.\"\n\nSelf-interest prodded him into an instant decision. \"Why not. Those financially overburdened academics can afford it and not even notice it. I'll get that list for you.\"\n\nHe unclipped his phone from his belt, shouted a multidigit number into it, then barked some brief commands. Before I had finished my coffee the printer hummed to life in the office; sheets of paper began to pile up in the bin. We went through them and ticked off a number of possibilities. There were no names, just code numbers. When this was done I passed the list back to the Admiral.\n\n\"We'll need complete files on all the marked ones.\"\n\n\"That is classified and secret information.\"\n\n\"And you are the Admiral and you can get it.\"\n\n\"I'll get it\u2014and censor it. There is no way I am going to let you know any details of my Security Department.\"\n\n\"Keep your secrets\u2014I couldn't care less.\" Which was of course an outright lie. \"Give them code names as well as numbers, conceal their identities. All I want to know is their musical abilities, and will they be any good in the field when the going gets rough.\"\n\nThis took a bit of time. I went for a long jog to loosen the muscles. Then, while my clothes were being zapped clean in the vacuum washer, I took a hot shower followed by a cold one. I made a mental note to get some more clothes soon\u2014but not until this operation was up and running. There was no escaping that deadly clock that was ticking off the seconds to doomsday.\n\n\"Here is the list,\" the Admiral said when I entered the office. \"No names, just numbers. Male agents are identified by the letter A and...\"\n\n\"Let me guess\u2014the females are B?\"\n\nA growl was his only response, he completely lacked any sense of humor. I flipped through the list. Slim pickings among the ladies who ran the gamut from B1 to B4. Pipe-organ player, not very likely, harmonica, tuba\u2014and a singer.\n\n\"I'll need a photograph of B3. And what do these other entries after B1 mean? 19T, 908L, and such.\"\n\n\"Code,\" he said, grabbing the sheet away from me. \"It translates as skilled in hand-to-hand combat, qualified marksman on hand weapons, six years in the field. And the rest is none of your business.\"\n\n\"Thanks, wonderful, you're a big help. I sure could use her\u2014but not if she has to carry the pipe organ on her back. Now let us make some selections from the male list and get the photos coming. Except for this one, A19. No photograph\u2014I just want him here soonest, in the flesh.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"Because he is a percussionist and plays a molecular synthezier. Since I know next to nothing about music\u2014he is going to teach me my job in this pickup band. A19 will show me the ropes, then record the numbers and set up the machines to play the different hunks of music. I'll just smile and press buttons. Speaking of machines\u2014does your highly secret service have electronic repair facilities on this planet?\"\n\n\"That is classified information.\"\n\n\"Everything about this operation is classified. But I'll still need to do some electronic work. Here or someplace else. All right?\"\n\n\"Facilities will be made available.\"\n\n\"Good. And tell me\u2014what is a gastrophone, or a bagpipe?\"\n\n\"I haven't the slightest idea. Why?\"\n\n\"Because they are listed here as musical skills or instruments or something. I'll need to know.\"\n\nLubricated by all the credits from the university, manned by the Admiral's minions, the machinery of my plan began to churn into high gear. The League did have an outpost on this planet\u2014disguised as an interstellar shipping firm\u2014which contained a fully equipped machine shop and electronic facilities. The fact that they gave me full use of everything meant that it would undoubtedly vanish as soon as this operation was over. While the auditions were being arranged, agent A19 was sent for by the fastest transportation available. He appeared, slightly glassy-eyed, later that same afternoon.\n\n\"You are known to me only by the code reference A19. Could you give me a slightly better name to call you by? And it doesn't have to be your own.\"\n\nHe was a big man with a big jaw, which he rubbed as he kicked his brain into action. \"Zach\u2014that's my cousin's name. Call me Zach.\"\n\n\"Right on, Zach. You have quite a musical record.\"\n\n\"You betcha. I worked my way through college playing in the band. Still do a gig or two from time to time.\"\n\n\"Then you have the job. You must now sally forth with an open checkbook and buy the best, most expensive and complex hunks of electronic music making that you can find. And they have to be the most compact and microminiaturized ones going. Bring them back and I'll make it all smaller since everything we bring with us has to be carried on our backs. If you can't find it on this planet use galactic mail order. Spend! The more you spend the better.\"\n\nHis eyes glowed with musical fervor. \"Do you mean that?\"\n\n\"Absolutely. Check with Admiral Benbow, who will authorize all expenses. Go!\"\n\nHe went, and the auditions began. I draw a veil over the more repulsive details of the next two days. Apparently musical ability and military service were mutually incompatible for the most part. I whittled away and the list grew smaller with great rapidity. I had hoped for a large band\u2014now it appeared that I had a tiny combo.\n\n\"This is it, Admiral,\" I said, passing over the abbreviated list. \"We will have to make up in quality what we lack in quantity. It is going to be me and these three others.\"\n\nHe frowned. \"Will it be enough?\"\n\n\"Going to have to be. The discards may be great operators but I will dream about their sounds for years. In my nightmares. So take the survivors aside, tell them about me and the assignment. I'll meet them after lunch in the audition room.\"\n\nI was setting glasses and bottles of refreshment on the table when the four of them trooped in. In step!\n\n\"First lesson!\" I shouted. \"Think civilian. Anything that even resembles the military will get us all quickly dead. Now\u2014have you all talked to the Admiral? Everyone is nodding, good, good. Nod again if you agree to take orders from me and no one else. Even better. Now I will introduce you to each other. I have been forbidden knowledge of your real names and positions so I have invented some. Let us now begin the world anew. The gentleman on your left, code name Zach, is a professional musician and is tutoring me in my new skills. He will be of utmost help in getting this project off the ground. I am Jim and I will soon be able to play the electronic gadgetry and lead this group. The young lady in your presence, now named Madonette, is a contralto of great talent and our lead singer. Let's give her a big hand.\"\n\nSlowly at first, then louder and jollier, they clapped until I lifted a hand to stop them. They were an uptight lot and I had to get them a lot looser. Madonette was fair of skin and dark of hair; a tall and solid girl and quite attractive, she smiled and waved in return.\n\n\"Good beginning gang. Now you last two guys, you're the rest of this group, Floyd and Steengo. Floyd is the tall and skinny guy with the artificial beard\u2014he is growing a real replacement for it, but we needed one now for the publicity pix. The miracle workers of hirsutical science have developed an antidipilatorisational agent that stimulates hair growth. So he will grow a fine beard in three days. In addition to growing hair he plays a number of wind instruments which are, if you don't know, a historic family of musical instruments into which one blows strongly to emit sounds. He comes from a distant planet named Och'aye, which is perhaps galaxy-famous for its other native son Angus Macswiney, founder of the Macswiney chain of automated eateries. Floyd plays an instrument whose antecedents are lost in the mists of time and at times I wish they had stayed there. Floyd, a quick tune on the bagpipe if you please.\"\n\nI had heard it before so was slightly more prepared as he opened the case and removed an apparatus that looked like a large and bulging spider with many black legs. He slung it about him, puffed strongly and pumped furiously on the spider's abdomen with his arm. I looked at the others and admired their horrified expressions as the screams of mortally wounded animals filled the room.\n\n\"Enough!\" I shouted and the last slaughtered pig moaned away into deathly silence. \"I don't know if this instrument will be featured in our recitals\u2014but you must admit that it does draw attention. Last, and certainly not least, is Steengo. Who after he left the service became quite adept on the fiddelino. Steengo, a demonstration if you please.\"\n\nSteengo smiled paternally at us and waved. He had gray hair and an impressive paunch. I was concerned about his age and general fitness but the Admiral, after secretly scanning the records, reassured me that Steengo's health was A-OK, that he worked out regularly and, other than a tendency towards slight overweight, he was fit for field conditions. I shrugged\u2014since there was little else I could do. The records revealed that he had taken up the instrument after retirement from active duty\u2014with talent in such short supply I had had the veterans' records searched as well. When approached he was more than happy to get back into harness. The fiddelino had two necks and twenty strings and sounded rather jolly in a plucking scratching way that everyone seemed to enjoy. Steengo bowed graciously to acknowledge the applause.\n\n\"That's it then. You have just met The Stainless Steel Rats. Any questions?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" Madonette said, and all eyes turned her way. \"What is the music that we will be playing?\"\n\n\"Good question\u2014and I think I have a good answer. Research into contemporary music reveals a great variety of rhythms and themes. Some of them pretty bad, like country-and-steel-mill music. Some with a certain charm, like the Chipperinos and their flock of singing birds. But we need something new and different. Or old and different as long as no one has heard the music in a few thousand years. For our inspiration I have had the music department at Galaksia Universitato research their most ancient data bases. Millennia have passed since this music was last heard. Usually with good reason.\"\n\nI held up a handful of recordings. \"These are the survivors of a grueling test I put them through. If I could listen for more than fifteen seconds I made a copy. We will now refine the process even more. Anything we can bear for thirty seconds goes into the second round.\"\n\nI popped one of the tiny black chips into the player and sat back. Atonal musical thunder rumbled over us and a soprano with a voice like a pregnant porcuswine assailed our ears. I popped the recording out, ground it under my heel, then went on to the next one.\n\nBy late afternoon our eyes were red-rimmed with tears, our ears throbbing, our brains numbed and throbbing as well.\n\n\"Is that enough for the moment?\" I asked sweetly and my answer was a chorus of groans. \"Right. On the way in here I noticed that right next door is a drinking parlor by the name of Dust on Your Tonsils. I can only assume that is a little joke and they intend to wash the dust from their clients' tonsils. Shall we see if that is true?\"\n\n\"Let's go!\" Floyd said and led the exodus.\n\n\"A toast,\" I said when the drinks had arrived. We lifted our glasses. \"To The Stainless Steel Rats\u2014long may they play!\"\n\nThey cheered and drank, then laughed and called for another round. It was all going to work out hunky-dory I thought.\n\nThen why was I so depressed?\nChapter 5\n\nI was depressed because it was really a pretty madcap plan. The idea had been to allow a week for our publicity to peak, for some musical awards to be made\u2014then the crime had to occur. In that brief period we were not only going to have to find some music, but we would have to rehearse the stuff and hopefully gain at least a moderate level of ability. Some chance. We were cutting it too fine. We needed some more help.\n\n\"Madonette, a question.\" I sipped some more beer first. \"I must admit to an abysmal ignorance of the mechanics of making music. Is there someone who sort of makes up the tunes, then writes down the stuff that everyone is going to play?\"\n\n\"You're talking about a composer and an arranger. They could be one and the same\u2014but it is usually better to divide up the jobs.\"\n\n\"Can we get one or both of them? Zach, as the closest thing to a professional here\u2014do you have any ideas?\"\n\n\"Shouldn't be too hard. All we have to do is contact GASCAP.\"\n\n\"Gascap? You want to fill the tank on a groundcar?\"\n\n\"Not gascap. GASCAP. An acronym for the Galactic Society of Composers Artists and Players. There is a lot of unemployment in music and we should be able to locate some really competent people.\"\n\n\"Good as done. I'll get the Admiral on it at once.\"\n\n\"Impossible,\" he growled in his usually friendly fashion. \"No civilians, no outsiders. This is a secret operation all the way.\"\n\n\"It is now\u2014but it goes public in seven days. All we do is invent a cover story. Say that the group is being organized to make a holofilm. Or as a publicity stunt by a big firm. Like maybe Macswineys wants to change their image, go upmarket. Get rid of Blimey Macswiney and his alcoholic red nose, use our pop group instead. But it must be done\u2014and at once.\"\n\nIt was. The next day an anorexic and pallid young man was brought to our rehearsal studio. Zach whispered in my ear. \"I recognize him\u2014that's Barry Moyd Shlepper. He wrote a pop musical a couple of years back, 'Don't Fry for Me, Angelina.' He hasn't had a success since.\"\n\n\"I remember it. The show about the cook who marries the dictator.\"\n\n\"That's the one.\"\n\n\"Welcome, Barry, welcome,\" I said walking over and shaking his bony hand. \"My name is Jim and I'm in charge around here.\"\n\n\"Rooty-toot, man, rooty-toot,\" he said.\n\n\"And a rooty-toot to you as well.\" I could see where we would have to learn the argot of the musical world if our plan were to succeed. \"Now\u2014was this operation explained to you?\"\n\n\"Like maybe sort of. A new recording company starting up with plenty of bucknicks to blow. Financing some new groups to get the operation off the ground.\"\n\n\"That's it. You're in charge of the music. Let me show you what we have and you put it into shape.\"\n\nI gave him earphones and the player; I couldn't bear listening to these dreadful compositions yet another time. He plugged in the cubes one by one and, impossible as it was to believe, his pallid skin grew even paler. He worked his way through them all. Sighed tremulously, took off the earphones and brushed the tears from his eyes.\n\n\"You want like my honest and truly opinion?\"\n\n\"Nothing less.\"\n\n\"Well then, like to break it to you gently, this stuff really sucks. Insufflates. Implodes.\"\n\n\"Can you do better?\"\n\n\"My cat can do better. And scratch dirt over it.\"\n\n\"Then you are unleashed. Begin!\"\n\nThere was little else I could do until the music was written, rehearsed, recorded. While all the others would play their instruments and sing, my work would be limited to throwing the switch before each piece. Then all of Zach's drums, cymbals, horns, bells and molecular-synthezier effects would burst forth from the loudspeakers in full gallop. While this was happening I would throw switches that did nothing, tinkle the keys on a disconnected keyboard. So while they got the music going I looked into the special effects.\n\nThis required watching recordings of all of the most popular groups, bands and soloists. Some of it was enjoyable, some horribly dreadful, all of it too loud. In the end I turned off the sound and watched the laser beams, exploding fireworks and physical acrobatics. I made sketches, mumbled to myself a lot, spent a great deal of the university's money.\n\nAnd built an incredible amount of complicated circuitry into the existing electronics. Reluctantly, the Admiral produced the extras I asked for and I modified everything in the machine shop. It was altogether a satisfactory and fulfilling week. I also prodded the Admiral until he produced the promised payment of three million credits.\n\n\"Most kind,\" I said, jingling the six glowing five-hundred-thousand-credit coins. \"A decent fee for a decent job done.\"\n\n\"You better put them in a bank vault before they go missing,\" was his surly advice.\n\n\"Of course. A capital idea!\"\n\nA singularly stupid idea. Banks were for robbing and for the tax authorities to keep track of. So first I went into the machine shop where I did some crafty metalwork before I packed, wrapped and labeled the coins. Then I went for a walk and, as a precaution, I exercised all of my considerable talents at avoiding observation to shake off any possible tails the Admiral had put on me. I was risking my life\u2014in more ways than one!\u2014for this money. If I came out of it all in one piece I wanted to have it waiting.\n\nI finally reached a small country post office, selected at random, some distance from the city. It was manned by a nearsighted gentleman of advanced years.\n\n\"Spatial express and insured for offplanet delivery. That ain't gonna be cheap young feller.\"\n\n\"Do it, daddy-o, do it. I've got the gilt.\" He blinked and I translated back to his native language. \"Payment is not a problem, dear sir. You must assure me that this gets to Professor Van Diver at the Galaksia Universitato at once. He is expecting these historical documents.\"\n\nI had already spaciofaxed the professor that I was sending him some personal possessions, that he should please hold on to them until I came and picked them up. In case he got curious the contents were sealed in an armored case that would take a diamond drill to open. I was betting that his curiosity would not go that far. My package vanished into the mail chute and I went back to work.\n\nAt the end of the sixth day we were all pretty exhausted. Barry Moyd Shlepper had stayed up for two nights running, cold towels wrapped around his head, fortified by trebcaff coffee, putting together some musical numbers from the archaic junk. He proved to be a good hand at theft\u2014or adaptation as he liked to call it. The group had rehearsed, recorded, then rehearsed some more. I had concentrated on costumes, props and effects and was almost satisfied.\n\nAfter one last break I called my troops together. \"You will be pleased to know that we will now give our first public performance.\" This produced the expected groans and shrill cries of complaint and I waited until they had died down.\n\n\"I know how you feel\u2014and I feel the same way too. I think that the blues number 'I'm All Alone' is our best piece. You know we have had a lot of help from the staff here and I think we owe it to them to see what we all have done. I've invited something like thirty of them and they should be here soon.\"\n\nRight on cue the door opened and the suspicious public employees filed in, each carrying a folding chair. Admiral Benbow led the way, his flag officer carried two chairs. Zach supervised the seating arrangements and our cavernous rehearsal studio became a theater for the first time. We retreated to the podium, where I dimmed the house lights, then hit myself and my electronic gear with a baby spot.\n\n\"Ladies, gentlemen, guests. We have all worked hard this last week and in the name of The Stainless Steel Rats I would like to thank you.\"\n\nI hit a switch and my amplified voice echoed Thank You, Thank You. Overlaid by a growing crescendo of drums and ending with a crack of thunder and a few realistic lightning bolts. I could see by their wide eyes and dropped jaws that I had their attention.\n\n\"For our first number the melodious Madonette will render heart-rendingly the tragically lonely\u2014'I'm All Alone'!\"\n\nAt this the colored kliegs burst down on us, revealing our pink-sequined skintight costumes in all their iridescent glory. As we played the opening bars of the theme the lights concentrated on Madonette, whose costume had more flesh than fabric and seemed to be deeply appreciated. After a last whistle of wind and crash of thunder and lighting she extended her lovely arms to the audience and sang:\n\nHere I am\u2014and I'm all alone\u2014\n\nNo one calls on the telephone.\n\nI look around\u2014and what do I see?\n\nThere's no one here but me\u2014me\u2014me.\n\nMe\u2014me\u2014me\n\nThat's all I see\u2014\n\nI'm all alone\n\nJust\n\nme\n\nme\n\nme...\n\nThis was all done to the accompaniment of holographic shaking trees, storm clouds and other spooky effects. The music wailed as Madonette seguidillad into the rest of the song.\n\nI'm all alone and it's very dark\u2014\n\nI sneak out the window to the park.\n\nThe wind blows hard and the tree limbs wave\u2014\n\nAnd I'm right before an open grave!\n\nWhen I try to run and try to flee\u2014\n\nBut I KNOW they're out there after me!\n\nI sit and cry and I know that's right\u2014\n\nBecause the sun comes up\u2014\n\nIt's the end of the night...\n\nWith a last wail and a writhe of purple fog the sun rose majestically behind us and the music trickled to an end.\n\nThe silence stretched and stretched\u2014until it was finally broken by a tumultuous applause.\n\n\"Well gang,\" I said, \"it looks like we have done it. Or as Barry Moyd says, it looks like we are but really rooty-getooty!\"\n\nOn the seventh day we did not rest. After a final round of rehearsals I called an early break. \"Get some rack time. Pack your bags. The music and props are ready to go. We ship out at midnight. Transportation to the spaceport leaves here an hour earlier\u2014so don't be late.\"\n\nThey shuffled out wearily with dragging feet. The Admiral stamped in as they left, with Zach trailing in his wake.\n\n\"This agent informs me that all preparations have been made and you are ready to embark.\" I could only nod agreement.\n\n\"Wish I could go with you,\" Zach said.\n\n\"You set it all up\u2014you have our thanks for that. Now get going.\"\n\nHe numbed my fingers with his handshake and the door closed behind him.\n\nThe Admiral's smile had all of the warmth of a striking snake. \"Drug Enforcement has come up with a crime so awful that it means an instant sentence to Liokukae.\"\n\n\"That's nice\u2014what is it?\"\n\n\"Misuse of a highly refined and expensive drug called baksheesh. You and the rest of the musicians have been caught smuggling it and are addicted to it. There is a medical cure for the addiction that leaves the victim weak and vibrating for a number of days. This should give you a little time to look around before you have to play your first concert. The press release has already gone out about your capture and your sentence to prison hospital for the criminally doped. The natives of Liokukae will not be surprised at all when you arrive there. Questions?\"\n\n\"A big one. Has the communication been set up?\"\n\n\"Yes. The coded radio built into your jaw can reach the receiver at the entrance terminal from any place on the planet. It will be manned all of the time and an officer will be listening in on all communication. Your contact on the ground will give you what aid he can before you go out of the sealed terminal. Then he will move to the spacecruiser Remorseless in orbit above, which will also monitor your radio. We can hit anywhere on the planet in a maximum of eleven minutes. Send the signal when you have found the artifact and the space marines will be there. Report at a minimum of once a day. Location and results of your investigation.\"\n\n\"Just in case we get blown away and you have to send in the second team?\"\n\n\"Exactly. More questions?\"\n\n\"One. Going to wish us luck?\"\n\n\"No. Don't believe in it. Make your own.\"\n\n\"Gee, thanks, you really are all heart.\"\n\nHe turned and stamped away and the door swung shut behind him. Fatigue washed through me and black depression hit just one more time. Why was I doing this?\n\nTo stay alive of course. Twenty-two days more before my curtain fell for the final performance.\nChapter 6\n\nThe Faster Than Light voyage aboard the good ship Remorseless was blessedly brief. Being surrounded by the military has always had a deleterious effect on my morale. We had a solid day of rehearsal, some bad food, a good night's rest, followed the next day by a very nonalcoholic party\u2014since the Navy was remorselessly teetotal. Then, a few hours before we were to meet the shuttle, the medics gave us the injections that were to simulate the aftereffects of our drug treatment.\n\nI think I would have preferred the treatment. I didn't mind seeing my last meal go by for a second time, it had been pretty bad and I would not miss it. But the shakes and shivers were something else again. And all of my vibrating and stumbling co-musicians had eyeballs as red as fire. I dared not look in the mirror for fear of what I would see there.\n\nSteengo was gray and drawn and looked a hundred years old. I felt a quick blast of guilt for dragging him out of retirement. Said guilt fading instantly when I thought about my own problems.\n\n\"Do I look as bad as you do?\" Floyd said in a hoarse voice, his new-grown beard black against his parchment skin.\n\n\"I hope not,\" I husked in return. Madonette reached over and patted my shaking hand in what might have been a maternal way.\n\n\"It will be all right on the night, Jim. Just you wait and see.\"\n\nI did not feel filial in return since I was rapidly developing a crush on her that I hoped I disguised. I growled something or other and stumbled away to the heads where I could be alone with my misery. Even this did not work for the speaker in the ceiling rustled ominously\u2014then crashed out Admiral Benbow's voice.\n\n\"Now hear this. All Stainless Steel Rats will assemble at debarkation station twelve in two minutes. We are now in parking orbit. One minute and fifty-eight seconds. One minute and...\"\n\nI slammed out into the passageway to escape his voice but it followed me as I fled. I was the last to arrive and I collapsed and joined the others where they slumped on the deck beside our backpacks. The Admiral appeared suddenly behind me like a bad dream and roared his command.\n\n\"Attention! On your feet you slovenly crew!\"\n\n\"Never!\" I shouted even louder in a cracked voice. Rolling over to pull the swaying bodies back to the deck.\n\n\"Begone foul military fiend! We are musicians, civilians, medically reformed drug addicts and we must think and feel that way. Someday, if we live, you may have some of us back at your military mercy. But not now. Leave us in peace and wait for my reports.\"\n\nHe snarled a rich naval oath\u2014but had the brains to turn on his heel and vanish. There was a ragged cheer from my companions which made me feel slightly less sordid. The silence after this was unbroken, except for the occasional groan, until distant motors whirred and the inner lock swung majestically open. A keen clipboard-bearing naval officer stepped through.\n\n\"Landing party for Liokukae?\"\n\n\"All present, all ill. Send a working party for our gear.\"\n\nHe muttered into his lapel microphone, reached to the back of his belt to unclip a pair of handcuffs. Which he promptly snapped onto my wrists.\n\n\"Whasha?\" I blurted incoherently. Blinking down at the cuffs.\n\n\"Don't give me a hard time, you drug-pushing addict, and I won't give you one. You may be a big man out there in the galaxy, but here you are just one more sentenced crook. Who is going to carry his own pack\u2014no working party for the likes of you.\"\n\nI opened my mouth to verbally assassinate him. Then closed it. It had been my idea that our mission be known to the minimum few. He obviously wasn't one of them. I groaned to my feet and stumbled into the airlock dragging my gear after me, the others following in like condition. The orbital shuttle ship was grim and cheerless. The hard metal seats snapped clamps on our ankles when we sat down; no dancing in the aisles this trip. We watched in silence as our backpacks were thrown into a storage bin, then looked up at the big screen on the front bulkhead. Lots of stars. They rotated and the bulk of Remorseless swam into sight, grew smaller and dropped behind as the engines fired. Then the pickup turned so that the growing bulk of the planet could be seen and we were treated to a scratchy and static-filled ancient recording of martial music. This died away and was replaced by a male speaker with a repulsive nasal whine.\n\n\"Now hear this, prisoners. This is a one-way trip. You will have resisted all efforts at adjustment that would have fitted you to live peacefully in our humane and civilized society...\"\n\n\"Blow it out your rocket tubes!\" Steengo snarled, running his fingers through his gray hair, perhaps to see if it was still there. I would have nodded agreement with his snarl only my head hurt too much.\n\n\"... brought upon yourselves by your own efforts. Upon landing you will be escorted by armed guards to the gates of the landing station. Your restraints will be removed and you will be given an orientation booklet, a canteen of distilled water, as well as a week's supply of concentrated survival rations. During that week you will look for small trees bearing hard fruit. These are the polpettone trees and a source of nourishment for all. Their fruit is the result of careful gene mutation and transplant, rich in animal protein. They should not be eaten raw because of the chance of trichinosis, but should be baked or boiled. You must remember...\"\n\nI wanted to remember nothing he said so I tuned him out. I tried to reassure myself that the normal condemned passenger on this flight must have done something pretty gruesome to deserve this fate. I wasn't convinced. Despite millennia of civilization man's inhumanity to man persisted whenever an opportunity presented itself.\n\nThe imaged clouds blew by and a massive five-sided building appeared on the screen. I supposed they called it the Pentagon.\n\n\"In a few moments we will be landed inside the walls of the Pentagon debarkation station. Remain seated until you are ordered to rise. Follow instructions and your passage will be made that much easier...\"\n\nI would like to make his passage easier! Then I relaxed and opened my fists. Very soon we would be away from weary wardens and on our own. That was the moment to be prepared for.\n\nWe shuffled out in silence, down the gangway\u2014which surely should have been a gangplank\u2014and into the thick-walled Pentagon. To be greeted by yet another naval officer, grim-faced and gray-haired, wearing dark glasses.\n\n\"Take the prisoners to Interview nine at once.\"\n\nThe petty officer of our guard protested. \"Not regulation, sir. They have to\u2014\"\n\n\"You have to close your gob. Look at these orders. Do as instructed. You do enjoy being a petty officer?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir! Prisoners this way!\"\n\nThe officer came in after us, closed and locked the door, smiled at us warmly and said \"Shut up\" companionably. He then walked around the room with what I recognized as being a state-of-the-art communication detector. I couldn't imagine who would want to bug the room here at the end of the universe\u2014but he was in charge. Satisfied he put the detector away and turned to face us and handed me a key.\n\n\"You can take the cuffs off while we are in this room. I am Captain Tremearne and I am your contact here. Welcome to Liokukae.\" He took off the dark glasses and smiled at us and waved us to the chairs. I could see now that a wicked scar slashed across his face and the bridge of his nose. He was blind. But could undoubtedly see fine with the electronic replacement eyes that had been fitted. They were gold-plated and gave him a highly interesting appearance.\n\n\"I am the only one here in the Pentagon who knows the real nature of your assignment here. You are all volunteers and I would like to thank you. Help yourself to refreshments because that is the last kind word you are going to hear for quite a while.\"\n\n\"What is it like out there?\" I asked, touching the seal on a chilled container of beer and taking a life-reviving swig. There were fresh sandwiches and hot swinedogs there as well and my companions all dived in. I joined them, but not before I had opened a concealed drawer in my synthezier and taken out some necessary items.\n\n\"What's life like on this planet? Grim\u2014and worse than grim, Jim. In the centuries that Liokukae has been used as a societal galactic wastebin there has been a rather deadly shaking down. Different cultures were formed here as like found like. Or violent men forced violent solutions upon weaker men. One of the most stable of these has been developed right outside the Pentagon. They call themselves the Machmen. Man is strong, woman weak, virility rules, strength through strength\u2014I'm sure that you know the kind of thing. The top dog in this kennel, whom I am sure you will be meeting soon, is named Svinjar.\"\n\n\"Are these weirdos what the psych books call male chauvinist pigs?\" I asked. He nodded.\n\n\"Absolutely correct. So do your best to keep Madonette out of sight. And practice walking on your toes and flaring your nostrils at the same time. If you can't think of anything else to do crook your arm and admire your biceps.\"\n\n\"Sounds a paradise,\" she frowned.\n\n\"Won't be too bad if you watch your step. They like to be entertained\u2014since they haven't enough brains to entertain themselves. Very big on jugglers, duels, arm wrestling.\"\n\n\"What about music?\" Steengo asked.\n\n\"Fine\u2014as long as it is loud, martial and not sentimental.\"\n\n\"We'll do our best,\" I said. \"But it is a group called the Fundamentaloids that I want to look for.\"\n\n\"Of course. As you have been told the spacer with the archeological expedition landed in their area of operation. I led the rescue party that took the expedition members out of here\u2014which is why I am your contact now. The Fundamentaloids are nomads, as well as being pretty narrow-minded and obnoxious. I tried to keep things calm with them. Didn't work. In the end I narcgassed the lot and went in and pulled the scientists out. I didn't find out about the missing artifact until much later when we were offplanet and they were conscious again and the excitement had cooled down. By this time the group that had grabbed them had moved on and the trail got cold. Nothing more I could do at the time but report it. It's all in your hands now.\"\n\n\"Thanks much. Can't you at least point out to me on the map where they are?\"\n\n\"Wish I could\u2014but they're nomads.\"\n\n\"Wonderful.\" I smiled insincerely. Twenty days to deadline. Deadline! it would be. I shook off the dark feelings just one more time, looked around at my band.\n\n\"Ask questions if you have any because this is your last chance,\" Tremearne said.\n\n\"Do you have a map?\" I asked. \"I would like to know just what we have to face when we go out there.\"\n\nTremearne reached to the holo projector and switched it on. A three-dimensional contour map appeared in midair over the table. \"This is a fair-sized continent as you can see. There are other continents on this planet, some inhabited, but they have no contact with this one. The artifact has to be somewhere here.\"\n\nThat really simplifies things, I thought to myself. Only one continent to search and about three weeks to do it in. I shook off the depression that was depressing my depression.\n\n\"Do you know who and what are out there?\"\n\n\"We have a good idea. We plant bugs where we can, fly spyeyes pretty often.\" He tapped the plain at the center of the continent. \"Here is the Pentagon with the Machmen close by outside it. The Fundamentaloids could be anywhere here on the plains, depending on the season. It is subtropical most of the year, but rainfall varies. They have herds of sheots, a very hardy ruminant, some kind of cross between a sheep and a goat. Now over here in the foothills is the closest thing that passes for civilization in these parts. An agricultural society with light industry that looks almost decent until you get close. There is a central city, right here, surrounded by farms. They mine and smelt silver and produce a coin called a fedha. It is the only currency on the planet and is used by almost everyone.\" He pulled a heavy bag out of a drawer and dropped it onto the table. \"As you can well imagine they are easy enough to forge. In fact ours have more silver than the originals. Here's a supply for you. I suggest that you share it around and hide it well. A lot of types out there would be happy to kill you for just one of these. The people who mine the silver call their city Paradise\u2014which is about as far away from a true description as you can get. Stay away from them\u2014if you possibly can.\"\n\n\"I'll try to remember that. And I want to copy this into memory in my computer. Here.\"\n\nI took off the small black metal skull that hung on a chain around my neck. When I squeezed it the eyes glowed greenly and a pressure-sensitive holoscreen blinked into being; I copied the map, thought about what Tremearne had said\u2014and realized for the first time what a sinkhole we were being dropped into. I had another question.\n\n\"So everyone out there is a nutcase or a weirdo of some kind?\"\n\n\"The ones that were sent here for various crimes are. The ones who were born here grow up and fit in just as well.\"\n\n\"And you feel no compassion for them? Doomed by an accident of birth to existence in this worldwide spittoon.\"\n\n\"I certainly do\u2014and I am glad to hear you express yourself so clearly on the subject. I never even heard of this world until the emergency. I got the professors off safely then looked around. Which is why I now head the committee that is working to clean up the operation here on Liokukae. It has been ignored for too long by too many stupid politicians. I took this assignment to see for myself. Your reports to me, along with your complete report when you return, will be just what we need to make this prison world a thing of the past.\"\n\n\"If you mean that, Captain, I'm on your side. But I hope you are not feeding me a line of old cagal just to get the job done.\"\n\n\"You have my word on it.\"\n\nI sure hoped that he was telling the truth.\n\n\"I have a question,\" Floyd said. \"How do we contact the Captain here if we need some help or such?\"\n\n\"You don't\u2014I do.\" I tapped my jaw. \"I've got a microcommunicator implant here. Small enough to be powered by the oxygen in my blood. But powerful enough to be picked up by the big receivers in the Pentagon. So even if all of our goods are stolen\u2014they can't get my jaw. So, I suggest strongly, we stick together at all times. I can talk with Tremearne through this thing, get suggestions and advice. But no physical contact or our cover is blown. If he has to pull us out the mission is over\u2014whether we have the artifact or not. So let us be strong, guys and girl, and self-sufficient. It's a human jungle out there.\"\n\n\"No truer words ever spoken,\" Tremearne said grimly. \"If no one else has any questions put the cuffs back on and you're out of here.\"\n\n\"Hell yes,\" Steengo said, climbing to his feet. \"Let's get it over with.\"\n\nOur packs were waiting for us in front of a massive and bolt-studded door. There were four shoddy little plastic bags as well, which probably contained our iron rations and water. An orientation booklet was tucked into each one. A backup force of guards with stun guns and porcuswine prods stomped up and glared obnoxiously while our manacles were removed.\n\n\"In there,\" the petty officer ordered, pointing to the anteroom in front of the exit portal. \"Inner door is closed and sealed before the outside one opens. You got only one way to go. Or stay in the room if you are tired of living. After five minutes the outer door closes and nerve gas is pumped in through those vents up there.\"\n\n\"I don't believe you!\" I snapped.\n\nHis smile was without warmth. \"Then why don't you just hang around and find out?\"\n\nI raised my fist and he hurriedly jumped back. The porcuswine prods sparkled in my direction. I raised my finger to them in the intergalactic gesture that is as old as time, turned and walked away from them following the others. There was a creak and a thud from behind us as the door swung shut, but I did not turn to look. The future, whatever it contained, lay just ahead.\n\nWe helped each other on with our packs, swaying dizzily with the effort. There was the thud of withdrawn bolts from inside the door, the growl of straining motors as it started to open.\n\nUnconsciously we drew together as we turned to face the unknown.\nChapter 7\n\nA splatter of rain blew in through the opening door. Welcome to sunny, holiday Liokukae. Which opened wider to reveal the group of very ugly-looking individuals who were waiting outside. They were dressed in an astounding variety of clothing\u2014it looked like all the donations to charity in the entire galaxy had been sent here\u2014and they all had two things in common. They were heavily armed with a mixture of clubs, swords, maces and axes. And they all looked very angry.\n\nJust about what I had expected; I chomped down on the Blastoff capsule I had put in my mouth. I had never thought much of the weaklings-recovering-from-treatment plan and had palmed this pill in case it were needed. It was.\n\nA wave of energy and power washed through me as the mixture of powerful chemicals, uppers, stimulants, adrenalins, swept away all the fatigue and shakes. Power! Power! Power! I swayed forward on tiptoes as Tremearne had advised, flaring my nostrils at the same time.\n\nA great bearded lout swinging a crude but serviceable sword glared down at me. I glared back, noting that not only did his eyes meet in the middle but that his hairline also started at his eyebrows. When he shouted at me his breath frightened me more than he did.\n\n\"You dere, little boy. Gimme what you carrying. You all drop what you got or you get it.\"\n\n\"No one tell me what to do unless he can beat me, you illiterate cretin,\" I shouted back. The macho showdown with these macho mothers would have to take place sooner or later. Sooner was better.\n\nHe roared angrily at the insults, even though he could not understand them, and swung up the sword. I sneered.\n\n\"Big coward kill little man with sword when little man got no ax.\" I gave him two fingers to doubly amplify my feelings.\n\nI hoped my simple syntax fitted the local linguistic profile because I wanted to make sure they all understood me. They must have, because Pigbreath dropped his sword and jumped towards me. I swung off my pack and stepped out into the mud. He had his arms out, fingers snapping, ready to grab and crush.\n\nI ducked under them, tripped him as he went by to splat down into a puddle. He rose up, angrier than ever, balled his fists and came on more warily this time.\n\nI could have finished it then and there and made life easier. But I had to display a bit of skill first so his mates wouldn't think that his downfall had been an accident. I blocked his punch, grabbed and twisted his arm, then ran him into the wall with a satisfactory crunch.\n\nThe blood from his nose did not improve his temper. Nor did my flying kick that numbed one of his legs, a stab with my knee that crumpled the other. Legless, he dropped to his knees, then crawled towards me on all fours. By this time even the dullest of the audience knew who had won this fight. So I grabbed him by the hair and pulled him up, hit his throat with the edge of my hand and let him keep going backwards, splatting down unconscious in the mud. I picked up his discarded sword, tested the edge with my thumb\u2014jumped about so suddenly and menacingly that the armed men stepped away without thinking. I kept the momentum going.\n\n\"I got sword now. You want it, you die for it. Or maybe the smart bloke one of you what takes me to your boss, Svinjar. Guy what does dat gets this sword for free. Any takers?\"\n\nThe novelty of the offer and their inherent greed warded off any attack for the moment.\n\n\"Get out of there and get behind me,\" I called over my shoulder. \"And do your best to radiate obnoxious intolerance.\" Growling and gnashing their teeth my merry band emerged and lined up at my back.\n\n\"You give me sword I take you Svinjar,\" an exceedingly hairy and musclebound specimen said. He was armed only with a wooden club so his greed was understandable.\n\n\"You take me Svinjar then you get sword. Move it.\"\n\nThere was hesitation, dark looks, muttering. I swished the sword under their noses so they had to step back again. \"I got something real nice in my pack for Svinjar. You betcha he kill any bloke stop him grabbing it soonest.\"\n\nThreats penetrated where blandishments hadn't and we all moved off into the rainstorm. Along muddy tracks between collapsing hovels, to a small hill with a largish building made of logs, their bark still on, gracing the summit. I swung the sword so no one came too close, followed my guide up a stony path to the entrance with my weary musicians stumbling after. I was feeling a bit guilty about taking the Blastoff capsule. But things had developed too quickly to get some to the others. I stopped at the entrance and waved them through.\n\n\"In we go, safe haven at last. Take one of these as you pass and chomp it instantly. It is a super-upper that will restore you to the world of the living.\"\n\nMy club-bearing guide pushed inside and hurried past the groups of men who lolled about the large room, to the man in the great stone chair next to the fireplace. \"You my boss, boss Svinjar. We bring them like you say.\" He swung about and stamped over to me. \"Now you give sword.\"\n\n\"Sure. Fetch.\"\n\nI threw it out the door into the rain, heard a yipe of pain as it bounced off one of his gang. He ran after it as I walked over and stood before the stone throne.\n\n\"You my boss, boss Svinjar. These guys my band. Make good music you betcha.\"\n\nHe looked me up and down coldly, a big man with big muscles\u2014as well as a big belly that hung over his belt. Tiny piggy eyes peered out through the thicket of bristly gray hair and beard. The pommel of a sword projected from a niche in the stone chair and he touched it with his fingers, slipping it out then letting it fall back.\n\n\"Why are you talking in that obnoxiously obscene patois?\"\n\n\"I do beg your pardon.\" I bowed deprecatingly. \"I was addressed in that manner and assumed it was the local dialect.\"\n\n\"It is\u2014but only among the uneducated imbeciles who were born here. Since you weren't, don't offend my sensibility again. Are you the musicians that got into deep cagal?\"\n\n\"Word sure spreads fast.\"\n\nHe waved his hand at the 3D set against the wall and I felt my eyes bulge. It was a solid metal block with an armored glass face\u2014with the aerial under the glass. A handle stuck out one side.\n\n\"Our jailers are most generous in their desire that we be entertained at all times. They distribute these in great numbers. Unbreakable, eternal\u2014and four hundred and twelve channels.\"\n\n\"What powers it?\"\n\n\"Slaves,\" he said and reached out a toe to prod the nearest one. The slave groaned and climbed to his feet, stumbled over, clanking his chains as he went, and began to turn the handle on the internal generator. The thing burst to life with a commercial for industrial-strength cat food.\n\n\"Enough!\" Svinjar ordered and the meows faded and died. \"You and your companions kept the news channels alive. When they said crime and hospital treatment I was rather convinced they meant here. Ready to play?\"\n\n\"The Stainless Steel Rats are always at the service of those in control. Which, in this case, I assume is you.\"\n\n\"You assume right. A concert it is\u2014and now. We haven't had any live entertainment here since the cannibalistic magician died of infection after being bitten by accident in the heat of passion. Begin.\"\n\nBy necessity all our gear had to be compact. The fist-sized loudspeakers contained holoprojectors that blew their image up to room size.\n\n\"All right guys,\" I called out. \"Let's set up by the back wall. No costumes for this first gig and we'll start with 'The Swedish Monster from Outer Space.'\"\n\nThis was one of our more impressive numbers. It had been found in one of the most ancient data bases, the lyric written in a long-lost language called Svensk or Svedish or something like that. After much electronic scratching about, one of the computers in the language department at the university had been able to translate it. But this lyric was so dreadful that we threw it away and sang it in the original, which was far more interesting.\n\nEtt fasanfullt monster med rumpan bar\n\nkryper in till en jungfru sa rar.\n\nThere was more like this and Madonette belted it out at full volume to the accompaniment of my syncopated soundtrack, with Floyd knocking himself out on his blower-powered bagpipe. Steengo plucked at a tiny harp\u2014whose holographic image stretched up to the ceiling. Sound filled and reverberated through the great chamber and dust was jarred loose from the log walls.\n\nI don't think that this tune would make the galactic top ten\u2014but it sure went down well here in endsville. Particularly when it ended with an atomic mushroom cloud that grew to room size\u2014along with the best the amplifiers could do to simulate the atomic explosion itself. The part of the audience that wasn't collapsed on the floor had fled shrieking into the rain. I took out my earplugs and heard the light clapping of approval. I bowed in Svinjar's direction.\n\n\"A pleasant divertimento\u2014but the next time you play it I would appreciate a little less forza in the finale and a little more riposo.\"\n\n\"Your slightest wish is our command.\"\n\n\"For a young and simple-looking lad you learn fast. How come you were caught pushing drugs?\"\n\n\"It's a long story\u2014\"\n\n\"Shorten it. To one word if possible.\"\n\n\"Money.\"\n\n\"Understandable. Then the music business isn't that good?\"\n\n\"It smells like one of your bully-boys. If you can stay up there with the big ones, fine. But we slipped from the top notch some time ago. What with recording fees, agents' commissions, kickbacks and bribes we were quickly going bust. Steengo and Floyd have been snorting back baksheesh for years. They started selling it to support the habit. It's nice stuff. End of story.\"\n\n\"Or beginning of a new one. Your singer, what's her name?\" He smiled a very unwholesome smile as he looked over at Madonette. I groped for inspiration. Came up with the best I could do at such short notice.\n\n\"You mean my wife, Madonette...\"\n\n\"Wife? How inconvenient. I am sure that something can be done about that, though not exactly at this moment. Your arrival is, to say the least, most timely. Fits in with what you might call a general plan of action I was considering. For the general good of the populace.\"\n\n\"Indeed,\" I said, controlling my enthusiasm for any plan of his that might be forthcoming.\n\n\"Yes, indeed. A concert for the public. Barbecues and free drinks. The public will see Svinjar as a benefactor of the first order. I gather that you are prepared to play a benefit performance?\"\n\n\"That's what we are here for.\"\n\nAmong other things that we are here for, Svinjar old chubkin. But the longest journey begins with but a single step.\nChapter 8\n\n\"I'm not happy about the way this operation is going,\" I said unhappily. Spooning up the almost tasteless gruel that appeared to be the staff of life in this place.\n\n\"Who's arguing?\" Steengo said, looking suspiciously into his own bowl of food. \"This stuff not only looks like glue\u2014it tastes like it.\"\n\n\"It will stick to your ribs,\" Floyd said and I gaped. Did he have a sense of humor after all? Probably not. Looking at his serious expression I doubted if he had explored all the meanings of what he had just said. I let it lie.\n\n\"I'm not only unhappy with this operation so far\u2014but with the company we have been keeping. Svinjar and his loathsome lads. We've shot almost a day here already\u2014for little purpose. If the artifact is with the Fundamentaloids we ought to be out there tracking them down.\"\n\n\"But you promised a concert,\" Madonette pointed out with a certain logic. \"They are building a sort of bandstand and the word has gone out. You don't want to let our fans down, do you?\"\n\n\"Heaven forbid,\" I muttered gruelly and put the bowl aside. I couldn't tell them about the thirty-day poison or the fact that as of the moment twenty days had passed. Oh the hell with it. \"Let's get set up. Maybe a quick rehearsal to see if all the gear is working and, hopefully, we are still in good form.\"\n\nWe put lunch aside with a great deal of pleasure and humped our packs to the concert site. There was a grove of trees here that were serving as supports for a singularly crude platform. Planks had been set up between them, with an occasional support stuck in below if the thing sagged too much. Our audience was reluctantly and suspiciously gathering in the surrounding field. Small family units with the men all armed with swords or cudgels, keeping close watch on the womenfolk. Well, this was a slave-holding society so such concern was easily understood.\n\n\"At least they are trying to make it look nice,\" Madonette said, pointing. Pretty crude and crummy, I thought, but spoke not my thoughts aloud. Shuffling slaves had brought up leafy branches which they were arranging around the platform, there were even a few flowers stuck in among the leaves. Oh, things were really swinging on Liokukae tonight.\n\nI was depressing myself sorely and did not want to pass it on to the others. \"Here we go, gang!\" I said swinging my pack up onto the platform and clambering behind it. \"Our first live performance for this waiting world. If you don't count that quick gig upon arrival. Let's show them what a pack of real rats can do!\"\n\nWith our appearance the assembling audience took heart and moved closer; latecomers hurried to their places. While we tuned up and played a riff or two, I rolled some thunder effects that had people looking at the sky. When we were ready to go, Svinjar himself came trundling through the crowd, a couple of armed heavies at his side. With their help he climbed onto the platform and raised his arms. The silence was total. Maybe it was respect, perhaps hatred and fear\u2014or all of them rolled together. But it worked. He smiled around at the gathering, lifted his great gut so he could hook his thumbs into his belt. And spoke.\n\n\"Svinjar takes care of his people. Svinjar is your friend. Svinjar brings you The Stainless Steel Rats and their magic music. Now let us hear a big cheer for them!\"\n\nWe got a big murmur, which had to do. While he had been speaking his bully-boys had manhandled a sizable padded chair up onto the platform, it creaked when he dropped into it.\n\n\"Play,\" he ordered and sat back to enjoy the music.\n\n\"Okay, gang, ready to go!\" I blew into my lapel microphone and my amplified breath gusted across the audience. \"Well, hello there music lovers. By popular appeal\u2014and the fact that we were busted by the narcs\u2014we have come to your sunny planet to bring you the music known right around the galaxy. It is our very great pleasure now to dedicate this next song to the concert master himself, Svinjar\u2014\" He nodded acceptance and I rolled a drumroll out across the surrounding fields.\n\n\"A song that you will all know, and hopefully love, something that we can all feel, share, enjoy together, laugh together and cry together. I bring you our own and original version of that classic of modern musicality\u2014'The Itchy Foot Itch'!\"\n\nThere were shouts of joy, screams of pain, wild enthusiasm. As we launched into this overamplified and very catchy\u2014if not itchy\u2014number.\n\nI get up at dawn and look at the river\n\nThe mist rising there it gives me a shiver.\n\nLeaves on the trees they're wet with dew\n\nLooking at them I think of you\u2014\n\nFar far away from me today\n\nI don't like it\u2014but all I can say\n\nIs the galaxy's wide and I like to stray\n\nTo the stars and beyond 'cause that's my way\n\nI got the\u2014\n\nItchy foot, itchy foot, itchy foot itch!\n\nGotta keep going, never get rich!\n\nItchy foot, itchy foot, itchy foot itch!\n\nKeeping me going, ain't that a bitch!\n\nItchy foot, itchy foot, itchy foot itch!\n\nKeeping me going from place to place\n\nGotta keep going, what can I do?\n\nKeep going forever\u2014and I'll never see you.\n\nKeep on going round the galaxy\u2014no place is home\n\nFor the likes of mee-ee-e-e!\n\nThere was a vast amount of itchy foot stomping, let me tell you. And plenty of cheers and cries of joy when we had finished. Buoyed up by enthusiasm we played two more numbers before I called a break.\n\n\"Thanks folks, thanks much\u2014you're a great audience. Now if you will give us a few minutes we'll be right back...\"\n\n\"Very well done, well done indeed,\" Svinjar said, waddling over and plucking the microphone from my lapel. \"I know that we all have heard these musicians before\u2014on the box\u2014so their delightful entertainment comes as no surprise to us all. Yet still, there is something fine about having them here in person. I am grateful\u2014I know that everyone out there is grateful.\" He turned and smiled broadly at me. A smile that, I could see quite clearly, held no warmth or humor at all. He turned back and spread his arms wide.\n\n\"I am so grateful that I have prepared a little surprise for all of you out there\u2014do you want to know what it is?\"\n\nAbsolute silence now\u2014and a sideways shuffling by the audience. They apparently did not like any of Svinjar's little surprises.\n\nThey were right.\n\n\"Go!\" he shouted into the microphone, so loudly that his amplified voice rolled and echoed like thunder. \"Go\u2014go\u2014GO!\"\n\nI staggered and almost fell as the platform shook and vibrated. There was a roar of masculine voices as out from under our feet, brushing aside the disguising leafy boughs, burst a mass of armed men. More and more appeared, waving cudgels, howling as they ran, bearing down on the fleeing audience.\n\nWe looked on dumbfounded as men and women were clubbed to the ground, chained, tied. The attack was brief and vicious and quickly over with. The fields were empty, the last visitor gone. Those that remained were bound and silent, or groaning with pain. Over their moans of agony Svinjar's laughter sounded clearly. He was rocking in his chair, possessed by sadistic humor, tears rolling down his cheeks.\n\n\"But where\u2014\" Madonette said. \"Where did they all come from? There was no one under here when we started the concert.\"\n\nI jumped to the ground, kicked some branches aside, saw the gaping mouth of the tunnel. The opening had been concealed by a dirt-covered lid, now thrown aside. There was a heavy thud and Svinjar landed beside me.\n\n\"Wonderful, isn't it?\" He gestured at the opening. \"I have had my men digging that thing for months now. Stamping the removed dirt into the mud whenever it rains. I had planned a meeting here, some gifts, all very vague. Until you showed up! If I were capable of gratitude I would be grateful. I am not. The blind workings of chance. And victory to those\u2014meaning me\u2014who have the intelligence to seize the opportunity. Now a small celebration. We will have food and drink and you will play for me.\"\n\nHe turned and issued instructions, kicked one of his new slaves when she stumbled close.\n\n\"It would be nice to kill him,\" Madonette said. Speaking for all of us, if the nodding heads meant anything.\n\n\"Caution,\" I cautioned. \"He has all the cards and the thugs right now. Let's play the concert and figure out how we can get out of here after that.\"\n\nIt wasn't going to be easy. Svinjar's oversized log cabin was filled with his men. Drinking but not drunk, boasting of their feats, drinking even more. We played a number but no one was listening.\n\nYes, Svinjar was. Listening and looking. Waddling towards us, silencing the music with a swipe of his hand. Dropping into his chair and fingering the hilt of his large sword embedded in the stone close by his hand. Smiling that humorless smile at me again.\n\n\"Life is a bit different here, isn't it Jim?\"\n\n\"You might say that.\"\n\nIf he was looking for trouble I wasn't going to supply it. I didn't like the odds at all.\n\n\"We make our own life\u2014and our own rules here. Out there in the androgynous, settled worlds of the galaxy, the effete intellectuals rule. Men who act like women. Here we hearken back to the days of the primitive, virile, important men. Strength through strength. I like that. And I make the rules here.\" He looked at Madonette in a singularly repulsive manner.\n\n\"A fine singer\u2014and a lovely woman,\" he said, then looked at me. \"Your wife you say? Can anything be done about that? Let me think\u2014yes\u2014something can be done. Out there, in those so-called civilized planets nothing could be done. Here it can. For I am Svinjar\u2014and Svinjar can always do something.\"\n\nHe lifted one gross hand and tapped me on the forehead. \"By my law and my custom I now divorce you.\" He heaved himself to his feet while his henchmen roared with laughter at his subtle humor.\n\n\"That is not possible. It can't be done\u2014\"\n\nFor his size he was fast, whipping out the broadsword from the niche in his throne.\n\n\"Here is my first lesson for my new bride. Nobody says no to Svinjar.\"\n\nThe blade slashed out to slit my throat.\nChapter 9\n\nI jumped back to avoid the slash, stumbled over a man's legs, fell on top of him.\n\n\"Hold him!\" Svinjar shouted and I was grabbed tightly, struggled to get free, couldn't quite make it.\n\nSvinjar was standing over me, pushing the point of the sword into my throat\u2014\n\nThen he toppled sideways and fell with a great thud. Revealing the fact that Steengo, despite age and overweight, had jumped to the attack and was behind him, had dropped him with a chop to the neck.\n\nWhat was happening had by this time sunk into even the tiniest of the birdbrains present. Men struggled to draw weapons and roared crude oaths. I saw Floyd laying about the warriors nearest him\u2014but it wouldn't be enough. In about two seconds there was going to be a massacre of musicians if I didn't do something to stop it.\n\nI did. First by planting my elbow in the solar plexus of my captor. Who gurgled and let go of my arms. One second gone. I didn't waste any time trying to stand up but writhed on my side and pulled the black sphere from my pocket, thumbed the actuator and threw it up towards the ceiling.\n\nTwo seconds. Weapons swinging on all sides. My best defense was to jam the filter plugs into my nostrils. The gas bomb popped and I spent a busy few seconds more dodging my attackers. Who moved more and more slowly until they dropped. When I looked around I saw that the gas had done a great job. The entire great room was filled with prone and snoring forms. I shook my hands over my head.\n\n\"Let's hear it for the good guys!\" I had an audience of one, myself, which made the victory no less sweet. The sleep gas had hit my friends as well, though Floyd had been doing quite well before he dropped. A number of crumpled bodies were collapsed around him. I opened my pack and got the gas antidote; one by one I shot up my companions with the styrette. Then went to the door and stared gloomily out at the rain until they revived.\n\nSoft footsteps behind me and Madonette held me lightly by the arms.\n\n\"Thanks, Jim.\"\n\n\"Was nothing.\"\n\n\"It was something. You saved our lives.\"\n\n\"We're still in it,\" Floyd said. \"And like Madonette said, we owe you a good bit of thanks.\" Steengo nodded agreement.\n\n\"I wish you didn't. If this operation had been planned better all these emergencies wouldn't be taking place. My fault. I'm under what you might call a certain kind of time pressure. For reasons I can't go into right now we have to find the artifact and finish this operation within twenty days.\"\n\n\"That's not much time,\" Steengo said.\n\n\"Right\u2014so let's not waste any of it. Our welcome has worn out around here. Grab weapons because we might have trouble getting out of town empty-handed. Packs on, armed to kill, ruthless and deadly expressions. Forward!\"\n\nAfter what had almost happened to us with Svinjar and his macho swinemen we were in no mood to be trifled with. It must have shown in our faces\u2014or more likely in the metal of our weapons\u2014because the few people we met slipped away as soon as they saw us. The rain had almost stopped and the sun was burning through and raising trails of mist from the waterlogged ground. The hovels were farther apart now, the mounds of garbage fewer and more easily avoided. Straggly little bushes began to appear, then trees and larger shrubs covering the easy slope of the rolling hills. Mixed in were low bushes from which hung hard-skinned spheres the size of a man's fist. Maybe these were the polpettone trees we had been told about. This would have to be investigated\u2014but not now. I led on at a good pace, not calling a halt until we had reached the concealment of the first coppice. I looked back at the crude buildings, with the great bulk of the Pentagon rising behind them.\n\n\"No one seems to be following us\u2014so let's keep it that way. Five-minute break every hour, keep walking until sunset.\"\n\nI touched the skull-computer hanging from my neck and the keyboard snapped into existence. I summoned up the holomap, glanced up at the sun\u2014then pointed ahead.\n\n\"We go thataway.\"\n\nIt was tiring at first, struggling up one hill and down the other side, then up again. But we soon left the trees and the rolling countryside behind and marched out onto a grassy plain. We stopped for a break at the end of the first hour, dropped down and drank some water. The bravest of us chewed industriously on the concentrated rations. Which had the texture of cardboard\u2014if not the same exciting flavor. There was a grove of the polpettone trees close by and I went and picked a few of the spherical fruits. Hard as rocks and looking just about as appetizing. I put them into my pack for later examination. Floyd had dug a small flute out of his pack and played a little jig that lifted our spirits. When we stepped out again it was to a jolly marching tune.\n\nMadonette walked beside me, humming in time with the flute. A strong walker, she seemed to be enjoying the effort. And surely a great singer, good voice. Good everything\u2014and that included her bod. She turned and caught me looking at her and smiled. I looked away, slowed a bit to walk next to Steengo for a change. He was keeping up with the rest of us and did not look tired I was happy to see. Ahh, Madonette... Think of something else, Jim, keep your eye on the job. Not the girl. Yes, I know, she looked a lot better than anything else around. But this was no time to go all smarmy and dewy-eyed.\n\n\"How long you think until dark?\" Steengo asked. \"That pill you gave me is wearing off with a vengeance.\"\n\nI projected a holo of a watch. \"I truly don't know\u2014because I don't even know the length of the day here. This watch, like the computer, is on ship's time. It's been a good long time since they threw us out the gate.\" I squinted at the sky. \"And I don't think that sun has moved very much at all. Time to ask for some advice.\"\n\nI bit down three times hard on the left side of my jaw, which should have triggered a signal on the jawbone radio.\n\n\"Tremearne here.\" The words bounced around clearly inside my skull.\n\n\"I read you.\"\n\n\"You read what?\" Steengo asked.\n\n\"Please\u2014I'm talking on the radio.\"\n\n\"Sorry.\"\n\n\"Reception clear at this end. Report.\"\n\n\"We were less than charmed by the Machmen. We left town a couple of hours ago and are hiking out across the plain...\"\n\n\"I have you on the chart, satellite location.\"\n\n\"Any of the Fundamentaloid bands in sight as well?\"\n\n\"A number of them.\"\n\n\"Any of them close to this position?\"\n\n\"Yes, one off to your left. Roughly the same distance you've walked already.\"\n\n\"Sounds a winner. But one important question first. How long are the days here?\"\n\n\"About one hundred standard hours.\"\n\n\"No wonder we're beginning to feel tired\u2014and it's still full daylight. With the total daylight at least four times longer than what we're used to. Can you put your satellite to work looking back the way we came\u2014to see if we are being followed?\"\n\n\"I've already done that. No pursuers in sight.\"\n\n\"That's great news. Over and out.\" I raised my voice. \"Company\u2014halt. Fall out. I'll give you the other side of the conversation that you didn't hear. We're not being followed.\" I waited until the ragged cheer had died away. \"Which means we are stopping here for food, drink, sleep, the works.\"\n\nI slung my pack to the ground, stretched largely, then dropped down and leaned against it, pointed to the distant horizon. \"The Fundamentaloid nomads are somewhere out in that direction. We are going to have to find them sooner or later\u2014and I vote for later.\"\n\n\"Vote seconded, motion passed.\" They were all horizontal now. I took a good swig of water before I went on.\n\n\"The days here are four times as long as the ones that we are used to. I think that we have had enough of fighting, walking, everything for one day, or a quarter of a day, or whatever. Let's sleep on it and go on when we are rested.\"\n\nMy advice was unneeded since eyelids were already closing. I could do no less myself and was drifting off when I realized this was not the world's greatest idea. I heaved myself, groaning, to my feet and walked away from the others so my voice would not disturb them.\n\n\"Come in Tremearne. Can you read me.\"\n\n\"Sergeant Naenda here. The Captain is off duty this watch. Should I send for him?\"\n\n\"Not if you are sitting in for him\u2014and you have the satellite observations handy and up-to-date.\"\n\n\"Affirmative.\"\n\n\"Well keep looking at them. We're taking a sleep break now and I would like it to be undisturbed. If you see anyone or anything creeping up on us\u2014give a shout.\"\n\n\"Will do. Nighty-night.\"\n\nNighty-night! What were the armed forces coming to? I stumbled back to my companions and emulated their fine example. I had no trouble at all in falling asleep.\n\nIt was waking up that was difficult. Some hours had slipped by because when I blinked blearily up at the sky I saw that the sun had passed the meridian and was finally slipping down towards the horizon. What had wakened me?\n\n\"Attention, Jim diGriz, attention.\"\n\nI looked around for the speaker and it took long seconds before I realized that it was Captain Tremearne's voice I was hearing.\n\n\"Wazza?\" I said incoherently, still numbed with sleep.\n\n\"One of the Fundamentaloid bands is on the move\u2014roughly in your direction. They should be close enough to see you in about an hour.\"\n\n\"By which time we should be ready for visitors. Thanks, Cap\u2014over and out.\"\n\nMy stomach snarled at me and I realized that the concentrated rations had been a little too concentrated. I drank some water to wash the taste of sleep from my mouth, then poked Floyd with my toe. His eyes snapped open and I smiled sweetly.\n\n\"You have just volunteered to go to those bushes over there and get some firewood. It is breakfast time.\"\n\n\"Right, breakfast, wood, wonderful.\" He climbed to his feet, yawned and stretched, scratched at his beard, then went off on his mission. I gathered up enough dry grass to make a small pile, then dug the atomic battery out of my pack. It would power our musical equipment for at least a year, so it could spare a few volts now. I pulled the insulation off the ends of the wires on a short lead, shorted them to produce a fat snap of sparks, pushed it into the grass. In a moment the grass was burning nicely, crackling and smoking, and ready for the chunks of dry branches that Floyd brought back. When it was good and hot I dropped the polpettone into the glowing ashes.\n\nThe rest of the band stirred in their sleep when the smoke blew their way, but didn't really wake up until I broke one of the fruits open. The skin was black so I hoped it was done. The rich seasoned fragrance of cooked meat wafted out and everyone was awake in an instant.\n\n\"Yum,\" I said, chewing on a fragrant morsel. \"My thanks to the genetic engineers who dreamed this one up. Gourmet food\u2014and growing on trees. If it weren't for the inhabitants this planet would be a paradise.\"\n\nAfter we had dined and were feeling relatively human I made my report to them.\n\n\"I've been in touch with the eye in the sky. A band of nomads is coming this way. I figured that we should let them do the walking instead of us. Are we now prepared for contact?\"\n\nThere were quick nods and no hesitant looks I was happy to see. Steengo hefted his ax and glowered. \"Ready as we'll ever be. I just hope this lot is a bit more friendly than the first bunch.\"\n\n\"Only one way to find out.\" I bit down three times hard. \"Where are the Fundamentaloids now?\"\n\n\"Crossing a bit north of you\u2014beyond those shrubs on the slight rise.\"\n\n\"Then here we go. Packs on, weapons ready, fingers crossed. Forward!\"\n\nWe walked slowly up the hill and through the shrubs\u2014and stopped in our tracks and stared at the herd passing slowly by.\n\n\"Sheots,\" I said. \"The mutant cross between sheep and goats that they told us about.\"\n\n\"Sheots,\" Madonette agreed. \"But they didn't tell us they were so huge! I don't even come up to their legpits.\"\n\n\"Indeed,\" I agreed. \"Something else about them. They're big enough to ride upon. And if I am not mistaken we have been seen and those three riders are galloping our way.\"\n\n\"And waving weapons,\" Steengo said grimly. \"Here we go again.\"\nChapter 10\n\nThey thundered towards us, swords waving, sharp black hooves kicking up clouds of dust. The sheots had nasty little eyes, wicked, curved horns\u2014and what looked very much like tusks. I couldn't recall ever seeing a sheep or a goat with tusks, but there is always a first time.\n\n\"Stay in line, weapons ready,\" I called out, swinging my own sword up. The nearest rider, draped in black, pulled hard on the reins and his woolly mount skidded to a stop. He frowned down on me from behind his great black beard, spoke in a deep and impressive voice.\n\n\"Those who live by the sword shall die by the sword. So it is written.\"\n\n\"You talking about yourself?\" I queried, blade still ready.\n\n\"We are men of peace, infidel, but defend our flocks against numberless rustlers.\"\n\nHe could be telling the truth; I had to take the chance. I plunged my sword into the dirt and stepped back. But was ready to grab it in an instant.\n\n\"We are men of peace as well. But go armed for our own protection in this wicked world.\"\n\nHe thought about that for a bit, made the decision. He slipped the sword into a leather scabbard, then swung down from his mount. The beast instantly opened its mouth\u2014and those were tusks\u2014and tried to bite him. He scarcely noted this, merely balled a fist and got the thing under the jaw with a swift uppercut. Its mouth clacked shut and its eyes crossed for an instant. It wasn't too long on brains either, because when its eyes uncrossed it had completely forgotten about him. It said baa loudly and began to graze. The rider walked over and stood before me.\n\n\"I am Arroz conPollo and these are my followers. Have you been saved?\"\n\n\"I am Jim diGriz and this is my band. And I don't believe in banks.\"\n\n\"What are banks?\"\n\n\"Where you save money. Fedha.\"\n\n\"You misunderstand my meaning, Jim of diGriz. It is your soul that needs saving\u2014not your fedha.\"\n\n\"An interesting theological point, Arroz of conPollo. We must discuss it in some depth. What do you say we all put the weapons down and have a good chinwag. Put them away,\" I called out.\n\nArroz signaled his two companions and we all felt a lot better as the swords were sheathed, axes lowered. For the first time he looked away from me to my followers. And gasped, turned pale under his tan, and held his arm before his eyes.\n\n\"Unclean,\" he moaned, \"unclean.\"\n\n\"Well it is a little hard to have a bath when you're on the trail,\" I told him. I didn't add that he wasn't that spic and span himself.\n\n\"Not of the body\u2014of the spirit. Is that not a vessel of corruption among you?\"\n\n\"Could you spell that out a little more clearly?\"\n\n\"Is that... person a... woman?\" He still had his arm across his face.\n\n\"The last time I looked she was.\" I moved sideways a bit, closer to my sword. \"What's it to you?\"\n\n\"Her face must be covered to conceal impurity, her ankles covered lest they promote lust in the hearts of men.\"\n\n\"This guy is a bit of a weirdo,\" Madonette said disgustedly. He yiped.\n\n\"And her voice silenced lest it lure the blessed into sin!\"\n\nSteengo nodded to Floyd and took the angry girl by the arm, but she shrugged him off. \"Jim,\" he said. \"The bunch of us are going to stroll back among the trees and have a break. See if you can sort this out.\"\n\n\"Right.\" I watched them leave and when they were out of sight looked back at the three nomads who were emulating their leader, all with their arms raised, as though sniffing their armpits. \"It's safe now. Can we talk about this?\"\n\n\"Return,\" Arroz said to his mates. \"I will explain the Law to this stranger. Let the flock graze.\"\n\nThey trotted off while his own mount chomped away on the grass. He sat down cross-legged and motioned to me. \"Sit. We must talk.\"\n\nI sat. But upwind of him because it had been a long time since he or his clothes had been near soap and water. And he talked about unclean! He rooted about under his robe, had a good scratch, then withdrew a book and held it up.\n\n\"This book is the font of all wisdom,\" he intoned, eyes gleaming.\n\n\"That's nice. What is it called?\"\n\n\"The Book. There are no other books. All that men need to know is in here. The distillate of all wisdom.\" I thought that it looked pretty thin for that job, but wisely kept my mouth shut. \"It was the great Founder, whose name may not be spoken, who had the inspiration to read all of the Holy books of all of the ages, who saw in them the work of the god whose name may not be spoken, saw which passages were inspired and which were untrue. From all the books He distilled the true Book\u2014then burned all of the others. He went forth into the world and His followers were many. But others were jealous and tried to destroy Him and His followers. That has been told. And it is told that to avoid this senseless persecution He and His followers came to this world where they could worship untroubled. That is why I asked\u2014are you unclean? Or do you also follow the Way of the Book?\"\n\n\"Most interesting. I follow a slightly different way. But my way believes in respecting your way, so don't worry too much about me.\"\n\nHe frowned at this and shook an admonitory finger at me. \"There is only one Way, only one Book. All who think differently are damned. Now is your chance to be cleansed for I have shown you the true Way.\"\n\n\"Thanks a lot\u2014but no thanks.\"\n\nHe stood up and stabbed an accusatory finger in my direction. \"Unclean! Profane! Leave\u2014for you soil me with your presence.\"\n\n\"Well each to their own opinion. Goodbye and good luck with your sheot shearing. May all your fleeces be giant ones. But an indulgence please\u2014before you go would you take a look at this.\" I pulled the photograph of the alien artifact from my pocket and held it out.\n\n\"Unclean,\" he muttered and put his hand behind his back so he wouldn't touch it.\n\n\"I'm sure it is. I just want to know if you have seen this thing in the picture before.\"\n\n\"No, never.\"\n\n\"Been nice talking to you.\"\n\nHe did not return my friendly wave as he walked over to his mount, kicked it in the leg until it sat down, climbed aboard and galloped off. I pulled my sword out of the ground and went to join the others. Madonette was still simmering.\n\n\"Hypocritical narrow-minded bigoted moron.\"\n\n\"That and a lot more. At least I got one bit of negative information from him. He never saw the artifact. It must have been taken by another one of the tribes.\"\n\n\"Are we going to have to talk to all of them?\"\n\n\"Unless you have any better ideas. And nineteen days to go.\"\n\n\"I don't trust him,\" Madonette said. \"And don't sneer and say female intuition. Aren't these the same kind as the bunch that attacked the archeologists' ship?\"\n\n\"You're right\u2014and isn't that the clatter of hundreds of hooves coming this way?\"\n\n\"It is!\" Floyd shouted, pointing. \"What do we do\u2014run?\"\n\n\"No! Out of the trees and onto the plain. Instruments at the ready. We are going to give these guys a concert that they will never forget!\"\n\nArroz had gone back to rally the troops and at least thirty of them, with plenty of sword waving and maniac baaing, came charging down. I turned the amplification on the sound up until it would not go any higher.\n\n\"Earplugs in, get ready, on the count of three we give them old number thirteen, 'The Rockets Go Rumbling On.' One, two...\"\n\nOn the count of three the explosion of unbearable sound blasted out. The lead riders were tossed to the ground as the sheots recoiled in fear. I flipped some smoke bombs among them, just to keep the action going, and hit them with holographed lightning volts.\n\nIt was pretty good. Before we got to the second chorus the stampede was over, the last terrorized sheots galloped away out of sight. The last black-robed Fundamentaloid crawled over the horizon, the trampled grass dotted with discarded swords, gobbets of fleece and myriad eightballs of dung.\n\n\"Victory is ours!\" I whooped happily.\n\nAnd only nineteen days to go I thought depressedly. This just would not do. I had the awful feeling that we could spend nineteen days or nineteen weeks stumbling about this planet and be no wiser about the alien artifact we were seeking. There had to be a change of plan\u2014and now! I walked away from the others, then bit down three times, so hard that I almost cracked a tooth.\n\n\"Captain Tremearne here.\"\n\n\"And dismal Jim diGriz on this end. Have you been following all this?\"\n\n\"Yes, and watching. I heard you ask him to identify the photograph. I assume that he did not.\"\n\n\"You assume right, distant and disembodied voice. Now listen, there has got to be a change of plan. When I came up with the idea for this present operation I assumed that there was some kind of imitation of civilization on this dismal world. Where we could stroll from gig to gig and do our snooping at the same time. I was wrong.\"\n\n\"I regret that all the facts were not supplied to you at the time. But as you are now aware there is a complete ban on information being circulated about this particular planet.\"\n\n\"I know that now\u2014and it won't wash. We would have been a lot better if we came here disguised as a squad of combat marines. So far every bunch we have met has tried to kill us. The whole thing is that hardnosed Admiral Benbow's fault. He lied to me about what we would find here. Right?\"\n\n\"As a serving military officer I cannot discuss the conduct of my superiors. But I can agree that whoever briefed you was, I must say, economical with the truth.\"\n\n\"Do you also know that he was economical with my health? And that in nineteen days I am going to keel over from time-released poison.\"\n\n\"Regrettably, I have been informed that that is the case. And you have eighteen days left now. You appear to have lost track of one day during the past period.\"\n\n\"Eighteen? Thanks much. That only makes what I have to say even more imperative. I need some help, some transportation.\"\n\n\"All contact with the planet is forbidden.\"\n\n\"I just changed the rules. You yourself told me that you are heading a committee to bring about major improvements here. The first change will be to get one of the ship's launches down here. With that I can get around to the various bands of sheot shaggers before my personal deadline runs out.\"\n\n\"If I do that I will be disobeying orders and it could end my career.\"\n\n\"Well?\"\n\nThe silence inside my head went on and on. I waited. Until I heard what could only have been a sigh.\n\n\"I suppose there are plenty of job opportunities for skilled civilians these days. The launch will hand after dark. If it is not seen by anyone on the ground there is just a chance that my career change can be postponed.\"\n\n\"You're a good guy, Tremearne. My heartiest thanks.\"\n\nI hummed a bar or two from \"The Swedish Monster\" as I walked back to inform my companions.\n\n\"Jim, you're wonderful!\" Madonette said, grabbed and kissed me. \"I much prefer flying to walking.\"\n\nFloyd nodded happy agreement and reached for me.\n\n\"Away!\" I shouted. \"Girls, okay, but I don't kiss guys with beards. What we do now is put a little distance between us and those religious nuts in case they want to come back for seconds. Then rest up until dark. I have a feeling that it is going to be a very busy night.\"\nChapter 11\n\n\"Wake up, Jim\u2014it's almost dark.\"\n\nMadonette's gentle hand was most welcome, since it drew me up out of a really repulsive nightmare. Tentacles, bulging eyeballs, yukk. The eighteen-day dead deadline must be getting to my subconscious. I sat up, yawned and stretched. With great reluctance the sun had finally dropped behind the horizon, leaving behind a slowly fading band of light. The stars were coming out, revealing some pretty boring constellations\u2014and very few of them at that. This prison planet must be far out on the galactic rim.\n\nThen something blotted out the stars in the zenith as a dark form drifted down to the ground, silently on null-grav drive. The door opened as we approached\u2014and the cabin lights came on.\n\n\"Turn them off, lunkhead!\" I shouted. \"You want to ruin my night vision.\" The pilot turned about in his seat and I grinned insincerely. \"Sorry Captain, sir\u2014that lunkhead, just a figure of speech.\"\n\n\"My fault completely,\" he said, and tapped one of his electronic eyeballs. \"With these I forget. I'm piloting this thing because I have the best night vision in the fleet.\"\n\nHe flipped the lights off and we groped our way aboard with just the dim red emergency lights to show us the way. I sat in the copilot's seat and strapped in.\n\n\"What is your plan?\" he asked.\n\n\"A simple one. You know the position of all the sheot flocks don't you?\"\n\n\"Observed and logged into the launch's memory.\"\n\n\"Great. Have the computer do a topological survey to plot a course that will let us visit them all in the shortest amount of time. We drift over to the first flock, find one of the shepherds who is maybe out of sight of the others\u2014and talk to him. Show him the photograph and find out if he has seen the thing. If he hasn't\u2014on to the next bunch.\"\n\n\"Seems a simple and practical plan. Belts fastened? Right, first flock coming up.\"\n\nWe were slammed back into our seats and were on our way. High and fast on the plotted track. Then slow and drifting in low while Tremearne peered out into the darkness.\n\n\"There's one,\" he said. \"On the far side of the flock\u2014all by himself. Either to guard the beasts or keep them from wandering. I have a suggestion. I approach him from behind and immobilize him. Then you question him.\"\n\n\"Creep up in the dark? Immobilize an armed and watchful guard? That's a job for a combat trooper.\"\n\n\"Well how do you think I got these electronic eyeballs? It will be entertaining to do a bit of work again.\"\n\nI had no choice but to agree. The Captain was proving to be an excellent ally. Working this way would be certainly a lot faster than me crawling around on my own. If he could do as he said. I had my doubts but kept them to myself. He was a gray-haired desk jockey with electric eyesight who might very well be past his sell-by date.\n\nHe wasn't. After we landed he stepped out the door and vanished silently in the darkness. Not thirty seconds later he called to me quietly.\n\n\"Over here. You can use your light now.\"\n\nI turned on the handlight, it was really black under the almost starless sky, and saw two forms standing close together. The light revealed a bulging-eyed shepherd seized in an unbreakable grip, a hand on his throat keeping him silent. I waggled the light under his nose.\n\n\"Listen, oh shepherd who failed his duty. The hand that holds you could just as easily have killed you. Then we could rustle all your woolly flock and eat sheot shashlik until the end of time. But I will be merciful. The hand will be removed from your filthy throat and you will not shout or you really will be dead. You will speak to me softly and answer my questions. You may now speak.\"\n\nHe coughed and groaned when the pressure was released. \"Demons in the darkness! Release me, do not kill me, tell me what you wish of me then go back to the pit from which you have escaped...\"\n\nI reached out and tweaked his nose sharply. \"Shut up. Open your eyes. Look at this photograph. Let me know if you have ever seen it before.\"\n\nI held the photo close, shone the light on it. Tremearne gave a twitch of emphasis to his arm and the captive moaned his answer. \"Never, no, such a thing I would remember, no\u2014\" His voice gurgled into silence and he dropped unconscious to the ground.\n\n\"Don't these sheot shepherds ever wash?\" Tremearne asked.\n\n\"Only on alternate years. Let's get to the next one.\"\n\nWe quickly worked out a routine. We would land and he would be away. Usually, by the time I had exited the launch, he would be calling me. Many a terrified shepherd slept soundly this night. But only after looking at the picture of the artifact. I dozed between visits and the back of the launch echoed with snores and heavy breathing. Only the Captain was unsleeping and tireless, seemingly as fit on the eleventh visit as he had been on the first. It was a long, long night.\n\nI was getting groggy by the time we hit thirteen. Unlucky thirteen; get it over with and on to fourteen. Another set of bulging eyes peeking over the top of another matted beard.\n\n\"Look!\" I snarled. \"Speak! And moaning does not count as speaking. Ever seen this thing?\"\n\nThis one gurgled instead of moaning, then yiped as his arm got twisted a bit further. It looked as though even the stolid Captain was beginning to lose his patience.\n\n\"Imp of Satan... work of the devil... I warned them, but they wouldn't listen... the grave, the grave!\"\n\n\"Do you have any idea of what he is babbling about?\" Tremearne asked.\n\n\"There may be hope, Captain. If he is not bonkers he might have seen it. Look\u2014see! Ever see before?\"\n\n\"I told him not touch it\u2014death and damnation were sure to follow.\"\n\n\"You have seen it. All right, Cap, you can let up on the arm\u2014but stand ready.\" I rooted in my pocket and took out a handful of silver cylinders, the local money, let the light shine on them. \"Hey you, Smelly, look\u2014fedha\u2014and all for you. All yours.\"\n\nThis got his attention all right and I closed my fist tight as he groped for them. \"Yours if you answer some simple questions. You will not be hurt\u2014but only if you answer truthfully. You have seen this thing?\"\n\n\"They fled. We found it in their skyship. I touched it, unclean, unclean.\"\n\n\"You're doing fine.\" I shook half of the coins into his waiting hand. \"Now the ten-thousand-fedha question. Where is it now?\"\n\n\"Sold, sold to them. The Paradisians. May they be cursed by it, cursed forever...\"\n\nIt wasn't easy, but we finally worked all the details out of him. Stripped of all the curses and blasphemy it was a simple tale of larceny and chicanery. The spacer had landed\u2014and been attacked as soon as the door had been opened. During the fracas the Fundamentaloids had trundled through the ship and grabbed everything portable, including the container with the alien artifact. They had carried the whole thing away with them because they had a job opening it. When they eventually succeeded they could not understand what it was. And ignorance meant fear. So they had unloaded it in the market in Paradise where almost anything could be sold. End of story.\n\nWe let the shepherd keep the money when we lowered him, unconscious, to the ground. \"This calls for consultation,\" I said.\n\n\"Yes, but not this close to the flock. Let's get up to the plateau where the air is fresher.\"\n\nThe others were awake when we landed this time, listening closely to what we had discovered.\n\n\"Well this narrows the field a bit,\" Madonette said.\n\n\"Does it?\" I asked. \"How big is the population of this paradisiacal nation?\"\n\n\"Around one hundred thousand,\" Tremearne admitted. \"It may not be the best society on this planet but it appears to be the most successful one. I know very little about it, just photographs and observation.\"\n\n\"Doesn't anyone in the Pentagon know more?\"\n\n\"Probably. But the information is classified and they aren't talking.\"\n\nI cracked my knuckles, scowled and jabbed my finger at him. \"That's really not good enough\u2014is it?\"\n\nTremearne looked as unhappy as I did. \"No, Jim, it is not. I don't know why all that information is classified while your group is actually operating here on the planet. I have tried to get the information and have been not only rebuffed but warned off.\"\n\n\"Who is doing this? Any idea?\"\n\n\"None\u2014other than that it is at the very highest level. The people I have been in contact with understand your problems and want to help. But any requests that they pass on are turned down instantly and with prejudice.\"\n\n\"Am I paranoid\u2014or is there someone in the chain of command who doesn't like this operation? Who wants it to fail?\"\n\nIt was Tremearne's turn now to crack his knuckles and look glum.\n\n\"I've told you\u2014I am a career officer. But I'm not fond of the situation here on this planet. Not only the way your group is being treated, but the whole ugly business. Well, I feel that it is getting away from me. At first I thought I could get some reform here by working through channels. It's not good enough. I am being blocked just as completely as you are.\"\n\n\"Who\u2014and why?\"\n\n\"I don't know. But I am doing my best to find out. About this city and the Paradisians I guess, basically, I know absolutely nothing.\"\n\n\"An honest answer, Captain, and I thank you for it.\"\n\n\"If you don't know\u2014why then we'll just have to find out for ourselves,\" Steengo said. \"Play a gig or two and keep our eyes open.\"\n\n\"May it be so easy,\" I muttered under my breath. \"Roll out the maps.\"\n\nIt looked as though the largest part of the population was located in the single straggling city. Roads led from it to not-too-distant villages and there were scatterings of other buildings that might be farms. The only really puzzling thing about the 3D map was what looked like a wall that appeared to cut the city in two. There were no walls around the city, just this single one in the middle. I pointed to it.\n\n\"Any idea what this is\u2014or what it means?\"\n\nTremearne shook his head. \"No idea. Looks like a wall, that's all. But there is a road alongside it. Which appears to be the only road leading in from the plain.\"\n\nI poked my finger into the holomap.\n\n\"Here. Where the road fades and runs out in the grass. That's where we have to go. Unless anyone has a better idea?\"\n\n\"Looks good to me,\" Tremearne said. \"I'll land you on this bit of plateau, beyond this ridge where we won't be seen. Then I'll take the launch out of there and stay in touch with you by radio.\"\n\nWe unloaded. \"Sleep first,\" Floyd yawned. \"It's been a long night.\"\n\nIt was even longer than that, what with the longer days here. Tremearne took off and we settled down to sleep. We slept, and woke up and it was still dark. Slept some more. At least the others snored on: I had too much on my mind to drift off as easily as they did. We had a clue now to the whereabouts of the alien artifact. A clue that was useless until we started looking. And we couldn't look in the darkness. And I had\u2014how many days left before the thirty-day poison zonked me? I counted on my fingers. Just about eighteen gone, which left twelve to go. Wonderful. Or had I counted wrong? I started again with the fingers, then grew angry with myself. Enough with the fingers already. I clicked on my computer and wrote a quick program. Then touched D for deadline\u2014or death, whatever\u2014and a glowing eighteen appeared before me accompanied by a flickering twelve. Not that I enjoyed looking at them, mind you, but this way I could stop worrying about the changing count. Some part of me must have been satisfied with this because I fell deeply asleep.\n\nFinally, with great reluctance and sloth, the sky lightened and another day began. Before it was completely light the Captain drifted the launch in low and slow behind the hills, boarded us, then let us out behind the final ridge.\n\n\"Good luck,\" he said, with a certain grimness. The port ground shut and the launch moved away and vanished in the growing light. Scarcely aware of what I was doing I punched D into the computer. The numbers snapped into existence, vanished just as quickly. But I remembered.\n\nDay nineteen.\nChapter 12\n\nDawn crept on interminably as we walked, the sun dragging itself up over the horizon only with great reluctance. It was still not quite full daylight when we came to what had to be the beginning of the wall. Just a single row of bricks almost hidden in the grass.\n\n\"What do you think?\" I asked of no one in particular. Steengo bent and rapped one with his knuckles.\n\n\"Brick,\" he said.\n\n\"Red brick,\" Madonette said brightly.\n\n\"Thanks, thanks,\" I mumbled with complete lack of appreciation.\n\nThere was a barely visible path next to the right-hand side of the row of bricks; for want of a better idea we began walking along it.\n\n\"It's higher, see,\" Floyd said, pointing. \"A second course has been added.\"\n\n\"And more still ahead,\" Madonette said. \"Three bricks high now.\"\n\n\"What's this?\" Steengo said, bending and pushing the grass aside to look more closely, touching the brick with his fingertip. \"There's some kind of symbol stamped into each of the bricks.\" We all looked now.\n\n\"Sort of a circle with an arrow sticking out of it.\"\n\n\"Arrow... circle,\" I muttered. A sudden intuition bounced about inside my skull. \"I've seen that symbol before\u2014yes indeed! Would someone kindly step over the wall and see if there is a circle with a cross sticking out of it on the other side.\"\n\nMadonette lifted lovely eyebrows with curiosity, stepped daintily over the low wall, bent and looked. Eyebrows even higher now.\n\n\"How did you do that? On this side there is a circle-cross sign stamped into each brick.\"\n\n\"Biology,\" I said. \"I remembered from school.\"\n\n\"Yes, of course,\" she said, stepping back. \"The symbols for male and female.\"\n\nFloyd had strolled on ahead; he called out. \"Right as rain. Here is VIROJ stamped into a brick. And,\" he leaned over and looked, \"VIRINOJ on the other side.\"\n\nVery gradually the wall became higher as we walked beside it. In addition to the symbols we came to LJUDI then MTUWA, HERRER, SIGNORI.\n\n\"Enough,\" I said, stopping. \"Packs off. We shall now take our break while we see what we have here. The message seems to be clear enough. Look at the path we have been following. Is there another path on the other side as well?\"\n\nThe brick wall was as high as our waists now; Floyd put one hand on it and vaulted over, bent and looked.\n\n\"Maybe, but not too clear. Could have been here once but it is so overgrown with grass that it is hard to tell. Can I come back now?\"\n\n\"Yes\u2014because it's about time for a decision.\" I pointed ahead to the slowly heightening wall. \"The Fundamentaloids said they came to the city to trade. So they must have come this way, possibly made this track that we are following.\"\n\nMadonette nodded agreement\u2014and didn't like it. \"And they were all men, I remember that all too clearly. Unclean indeed! No women allowed. Or if the women did come this way they would have to have walked over on the other side of the wall. What do you want us to do, Jim?\"\n\n\"What do we want to do? As I said\u2014it's time for a decision. Do we all stick together and ignore the obvious instructions? That's the first question that we have to answer.\"\n\n\"Do that and I'll bet that eventually we get into some kind of trouble,\" she said. \"A lot of serious work went into this wall. So if we don't read the message something not too nice is guaranteed to happen. It always does on this world. The choice is mine. I'll cross over and trot down the other side\u2014\"\n\n\"No,\" I broke in. \"As we go along the wall gets higher and we'll be separated, out of contact. That won't do.\"\n\n\"Well I'm not staying here\u2014and I can't go back. So we need contact, what you just said. Kindly clack your jaw-a-phone and get onto Tremearne. Tell him to get some radios down here that we can use to keep in touch. If we are going to complete this assignment the right way, we will have to know what is going on on both sides of the wall. And I'm the only one who can find out what happens\u2014here.\"\n\nShe picked up her pack and planted her bottom on the wall, swung her legs up and over and smiled at us from the other side. I didn't like it.\n\n\"It's not a matter of liking or not liking it,\" she said reading my doubts from my expression. \"It is just the only way that we can get the job done. Get the radios. Don't forget that Tremearne will always be listening in and can send the marines if any of us gets into trouble. Call him.\"\n\n\"I will. But let us make sure they are the right kind of radios before we put in the order. Line of sight is going to be out with the wall standing in the way and blocking the signal. Plus\u2014who knows how thick the thing is going to be? It could soak up all the radio frequencies and that would be the end of that. Anyone know of a kind of radio that shoots a signal through rocks?\"\n\nI was speaking my thoughts aloud, half in jest. So was more than a little surprised when a voice behind me said, \"Yes.\"\n\nI spun about and glared at Steengo who was buffing his fingernails on his shirt, then admiring his image in their shining surfaces.\n\n\"You said that?\" I accused. He nodded sagely. \"Why?\"\n\n\"Why is a good question. The answer is that although I stand before you, an aging amateur musician drawn from retirement to risk his life for the public good, it should not be forgotten that I worked for many a decade in the cause of that same public good. League communications. Where I helped develop a neat little device referred to as MIPSC.\"\n\n\"Mipsic?\" I echoed inanely.\n\n\"Close enough, my good friend Jim. MIPSC is the acronym of Miniaturized Personal Satellite Communicator. I suggest that you clamp your jaw and order up a brace of them. Although four would be better\u2014that way we could all keep in touch at all times. And remind Tremearne to put a commsatellite into orbit as well. Geostationary over the city of Paradise.\"\n\n\"MIPSCS are not only highly secret but incredibly expensive,\" Tremearne said when I contacted him.\n\n\"Just like this little task force. Can you do it?\"\n\n\"Of course. They're on the way.\"\n\nA half an hour later a small package drifted down from the sky hanging from a grav-lifter\u2014which zipped up and vanished as soon as the package had been removed. I popped the end open and shook out a handful of false fingernails. I popped my eyes at these\u2014then remembered how Steengo had been buffing his own fingernails when he told me about MIPSC.\n\n\"Tricky,\" I said.\n\n\"High tech and perfect concealment,\" he said. \"There should be glue in the package. They come in pairs. The one marked E goes onto the index finger, left hand. M glued to the pinkie of the same hand. Inside the nails are holographed circuitry so they can be trimmed as small as needed to fit. Without damaging the circuits in any way.\"\n\n\"E? M?\" Floyd asked.\n\n\"Earplugs and microphone.\"\n\n\"Then what?\" I asked, almost humbly, dazed by the sudden appearance of a communications wizard in our midst.\n\n\"They are powered by the destruction of the phagocytes that come to eat them where they touch the cuticle. Which means that the power is always on. Anytime you are outside\u2014or in a building with thin floors\u2014your signal zips up to the satellite and back down to the other receiver. Simple. Just put your index finger into your ear and talk into the microphone on your pinkie.\"\n\nI measured a pair, trimmed and glued with, I must admit, a certain amount of trepidation. Stuck my finger into my ear and said, \"I hope it works.\"\n\n\"Of course it does,\" Tremearne said, speaking through my fingernail instead of my jaw for a change.\n\nWhile we had been installing the MIPSCS we had been going over and over all of the possibilities, had returned always to the only viable plan.\n\n\"Let's do it,\" Madonette said, admiring her new communicating fingernails. She put on her pack, shrugged it into comfortable position, then turned and walked off on her side of the barrier. With each step the wall grew higher, until, very quickly, it was as high as her head, then higher. After a last wave of her hand she vanished from sight.\n\n\"Keep in touch,\" I said into my pinkie. \"Regular reports and sing out if you see anything\u2014anything at all.\"\n\n\"Just as you say, boss.\"\n\nWe slipped on our packs and started walking. By the time an hour had passed the wall was high and unscalable. Though I stayed in radio contact with her, Madonette was now completely alone. I kept telling myself that armed help could zip down from the orbiting spacer if needed. This did not make me feel much better.\n\n\"First tilled fields coming up,\" Floyd said. \"And more than that. That dust cloud next to the wall\u2014it's coming our way.\"\n\n\"Weapons ready\u2014and I have some concussion grenades handy if things get hairy.\"\n\nWe stopped and waited and watched. In the distance it looked like a horse that was trotting towards us.\n\n\"Horse\u2014but no rider,\" I said.\n\nSteengo had the keener vision. \"Looks like no horse I ever saw before. Not one with six legs.\"\n\nIt slowed to a stop and looked at us. We returned the favor. A robot, metal. Jointed legs and in the front a pair of tentaclelike arms to boot. No head to speak of, just a couple of eyes that rose up on a stalk. A loudspeaker between its arms rustled and squawked metallically.\n\n\"Bonan tagon\u2014kaj bonvenu al Paradizo.\"\n\n\"And a good day to you as well,\" I said. \"My name is Jim.\"\n\n\"A masculine surname, most agreeable. I am called Hingst and it is my pleasure to greet you\u2014\"\n\nThe creature's words were drowned out by a throbbing roar and a cloud of black smoke emerged from its rear. We stepped back, weapons ready. Hingst's flexible arms lifted straight up.\n\n\"I wish you only peace, oh strangers. You would not know it, since you are untutored in science, but the sound and fumes are merely the exhaust of my alcohol engine. Which is rapidly turning a generator which in turn...\"\n\n\"Charges up your batteries. We know a thing or two as well, Hingst, greeter of strangers to Paradise, and we are not your usual goaty nomads.\"\n\n\"Now that is a pleasure to hear, visiting gentlemen. Before my operating system was bolted into this rather crude construction I was a class A42 head-waiterbot and worked at only the most excellent restaurants...\"\n\n\"Another time,\" I said. \"I would enjoy your reminiscences. We have a few questions\u2014\"\n\n\"And I am sure I have a few answers,\" it said with surly overtones. \"But there are preliminaries to go through.\" It had strolled a few paces forward as it talked and now, like a striking snake, one of its tentacles lashed at me. I jumped back, lifted my sword\u2014but not before the cool metal tip had touched my lips and just as swiftly been withdrawn.\n\n\"Try that again and you'll be a tentacle short,\" I growled.\n\n\"Temper, temper. After all you are armed strangers and I am simply doing my duty. Which is to sample your saliva. And test it, which I have done. You may proceed, Gentleman Jim, because you indeed are of the male sex. I would appreciate samples from your associates.\"\n\n\"As long as it is just spit you are after,\" Floyd growled, hands joined and cupped over his nether regions.\n\n\"Oh, I do appreciate a sense of humor, stranger.\" The tentacle took its sample from his mouth. \"Gentleman stranger I can now say. Final traveler if you please. Lovely, thank you. You may now proceed.\"\n\nIt turned away and I jumped in front of it.\n\n\"A moment first, Hingst the Official Greeter. A few questions...\"\n\n\"Sorry. I am not programmed for that. Kindly step aside, Gentleman Jim.\"\n\n\"Only after I get a few answers.\"\n\nWhen I didn't move the other tentacle touched my arm\u2014and lightning struck!\n\nI was lying dizzily on the ground watching it trot away. \"Shocking, isn't it!\" Hingst called back smugly. \"Big batteries.\"\n\nFloyd helped me to my feet and dusted me off. \"So good so far.\"\n\n\"Thanks. But you aren't the one who was short-circuited.\"\n\nI reported to Madonette as we went on, with Tremearne listening in. \"Applied technology,\" he said. \"Perhaps this lot isn't as bad as the rest of the crumb-bums on this planet.\" Since I was still tingling, and had a burnt taste in my mouth, I sneered in silence and did not bother to answer. Very soon after that Madonette called in that a creature like the one we had described was coming towards her. I clutched my sword in helpless anger, relaxed only when she called back.\n\n\"Just like yours\u2014only with a different name. Hoppe. As soon as it made the test it trotted off. What now?\"\n\n\"We go on\u2014and you take a break. If things are going to be the same, or similar, on both sides of the wall we'll find out first.\"\n\n\"Male chauv superiority?\"\n\n\"Common sense. We're three to your one.\"\n\n\"A solid argument\u2014and I could use the rest. Keep in contact.\"\n\n\"You've got it. Here we go.\"\n\nThe path had widened and was more of a dirt road now. We passed some tilled fields and came to a large grove of polpettone trees. Obviously cultivated since they were planted in neat rows. Beyond them was a low huddle of buildings that could be a farm.\n\nBlocking the path was a brick building with an archway that spanned the road; we slowed and stopped.\n\n\"Is that what I think it is?\" Steengo said.\n\n\"I think that it is a building with an arch under it,\" Floyd said. \"And we're not going to find out any more just standing around here.\"\n\nWe shuffled forward slowly and stopped again when a man appeared in the archway. Our hands twitched away from our weapons when he stepped out into the sunlight. He blinked his red-rimmed eyes against the glare, nodded his head so his mane of long white hair bobbed, then tapped the arrow-and-circle symbol picked out in white on the front of his gray robe.\n\n\"Welcome, strangers, welcome to Paradise. I am Afatt, the official greeter. Market opens at dawn tomorrow. You may stay out here, or if you wish to camp beyond the arch your weapons will be looked after until you return. A payment of one fedha is required for attendance.\"\n\nThe way he flicked a look over his shoulder as he said this strongly suggested that what he wanted was more bribe than payment.\n\n\"No way, aged Afatt,\" I intoned. \"Those you see before you are not peasant traders but galaxy-famous chart-topping musicians. We are... The Stainless Steel Rats!\"\n\nHis jaw dropped and he stepped back a pace. \"Don't need no rats in Paradise. A rusty, chipped old fedha will do...\"\n\n\"We got a real fan in old Afatt here,\" Floyd muttered. \"I thought the planet was hip-deep in TV sets?\"\n\nA more military Paradisian appeared in the archway. Younger, bigger, and he came complete with studded metal helmet and heavy leather trappings. \"What did you say?\" he said as he swung a shining and singularly nasty looking ax.\n\n\"You heard me, Sunny. I don't repeat myself for the troops.\"\n\nThis provoked a twisted snarl and a barked command.\n\n\"Guard\u2014fall out. We got some sheot shaggers here that need a lesson in civility.\"\n\nThis was followed instantly by the clanking of metal and the thud of running feet.\n\nMany of them.\nChapter 13\n\nThere were a lot of them, armed with a collection of nasty and lethal-looking weapons. I must learn to control impetuosity in speech on this slumworld. Think quickly, Jim, before things get any worse.\n\n\"I tempted a jest, good sir. I will be happy to repeat myself for your benefit. You, and your good men, have the pleasure of being in the presence of the finest musicians in the known galaxy!\"\n\nAs I spoke I touched the remote control on the side of my backpack and a mighty organ sounded out the opening bars of \"Mutants of Mercury.\" Floyd and Steengo quickly joined in with the opening lines.\n\nOne head good\u2014but two heads better\u2014\n\nGot brown eyes like an English setter...\n\nThe effect of this little jingle of genetic jest was very impressive. As a man the soldiers roared aloud and surged towards us.\n\n\"Do we fight or run?\" Floyd said grimly, grabbing at his sword. I started to shout fight\u2014but at the last instant called out\u2014\"Listen!\"\n\nFor they had forgotten about their weapons and were shouting with joy!\n\n\"It's them, like on the Galactic Greasecutter show...\"\n\n\"The hairy, ugly one\u2014that's Floyd!\"\n\n\"I want to hear 'How Much Is the Snakey in the Snakepit'!\"\n\nThen they were around us, trying to shake our hands and emitting hoarse cries of fannish enthusiasm.\n\n\"But\u2014but\u2014\" I but-butted. \"Your official greeter never heard of us?\"\n\nThe first soldier, snarls now turned to smiles, not too gently pushed the old man aside. \"Afatt never looks at the goggle box. But we do! Let me tell you it was like suicidesville around here when we heard that you were sent down. Should have known that you would have to end up here. Wait until the boys in the barracks hear about this. There'll be a crackup in the old kaserne tonight!\"\n\nThey escorted us cheerily under the arch and onto the drillfield beyond, our new host proudly leading the way.\n\n\"I'm Ljotur, Sergeant of the Guard. You all take it easy while I call this in. Drinks!\" he ordered his men. \"And food\u2014whatever they want.\"\n\nThis was more like it. The beer tasted like beer, although it was of an interesting green color. The soldiers crowded close, hanging on every word we said, so I chomped my jaw to get Tremearne's attention and made my report to him in the form of a speech.\n\n\"Gallant warriors of Paradise\u2014we are overwhelmed by your greeting. You have welcomed we drug-ridden convicts as heroes to your fair land. You ply us with food and drink and, by your loud cheers, I feel we have a beautiful future here.\"\n\n\"I certainly hope so,\" Tremearne's voice said inside my head. \"But until you find out the score on this male-female thing I am ordering Madonette to stay where she is.\"\n\n\"I agree completely,\" I called out. \"Don't you agree completely, guys, that this is the warmest welcome we have ever received?\"\n\nMy companions nodded without interrupting the flow of food and drink and there were gurgled shouts of agreement from all sides as more beer vanished. I was wiping my lips with the back of my hand when Ljotur reappeared.\n\n\"I have talked to Iron John himself who summons you to his presence soonest. But until the Chariots of Fire appear could you\u2014oh, would you!\u2014play us a number!\"\n\nHis words were drowned out by hearty masculine cries of joy.\n\n\"Let's set up for a quick gig, boys\u2014these guys deserve it.\" I looked around. \"Any requests?\"\n\nMany were shouted, but \"Nothing's Too Bad for the Enemy\" seemed to be most popular. Best choice too since it had an all-male lyric. Loud thunder rolled while lightning flared and sizzled. Our fans fell back into an appreciative half circle while we let fly.\n\nDeath and torture and murder and rape\u2014\n\nWE LIKE IT! WE LIKE IT!\n\nCutting and slashing and murder and looting,\n\nHacking and cracking and stabbing and shooting.\n\nBlowing up slowing up showing up to kill\n\nArson and cursin' done with a will\u2014\n\n'CAUSE...\n\nNOTHING'S TOO BAD FOR THE\n\nENEMEEE...\n\nDrinking and drinking and drinking and drinking\n\nShouting and cursing and lying and stinking\n\nChasing girls grabbing girls huggin' and kissin'\n\nShowing girls all the things they been missin'...\n\nAs can easily be imagined this delicate flower of a lyric really went down well with the troops. They were still cheering when there was a hissing rumble behind us and we turned to see that our transportation had arrived. Perhaps the locals were used to these things but it was really eye-bugging time for the tourists.\n\n\"Only for special occasions, special people,\" Ljotur said proudly.\n\nWe gaped in silence, lost for words. There were two of the vehicles, made of wood and decorated with gilt scrolls and strands of jewels. Each had a single wheel in front, which was steered by a tiller. This was manned by the driver, who rode high above. I looked at the closer one. A wide seat was in the middle and there were two wheels to the rear. All of which was pretty commonplace\u2014not counting the pricey decoration\u2014if you did not allow for the propulsion at the back. This was a shining metal tube, now crackling and emitting an occasional puff of smoke. I drew my attention away from it as the ornate door was thrown wide. I stepped in and seated myself on the soft cushions. Floyd and Steengo were ushered reverently into the other vehicle. Doors were slammed and Ljotur shouted a command to the drivers.\n\n\"You're off! Fuel on! Frapu viajn startigilojn! Drivers hit your starters!\"\n\nI saw now that there was a metal tank under my driver's seat. He reached down and opened a valve and I could hear the gurgle of liquid in the pipe. Then he stamped down on a pedal; the starter I guess.\n\nNo\u2014it just started the starter. The pedal pulled on a cord that ran on pulleys to the rear of the chariot. This lifted and dropped a small hammer that banged the starter on the shoulder. This was an individual, dressed completely in black, who sat on a little platform slung behind the wheels. Not only dressed in black, but with blackened arms and face, his hair a burnt stubble. I soon found out why. Liquid was now dripping from the metal tube and the starter reached out and touched a match to it, jumped back as it ignited. A tongue of black smoke and flame leaped out to the rear, singeing the soldiers who weren't quick enough out of the way.\n\nNow the starter was grinding away at a handle, presumably pumping air into the primitive jet. Within seconds the roar grew louder, the flame longer\u2014and my Chariot of Fire shuddered and began to slowly roll forward. Very showy. Though it probably only got about a mile to a hundred gallons. I waved cheerfully to my fellow victims, who waved feebly and fearfully back. Relax Jim, sit back and enjoy the ride.\n\nIt was hard to do. I admit I did not see much of the passing scenery, being too involved with thoughts of survival. Nor did I relax until our little convoy had stopped and the blowtorch behind me was extinguished. The chariot's door swung open to the blast of discordant horns. I grabbed up my pack and stepped down onto a gray stepping block.\n\nWhich was resistant but soft. I turned and looked and saw that it was not a step at all but a man dressed in gray, kneeling on all fours. He rose and scurried off, along with another human footstep. Midgets, about as tall as my waist and almost as wide. My companions had reacted as I had, our eyes met but we said nothing.\n\n\"Greetings,\" a stentorian voice bellowed. \"Welcome, welcome visitors to Paradise.\"\n\n\"Thanks much,\" I said to the tall and barrel-chested man who was draped in gold cloth. \"Iron John, I presume?\"\n\n\"Most flattering\u2014but you presume wrongly. Musical guests, kindly follow me.\"\n\nThe trumpets blared again, then the trumpeters opened ranks. Three gray-clad men hurried up and took our packs. I started to resist, then made the reluctant decision that it would be all right. The reception we had received at the archway had been too spontaneous to be planned. Our gold-clad greeter bowed to us, then led the way. Towards the brick steps of a brick building.\n\nIf the Paradisians were short on building materials they certainly weren't bereft of architectural imagination. Tall pillars, capped with ornate capitals, rose up to support the architrave of a complex entablature. Just like I had been taught in Architecture 1. To either side tall windows opened onto wide balconies. And all of this done in red brick.\n\n\"Looks great so far,\" Floyd said.\n\n\"Yes, great,\" I agreed. But I looked back to make sure the porters with our packs were right behind us. And I still had the concussion grenades in my pocket. No one ever got into trouble by being prepared\u2014as we used to say in the Boy Sprouts.\n\nDown a brick corridor over brick paving we went. Through a brick doorway into a great and impressive room. It was colorfully lit by the sunlight that streamed through the ceiling-high, stained-glass windows. Colorful scenes were depicted there of armies marching, attacking, fighting, dying, the usual thing. This motif was carried through to the walls, which were hung with tattered battle banners, shields and swords. Robed men who stood about the room turned and nodded to us as we entered. But our guide led us past them to the far wall, where there was an elevated throne, made of you-know-what, on which was seated the tallest man I have ever seen.\n\nNot only tall\u2014but naked.\n\nAt least he would have been naked if he had not been completely covered with rusty, reddish hair. His beard cascaded down his chest\u2014which was covered as well with hair. Arms and legs and, I couldn't help peeking when he stood, hair all down his belly and crotch as well. This was all that was visible since he was wearing a sort of jockstrap or sporran woven out of, well possibly, his own hair. All of it the color of rusty iron. I stepped forward and bowed a little bow.\n\n\"Iron John...?\"\n\n\"None other,\" he rumbled in a voice like distant thunder. \"Welcome Jim\u2014and Floyd and Steengo. Welcome Stainless Steel Rats. Your fame has gone before you.\"\n\nAlways good to meet a true fan. We all bowed now since this was not the kind of reception you normally get. Bowed yet again as all in the room cheered lustily.\n\nIron John sat down again and crossed his legs. He either painted his toenails or they were naturally rusty. I let it pass since there were a lot more things. I would like to know first.\n\n\"All here in Paradise were possessed of a great depression when you were arrested,\" he said. \"Falsely of course?\"\n\n\"Of course!\"\n\n\"I thought so. But the galaxy's loss is our gain. We are pleased since we now have, you might say, a monopoly on your talents.\"\n\nThis had an ominous sound which I ignored for the moment, cocking an ear as he rumbled on.\n\n\"The galaxy is so filled with guilt, sorrow and wrong-headedness that we chose, out of disgust, not to watch most of what is disseminated by television. I am sure that it will cheer you to know that, since your arrest and incarceration, we have canceled normal programming and have been running recordings of your numbers, day and night. Now, soon, we will be happily blessed with the originals themselves!\"\n\nThis was greeted by cries of enthusiasm and we replied with nods, grins and handshakes over our heads. When the shouts had died away old Rusty boomed out what they all wanted to hear.\n\n\"It is our hope that you will now\u2014play for us!\" More shouts. \"What a pleasure to hear live our favorite favorite\u2014'Nothing's Too Bad for the Enemy.' But while you are setting up we will broadcast a recording to warm up our nationwide audience, to prepare them for your first live performance.\"\n\nWhich was not a bad idea since, although we could get going fast, their TV technicians were another thing altogether. Very much on the antique side. They dragged in arm-thick cables, antique-looking, homemade cameras and lights and other gear that belonged in a museum. While this was happening a screen dropped down from the ceiling and lit up with lively color when the back projector came on.\n\nThe recorded program did not have what might be called the galaxy's most inspiring opening. About a thousand suntanned bodybuilders drove heavy stakes into the ground with sledgehammers, backed by the thud of a beating drum. The drum died away but the hammers kept hammering silently as the voice-over spoke.\n\n\"Gentlemen of Paradise\u2014we now bring you the special occasion that was announced a few minutes ago. I know that all of you, right across the land, are riveted to your sets. I think that we are going to get a hundred-percent rating on this one! So while The Stainless Steel Rats are warming up for their first-ever live performance here, we are privileged to play for you their special version of\u2014'The Spaceship Way'!\"\n\nAnd it really was special. We watched ourselves attacking the song with our usual gusto, listened once again to those lovely lyrics...\n\nWorking on the engines, in the engine room,\n\nWirin' and firin' an' waitin' for the boom.\n\nWhen the cannons blast like the sound of doom,\n\nYou know you're a-sweatin' in the engine room.\n\nCaptain on the bridge his fingers on the triggers\n\nAll the guns loaded by the spaceship riggers.\n\nSwoopin' on the enemy, million miles an hour\n\nCallin' to the engine room for power, power, power.\n\nPower, Power, Power make the electrons whirl,\n\nPower, Power, Power\u2014hear them protons swirl!\n\nPower, Power, Power will win the day\u2014\n\nPower, Power, Power, that's THE SPACESHIP WAY!\n\nWe nodded and smiled with fixed grins. Good-quality picture, good sound as well. The audience was looking at the screen instead of at us for the moment. Floyd looked at me, then raised his extended index finger to the side of his head and rotated it in a quick little circle. The universal hand signal for insanity. I nodded glum agreement. I couldn't understand it either.\n\nThere we were on the screen playing on a familiar set, wearing our regular concert costumes. Only one thing was wrong.\n\nUntil this moment none of us had ever seen the tenor who was right there with us, singing the song.\n\nTenor?\n\nIt had always been sung in sensuous contralto by Madonette.\nChapter 14\n\nAfter the TV intro we played our number, pretty mechanically I must say. Not that our audience noticed; they were too carried away simply by being in the Presence. They swayed and waved their hands in the air and fought to keep silent. But when Iron John joined us in the \"Power\" chorus they cheered and howled and sang right along with him. When the last power had been overpowered they broke into lusty shouted applause that went on for a long, long time. Iron John smiled beneficently at this and finally stopped it with a raised russet finger. There was instant silence.\n\n\"I join you in your enthusiasm for our honored guests. But we must give them time to rest after their strenuous day. We will surely hear them sing for us again. You must remember they are with us now forever. It is their rare privilege to be admitted to Paradise as full citizens, to live until the end of time in our fair land.\"\n\nMore cries of masculine joy. We concealed our overwhelming pleasure at this life sentence and kept our silence as we packed up our instruments and handed them to the waiting servants. Our audience moved out, still throbbing slightly with musical passion.\n\n\"A moment please,\" Iron John said, waiting for the others to leave. When we were alone he touched a button at his side and the tall doors swung silently closed. \"A fine song. We all enjoyed it.\"\n\n\"The Stainless Steel Rats aim only to please,\" I said.\n\n\"Wonderful.\" His smile vanished and he stared at us grimly. \"There is one more thing you must do to please me. Your stay here will be a long one and we want you to be happy. You will make us all happy, yourselves included, if you show a certain selection in topics of conversation.\"\n\n\"What do you mean?\" I asked\u2014although I had a good notion of what he was leading up to.\n\n\"We are very satisfied here. Adjusted and secure. I do not wish to see that security threatened. You gentlemen come to our land from a very troubled outside world. The galaxy is at peace\u2014or so you say. While ignoring the eternal war without end. The conflict of duality that we are free of here. You are the products of a society that is ego destroying instead of being ego building. You suffer from the negativity that blights lives, weakens cultures, sickens even the strongest. Do you know what I'm talking about?\"\n\nNeither Floyd nor Steengo answered so it was up to me. I nodded.\n\n\"We do. Although we might quibble with some of your conclusions the object of your attentions is quite clear. I can promise you that while we are enjoying your hospitality, neither I nor my associates will talk to anyone about the other sex. That is girls, women, females. It is a taboo topic. But, since you raised the issue I assume that you can discuss it...\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Right, answer enough. We will therefore enjoy your hospitality and not spoil it.\"\n\n\"You are wise beyond your years, young Jim,\" he said, and a trace of a smile returned. \"Now you must be tired. You will be shown to your quarters.\"\n\nThe doors opened, he turned away. End of interview. We strolled out as nonchalantly as we could. Old Goldy led us out as he had led us in, to some pretty luxurious, although still red brick, quarters. He turned on the TV, checked that the faucets worked in the bathroom, raised and lowered the curtains, then bowed himself out and closed the door. I touched my finger to my lips. Floyd and Steengo waited in twitching silence while I used the detector, borrowed from Tremearne, to sweep the room for bugs. After what we had seen on TV I had a great admiration for the electronics in this place.\n\n\"Nothing,\" I said.\n\n\"No women,\" Steengo said. \"And we can't even talk about them.\"\n\n\"I can live with that for awhile,\" Floyd cut in. \"But who was that singing our number?\"\n\n\"That,\" I said, \"was a very nifty example of some first-class electronic dubbing.\"\n\n\"But where did that joker come from?\" Floyd said. \"There I am playing right beside him\u2014and I swear that I have never seen him before. Maybe we really did blow baksheesh and this whole planet is a drug-inspired nightmare!\"\n\n\"Keep cool, keep calm. That guy was nothing but a bunch of electronic bytes and bits. Some really good techs digitalized that entire song, with all of us playing it. Then they animated a computer-generated male singer to follow all of Madonette's movements. Wrote her image out, wrote his in\u2014then rerecorded the whole thing just as if it were going out live. Only with a him instead of a her.\"\n\n\"But why?\" Steengo asked, dropping wearily into one of the deep lounges.\n\n\"Now you have asked the right question. And the answer is obvious. This side of Paradise is for men only. Not only haven't we seen any women here\u2014but pretty obviously they have been edited out of TV and presumably everything else going. It's a real man's world. And don't say why again because I don't know. You saw how high that wall is when we were on our way here. And we know from views of the thing from space that the city is on both sides of the wall. So the women\u2014if there are any women\u2014might very well be on the other side.\"\n\nNo one said why again but that was the only thing on our minds. I stared at their worried faces and tried to think of something nice. I did. \"Madonette,\" I said.\n\n\"What about her?\" Steengo asked.\n\n\"We've got to tell her what has happened.\" I stuck my thumb in my ear and addressed my pinkie. \"Jim calling Madonette. Are you on-line?\"\n\n\"Very much so.\"\n\n\"I read you as well,\" Tremearne said tinnily from my thumbnail.\n\nI outlined the events of the day. Said over and awaited any reaction. Madonette gasped, nor could I blame her, but Tremearne was all business as usual.\n\n\"You are doing well on your side of the wall. Is it time for Madonette to check out her side?\"\n\n\"Not yet, not until we have a few answers to an awful lot of questions.\"\n\n\"Agreed\u2014but only for now. What have you discovered about the artifact?\"\n\n\"Negative so far. Give us a break, Captain. Don't you think that getting in here, pressing the flesh and doing a gig is enough for one day?\" The silence lengthened. \"Yes, sir, right you are\u2014it's not enough. One alien artifact coming up. Over and out.\"\n\nI pulled my finger out of my ear, wiped the earwax off of it, stared gloomily into space.\n\n\"How do we find it?\" Floyd asked.\n\n\"I haven't the slightest idea. I just said that to get Tremearne off my neck.\"\n\n\"I know how we start,\" Steengo said. I launched a quizzical look in his direction.\n\n\"First the MIPSC and now this. Our humble harp player reveals hidden depths.\" He nodded and smiled.\n\n\"All those years laboring for the League perhaps. Didn't the ancient glad-hander at the gate tell us that there would be a market at dawn tomorrow?\"\n\n\"His very words,\" Floyd said. \"But so what? The artifact is long gone from the market.\"\n\n\"Of course. But the merchants aren't. There is a good chance that whoever bought the thing might still be there.\"\n\n\"A genius!\" I applauded. \"Behind those gray hairs lies even grayer gray matter that knows how to think!\"\n\nHe nodded acceptance. \"I never did enjoy retirement. What's next, boss Jim?\"\n\n\"Grab Goldy. Show strong interest in the market. Have him lay on a guide to take us there when it opens in the morning...\"\n\nAs though speaking his name had been a summons; bugles sounded, the door opened, our gilt-garbed guardian came in.\n\n\"A summons for you, oh lucky ones. Iron John will see you in the Veritorium. Come!\"\n\nWe went\u2014since we had little choice. For a change Goldy was not in a chatty mood; waving off our queries with a flick of his hand. More corridors, more bricks\u2014and another door. It opened into misty darkness. Stumbling and barking our ankles we made our way to a row of waiting chairs, sat down as instructed. It was even darker when Goldy closed the door behind him as he left.\n\n\"I don't like this,\" Floyd muttered, muttering for all of us.\n\n\"Patience,\" I said for lack of any more intelligent answer, then nervously squeezed my knuckles until they cracked. There was a movement of air in the darkness and a growing glow. Iron John swam into view, a blown-up image really. He pointed at us.\n\n\"The experience that you are about to have is vital to your existence. Its memory will sustain you and uplift you and will never be forgotten. I know that you will be ever grateful and I accept your tearful thanks in advance. This is the experience that will change you, develop you, enrich you. Welcome, welcome, to the first day of the rest of your new and fulfilling lives.\"\n\nAs his image faded I coughed to cover the grunt of suspicion that this old bushwah evoked. Never try to con a conman. I settled my rump more comfortably in the chair and prepared to be entertained.\n\nAs soon as it started I could see that the holofilm was very professionally made. I appreciated that the young, the gullible\u2014or the just plain stupid\u2014would be very impressed by it. The mist churned, the russet light grew brighter and I was suddenly in the midst of the scene.\n\n* * *\n\nThe King watched in silence as the group of armed men walked warily into the forest and disappeared from sight among the trees. Outwardly he was patient as he waited, although he reached up and touched his crown from time to time as though reassuring himself that it was still there, that he was still king. A very long time later he stiffened, turned his head and listened as slow footsteps shuffled through the thick leaves below the trees. But no warrior appeared, just the thick and twisted figure of his jester, headdress bobbling, lips moist with flecked saliva.\n\n\"What did you see?\" the king asked at last.\n\n\"Gone, Majesty. All gone. Just like all of those who have gone before. Vanished among the trees around the lake. None returned.\"\n\n\"None ever return,\" the king said, sorrow and defeat dragging him down. He stood that way, unknowing, unseeing as a young man appeared and strode towards him, a silent gray dog walked at his side. The jester, jaw agape, spittle pendulous, backed away as the stranger approached.\n\n\"Why do you grieve, oh king?\" he asked in a light and clear voice.\n\n\"I grieve for there is part of the forest in my kingdom where men do go\u2014but none return. They go in tens and twenties\u2014but none is ever seen again.\"\n\n\"I will go,\" the young man said, \"but I will go alone.\"\n\nHe snapped his fingers and, without another word being spoken, man and dog walked off into the forest. Beneath the trees and pendant mosses, around the hedges and nodding cattails to the edge of a dark pond. The young man stopped to look at it\u2014and a hand, sudden and dripping, rose from the water and seized the dog. Pulled it beneath the surface. The ripples died away and the surface was still.\n\nThe young man did not cry or flee, just nodded.\n\n\"This must be the place,\" he said.\n\n* * *\n\nThe darkness faded and light returned. Iron John was gone, the chamber was empty. I looked at Floyd who seemed just as bewildered as I was.\n\n\"Did I miss the point somehow?\" I asked.\n\n\"I feel sorry for the dog,\" Floyd said. We both looked at Steengo who was nodding thoughtfully.\n\n\"That's only the beginning,\" he said. \"You'll understand what is happening when you see the rest.\"\n\n\"You wouldn't like to, maybe, explain just what you are talking about?\"\n\nSteengo shook his head in a solemn no. \"Later, perhaps. But I don't think I will have to. You will see for yourselves.\"\n\n\"You've seen this holoflick before?\" Floyd asked.\n\n\"No. But I have read my mythology. It's better that you see the rest before we talk about it.\"\n\nI started to protest, shut my mouth. Realized that there was no point in probing further. The door opened and our guide reappeared.\n\n\"Just the man we are looking for,\" I said, remembering our earlier decision. \"We have heard, from reliable sources, that there is to be an outdoor market at dawn tomorrow.\"\n\n\"Your sources are correct. Tomorrow is the tenth day and that is market day. Always on the tenth day because the nomads remember by marking a finger each day with soot until all fingers are...\"\n\n\"Right, thanks. I can count to ten without dirty fingers. My fellow musicians and I would like to visit this market\u2014is this possible?\"\n\n\"You have but to ask, great Jim of The Stainless Steel Rats.\"\n\n\"I've asked. Can someone show us the way in the morning?\"\n\n\"'Tis more fit that you use the Chariots of Fire...\"\n\n\"I agree, more fit. But more fit that we be fit. Walking is a wonderful exercise.\"\n\n\"Then walk you shall, if that is your desire. An escort will be provided. It is now the hour of dining and a banquet has been prepared in your honor. Will you be so kind as to follow me?\"\n\n\"Lead on, my friend. As long as it is not polpettone again we are your avid customers.\"\n\nAs we followed him out I discovered that my fingers had a life of their own. Or, more probably, were being twitched into activity by my worried subconscious. They flicked over the computer controls and the glowing numbers appeared before me.\n\nNineteen and a pulsing red eleven.\n\nEleven days to go. The morning market had better produce something.\nChapter 15\n\n\"It is going to be such a lovely day,\" the voice said.\n\nEach word shot through my head like a rusty arrow, grating and scraping against the growing headache that was throbbing there. I opened one eye blurrily and bright light added to the pain. I had only enough energy to twist my lips into a surly snarl as our gold-clad host flitted about our quarters. Opening curtains, picking up discarded clothing, generally being as obnoxious as possible at this predawn hour. Only when I heard the outer door slam did I crawl from the bed, turn off the searing lights, stumble on all fours to my pack where it rested against the wall. On the third fumbling attempt I managed to open it and click out a Sobering Effect pill. I swallowed it dry and sat motionlessly while I waited for its beneficent chemicals to seep through my fractured body.\n\n\"What was in that green beer?\" Floyd said hoarsely, then began to cough. Moaning in agony between coughs as his aching head was kicked about. My headache was seeping away so I clicked out a pill for him and walked unsteadily across to his bed of pain.\n\n\"Swallow. This. Will. Help.\"\n\n\"Quite a party last night,\" Steengo said benevolently, joined fingers resting comfortably on the ample bulge of his stomach.\n\n\"Die,\" Floyd gasped, unsteady fingers groping for the pill. \"And burn painfully in hell forever. Plus one day.\"\n\n\"A bit hungover are we?\" Steengo asked cheerfully. \"I suppose there is good reason, considering the length of the nights here. Their parties must go on forever. Or maybe it just seems that way. Eat a bit, sleep a bit. Eat a bit, drink a bit. Or maybe more than a bit. I thought that the beer tasted a little on the nasty side. So I only had one. But the meat courses! Tremendous, vegetables, good gravy, liked the bread and red sauce, plus...\"\n\nHis voice died away as Floyd crawled out of bed and staggered, groaning, from the room.\n\n\"You are cruel,\" I said, smacking my dry lips together and feeling a little better.\n\n\"Not cruel. Just pointing out a few truths. This mission first. Overdrinking, hangovers and Technicolor yawns saved for our victory celebration.\"\n\nThere was nothing I could say. He was right.\n\n\"Message received,\" I said, reaching for my clothes. \"The quiet life and plenty of rest and raw vegetables. Think positive.\"\n\nDawn brightened the window. A new day. Ten days to deadline. I was thinking negative and I shook myself like a wet dog and tried to shrug off the mood. \"Let's go to the fair.\"\n\nWhen we emerged from the BOQ, Sergeant Ljotur was waiting for us. He snapped to attention and gave a mighty salute\u2014as did the squad of soldiers from the gate guard that he had brought with him.\n\n\"We take you to the market!\" he called out. \"These men are all volunteers, eagerly happy to carry any purchases finest musicians in galaxy may make.\"\n\n\"Greatly appreciated. Lead on,\" I said as we stepped out briskly on the red brick road.\n\nThe sun was a glowing crimson disk on the horizon when we reached the market. The Fundamentaloid nomads must have been early risers because everything was in great swing already. And gory too, I thought I heard a low moan from Floyd, but the baaing and farting of the sheots tended to drown out most other sounds. Complain they might as the butchered carcasses of their late companions were unloaded from their backs. But there had to be more than a meat market here; eyes averted we hurried past the sanguineous display.\n\nNow bearded nomads solicited our attention in pleading voices, pointing out the attractions of their wares. Which weren't that attractive. Tired-looking vegetables, crude clay pots, piles of dried sheot chips for the barbecue.\n\n\"Pretty grim,\" Floyd said.\n\n\"Not important,\" I told him, jerking my thumb towards the strolling customers. \"They are the ones that we are interested in.\" I took out the photographs of the artifact that we were looking for and passed one to each of my companions. \"Find out if any of the Paradisians have seen this.\"\n\n\"We don't just spring it on them?\" Steengo said doubtfully.\n\n\"You're right. We don't. During the sleepless hours of the night I worked up a cover story. It goes this way, something close to the truth. The nomads found this thing in a streambed after a flash flood. Tried to trade it to the keepers of the Pentagon, who have a strict policy of noncommunication. However it was photographed when presented and only later was it recognized as an archeological artifact of possible interest.\"\n\n\"Reasonable,\" Steengo said doubtfully. \"But what are we doing with the photos?\"\n\n\"Given to us when we were booted out of the place. Hints made of rewards, possible remission of sentence, lots of fedha. With great reluctance we agreed to look for the thing since, simply, what have we got to lose?\"\n\n\"Thin but plausible,\" Floyd said. \"Let's give it a try.\"\n\nThere was no difficulty talking to the Paradisians, if anything it was hard to get rid of them once approached. How they loved The Stainless Steel Rats! Soon I had a string of adoring fans trailing behind me\u2014along with most of the squad of guards. Everyone wanted to help; none of them knew a thing. But\u2014one name kept cropping up during the questioning: Sjonvarp.\n\nSteengo pushed through the crowd and held up the now dog-eared photograph. \"Still nothing. But a couple of them said to ask Sjonvarp. Who seems to be the top trader around here.\"\n\n\"I heard the same thing. Grab Floyd. He must be recovering because I saw him looking at the fermented sheot-milk stand. Bring him here before he makes a mistake that he will long remember.\"\n\nSjonvarp was easy enough to find, with countless fingers pointing us the way. He was a tall and solidly built man with iron-gray hair. His stern face broke into a smile when he turned to see who had called out his name.\n\n\"The Stainless Steel Rats in the flesh! I am trebly blessed!\"\n\nWe hummed two bars of \"All Alone\" followed by a brisk buck and wing. Which elicited a round of applause from the spectators and a broader smile from Sjonvarp.\n\n\"Such rhythm and beauty!\" he said.\n\n\"We sing 'em the way you like it,\" I said. \"It is told in the market that you are the master-trader in these parts.\"\n\n\"I am. Pleased to make your acquaintances, Jim, Floyd and Steengo.\"\n\n\"Likewise. If you have a moment I have a picture here I would like you to look at.\" I hit the high points of our spiel as I passed the pic over. He only half listened, but did put all of his attention on the photo. Turning it around at arm's length, squinting farsightedly to make it out.\n\n\"Of course! I thought so.\" He handed it back to me. \"Some markets ago, I forget exactly how many, one of these odorous simpletons traded it to one of my assistants. We buy anything that might be of scientific interest for the specialists to examine. It didn't look like much. But I gave it to old Heimskur anyway.\"\n\n\"Well that takes care of that then,\" I said, tearing the photo up and dropping the pieces. \"We're doing our concert tonight\u2014I can get you a ticket if you want one.\"\n\nThe artifact was instantly forgotten\u2014as I hoped, although it took some time for us to extract ourselves from the attentive embrace of our fans. Only by saying that it was rehearsal time did we manage to break away.\n\n\"Don't we look for the thing any more?\" Floyd asked worriedly. A good musician, but I think drink was eroding his brain cells.\n\n\"We have the man's name,\" Steengo said. \"That's what we look into next.\"\n\n\"How?\" Floyd asked, still suffering from semiparalysis of the neural network.\n\n\"Any way we can,\" I told him. \"Make friends. Drop names. Drop Heimskur's name among the others. We find out who he is and what he does. Now, as we stroll, I'll report in.\"\n\nTremearne and Madonette listened carefully to my report. He overed and outed but she stayed to chat.\n\n\"Jim, it's time I left my hole in the wall and visited the other half of the city. It must be safe...\"\n\n\"We hope that\u2014but we don't know that. And there is no point in your taking any chances as long as the thing we are looking for is here. Enjoy the break. And don't do a thing until we find out more here.\"\n\nWe found lunch waiting in our quarters. Fruit and slices of cold meatloaf on silver plates, covered with crystal domes.\n\n\"Great!\" Floyd said, chomping down a slice.\n\n\"Probably minced sheot shank,\" Steengo said, suddenly gloomy.\n\n\"Food's food and I never consider the source.\" Floyd reached for another slice just as our golden greeter appeared.\n\n\"A pleasure to see you musical Rats enjoying yourselves. When you have eaten your fill I have a request for the presence of Rat Jim.\"\n\n\"Who wants me?\" I asked suspiciously through a mouthful of sweet pulp.\n\n\"All will be revealed.\" He put his index finger along his nose, winked and rolled his eyes. Which silent communication I assumed meant something like you'll find out soon enough. I had no choice. And I had lost my appetite. I wiped my fingers on a damp cloth and followed him yet another time.\n\nIron John was waiting for me at the door of the Veritorium where we had all seen the puzzling holoflic.\n\n\"Come with me, Jim,\" he said with a deep voice like distant thunder. \"Today you will see and understand all of the revelation.\"\n\n\"I'll get the others...\"\n\n\"Not this time, Jim.\" His hand closed gently but firmly onto my shoulder and I had little choice but to go along with him. \"You are wise beyond your years. An old head on a young body. Therefore you are the one who will be helped the most by your understanding of this mystery that is no mystery. Come.\"\n\nHe sat me down but did not join me; yet I was aware of his presence close by me in the darkness. The mist roiled and cleared and I was once again by the lake.\n\n* * *\n\nThere was only silence in the forest around the dark pond. As the last ripple died away the young man turned and left without looking back. Trod the dead leaves beneath the trees until be emerged and saw the king before him.\n\n\"There is something I must do,\" he told the king, nor would he say any more. The king saw that the man's dog was gone\u2014but the man himself was unharmed. He had many questions but did not know how to speak them. Instead he followed the young man back to the castle. In the courtyard the young man looked around, then spotted a large leathern bucket.\n\n\"I need that,\" he said.\n\n\"Take it.\" The king dismissed him with a wave of his hand. \"Remember I have helped you. One day you must tell me what you found in the woods.\"\n\nThe young man turned in silence and made his way, alone, back to the dark pond. There he dipped the bucket into the water and hurled its contents into the ditch nearby. Another and another. He did not stop but worked steadily at bailing out the pond. It was hard, slow work. Yet the sun never set, the light never changed, the young man never stopped.\n\nAfter a great period of time the water was almost gone and something large was revealed lying in the mud on the bottom of the pond. The young man kept emptying the water until he revealed a tall man who was covered with reddish hair, like rusty iron, from head to foot. The large man's eyes opened and he looked at the young man. Who beckoned to him. With a heaving shake the rusty man rose from the pond's bottom and followed the young man away from the pond and through the woods.\n\nTo the castle of the king. All of the soldiers and retainers fled when they appeared and the king alone stood before them.\n\n\"This is Iron John,\" the young man said. \"You must imprison him in an iron cage here in the courtyard. If you lock the cage and give the key to your queen the forest will be safe again for those who walk through it.\"\n\nMist rose and darkened the scene. It was the end.\n\n* * *\n\nThe red-furred hand was heavy on Jim's shoulder\u2014but it did not bother him.\n\n\"Now you understand,\" Iron John said, newfound warmth in his voice. \"Now you can release Iron John. Welcome, Jim, welcome.\"\n\nI wanted to say that I felt more confusion than comprehension. That I was experiencing something, yet not understanding it. Instead of speaking my feelings aloud I suddenly found that my eyes were brimming with tears. I did not know why\u2014although I knew that they were nothing to be ashamed of.\n\nIron John smiled at me and, with a great finger, wiped the tears from my damp cheeks.\nChapter 16\n\n\"What was all that about?\" Floyd asked when I returned to our quarters. He was jazzing with his trombonio, a complex and gleaming collection of golden tubes and slides, which made some very interesting sounds indeed. Most of them, regrettably, of an ear-destroying nature.\n\n\"More training film,\" I said, as nonchalantly as I could. I was surprised to hear a certain quaver in my voice as I spoke. Floyd tootled on, unaware of it, but Steengo who appeared to be asleep on the couch opened one eye.\n\n\"Training film? You mean more about the pool in the forest?\"\n\n\"You got it in one.\"\n\n\"Did you find out what was in the pool? The thing that dragged the dog down?\"\n\n\"A stupid story,\" Floyd said, and tootled a little fast riff. \"Although I do feel sorry for the dog.\"\n\n\"It wasn't a real dog,\" Steengo said. He looked at me, seemed to be waiting for me to speak, but I clamped my jaw shut and turned away. \"Nor was it a real pool.\"\n\n\"What do you mean?\" I asked, looking at him.\n\n\"Mythology, my dear Jim. And rites of passage. It was Iron John at the bottom of the pool, wasn't it?\"\n\nI jumped as though I had been zapped with an electric shock. \"It was! But\u2014how did you know that?\"\n\n\"I told you I read my mythology. But the thing that really disturbs me\u2014not this training film as you call it\u2014is the fact that Iron John is here in the flesh, solid and hairy.\"\n\n\"You've lost me,\" Floyd said, looking from one to the other of us. \"A little explanation is very much in order.\"\n\n\"It is,\" Steengo said, swinging his feet around so he sat up straight on the couch. \"Mankind invents cultures\u2014and cultures invent myths to justify and explain their existence. Prominent among these are the myths and ceremonies of the rites of passage for boys. The passage from boyhood to manhood. This is the time when the boy is separated from his mother and the other women. In some primitive cultures the boys go and live with the men\u2014and never see their mothers again.\"\n\n\"No big loss,\" Floyd muttered. Steengo nodded.\n\n\"You heard that, Jim. In all cultures mothers try to shape sons in their female image. For their own good. The boys resist\u2014and the rite of passage helps this resistance. There is always symbolism involved, because symbols are a way to represent the myths that underlie every culture.\"\n\nI thought about this; my head hurt. \"Sorry, Steengo, but you left me behind completely with that one. Explanation?\"\n\n\"Of course. Let's stay with Iron John. You have just said that you didn't understand it\u2014yet I think that it affected you emotionally.\"\n\nI started to protest, to lie\u2014then stopped. Why lie? I tried not to lie to myself, ever. This was a good moment to apply that rule.\n\n\"You're right. It got to me\u2014and I don't know why...\"\n\n\"Myths deal with emotions, not facts. Let's look at the symbols. Did the young man bail out the pool and find Iron Hans, or Iron John at the bottom?\"\n\n\"That's exactly what happened.\"\n\n\"Who do you think Iron John is? In the story I mean, not the one walking around here. But before you answer that\u2014who do you think the young man in the story was?\"\n\n\"That's not too hard to figure out. Whoever the story was aimed at, whoever was watching it. In this case, since I was there alone, I guess it must have been me.\"\n\n\"You are correct. So in the myth you, and every other young man, are looking for something in the pool, and have to work very very hard with the bucket to find it. Now we come to Iron John, the hairy man at the bottom of the pool. Is it a real man?\"\n\n\"No, of course it couldn't be. The man at the bottom of the pool has to be a symbol. Part of a myth. A symbol of manhood, maleness. The primitive male that lies beneath the surface in all of us.\"\n\n\"Bang-on, Jim,\" he said in a low voice. \"The story is trying to tell you that when a man, not a boy, looks deep inside himself, if he looks far down and for long enough, works hard enough, he will find the ancient hairy man within himself.\"\n\nFloyd stopped playing and his jaw gaped. \"You guys been smoking something I don't know about.\"\n\n\"Not smoking,\" Steengo said. \"Sipping at the font of ancient wisdom.\"\n\n\"Do you believe this myth?\" I asked Steengo. He shrugged.\n\n\"Yes and no. Yes, the process of growing up is a difficult one and anything that helps the process is a good thing. Yes, myths and coming-of-age ceremonies help prepare boys, giving them the assurances they need in the transition from boy to man. But that is as far as I will go. I say no resoundingly to a myth manifest as reality. Iron John alive and well and leading the pack. This is a fractured society here, without women and without even the knowledge of women. Not good. Quite sick.\"\n\nI was uneasy at this. \"I don't agree all the way. I was affected very strongly by watching that story. And I am a very hard guy to con. This got to me.\"\n\n\"It should have\u2014because it was dealing with the very stuff of personality and self. I have a feeling, Jim, that yours was not the happiest of childhoods...\"\n\n\"Happy!\" I laughed at the thought. \"You try growing up on a porcuswine farm surrounded by bucolic peasants who are not much brighter than their herds.\"\n\n\"And that includes your father and mother?\"\n\nI started to answer warmly, saw what he was doing and where this was going. I shut up. Floyd shook the spittle from his so-called musical instrument and broke the silence.\n\n\"I still feel sorry for the dog,\" he said.\n\n\"Not a real dog,\" Steengo said, turning away from me. \"A symbolic dog like everything else you saw. The dog is your body, the thing you order around, sit up, beg.\"\n\nFloyd shook his head in amazement. \"Too deep for me. Like that pool. If I could change the subject from theory to fact for just a moment\u2014what's next on the agenda?\"\n\n\"Finding Heimskur, of course, so we can find out if he still has the artifact,\" I said, happily putting this other matter aside. \"Any suggestions?\"\n\n\"Brain empty,\" Floyd said. \"Sorry. That hangover never really went away.\"\n\n\"I'm glad some of us didn't drink,\" Steengo said, a sudden edge of irritation to his voice.\n\nFor personal reasons I was happy to hear it, glad that he was still human, he came on pretty strong with the myth stuff. Forget this for awhile. I ticked off on my fingers. \"We have only two choices. Hint around about him and gather what information we can. Or blurt right out that we want to see him. Personally, I'm all for the blurting since there is a kind of time limit on this investigation.\" Like ten days to the grim reaper. \"Let's ask Goldy, our majordomo. He seems to know everything else.\"\n\n\"Let me do it,\" Steengo said, standing and stretching. \"I'll talk to him like an old buddy and work the conversation around to science and scientists. And Heimskur. Be right back.\"\n\nFloyd watched him go, tootling a little march in time with his footsteps. \"This Iron John stuff sort of gets to you,\" he said after the door had closed.\n\n\"Yes\u2014and that's the worst part. I don't know why I'm bothered.\"\n\n\"Women. I had six sisters and there were two aunts who lived with us. I had no brothers. I never think about women except one at a time in the right situation.\"\n\nBefore I had to listen to one more boring macho tale about the right situation I excused myself and went for a jog. Returned sweating nicely, did some push-ups and sit-ups, then went for a wash. Steengo was there when I came out. Shaking his joined hands over his head when I lifted a quizzical eyebrow.\n\n\"Success. Heimskur is head of the bunch who Labor in the Cause of Science, or so Veldi says.\"\n\n\"Veldi...?\"\n\n\"The doorman here. He does have a name after all. From what he says I get the feeling that this is a pretty stratified society with everyone in their correct place. Great respect is given to the scientist. Veldi was more than respectful when he talked about them because they appear to be the ones pretty much in charge.\"\n\n\"Great. How do we get to meet Heimskur?\"\n\n\"We wait patiently,\" Steengo said and looked at his watch. \"Because any moment our transportation will be here to take us to his august presence.\"\n\n\"Not the Chariots of Fire again!\" Floyd groaned.\n\n\"No. But something that sounds just as ominous. A Transport of Delight...\"\n\nBefore we had time to dwell too long on that thought there was a brisk knocking and gold-clad Veldi threw the door open.\n\n\"Gentlemen\u2014this way if you please.\"\n\nWe walked heads high and strong. Hiding any qualms we might have had. Though we shuddered to a halt when we saw what was awaiting us.\n\n\"Your Transport of Delight,\" Veldi said proudly, waving magnanimously in the direction of what could only be a landlocked lifeboat.\n\nIt was snow-white, clinker-built, with a stub mast festooned with flags, white wheels just visible tucked under the keel below. A uniformed officer looked down from the rail above, saluted, gave a signal\u2014and the rope ladder clattered down to our feet.\n\n\"All aboard,\" I said as I led the way.\n\nCushioned divans awaited us while attendants beckoned and held out jars of cool drink. As soon as we were seated the officer signaled again and the drummer in the bow whirred his sticks in a rapid drumroll\u2014then shifted to his bass drum. As the first, methodical boom boomed out, the Transport of Delight shuddered. Then began to roll slowly forward.\n\n\"A galley\u2014without slaves or oars,\" Floyd said.\n\n\"Plenty of slaves,\" I said as a wave of masculine perspiration wafted up from the funnel-shaped vent beside me. \"But instead of oars they are grinding away at gears or some such, to turn the wheels.\"\n\n\"No complaints,\" Steengo said, sipping at his wine. \"Not after the Chariots of Fire.\"\n\nWe rolled ponderously between the buildings, nodding at the bystanders and occasionally giving a royal flick of the hand at some of our cheering fans. We moved on through what appeared to be a residential quarter and beyond it into a parklike countryside. Our road wove between the trees, past a row of ornamental fountains to ponderously stop before an immense glass-walled building. A party of elegantly dressed ancients awaited us. Led by the most ancient of them all, white-clad and standing firmly erect. But his face was wrinkled beyond belief. I clambered down the ladder and dropped before him.\n\n\"Do I address the noble Heimskur?\"\n\n\"You do. And of course you are Jim of the Rats. Welcome, welcome all.\"\n\nThere was plenty of handshaking and glad cries of joy before Heimskur broke off the reception and led me into the glass building.\n\n\"Welcome,\" he said, \"doubly welcome. To the College of Knowledge from whence all good things flow. If you will follow me I will explain our labors to you. Since you gentlemen come from the surging, mongrel worlds outside our peaceful boundaries you will surely appreciate how the application of intelligence makes our society such a happy and peaceful world. No strife, no differences, a place for everyone and everyone in their place. Down this way are the Phases of Physics, the Caverns of Chemistry. There the Avenues of Agriculture, next to them the Meadows of Medicine, while just beyond is the Museum of Mankind.\"\n\n\"Museum?\" I inquired offhandedly. \"I simply love museums.\"\n\n\"Then you must see ours. It charts the difficulties through which we passed before coming here, a rite of passage and of cleansing, before we found safe haven on this world. Here we grew and prospered and the record is clear for all to see.\"\n\nAnd pretty boring if not just downright preposterous. Cleaner than clean, whiter than white. The only thing missing were the halos on the saints who had accomplished so much good.\n\n\"Inspirational,\" I said when we finally reached the end of the exhibition.\n\n\"It is indeed.\"\n\n\"And down this way?\"\n\n\"The museum for students. Biologists can examine the plant life of our planet, geologists the strata and the schist.\"\n\n\"Archeologists?\"\n\n\"Alas, very little. The crudest of artifacts left by the long-dead indigenes who first settled here.\"\n\n\"May we?\"\n\n\"By all means. You see\u2014fire sticks and crude pottery. A hand ax, a few arrow points. Scarcely worth preserving were we not so faithful to our role as recorders and archivists.\"\n\n\"Nothing more?\"\n\n\"Nothing.\"\n\nI dug the photograph from an inside pocket, took a deep breath\u2014and passed it over.\n\n\"You may have heard that the warders in the Pentagon promised us favors if we helped them find this?\"\n\n\"Did they indeed? I would believe nothing they said.\"\n\nHe took the photograph and blinked at it, handed it back. \"Just like them to lie and cause trouble for no reason.\"\n\n\"Lie?\"\n\n\"About this. It was brought here. I examined it myself. Not indigenous at all, couldn't possibly be. Probably something broken off an old spaceship. Meaningless and worthless. Gone now.\"\n\n\"Gone?\" I fought to keep the despair from my voice.\n\n\"Discarded. Gone from Paradise. Nonexistent. Men have no need of such rubbish therefore it is gone forever. Forget the worthless item Jim and we shall talk of far more interesting things. Music. You must tell me\u2014do you write your own lyrics...?\"\nChapter 17\n\nWe were very silent on our return trip, scarcely aware of the manifold pleasures that rode with us in our Transport of Delight. Only behind the closed doors of our quarters did we let go. I nodded appreciatively as I listened while Floyd swore blasphemously and scatologically; he had a fine turn of phrase and went on for a long time without repeating himself.\n\n\"And I double that,\" I said when lack of breath forced him to subside. \"We have indeed been hard done by.\"\n\n\"We have,\" Steengo agreed. \"But we have also been lied to.\"\n\n\"What do you mean?\"\n\n\"I mean that Heimskur was selling us a line of old camel cagal. More than half of his so-called history of science and nature was pure propaganda for the troops. If we can't believe him about that\u2014how can we believe him when he shovels a lot of bushwah about the artifact? Do you remember his last words?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Neither do I. But I hope someone does. I imagine that you didn't notice it\u2014but I was doing a lot of head-scratching and nose-picking while we were doing that tour.\"\n\nFloyd wasn't being bright today and gaped at the news. I smiled and put my index finger into my ear. \"Come in, ear in the sky. Do you read me?\"\n\n\"No but I hear you,\" Captain Tremearne said through my fingernail.\n\n\"Good. But more important\u2014did you listen in to our guided tour?\"\n\n\"All of it. Very boring. But I recorded it anyway, the way you asked.\"\n\n\"The way Steengo asked\u2014credit where credit is due. Would you be so kind as to play back the last speech about the artifact.\"\n\n\"Coming up.\" After some clattering and high-pitched voices whizzing by, our aged guide sounded forth.\n\n\"Discarded. Gone from Paradise. Nonexistent. Men have no need of such rubbish therefore it is gone forever.\"\n\nI copied it down and got it right after a couple of repeats. \"That's it. Thanks.\"\n\n\"There,\" Steengo said, tapping the paper. \"Weasel wording. That tricky old devil was playing with us, knowing that we had some reason to be interested in the thing. He never said destroyed, not once. Discarded? That means it might be still around someplace. Gone from Paradise\u2014could be anywhere else on this planet. But I particularly like the bit about men having no need for the thing.\" He smiled a smile like a poker player laying down five aces.\n\n\"If men have no need for it\u2014what about women?\"\n\n\"Women?\" I felt my jaw hanging open and closed it with a clack. \"What about them? There are only men here?\"\n\n\"How right you are. And right on the other side of the town wall is\u2014what? I'm betting on women. Either that or an awful lot of cloning is going on in this place. I'll bet on nature and some kind of connection through the wall.\"\n\nMy jawphone buzzed and Tremearne's voice echoed inside my sinuses. \"I agree with Steengo. And so does Madonette. She's already on her way along the wall to the city and will report as soon as she finds out anything.\"\n\nI started to protest, realized the futility, kept my mouth shut. \"It figures,\" I said. \"The gang in charge here lie about everything else\u2014so lying about the artifact just comes naturally. We'll have to wait...\"\n\nI shut up as Veldi knocked quietly, then opened the door. \"Good news!\" he announced, eyes glowing with passion. \"Iron John has chosen to speak to The Stainless Steel Rats\u2014in the Veritorium itself. An honor above all other honors. Hurry, gentlemen. But first brush your clothing and, with the exception of heroically bearded Floyd, diple the five o'clock shadow now gracing your musical jaws. What pleasures do await you!\"\n\nPleasures better lived without. But this was a royal command and no way to get around it. I took a bit of diple-fast and rubbed my jaw smooth, combed my hair and tried not to scowl at myself in the mirror. I was the last to emerge and we boarded the Transport of Delight in silence, rolled ponderously to our destiny.\n\n\"I wonder why all three of us?\" Steengo said, sipping his glass of chilled wine. \"Last time it was you alone at the training-film session, wasn't it, Jim?\"\n\n\"I have no idea,\" I said, wanting to change the subject. Nor was I too pleased with his light-hearted attitude. I tried to think about Madonette going in alone to the other city, but my thoughts kept trundling back to Iron John. What was going to happen now?\n\nWhen we entered the Veritorium I was surprised at how big it really was. It was better lit now and I saw that rows of seats reached up in a semicircle. They were all filled now\u2014with the oldest collection of Paradisians I had seen so far. Bald heads and gray hair, wrinkles and toothless jaws.\n\nIron John himself stepped forward to greet us. \"You are all truly welcome here\u2014and these seats are for you.\" They were three of the best in the front row\u2014separated from the others. \"You are our honored guests, musical Stainless Steel. Rats. This occasion is a special one\u2014specially so for young James diGriz. You are the youngest man here, Jim, and very soon you will find out why. Your companions will, I am sure, watch with pleasure. Not only pleasure but I sincerely hope that they will learn by observation. Now we begin...\"\n\nCued by his words the lights died and darkness filled the Veritorium. Footsteps sounded in the darkness, and there was a small laugh. Light appeared and I saw the small boy hurry forward, stumbling a bit under the weight of the box he was carrying. He put it down and opened the lid, took out a top that started spinning when he touched its switch. Then he took out a tray of blocks, started to build a tower with them. When it was high enough he turned to take another toy out of the box. He was a very concentrated, very intense young boy, about eight years old. He rummaged deeper in the box, then looked around with a childish frown.\n\n\"Don't hide, teddy,\" he said. Looked behind the toy box, then into it again and then\u2014with sudden determination\u2014turned and hurried off. He vanished from sight but I could hear his footsteps going away, stopping. Then coming back. Carrying a teddy bear. A commonplace, slightly worn, very ordinary teddy bear. He propped it against the toy box and started building a second tower from the blocks.\n\nThe scene grew lighter and I realized we were back in the castle courtyard. The boy was alone\u2014or was he? Something was there in the darkness, a shape that grew clearer.\n\nIt was an iron cage and, sitting silently, inside it was Iron John. The boy shouted and knocked over the block towers, ran to pick up the strewn blocks. Looked at Iron John, then away. The cage and its occupant must be a familiar sight to him.\n\nNothing else happened. The boy played, Iron John watched him in silence. Yet there was an electric tension in the air that made it hard to breathe. I knew that something vitally important was about to happen, and when the boy reached again into the toy box I found myself leaning forward.\n\nWhen he took the small golden ball from the box I realized that I had been holding my breath; I let it out with a gasp. Nor was I the only one for around me in the darkness there were echoes of my gasp.\n\nThe ball bounced and rolled and the boy laughed with pleasure.\n\nThen he threw it once, harder than intended, and it rolled and rolled. Through the bars of the iron cage to stop at Iron John's feet.\n\n\"My ball,\" the boy said. \"Give it back.\"\n\n\"No,\" Iron John said. \"You must unlock this cage and let me out. Then you will have your golden ball back.\"\n\n\"Locked,\" the boy said.\n\nIron John nodded. \"Of course. But you know how to find the key.\"\n\nThe boy was shaking his head no as he backed away.\n\n\"Where is the key?\" the man in the cage asked, but the boy was gone. \"Where is the key? But you are only a boy. Perhaps you are too young to know where the key is. You must be older to find the key.\"\n\nThere were murmurs of agreement from the invisible audience. It was very important to find the key, I knew that. The key...\n\nIt was then that I became aware that Iron John was looking at me. He was there in the cage, it wasn't a holoflic. He looked at me and nodded.\n\n\"Jim, I'll bet you know where the key is. You are no longer a boy. You can find it\u2014now.\"\n\nHis voice was a goad. I was on my feet, walking forward to the box of toys. My foot touched a block and it rattled aside.\n\n\"The key is in the toy box,\" I said, but I didn't believe the words even as I spoke them. I looked at Iron John who shook his head no.\n\n\"Not in the box.\"\n\nI looked down again and realized that I did know where the key was. I raised my eyes to Iron John and he nodded solemnly. \"See you do know where the key to the cage is. You can let me out now, Jim. Because you know the key is there. Inside...\"\n\n\"Teddy,\" I said.\n\n\"Teddy. Not a real bear. Teddies are for children and you are no longer a child. Inside teddy.\"\n\nI reached out, blinked away the tears that were blurring my vision, seized up the toy, felt the soft fabric between my fingers. Heard a loud voice that slashed the silence.\n\n\"Not quite right, Jim, not right. The key is not there\u2014it has to be under your mother's pillow!\"\n\nSteengo had come forward to join me, had to shout the last words to be heard over the roar of voices.\n\n\"Mother doesn't want her son to leave her. She hides the key to the Iron man's cage under her pillow. The son must steal the key...\"\n\nThe shouting voices drowned him out. Then it went dark in an instant and someone ran into me knocking me down. I tried to stand, to call out, but a hard foot walked on my hand. I shouted aloud at the sudden pain but my voice went unheard in the clamor. Someone else jarred into me and the darkness became even more intense.\n\n* * *\n\n\"Jim\u2014are you all right? Can you hear me?\"\n\nFloyd's face was just above mine, looking worried. Was I all right? I didn't know. I was in bed, must have been asleep. Why was he waking me?\n\nThen I remembered and sat upright, grabbed his arms.\n\n\"The Veritorium! It got dark, something happened. I can't remember\u2014\"\n\n\"I'm not much help because I can't either. It seemed like a good show. Hard to follow the plot but you were in it, do you remember that?\" I nodded. \"Seemed to be enjoying yourself, although you didn't look happy about tearing the stuffing out of the teddy bear. That's when Steengo joined you onstage and all the fun started. Or stopped. It all gets vague about that time.\"\n\n\"Where's Steengo?\"\n\n\"You tell me. I saw him last on the stage. I was sleeping myself, just woke up. Looked around, no Steengo. Found you here snoring away and I gave you a shake.\"\n\n\"If he's not here...\"\n\nA muted knock sounded at the door, and a moment later it opened and Veldi looked in.\n\n\"Gentlemen, a happy good morning to you both. I thought I heard your voices and hoped you would be awake. I bring you a message from your friend...\"\n\n\"Steengo\u2014you've seen him?\"\n\n\"Indeed I did. We had a friendly chat before you awoke. Then, before he left, he made this recording. Told me to give it to you. Told me you would understand.\"\n\nHe placed a small recorder on the table, stepped back. \"The green button is to play, red to stop.\" Then he was gone.\n\n\"A message?\" Floyd asked, picking the thing up and staring at it.\n\n\"Press the button instead of fiddling with the damn thing!\"\n\nHe looked startled at my tone, put it back on the table and turned it on.\n\n\"Good morning there, Jim and Floyd. You guys are sure sound sleepers and I didn't want to wake you before I went out. You know, I'm beginning to think that this city is not for me. I need some space to get my thoughts together. I'm going to take a walk back down the wall, get some air to breathe, some space to think in. You hang in there and I'll be in touch.\"\n\n\"That old Steengo,\" Floyd said. \"What a character. That's him all right. His voice, sure enough, and his way of thinking. Some guys!\"\n\nI looked up, looked him in the eye. His face was as grim as mine. He shook his head in a silent no. I did the same.\n\nSteengo had not left that message. It was his voice all right. Easy enough for the electronic technicians to fake that.\n\nSteengo was gone.\n\nWhat had happened?\nChapter 18\n\n\"I really slept,\" I said. \"Like a rock. Thirsty.\"\n\n\"The same. I'll get some juice and a couple of glasses.\"\n\n\"Great idea.\"\n\nI had scribbled the note by the time he came back, slipped it to him when I took the glass. He opened it behind the pitcher, read it.\n\nPlace bugged. What do we do?\n\nHe nodded as he passed me my glass of juice.\n\n\"Thanks,\" I said, watching him turn over the note and write on the back. I don't know if there were optical bugs as well as the audio ones. Until we found out we had to act as though there were. I kept the note in my palm when I read it.\n\nSteengo much concerned. Left these for you before we went to the show.\n\nI finished the juice, put my glass down, lifted my eyebrows quizzically. He pointed quickly at his closed fist. When he stood and passed me he dropped something small into my lap. I waited a minute before I poured more juice, drank it, sat back with my hand in my lap. Two small, soft objects. Familiar. I rubbed my nose and glanced at them.\n\nFilter nose plugs. For neutralizing gas. Steengo had known something\u2014or guessed something. He also knew how affected I had been by the sessions in the Veritorium. He had suspected that something physical, not just the training session itself, had gotten to me.\n\nOf course! Obvious by hindsight. I knew of a dozen hypnotic gases that lowered the ability to think clearly, that left the brain open to outside influences. So it hadn't been emotion but plain old chemistry that had carried me away. Steengo had suspected this\u2014but why hadn't he told me? Depressingly, I realized that the state of mind I had been in, probably caused by drugs in the earlier session, rendered that impossible. He knew he couldn't tell me. But had been suspicious enough to wear the plugs himself.\n\nAnd when he saw me getting deeply involved in the ritual he had interrupted before it was too late, had brought the whole thing to a screeching halt. I felt my teeth grating together and forced myself to stop.\n\nHe had talked about mother and the key under her pillow\u2014to these people who denied that women even existed!\n\nWith the realization of the enormity of his crime in the eyes of the Paradisians I felt a sudden overwhelming fear for his safety. Would they kill him\u2014or worse\u2014had they killed him already? They were certainly capable of anything, I was sure now of that.\n\nWhat next? Communication with our backup team in the spacer above was very much in order. I had to get into the open, away from the bugs, and contact Tremearne. Bring him up to date. Something had happened to Steengo. And the rest of us surely were in danger as well\u2014and Madonette, this might affect her. This entire affair was getting a nasty and dangerous edge to it.\n\nAnd thinking about dangerous, there was the other dangerous always hanging over my head. My computer flashed me the highly unwelcome message of a flickering red nine. I had been asleep longer than I had realized.\n\nArtifact or no I was just nine days away from my personal destiny. When I had first heard the thirty-day deadline on the poison I had not been too concerned. Thirty days is a lot of time, I thought.\n\nNine days was definitely not a lot of time at all. And with Steengo suddenly vanished I had more problems, not less.\n\n\"Going for a run,\" I called out to Floyd, leaping to my feet in a spasm of fear-sponsored energy. \"Feel logy after all that sleep. Got to clear my head.\"\n\nI slammed out the door and down the road even as he was answering. Taking a different route from my usual one\u2014then changed direction at random. Up ahead was a field of polpettone trees, laid out in neat rows and bulging with fruit. I jogged into a path beside the trees, looking around as I ran. No one in sight. There was little chance the Paradisers would put bugs in among the trees.\n\nBut they could have. I turned into a freshly plowed field and ran between the furrows. I should be safe enough here. I clamped my jaw twice.\n\n\"Hello, Tremearne, are you there?\"\n\n\"Very much so, Jim. We have all been awaiting your report. Can you tell us what is happening\u2014the recorder is running.\"\n\nI jogged in position for a bit, then bent to tie my shoe\u2014then gave up and just sat on the ground while I finished the detailed report. I was tired, the chemicals still kicking around in my system had not been kind to me.\n\n\"That's it,\" I finished. \"Steengo is gone. Might be dead...\"\n\n\"No. I can reassure you on that score. A few hours ago we had a radio message from him, just a few words, then contact was lost again. He must be somewhere deep in the city, behind walls the radio signals can't penetrate. He might have been moved from one site to another, was in the open long enough for a brief transmission.\"\n\n\"What did he say?\"\n\nThe recording was brief and scratchy. Beginning with static and dying in static. But it was pure Steengo all right.\n\n\"... never enough! When I get my fingers on you, you...\" The next word was hard to make out\u2014but I could think of a half dozen that filled the bill.\n\n\"What do you think we should do? Break out of here?\"\n\n\"No\u2014go along with everything. You will be contacted.\"\n\n\"Contacted? By whom, what, which? Come in, Tremearne.\"\n\nThere was no answer. I rose and brushed off my shorts. Very mysterious. Tremearne was up to something\u2014but he was not talking about it. Must be worried about eavesdroppers. Maybe he knew something that I didn't.\n\nI started back at a slow run, changed that to a fast walk. To a slow walk, then a crawl. If there had been any farther to go I would probably have done it on all fours. As it was I stumbled into our quarters and collapsed, gasping, onto the couch. Floyd looked astonished.\n\n\"You look like you've been dipped and rolled.\"\n\n\"I feel even worse than that. Water, quickly, lots of it!\"\n\nI drank until I was sloshing, then sipped a little bit more, handed the glass weakly back.\n\n\"Knocked myself out. Be a good buddy and get my pack. I got some vitamin pills there should pick me up.\" When he handed me the pack I clicked out a couple of Blastoffs, super-uppers, and swallowed one. \"Vitamins, good for you,\" I said as I passed one over. Floyd was a little faster off the mental mark lately and did not ask any questions.\n\nOur timing was pretty good. The wave of good feeling and energy was washing away my almost-terminal fatigue when Veldi threw open the door.\n\n\"On your feet!\" he called out. I did not move.\n\n\"Veldi,\" I said. \"Old and trusted servant. No soft knock? No sweet tones...\"\n\n\"The word is out that you Stainless Steel Rats are just plain rats. Troublemakers. Just get going.\"\n\nThere was the quick thud-thud of marching feet and Sergeant Ljotur came in with an armed squad of soldiers. Armed with wicked-looking spears with gleaming points and barbed shafts.\n\n\"You are to come with me!\" he ordered. He did not look happy about it.\n\n\"No longer a musical fan, Ljotur?\" I said, climbing slowly to my feet.\n\n\"I have orders.\" Orders that he obviously did not like. Which of course he would obey since independent thought had never been encouraged in the military. Floyd followed me out and the squad formed up. Four in front, four in back of us. Ljotur checked the formation, nodded, took position in front and raised his spear.\n\n\"Forward\u2014burtu!\"\n\nWe burtued at a slow trot down the road and turned right at the corner. Which put us directly on the route to the red brick lodgings where Iron John lurked, as I remembered from our first visit. Trotted down the road and into a tunnel under a row of buildings. One of the guards to the rear tapped me on the shoulder.\n\n\"Give me a hand, will you?\" he asked in a hoarse voice.\n\nThen swung sideways and planted his fist in the stomach of the guard next to him. Who folded and dropped without a sound.\n\nThis was easy enough to understand. I had turned when he tapped me so I kept turning to face the rear. I reached out and got a hand on the other two guards' necks. Squeezed as they turned their spears towards me.\n\n\"Floyd!\" I gasped out, putting all my energy into my throttle grips so these jokers would pass out before they harpooned me. \"The others!\"\n\nOne of the guards dropped but the other one, with a stronger neck, kept his spear coming. Into my stomach\u2014\n\nNo, not quite. The first guard, who had called to me, gave him a quick chop under the ear. He and I whirled about, ready to jump to Floyd's help. And stopped.\n\nThe four other guards were lying in a silent, tumbled heap on the ground. Floyd had a spear pressed firmly under Ljotur's jaw, was holding him up with his other hand.\n\n\"You want to talk to this guy?\" Floyd asked. \"Or you want him down there with the others?\"\n\n\"I've nothing to say...\"\n\n\"No talk. Drop.\"\n\nBefore I could finish speaking a limp Ljotur joined the rest of the sleeping patrol.\n\n\"What about this one?\" Floyd asked, fingers arced, pointing to the soldier who had called to me.\n\n\"Wait! He started this thing. There has to be a reason for it.\"\n\n\"There is,\" the soldier said in the same hoarse voice. \"I am going to tell you a few things. You will not laugh at anything I say\u2014understood?\"\n\n\"We're not laughing!\" I said. \"Great, guy, thanks for the help. And what's the plan?\"\n\n\"First off\u2014remember about the laughing! I'm not a guy. I'm a girl. Do I see lips bending?\"\n\n\"Never!\" I called out, to disguise the fact that a little flicker of emotion had appeared. \"You saved us. We are in your debt. We are not laughing. So tell us about it.\"\n\n\"All right. But let's drag these so-called soldiers out of the way first. Then we go on. The orders were to bring you to Iron John and that is what I am going to do. Your friend is in danger. Do nothing precipitate. Forward.\"\n\nWe went. Disbelieving perhaps, but still forward. Floyd started to talk but I raised my hand.\n\n\"Save the discussion. Explanations will be useful after we make sure Steengo is all right. But Floyd\u2014stop me if I am wrong\u2014did I see you take five guys out while I was just about managing two?\"\n\n\"You didn't see it. It was over before you turned to look.\" He was the same old laid-back Floyd\u2014but was that a new touch of firmness to his words? It was a day of surprises. And he was right\u2014I had not seen him at work, just the results.\n\nThe brick palace jogged into view ahead. Apparently not all of the troops had been told that we were no longer heroes, for the guards at the entrance did a snappy jump to attention and salute as we trotted past.\n\n\"Halt!\" our newfound friend (girl...?) called out and we stopped before the guards at the door. \"Orders to bring these two to Iron John. Permission to enter?\"\n\n\"Enter!\" the officer in charge called out. The doors opened and closed behind us as we trotted by. There was the large room ahead and inside it was Iron John. And just one other person.\n\nSteengo. Collapsed against the wall, covered in bruises and blood. One eye swollen shut. He started to speak but could only rasp out something incomprehensible.\n\n\"You are all here now,\" Iron John said. \"Soldier\u2014guard the entrance. No one to enter or leave. I have a score to settle with these interlopers. Because I have changed my mind about keeping this thing quiet. I listened to my advisers and I am sorry that I did. Secrecy is at an end and justice will be done to the blasphemers. Here is what will happen. First I will kill this aged devil who spoke such filth. You two will watch.\n\n\"Then I will kill you as well.\"\n\nHe started towards Steengo, a red giant of unleashed power. Hands extended to kill.\nChapter 19\n\n\"Let me have your spear.\" I called out to the soldier at the door. She shook her head in a silent no, then said, \"I have my orders.\" No help from this source.\n\nIron John had turned and was walking towards Steengo. I ran two silent steps in his direction and launched myself into a flying kick to his back. Heel punching out, a killing blow.\n\nThen I was batted from the air. As big as he was\u2014Iron John was just as fast. He had turned while I was in the air and had swung one hand. Knocking me aside, sprawling me onto the floor. His voice was as deep and ominous as a distant volcano.\n\n\"Do you want to be first, little man? You wish the others to watch your destruction? Perhaps that is only fair since you are their leader.\"\n\nHe came slowly towards me and I found myself trembling with fear. Fear? Yes, because he was not human, more than human. He was Iron John a part of the legend of life, I could not hurt him.\n\nHe wasn't! I scrabbled to my feet, my leg ached, moved away. He was much bigger, wider, stronger than I was. But no, he wasn't a legend. He was a man.\n\n\"A big fat red slob!\" I shouted. \"A hairy conman!\"\n\nHis eyes were wide, red, angry. His arched fingers reached for me. I feinted a fist at his jaw, saw him move to block it. Kept turning in an unstoppable kick to his knee.\n\nIt connected\u2014but he made no attempt to avoid it. My foot hurt. His knee, his kneecap, looked unhurt.\n\n\"I am Iron John!\" he shouted. \"Iron\u2014iron!\"\n\nI fell back, there was no escape. I swung a twisting punch that he took on his biceps. It felt like striking stone. Then his fist to my ribs sent me skidding down the room.\n\nWhen I gasped in breath it hurt. Felt like something was broken there. Stand up, Jim! I got as far as my knees and he came on.\n\nI blinked as I saw two arms encircle his legs, send him staggering. Kicking out. It was Steengo who had crawled behind him, tried to trip him. Who was now sent crashing back into the wall. To fall and not move again.\n\nI was barely aware of this because the instant Iron John's attention had wandered I had jumped. Getting an arm around his neck, grappling my own wrist. Pulling my forearm tight against his throat to crush his larynx, to cut off blood and air. The armlock that kills in seconds. My face was buried in his rank red fur as I tightened hard, harder than I ever had before.\n\nTo no avail. I could feel the tendons in his neck stiffen like steel bars, taking the pressure that should have been on his throat. He lifted one hand slowly, then sank his fingers deep into my flesh\u2014\n\n\u2014hurled me across the room to crash into the wall, fall.\n\nI realized that the voice wailing in agony was my own. I could not move. The soldier at the door looked at me, looked away. Steengo had lain, motionless, since that single, terrible blow. Nor could I do much better myself, just able to crawl.\n\nAt least Iron John had felt my hold; he was rubbing at his neck. The smile had gone and frothed saliva now coated his lips. Death would be a single blow...\n\n\"Iron John\u2014you have forgotten something. You have forgotten me.\"\n\nFloyd was speaking. Thin, black-bearded, uninvolved. He must have stood and watched while Steengo was stricken, I was felled. Only now did he move.\n\nQuietly forward. Hands extended, fingers lightly bowed. Iron John was in a rage. Leaped and lashed out.\n\nAnd missed because Floyd was not there. He was to one side, kicking the red giant in the ribs so that he stumbled and almost fell.\n\n\"Come here,\" Floyd said in a voice so low I could barely hear it. \"Come and be destroyed.\"\n\nIron John was cautious now, knew how fast his new opponent could react. He opened his arms wide and came slowly forward. A force of nature. Implacable and inescapable.\n\nTwo quick thuds, two blows sounded and Iron John staggered. Floyd was out of his reach again, circling him slowly. A sudden kick, a blow, then away again.\n\nNothing Iron John did seemed to affect the outcome. He was wary, he attacked suddenly, reached out and struck. Touched only air. Floyd was before him, behind him\u2014striking him. Wearing him down.\n\nThey circled for minutes this way. And Floyd was still just as fast, striking with impunity. But the red monster was going slower and slower, arms lower and lower as the endless blows drove the strength from them. He must have realized that there could be only one end to this battle, on these terms. But he was still dangerous. Almost by chance the struggle moved towards me.\n\nHe was after me I realized! I had only the shortest instant to draw my leg back before Iron John spun about and dived towards me.\n\nAnd caught my kick full in his face. He dropped\u2014but his hands closed on my ankle, pulled me towards him. Reached up...\n\nThen Floyd struck. No science now\u2014raw power. Pile driver blows to the giant's back and kidneys that opened his mouth wide with pain, forcing him to release me as he struggled to get away from his tormentor.\n\nMore blows to his head. He tried to rise, his legs were kicked from beneath him. The thudding of quick strikes like some terrible machine at work. Then a sudden silence.\n\nA moment for balance, no expression showing on his face, then Floyd swung a terrible kick that terminated on the side of the giant's head. Who fell over and did not rise nor move again.\n\n\"Dead?\" I croaked. Floyd knelt and felt the pulse in his neck.\n\n\"No, he wasn't supposed to be. He'll survive. But I think that he will remember he has been in a fight.\" He flashed a quick smile, then his face became calm again. \"If you're all right I'll look at Steengo.\"\n\n\"I'm great. Knocked about but great,\" I croaked as I climbed painfully to my feet.\n\n\"Pulse good,\" he said, kneeling beside our friend. \"He has taken a lot of punishment but nothing seems to be broken that I can find. He will come out of this fine.\"\n\nI was groggy, now even weaker with relief, blurted out the words without thinking. \"He's fine. I'm fine. However we would have been a lot better if you had waded into this fracas sooner.\"\n\nI saw him wince at the words, wished I could take them back. You never can.\n\n\"I'm sorry, I really am. I had to wait, see what he could do. I know that you're good, Jim. I knew you could at least hold him. I'm sorry but I had to see how fast he could move before I took him on. I had to wear him down, not get touched. I knew I could do it\u2014and I moved as soon as I knew. Sorry...\"\n\n\"Reporting,\" our guard-guy-girl said. \"The Red One is unconscious.\"\n\nShe lowered the small, coin-sized communicator as I stalked towards her, hands out and ready to strike.\n\n\"Who were you talking to? Whose side are you on? What's happening here? Speak\u2014or get demolished.\"\n\nThe guard, spear lowered and pointed at me, stood her ground. \"The answer to your questions is arriving now. There.\" The point of her spear moved to indicate a spot behind me. A ruse? Who knew, who cared. I turned and looked at Iron John's giant throne.\n\nWhich was slowly turning on some invisible axis. Floyd and I both faced that way, hands raised automatically on the defense. A black opening was revealed and, as the throne stopped moving, there was motion in the darkness beyond. Two figures appeared, walked out into the room.\n\nBoth women.\n\nOne of them was Madonette.\n\n\"Hi, guys,\" she said, smiling and waving. \"I'd like to introduce a new friend, Mata.\"\n\nThe woman was about my height, regal of bearing in her dark robe touched with gold embroidery. Her expression was composed, peaceful; small wrinkles at the corners of her eyes, a touch of gray to her hair, were the only signs of age.\n\n\"Welcome to the other side of Paradise, Jim,\" she said\u2014and held out her hand. Her handshake was firm and quick. I opened my mouth but could not think of anything relevant to say.\n\n\"I know that you have many questions.\" Her words filled the gap. \"All of which will be answered. But it would be wisest to postpone our little chat until we are out of this place. A moment, please.\"\n\nShe took a very efficient-looking hypodermic from the reticule hanging at her waist. Uncapped it and bent to brush aside the thick hair on his leg to give Iron John a quick injection.\n\n\"He will sleep the better,\" she said. \"Bethuel\u2014will you lead the way?\"\n\nThe guard raised her spear in a quick salute, then marched resolutely past the throne and into the opening. Madonette touched Steengo's cheek, then waved Floyd to her. \"Help me carry him. Jim will have enough to do just moving himself.\"\n\nI resented the remark\u2014a blotch on my masculine pride?\u2014but before I could stumble over they had lifted him and were following the guard, Bethuel.\n\nThere were no lights in the tunnel behind the throne. At least none until Mata had entered behind us and sealed it once again. Pale illumination flickered into existence. More than enough to see by. Nor was it a long walk to the open door at the far end. We emerged into a large, red brick room that could have been a mirror-image of the one that we had just left.\n\nJust in physical size, though. Here the walls were covered by pleasant hangings, tapestries of sunshine and floral landscapes. Instead of the swords and shields that adorned the other. The stained-glass windows here depicted scenes of mountains and valleys, villages and forests. Unlike Iron John's windows, which featured the clash of battle, spackle of gore. This was altogether more civilized.\n\nAs was the murmur of concerned voices from the women in attendance here. They tenderly carried Steengo to a couch where another woman, dressed in white, ministered to him. I dropped into the nearest chair and scowled around at all the female bustle. My voice, louder and more censorious than I had intended, cut through the peaceful scene.\n\n\"Now would somebody, anybody, tell me just what the hell is going on.\"\n\nThe way I was ignored was comment enough in itself. Though a smiling girl did bring me a glass of cool wine\u2014on the way to serve the others. Madonette sat next to Mata, where they put their heads together for a moment before Madonette spoke.\n\n\"First\u2014and most important now that you all are safe\u2014is the fact that the artifact is here and is being looked after. In addition there is\u2014\"\n\n\"Excuse if I interrupt,\" I said. \"A matter of priority.\" I clamped my jaw twice. \"Did you hear that, Tremearne?\" His answer buzzed in my jawbone.\n\n\"I did, and...\"\n\n\"Priorities, Captain.\" I spoke quietly so only he could hear. \"Mission complete. Alien artifact returned. Antidote for me on its way down. Nine days is close enough to come. Do you understand all that?\"\n\n\"Of course. But there is a complication...\"\n\n\"Complication!\" I could hear the squeak of fear edging my voice. \"What?\"\n\n\"I sent for the antidote to the thirty-day poison as soon as I heard about it. I had no intention of waiting until the deadline to administer it. However there was an accident in transit.\" Sweat suddenly beaded my forehead and my toes tapped anxiously on the floor. \"These things happen. I've sent for a second batch and it's en route now.\"\n\nI cursed viciously under my breath, then realized that I was the object of more than one concerned glance. Smiled woodenly and snarled my answer.\n\n\"Do it. Get it. No excuses. Now. Understood.\"\n\n\"Understood.\"\n\n\"Fine.\" I stopped whispering and called out. \"I'm most cheered to hear that the artifact has been found. Now, if you please, an explanation of what all this is about.\"\n\n\"Seems obvious,\" Madonette said undoubtedly miffed by my surly behavior. \"It looks like the ladies have saved your bacon and you should be grateful.\"\n\nWhich did nothing to clear the air. \"As I recall,\" I recalled. \"It was the gentlemen\u2014at some physical cost I must add\u2014who polished off that russet rottweiler before you all came onto the scene. I also remember that we were watched all the time during the life-and-death struggle by one of your lot who did nothing to help.\"\n\nThe tough answer sprang to her lips and I snarled around at the female company. Tempers flared on all sides but Mata cooled things down.\n\n\"Children\u2014there has been enough tribulation and pain, so do not cause yourself any more.\" She turned to me. \"Jim, let me explain. The soldier who aided your escape, Bethuel, is one of our spies who keeps us informed about all the masculine meanderings beyond the wall. I ordered her to help you escape your guards, which she did. I also ordered her not to reveal her presence to Iron John. The men beyond the wall have no idea that we watch them closely and I wish it to remain that way. She aided your escape and you should be grateful.\"\n\nI was, and I should have admitted it, but I was still bull-headed and angry and settled for a surly mutter and growl. Mata nodded blithely as though I had communicated something of importance.\n\n\"See how well everything has worked out? You are here and safe, your friends safe as well, and that for which you seek, the strange artifact, is secure and close by.\"\n\nI only half listened. Fine for the troops. But there were other forces at work that did not bode well for my future. Accidents in transit did not happen by accident. Someone in the bureaucracy was manipulating me\u2014did not like me. Perhaps had never liked me and never had any intention of supplying the antidote. I would certainly be less trouble to them if I were safely dead. And there were only nine days left to sort the whole thing out.\n\nI had touched my computer controls automatically while these thoughts were whizzing about my tired brain. The number glowed before me. I really had had a longer sleep than I realized.\n\nEight days to go.\nChapter 20\n\nI looked around at the peaceful female bustle\u2014and suddenly felt very, very tired. My side hurt and I felt sure that a couple of ribs were broken. I sipped the wine but it didn't help. What I really needed was a couple of Blastoff pills to restore me to something resembling life. In my pack\u2014\n\n\"My pack!\" I shouted hoarsely. \"My equipment, everything. Those masculine momsers have all our gear!\"\n\n\"Not quite,\" Mata said in soothing tones. \"As soon as you left we saw to it that the porter, Veldi, was rendered unconscious and both your packs are here now. Your associate Steengo's equipment was not in your residence so we can assume that it is now in the possession of Iron John or his associates.\"\n\n\"Not good.\" I worried a fingernail with my incisors. \"There are things there they shouldn't see...\"\n\n\"Might I interrupt,\" Tremearne's voice spoke through my jaw-a-phone. \"I was waiting until things quieted down to tell you. Steengo's pack is safe.\"\n\n\"You have it?\"\n\n\"Rather I should have said 'made safe.' All of your packs are booby-trapped with a canister of rotgrot. Which, when released by a coded radio signal, causes the contents of the pack to instantly decay to their component molecules.\"\n\n\"Nice to know. A lot of secrets are being revealed of late, aren't they?\"\n\nThere was no response from my jaw. I held out my wineglass for a refill. \"Some simple answers to some simple questions, if you please.\" My anger had been blasted by fatigue, excoriated by fear of imminent death. Mata nodded in response.\n\n\"Good. On a historical note\u2014how come guys over there, girls here?\"\n\n\"A union of convenience,\" Mata said. \"Many years ago our foremothers were forcefully relocated to this planet. This inadvertent transplantation had a sobering effect on them. Whatever excesses of zeal they had displayed on other worlds were not repeated here. Peace, cool reasoning and logic prevailed. We became then as you see us now.\"\n\n\"Women,\" I said. \"A society of women.\"\n\n\"That is correct. Life here was a running battle for a good long time, or so it is written. The Fundamentaloids tried to convert us, while our next-door neighbors tried to wipe us out. The inferior sex they called us, a threat to their existence. When we first came to this planet we found that those macho crazies were already well established. Our group was forced to spend a good deal of effort just staying clear of them. This was time and energy wasted, our founding mothers decided, so they sought ways to bring about peace. Eventually they convinced the male ruling clique that they could prosper by utilizing their energy in a more positive manner. It was a completely selfish appeal, arranging ways for the males on top in their society to stay on top, while providing absolute control of the rest of the men.\"\n\n\"Sounds pretty terrible,\" Madonette said. \"Turning all those men into slaves.\"\n\n\"Never say slaves! Willing collaborators is more like it. We showed those in charge, and in particular the one now called Iron John, how much easier it would be to rule by brain rather than muscle. We demonstrated to their satisfaction how a great deal more could be accomplished. With our intelligence and knowledge of science, and their muscles, two separate societies were born. In the beginning there was much hatred and clashes between the groups. This died away when it was decided that only the male leaders would know of our existence. This suited the leaders to perfection.\"\n\n\"That was when the two cities were built\u2014and the wall?\"\n\n\"Correct. This planet is rich in red clay and fossil fuel so the males soon became manic brick makers. After we showed them how to build kilns, of course. There were contests to see who could mold the most bricks, or fire the greatest number, or carry the most. The champion was named brickie of the month and achieved great renown. This went on until you couldn't see the trees for the mountains of bricks. We quickly researched brick laying in our data bases and put the men to work on that.\"\n\nShe sipped her wine delicately and waved her hand in a circle. \"Here are the results\u2014and quite attractive they are too. While our physical scientists were sorting out the males this way, our cultural engineers were looking at the sloppy mucho-macho theories that had been keeping them going up to this point. The Iron Hans myth was only a part of their pantheon. We simplified and altered it. Then used genetic biology to modify the physical structure of their leader, so he is as you see him now. At first he was grateful, although gratitude has long since vanished.\"\n\n\"How long?\"\n\n\"Hundreds of years. Cellular longevity was part of the treatment.\"\n\nI was beginning to catch on. \"And I'll bet that you remember this firsthand\u2014since you and the other lady leaders have had the same treatments?\"\n\nShe nodded, pleased. \"Very adroit, James. Yes, the authorities on both sides of the wall have had the treatments. This makes for continuity of leadership\u2014\"\n\n\"And the need for secrecy of each other's existence that keeps the powerful in power?\"\n\nMata shook her head in wonder. \"You are indeed most perspicacious. How I wish you were in charge next door rather than that hairy halfwit.\"\n\n\"Thanks for the job offer\u2014but no thanks. So the men beyond the wall don't know that you women are here. The same must be true of your women\u2014\"\n\n\"Not at all. They know about the males\u2014and just don't care. We have a complete and satisfactory society. Childbearing for those who wish it, a fulfilling intellectual life for all.\"\n\n\"And religion? Do you have a female equivalent of Iron John?\"\n\nShe laughed merrily at the thought, as did all the other women who were listening to our conversation. Even Madonette was smiling until she saw my glare, turned away.\n\n\"That's it,\" I snapped. \"Enjoy yourself. And when you are through, if you ever are, you might kindly let me know the joke.\"\n\n\"I am sorry, James,\" Mata said, laughter gone and really quite serious. \"We were being rude and I apologize. The answer to your question is a simple one. Women don't need myths to justify their femininity. All of the myths about Iron Hans, Iron John, Barbarossa, Merlin and other mythological men with their salvation myths are all purely male. Just think about it. I am not making a value judgment, just an observation. Such as the observation that men are basically combative, confrontational, insecure and unstable\u2014and appear to need these myths to justify their existence.\"\n\nThere was a lot to argue with there, maybe not a lot but some. A good deal of jumping-to-conclusions and more than a bit of rationalization. I sidestepped for the moment, until I knew more about how this society ticked. I raised a finger.\n\n\"Now let me see if I have this straight. You ladies have a comfortable existence on this side of the wall. You provide the scientific backup to the males on the other side. To keep them chuntering along in their locker-room paradise. Correct?\"\n\n\"Among other things. That is basically correct.\"\n\n\"Dare I ask what they supply in return?\"\n\n\"Very little, if the truth be known. Fresh meat from the nomads. Who not only won't trade with us but now heartily deny our existence, though they secretly would love to wipe us out. Then there is an occasional supply of sperm to top up our cryogenic sperm bank. Little else. We watch them and keep them going mostly by habit\u2014and for our own safety. If the man in the street doesn't know that we exist he can't cause us any trouble. The men also get a lot of pleasure in bashing the nomads when they start bothering us. Altogether a satisfactory relationship.\"\n\n\"It certainly sounds that way.\" I finished the glass of wine and realized that I was beginning to feel the effects of the alcohol. Which was better than feeling the bruises and sore ribs. Which should be looked at soon\u2014but not too soon. The unfolding drama of cultural mish-mash was just too interesting. \"If you please\u2014a question or two before we call in the medics. First is the most important question. You mention sperm banks so I assume that pregnancy and motherhood still exist?\"\n\n\"They certainly do! We would never consider depriving women of their hormonal, psychological and physical rights. Those who wish to become mothers become mothers. Simple enough.\"\n\n\"Indeed it is. And looking around I see that they are lucky enough to all have female babies.\"\n\nFor the first time I saw Mata less than completely relaxed and calm. She looked away, looked back\u2014took up her glass and sipped some more wine.\n\n\"You must be tired,\" she finally said. \"We can finish this discussion some other time...\"\n\n\"Mata!\" Madonette gasped. \"I think that you are avoiding the topic. This cannot be. I have so admired you and your people here. You are not going to tell me that I am wrong?\"\n\n\"No, never!\" Mata said reaching out and taking Madonette's hands in hers. \"It has just been so long since we discussed these things. Decisions were taken that seemed excellent at the time. Some of us have had reservations since, but, well nothing much can really be done at this point...\"\n\nHer voice ran down and she emptied her wineglass. She was upset and I felt sorry for pinning her down like that. I yawned.\n\n\"You're right,\" I said. \"I think rest and recuperation come first.\"\n\nMata shook her head in a firm no. \"Madonette is right. These decisions must be faced, discussed. Approximately half of the pregnancies are male, male fetuses. This is determined in the first few weeks.\" She saw Madonette's worried expression and shook her head again.\n\n\"No\u2014please hear me out and don't think the worst. All healthy pregnancies are brought to term. In the case of the males the bottle banks are used\u2014\"\n\n\"Bottle banks! Isn't that an unfortunate term?\"\n\n\"Perhaps in your society, Jim. But here it simply signifies highly perfected artificial wombs. Technically superior if truth be known. There are no spontaneous miscarriages, no effects of bad diet and so forth. And at the end of nine months the healthy male babies are\u2014\"\n\n\"Decanted?\"\n\n\"No, born. As soon as they are viable the men take over. Specially trained nursemen who supervise the healthy growth of the boys. Their education and assimilation into their society.\"\n\n\"Very interesting,\" I said, for it certainly was. I hesitated about the next question, but curiosity was gnawing away and could not be suppressed. \"Even more interesting is where do the men think the babies come from?\"\n\n\"Why don't you ask them?\" Mata said coldly and I realized that this interview was at an end.\n\n\"Now I really am tired\u2014to be continued,\" I breathed, dropping back into the couch. \"Is there a doctor in the house?\"\n\nThis kicked a lot of maternal instinct into gear and extracted a great deal of attention. I didn't feel the injection that knocked me out. Or the one that brought me to much later. The women were gone and we were alone. Madonette was holding my hand. Which she dropped with slow deliberation when she saw that my eyes were open.\n\n\"The good news, stalwart Jim, is that none of your bones are broken. Just a lot of bruising. Better news is that the treatment for the bruises is underway. Best news is that Steengo is in pretty good shape, all things considered, and wants to see you.\"\n\n\"Bring him in.\"\n\n\"In a moment. While you were sleeping I talked to Mata. She told me a lot more about how things work around here.\"\n\n\"Did you find out about the babies?\"\n\n\"She really is a nice person, Jim. Everyone here has been very nice to me and...\"\n\n\"But you are beginning to have some reservations?\"\n\nShe nodded. \"More than a few. Things look so nice on the surface\u2014and maybe they are. But it is the babies that bother me. I am sure that they are well taken care of physically, even mentally. But to believe a stupid myth!\"\n\n\"Which one of the stupid myths going about is the one that bothers you?\"\n\n\"Spontaneous creation would you believe! All the males gather around Iron John's pool for a ceremony of life. The golden balls drift up through the water and are seized. And each one contains a healthy happy baby! And grown men believe that nonsense!\"\n\n\"Grown men\u2014and women\u2014have believed worse nonsense down through the ages. This myth was a common one for the so-called lower forms of life. Flies being spontaneously created in manure heaps. Because no one bothered making the connection between grubs growing there and flies laying eggs. All of the creation myths of mankind, all the gods dropping down and molding clay and breathing life, the virgin births and the like. They are all nonsense once they are examined. But we have to start somewhere I suppose. I'm just not happy where some of these people are ending up.\"\n\nThere was a rattle and a thump as the door was opened. Floyd pushed in the wheelchair and Steengo lifted a white-wrapped hand.\n\n\"Looks like you did it, Jim. End of mission. Congratulations.\"\n\n\"And the same to you\u2014and Floyd. And since it is The Stainless Steel Rats together, perhaps for the last time, would you mind making a few things clear. I have long felt that there was more than random chance in your selection. Dare I ask\u2014just who are you three people? I suspect that you were chosen for more than musical ability\u2014right Steengo?\"\n\nHe nodded his bandaged head. \"Almost right. Madonette is just what she appears to be...\"\n\n\"Just an office drudge\u2014singing for a hobby.\"\n\n\"The office's loss is music's gain.\" I smiled and blew a kiss her way. \"One down, two to go. Steengo, I have a feeling that you really aren't retired. Right?\"\n\n\"Right. And I do take some pride in my musical abilities. Which, if you must know, was why I was suckered into this operation by my old drinking buddy, Admiral Benbow.\"\n\n\"Drinking buddy! He who drinks with an admiral...\"\n\n\"Must be an admiral too. Perfectly correct. I am Arseculint...\"\n\n\"I didn't quite catch that.\"\n\n\"Arseculint is an acronym for Area Sector Commander Cultural Intercourse. And you can uncurl your lip. Perhaps, in context, 'intercourse' is not quite the right word. Cultural Relationships might express it better. My degrees are in archeology and cultural anthropology, which is what attracted me to the civil service in the first place. Sort of hands-on application of theory. I followed the matter of the alien artifact with a great deal of interest. So I was ripe for the plucking, you might say, when Stinky Benbow asked me to volunteer.\"\n\n\"Stinky?\"\n\n\"Yes, funny nickname, goes back to the academy, something to do with a chemistry experiment. Which is completely beside the point. I thought enough of this assignment to take a leave from my desk. Great fun. Up until the last, that is.\"\n\n\"Which leaves young Floyd here? Also an admiral?\"\n\nHe looked sheepish. \"Come on, Jim, you know better than that. I even washed out of college, never graduated at all...\"\n\nI pointed an accusatory finger. \"Putting academic credits aside you must have some value to the Special Corps.\"\n\n\"Yes, well, I do. I really am sort of an instructor...\"\n\n\"Speak up, Floyd,\" Steengo said proudly. \"Being chief instructor in charge of the unarmed defense school is nothing to be ashamed of.\"\n\n\"I agree completely!\" I said. \"If you weren't a whiz kid in unarmed combat, why none of us would be here. Thanks guys. Mission complete and successful. Let's drink to that.\"\n\nAs we raised and clashed our glasses together, drank deep, I thought of my mother. I do this very rarely; it must be all the male-female myth dredging that brought her to mind. Or what she used to say. Very superstitious my Ma. Had a superstition for any occasion. The one that I remember best was when you said how great things were, or what a nice day it was. Bite your tongue she used to say.\n\nMeaning don't tempt the gods. Keep your head down. Because saying that something was good would surely bring about the opposite.\n\nBite your tongue, good old Ma. What a lot of malarky.\n\nWhen I lowered my glass I saw a woman stumble in through the open door. A young woman with torn clothing, dusty and staggering.\n\n\"Sound the alarm...\" she gasped. \"Disaster... destruction!\"\n\nMadonette caught her as she fell, listened to her whispered words, looked up with a horrified expression.\n\n\"She's hurt, babbling... something about... the science building, destroyed, gone. Everything.\"\n\nThat was when I felt the cold tongs grab tight to my chest, squeezing so hard they made speech almost impossible.\n\n\"The artifact\u2014\" was all I managed to say.\n\nMadonette nodded slow agreement. \"That's where it was, they told me. In the science building. So it must be gone too.\"\nChapter 21\n\nThe mutual decision of The Stainless Steel Rats was a simple one: we had had about enough for one day. We were alive, if not too well. We had found the artifact so our mission was accomplished. The fact that it had also been destroyed was beside the fact. I hoped. They would have to supply me with the poison antidote now. I kept that thought firmly before me as I went to sleep. This was a time for rest. Wounds had to heal, tissue had to mend, fatigue had to be alleviated: medication and a good night's sleep took care of all of that.\n\nThe sun was shining brilliantly upon the garden of our new residence when I dragged myself there next morning. Sleep had banished fatigue, which meant that I felt all the bruises that much more enthusiastically. My medication was beginning to override the pain and I dropped into a chair while I waited for beneficence to take place. Steengo came in soon after, swinging along on crutches and looking very much like I felt. He eased himself into the chair opposite me. I smiled a welcoming smile.\n\n\"Good morning, Admiral.\"\n\n\"Please, Jim\u2014I'm still Steengo.\"\n\n\"Then, Steengo, since we're alone for the moment, let me express my heartfelt thanks for breaking up the brainwashing session with Iron John. For which, unhappily, you paid quite a physical price.\"\n\n\"Thank you, Jim, I appreciate that. But I had to do it. To save you from being programmed. Also\u2014I really did lose my temper. Teddy bear indeed! A complete corruption of history.\"\n\n\"No teddy bear? No golden ball?\"\n\n\"The golden ball, yes. That represents innocence, the pleasures of childhood without responsibility. It is lost when we grow up. To regain this freedom the myth tells us we have to find the ball under mother's pillow\u2014and steal it.\"\n\n\"But in a society without women you can't have a mother\u2014so the myth had to be rewritten?\"\n\nSteengo nodded agreement, then winced and touched the bandage around his head. \"Retold as nonsense. In the original story Mother never wants the boy child to grow up, sees him as young and dependent forever. Independence must be stolen away from mother\u2014hence the golden ball under her pillow.\"\n\n\"Pretty deep stuff.\"\n\n\"Pretty fascinating stuff. Mankind depends on its myths to rationalize existence. Pervert the myth and you pervert society.\"\n\n\"Like Big Red and his mates on the other side of the wall?\"\n\n\"Exactly. But what was happening there was far more dangerous than just editing a myth. I had suspected that there would be some strong narcogases in the air\u2014and I was right. You and Floyd were glassy-eyed and practically hypnotized into immobility. So it wasn't just a matter of listening to one more story about the magnetic field of the deep masculine. This was about having a very pernicious and demented theory punched deep into your mind, into your subconscious. You were being brainwashed, thought-controlled\u2014and this sort of crude forced suggestion can do infinite harm. I had to stop it.\"\n\n\"Risking your own life at the same time?\"\n\n\"Perhaps. But I am sure you would have done the same for me if the circumstances were reversed.\"\n\nThere was no answering that one. Would I? I smiled, a little grimly. \"Can I at least say thanks?\"\n\n\"You can. Greatly appreciated. So back to work. Now, before the others come, to more pressing business. Since I am now in the open, so to speak, I am relieving Captain Tremearne and taking command of this operation. I am in a better position to kick the cagal out of the chain of command and make sure that your antidote is here instantly. Or sooner. My first imperative order when I took command was to send for it.\"\n\n\"Then you know about the thirty-day poison? If I might be frank\u2014I can tell you\u2014it has had me pretty worried. Thank you\u2014\"\n\n\"Don't thank me yet. Because I want your assurance that you will stick with this assignment, thirty-day poison or no.\"\n\n\"Of course I will. I took on this job, got paid, and gave my word I would finish it. The poison was just some bureaucratic moron's idea of a completion bond.\"\n\n\"I was sure you would say that. Knew that you would carry on regardless, threat of death or no threat of death.\"\n\nWhy was I uncomfortable when he said this? This was my old mate Steengo talking. Or was there a strong whiff of the admiral behind his words? Once the military, always the military... No, I would not think ill of him. But I better remember that the poison was still churning away. He was smiling widely and I let my smile mirror his. Although, deep inside, the worry and fear still nagged and scratched at my thoughts. Find the artifact, Jim. That is the only way to be sure about the antidote.\n\nI laughed and smiled. But only on the outside. \"Carry on, of course. The artifact must be found.\"\n\n\"Must be found, you are right. The search must go on!\" He looked over my shoulder and waved. \"And there's Floyd\u2014and Madonette. Welcome, my dear, welcome. I would stand to greet you, but only with difficulty.\"\n\nShe smiled and kissed his forehead below the bandage. Of course she was the last one to arrive, woman's prerogative. Though I had better abandon such male-chauv-pig reflexive observations. At least while I was still a guest of the ladies this side of Paradise.\n\n\"I have been talking to Mata,\" she said, seating herself and sipping a bit of fruit juice. \"The science building was empty when the explosion occurred, so no one was injured. Since then they have sifted the ruins and found that there is no trace at all of the artifact.\"\n\n\"Positive?\" I asked.\n\n\"Positive. They have been eavesdropping on the other side of the wall, so they knew about all our interest in the thing. They waited until they observed that all the male scientists had looked at it and prodded it enough. As expected those noble gentlemen\u2014referred to here as 'the geriatric incompetents'\u2014had discovered nothing. Having no further interest the scientists had it transferred here. A study program had been drawn up to examine the artifact but was just beginning when the explosion occurred. End of report.\"\n\nSo the artifact might have been stolen, might still be around. I could help look for it. But I could also stop counting the days. Earlier, when I had been woken up by my computer, it had been flashing a glowing seven for my benefit. Now Admiral Steengo had relieved me of this chronic worry.\n\nBut I had taken three million for this job\u2014and I still wondered what the thing really was. So the artifact-chase would continue. Minus the pressure of the days. I looked around at my musical rats and realized that nothing had changed for them. The search for the artifact was still on. Well\u2014why not!\n\n\"What do we do next?\" I said. Steengo, now more of an admiral than a musician, toted up the possible options.\n\n\"Was the explosion an accident? If it wasn't\u2014who caused it? There are really a lot of questions that must be asked...\"\n\n\"Mata told me to tell you that you were to ask Aida if you had any questions,\" Madonette said brightly.\n\nWe considered this seriously for a moment, then realized we hadn't the slightest idea of what she was talking about. Still the admiral, Steengo spoke for all of us.\n\n\"Who is Aida?\"\n\n\"Not who\u2014but what. An acronym for Artificially Intelligent Data Assembler. I think that it is the central computer here. In any case, here is the access terminal.\"\n\nShe put what looked like an ordinary portaphone on the table and switched it on. Nothing happened.\n\n\"Are you there, Aida?\" Madonette said.\n\n\"Ready to be summoned at any time, darling,\" the voice said. In a rich and sexy contralto.\n\n\"I thought you said computer?\" was my baffled response.\n\n\"Do I hear a male voice?\" Aida said. Then giggled. \"It has been such a very long time! Might I ask your name, sweetie?\"\n\n\"Jim\u2014not sweetie. And why did you call me that?\"\n\n\"Training and programming, dear boy. Before this present assignment I ran an exploration spacer. Male crew, endless years in space. It was felt by my creators that a female voice and presence would be more efficacious morale-wise than a machine or masculine presence.\"\n\n\"The last exploration spacer was junked centuries ago,\" Steengo said.\n\n\"A lady does not like to be reminded of her age,\" Aida said huskily. \"But it is true. When my ship was sent to the breakers I was made redundant. Since I am basically a computer program I am\u2014every woman's dream\u2014eternal. I had, shall we say, a rather varied career before I ended up here. Mind you, I'm not complaining. I find this such a pleasant occupation. There are charming ladies to talk to, as well as additional memory banks and data bases to access whenever I wish to. Most pleasurable\u2014but I do chatter on. I have been informed that you have a problem. If you would identify yourselves by name it would make conversation that much easier. Jim and Madonette I know. The name of the gentleman who just spoke?\"\n\n\"Admiral\u2014\" Steengo said, then broke off.\n\n\"Let us do keep it on a first-name basis. And your first name is Admiral. Others?\"\n\n\"Floyd,\" said Floyd.\n\n\"And a great pleasure to meet you all. How may I help?\"\n\n\"An item, referred to as the artifact, was recently brought to the science building. Do you know about it?\"\n\n\"Indeed I do. I was studying it, so am therefore quite familiar with the strange construction. In fact I had it under observation at the time of the explosion.\"\n\n\"Did you see what happened to it?\"\n\n\"Taking the literal meaning of see, dear Jim, forces me to answer that question in the negative. I had no photo pickups operating at the time so I did not physically see what happened to it. The only information I had was the direction that it left in. That was thirty-two degrees to the right of the zero north-polar latitude.\"\n\n\"There is nothing at all out there in that direction,\" Steengo said. \"No settlements, no nomadic tribes. Nothing but empty plains right up the polar cap. How do you know that the artifact was taken that way?\"\n\n\"I know that, mon Amiral, because this artifact emits tachyons and I was observing it with a tachyometer. Keeping count, so to speak, and most interesting it was too. It did not emit many\u2014after all, what source does?\u2014but a few are much better than none. Let the record show that it emitted one tachyon, from the direction I have given you, just microseconds before the explosion that destroyed the equipment I was using.\"\n\n\"You weren't\u2014injured?\" Madonette said.\n\n\"How sweet of you to ask! I wasn't, because I wasn't there. As soon as I could I constructed a new tachyometer, conveyed it to the site of the explosion with, unhappily, no results. Now there is just background radiation.\"\n\n\"Do you know what caused the explosion?\"\n\n\"Welcome to this easy give-and-take of social intercourse, friend Floyd. To answer your question\u2014I do. It was a very powerful explosive. I can give you the chemical formula but I am sure that you would find that immensely boring. But I can tell you that this explosive was manufactured quite widely for the mining industry at one time. It is named ausbrechitite.\"\n\n\"Never heard of it.\"\n\n\"Understandable, Admiral, since it was found to grow unstable with the passage of time. Manufacturing was phased out and ausbrechitite was replaced by newer and more stable explosives.\"\n\n\"When was this?\" I asked.\n\n\"A bit over three centuries ago. Would you like the exact date?\"\n\n\"That will do fine.\"\n\nWe blinked at each other in silence. Not knowing what to do with this weird historical-scientific evidence. Only Madonette had the brains to ask the right question.\n\n\"Aida\u2014do you have any theories about what happened?\"\n\n\"Simply thousands my dear. But there is no point in telling you about them until I gather some more evidence. Right now you might say that we are in the early moves of a chess game with millions of possibilities for the rest of the game. But I can give you some figures. Chances of an accidental explosion, zero. Chances that the explosion was tied in with the theft, sixty-seven percent. What happens next depends upon you.\"\n\n\"How?\"\n\n\"Consider reality. You are mobile, cher Jim while I am, so to speak, tied down to the job. I can give advice, and accompany you in transceiver form when you leave here. But what happens next\u2014that decision is up to you.\"\n\n\"What decision?\" Aida could be exasperating at times.\n\n\"I will supply a new tachyometer. If you take it in the direction I have indicated you might be able to track the artifact in this manner.\"\n\n\"Thanks,\" I said and reached out and turned Aida off. \"Looks like us humans have to come to a decision. Who follows the trail? Let us not all speak at once but let me speak first because I am top rat. I have the feeling that it is now time to thin our ranks. I say that Madonette does not go any further. We needed her for the music\u2014and wonderful she was too!\u2014but not for crawling around looking for nutcases planting century-old bombs.\"\n\n\"I second Jim's motion,\" Admiral Steengo said.\n\n\"I third it,\" Floyd said quickly as Madonette tried to speak. \"This is really not your kind of job. Nor is it Steengo's either.\"\n\n\"Isn't that for me to decide?\" Steengo snarled in his best admiralish mode.\n\n\"No,\" I suggested. \"If you wish to be of assistance, you can really help us by organizing the base operation from here. I declare that the motion has been seconded and passed above all objections. This is only a democracy when it suits me.\"\n\nSteengo smiled and the admiral's scowl vanished; he was too smart to argue. \"I agree. I am well past my sell-by date for fieldwork. My aching bones tell me that. Please, Madonette, give in graciously to the thrust of history. Are you nodding\u2014albeit reluctantly? Good. Above and beyond any aid given by Aida, I will see to it that the Special Corps will supply any equipment needed. Questions?\" He glowered around in a circle but we were silent. He nodded with satisfaction and Madonette raised her hand.\n\n\"With that decision out of the way\u2014may I pass on a request? In conversation I have discovered that everyone here is a true musical Rat fan so...\"\n\n\"Could we do one last gig before the group breaks up? You betcha. All in agreement.\"\n\nThere was a rousing cheer from all except Steengo, who looked unhappy at the thought of all of his instruments reduced to a pile of particles. But Madonette, ever resourceful, had done a bit of work before she mentioned the gig.\n\n\"I've asked around among the girls. They tell me that there is a really nice chamber group here, as well as a symphony orchestra\u2014they must have at least one instrument Steengo can play.\"\n\n\"Any of them, all of them\u2014just unleash me!\" he said and now it was smiles and cheers all around.\n\nDue to the miracles of modern medicines, curing and healing drugs, painkillers and a large shot of booze for Steengo, we were ready to do our performance later this same day. A matinee, since night here was still a couple of our days away and not worth waiting for.\n\nThere was quite a turnout at the sports stadium. Cheers and shouts of joy greeted us and no one seemed to mind that Steengo was not only out of costume but playing from a wheelchair. If this was to be the last curtain for The Stainless Steel Rats we meant to make it a performance to remember. Leaving the more militaristic and macho songs aside for the moment we launched into a mellow blues number.\n\nBlue world\u2014\n\nHear me singing my song.\n\nBlue world\u2014\n\nWhat's it I done wrong?\n\nBlue world\u2014\n\nYou gonna help me along\n\nBlue wor-r-r-ld.\n\nHere we are\u2014\n\nWe ain't goin' away.\n\nHere we are\u2014\n\nOn this planet to stay.\n\nBlue wor-r-r-ld.\n\nLanding was easy,\n\nPlenty of fun.\n\nDown came our rocket\u2014\n\n'Neath the blue sun.\n\nLanding was great\u2014\n\nEverything swell.\n\nNow it's all over,\n\nLiving is hell,\n\nDown here at the bottom of the gravity well.\n\nWe did many an encore this day. Finished finally with the feeling of exhaustion and happiness that only comes with an artistic job well done. Sleep came easily but, unable to resist, I took one last peek at the days remaining before closing my eyes.\n\nStill seven. Still a week. Plenty of time for my good buddy Admiral Steengo to kick butt and come up with the antidote. I think I was smiling when I closed my eyes which, when you think about it, was quite a change from the preceding twenty-three days. Yes it was.\n\nThen why wasn't I going to sleep? Instead of lying there tensely staring into the darkness. An easy answer.\n\nUntil the happy moment when I pulled back the plunger and shot up with the antidote I had only seven days to live.\n\nNighty-night, Jim. Sleep well...\nChapter 22\n\nEither I was a slugabed or the admiral, released from his role as a musician, was a workaholic. Or both. Because by the time I had appeared he had single-handedly organized our expedition down to the last detail. He was muttering over the heap of apparatus as he punched the checklist into his handheld. He glanced up, waved vaguely, then finished off the last items.\n\n\"This is your new backpack. It contains a number of items you will probably need\u2014and here's a printout of what's inside it. I assume that you have a good deal of illegal and possibly deadly items in your old pack which you can transfer after I leave. Aida is assembling another tachyometer and I'm going to get it now. Floyd will join you shortly\u2014and here is Madonette, welcome, welcome.\"\n\nSteengo made as graceful an exit as he could on crutches. Madonette, a picture of good cheer, swept in and took both of my hands in hers. Then discovered that this wasn't an enthusiastic enough greeting so she kissed me warmly on my cheek. My arms embraced her in automatic response, but closed on empty air since she had already whirled away and dropped onto the couch.\n\n\"I wish that I were coming with you, Jim\u2014but I know that it's impossible. Still, I'm not looking forward to getting back to the stuffy old office.\"\n\n\"I'm going to miss you,\" I said. Meaning it to be a calm statement but listening to myself in horror as it came out all dewy-eyed and smarmy. \"All of us will miss you, of course.\"\n\n\"Same here. There were some hairy moments\u2014but you took care of everything, didn't you?\" The warmth and appreciation were such that I could feel myself blushing. \"All in all I think it was an experience of a lifetime. And I am definitely not going back to all those files and staff meetings and sealed windows. It's fieldwork from now on. Out in the fresh air! Isn't that a good idea?\"\n\n\"Wonderful, yes indeed,\" I said, missing her already. I don't know where all this might have ended if Floyd hadn't made a disgustingly cheerful entrance.\n\n\"Morning all. Good day for the expedition. Hi and unhappily goodbye Madonette, companion of many an adventure. It has been fun working with you.\"\n\n\"Could you teach me unarmed defense?\"\n\n\"My pleasure. Easy enough if you work at it.\"\n\n\"Then I could train to be a field agent?\"\n\n\"Probably not. But I'll sure look into it.\"\n\n\"Would you! I'd be ever grateful. I was telling Jim that I don't want to work in an office anymore.\"\n\n\"Nor should you! A girl with your talents can find much better occupation.\"\n\nThey smiled at each other from opposite ends of the couch, knees almost touching, wrapped up in each other. I was forgotten. I hated Floyd's guts. Was more than happy to hear the thud of crutches and the dragging footsteps approaching.\n\n\"All here,\" Steengo said. \"Very good. The tachyometer is ready.\"\n\nThe thing that was following him now trotted forward. Walking, stiff-legged, was the ugliest fake dog that I had ever seen in my life. It was covered in black artificial fur with handfuls missing, had beady black eyes like buttons, stuck out a dry red tongue as it barked.\n\n\"Bow-wow.\"\n\n\"What do you mean 'bow-wow'?\" I gasped aloud. \"What is this repulsive object?\"\n\n\"The tachyometer,\" Admiral Steengo said.\n\n\"Bow-wow,\" it barked again. \"And for convenience sake the tachyometer is mounted within this mobile terminal.\"\n\n\"Aida?\" I said.\n\n\"None other. Do you like this disguise?\"\n\n\"I have never seen a more artificial artificial dog in my life!\"\n\n\"Well don't get too insulting about it. Fido is state of the art\u2014and that is modern art if you are thinking something nasty. For one thing the dear little doggy communicates with me by gravimetric waves which, as I am sure you know, cannot be blocked like radio waves. They penetrate the most solid buildings, cut through the most gigantic mountain ranges. So we are always in communication, always in touch. Admittedly Fido here has seen better days. But you know what they say about beggars?\"\n\n\"I do. But we're choosers without being beggars and I choose a better mobile terminal.\"\n\n\"Your choice, handsome. Give me two days and you can have whatever you want.\"\n\nTwo days? And I had like maybe six and a half to live unless the antidote arrived. I took a deep breath and whistled.\n\n\"Here Fido. Nice doggie. Let's go walkies.\"\n\n\"Bow-wow,\" it said and began to pant most artificially.\n\n\"This is the plan,\" Admiral Steengo said. \"I will monitor this operation from the orbiting spacer along with Captain Tremearne. Jim and Floyd will head north in the direction taken by the missing artifact. Aida will be in contact with this terminal, which will also be searching for a tachyon emission source.\" He appeared to run out of words and rubbed his jaw.\n\n\"A nice plan,\" I said, but I could not keep a certain tone of derision out of my voice. \"Cooked down to essentials it means that we just trot north until something happens.\"\n\n\"A satisfactory interpretation. Good luck.\"\n\n\"Thanks. And you will keep the other and most pressing matter of a certain injection on the top of your agenda?\"\n\n\"I shall query the people involved hourly on the hour,\" he said grimly\u2014and I think he meant it.\n\nWe filled our packs, kept the goodbyes as brief as possible, loaded up and followed Fido out without a backward glance. I liked Madonette. Perhaps too much while I was on an assignment like this. Go, Jim, go I cozened. Follow your wandering tachyon.\n\nWe followed the flapping black nylon tail through the streets and onward to the outlying farms. The women we met waved happily, some even whistling bits of our tunes to cheer us on the way. The last farm fell behind us and the open plains opened out ahead. I clacked my jaw-radio.\n\n\"Are you there, Tremearne?\"\n\n\"Listening in.\"\n\n\"Any tribes of nomads around\u2014or up ahead?\"\n\n\"Negative.\"\n\n\"Any buildings, farms, people, sheots\u2014anything visible on this heading?\"\n\n\"Negative. We've done a detailed scan as far north as the polar ice. Nothing.\"\n\n\"Thanks. Over and out.\" Wonderful.\n\n\"Empty on all sides, nothing at all ahead,\" I reported to Floyd. \"So we just stay on this heading until our plastic retriever detects any tachyons\u2014or we reach the north pole and freeze to death.\"\n\n\"I've been meaning to ask. What's a tachyon?\"\n\n\"Good question. Up until now I thought it was just a theoretical unit that the physicists dreamed up in order to explain how the universe works. One of the subatomic entities that exist either as waves or particles. Until they are observed they have no real existence. It has been said, and who am I to doubt it, that they exist in a probabilities limbo of many possible superimposed states.\" I noticed that Floyd's jaw was beginning to drop, his eyes to glaze. He shook his head.\n\n\"You are going to have to try harder, Jim\u2014you lost me a long time back.\"\n\n\"Right, sorry. Try this. There are various kinds of units in physics. A photon is a unit of light energy and an electron is a unit of electric energy. Okay?\"\n\n\"Great. With you so far.\"\n\n\"A graviton is a unit of gravity and a tachyon a unit of time.\"\n\n\"Lost me again. I thought minutes and seconds were units of time?\"\n\n\"They are, Floyd, but just to simple people like you and I. Physicists tend to look at things in a different manner.\"\n\n\"I believe it. Sorry I asked. Time for a break, five minutes in every hour.\"\n\n\"You're on.\" I unstuck my canteen and took a swig, then whistled to our dogtrotting terminal that was almost out of sight. \"Come back Fido, breakies.\"\n\n\"You're the boss,\" Aida said. The dog scrambled back, barked and sniffed my pack where I had dropped it next to me on the ground.\n\n\"Not too much realism!\" I shouted. \"Don't have that plastic canine lift its leg on my pack!\"\n\nThe day went on like that. Apparently forever. We crawled across the landscape: the sun crawled across the sky. When we had been walking for over five hours fatigue began to strike. Floyd was striding ahead at a great pace.\n\n\"Tired yet?\" I called out.\n\n\"No. Great fun.\"\n\n\"To those of us who weren't bashed about by the red peril.\"\n\n\"Just a bit more.\"\n\nThe bit more went on a bit more than I appreciated and I was just about to toss in the towel when Fido spoke.\n\n\"Bow and wow, gentlemen. Just detected a couple of tachyons as they went whizzing by. Wasn't sure of the first one but\u2014there it is, another\u2014and another!\"\n\n\"Coming from where?\" I asked.\n\n\"Directly ahead. Let's just stay on this course and we'll track the source down. With, perhaps, yes I'm sure, there is the strong possibility of a course deviation later.\"\n\n\"Aha!\" I ahaed. \"I recognize equivocation when I hear it. Even from a plastic dog mouthpiece for an ancient ship's computer.\"\n\n\"The word ancient is so hurtful...\"\n\n\"I'll apologize when you tell me about this complication.\"\n\n\"Apology accepted. Allowing for the curvature of the planet, gravitic anomalies and other factors, I am still forced to believe that the tachyon source is not on the surface of this world.\"\n\n\"The thing is underground?\"\n\n\"Underground is the very word for it.\"\n\nI bit hard on the jawphone. \"Tremearne, would you put the admiral on the line.\"\n\n\"I'm here, Jim. Aida reported this possibility a while back and I have been monitoring developments since then. Didn't want to bother you, for all the obvious reasons.\"\n\n\"Yes, like we forgot to bring a shovel. Anything else you haven't told me?\"\n\n\"I was waiting for data, just coming in. I sent a low-flying probe to look for the gravimetric anomalies that Aida had found. Looks like there are a number of them and they are being plotted now.\"\n\n\"What kind of anomalies? Metal deposits?\"\n\n\"Quite the opposite. Caverns below the ground.\"\n\n\"It figures. Over and out. At least we now know where the artifact is.\"\n\n\"Where?\" Floyd asked, since he had only heard my side of the conversation.\n\n\"Underground. There are caves or caverns of some kind up ahead. Nothing visible on the surface\u2014but they are there all right. Our technical observers seem sure that the artifact is down there somewhere. Can we take that break now and wait for the reports?\"\n\n\"I guess so.\"\n\nFloyd guessed right, which was a good thing since an instant after we dropped to the ground a stream of bullets was fired at us. Zipping through the empty air where we had just been standing.\n\nFloyd had a large and ugly pistol in his hand now which didn't slow him down as he wriggled on hands and knees beside me to the shelter of the mounded earth around a polpettone tree.\n\n\"We're under fire!\" I shouted into my jawphone.\n\n\"Source not visible.\"\n\nFido stood on its hind legs\u2014then jumped high into the air despite another burst of bullets.\n\n\"Bow-wow. Perhaps not visible to others but clear enough to me.\"\n\n\"What is it?\"\n\n\"Some sort of apparatus at ground level. Want me to take it out?\"\n\n\"If you can.\"\n\n\"Grrr!\" it growled and retracted its legs, then zipped off at a great rate at ground level, so fast it could barely be seen. Moments later there was a muffled explosion and bits of debris rattled down into the shrub.\n\n\"That was quick,\" I said.\n\n\"Thank you,\" Fido said emerging from the undergrowth with a jagged bit of metal in its jaws. \"Just follow me if you want to see the remains.\"\n\nWe followed the thing to a smoking pit with a jumble of crumpled apparatus in its center. Fido dropped its bit of debris, lifted one front leg. Extended its head, straightened its tail and pointed.\n\n\"Remote-controlled gun turret. Note that the top of it is camouflaged, concealed by dirt and sprouting plants. Hydraulically operated\u2014that's red oil not blood\u2014to lift the apparatus above ground level. Remains of an optical finder there. Note the four automatic guns, Rapellit-binetti X-nineteens. Rate of fire twelve hundred rounds a minute. Eighty rounds a second, explosive and armor piercing.\"\n\n\"Since when have you been an armament authority, Aida?\" I asked.\n\n\"Since a long time back, sweetie pie. In my heyday I was required to know this sort of thing. I also know that these particular guns have not been manufactured for over five hundred years.\"\nChapter 23\n\nI took another sip of water, wished that it was a stronger liquid. Was glad that it wasn't since a clear head was an important asset at this time.\n\n\"How old did you say these guns are?\" I asked. There was no answer because our fake dog was digging away like a real dog throwing dirt behind it at a great rate. Burrowing down under the gun turret.\n\n\"Five hundred years old,\" Floyd said. \"How can that be? Why use something that old?\"\n\n\"You use it if that is all that you have. There is a mystery here that we are about to solve. Remember the ancient explosive that blew up the lab? It was also antique. So consider this. What if this planet had been settled before they started dumping societal debris on it? What if there had been settlers here\u2014only they were hidden away underground? It's a possibility. And if it is true, then it has been five centuries since they arrived. That's how long these mysterious migrants have been hiding away up here. Or down here, really. They must have been settled well before the League ever found this planet. That's why there is no record of them.\"\n\n\"Who are they?\"\n\n\"Your guess is as good as mine...\"\n\n\"Yarf!\" our dogbot said, yarfing through a muzzle covered with dirt. \"There is a fiber-optic cable going into the ground, obviously controlling this turret.\"\n\n\"Going down to the caverns. So, the next question\u2014how do we get in...\"\n\n\"Jim,\" my jaw said. \"There is an interesting development taking place about three clicks away from you, in the same direction you have been walking. We've got image amplifiers on the electronic telescopes so we can see quite clearly...\"\n\n\"What can you see quite clearly?\"\n\n\"A group of armed men has emerged from some kind of opening in the ground. They appear to be dragging along one of their number who is bound. Now they are erecting a metal post of some kind. There is a struggle going on\u2014apparently they are securing the bound man to the post.\"\n\nMemories of a thousand ancient flicks flooded my forebrain. \"Stop them! It could be an execution\u2014death by firing squad. Do something!\"\n\n\"Negative. We are in orbit. Short of launching an explosive torpedo, which is contraindicated at this time, there is nothing we can facilitate that will get there inside fifteen minutes at the very quickest.\"\n\n\"Forget it!\" I was digging into my pack as I whistled to the houndbot. \"Fido! Catch!\"\n\nIt jumped high and grabbed the gas bomb out of the air. \"Go. Thataway. You heard the message\u2014get to those guys and bite hard on that thing.\"\n\nMy last words were shouted in the direction of the tail that was vanishing among the shrubs. We grabbed up our packs and followed. Floyd easily outdistanced me and by the time I got to the scene, staggering and panting, it was all ancient history. Our faithful friend was barking and, foreleg lifted and tail outstretched, was pointing at the sprawled bodies.\n\n\"Well done, man's best friend,\" I said, and easily resisted the impulse to pat its plastic fur.\n\n\"For the record,\" I said for the benefit of my radio. \"All males, all armed with shoulder weapons of some kind. There are twelve of them wearing camouflage uniforms. Thirteenth man\u2014surely an unlucky number\u2014tied to the post. No shirt.\"\n\n\"Is he injured?\"\n\n\"Negative.\" I could feel a steady pulse in his neck. \"We made it in time. Interesting, he's young, younger than the rest. What next?\"\n\n\"Decision made by the strategic planning computer. Take all weapons. Take the prisoner and remove him to a safe distance, then interrogate.\"\n\nI sniffed disdainfully as I unknotted the cords on the man's wrists. \"Don't need a strategic planning computer to figure that one out.\"\n\nFloyd caught him as he slumped free, threw him over his shoulder. I grabbed up the packs and pointed. \"Let's get to that gully and out of sight.\"\n\nThe bomb that the ersatz hound had exploded was a quick in-and-out gas. One breath and you were asleep. For about twenty minutes. Which was all the time that we needed to hump our loads through the mud of the rain-eroded gully until we found a dry spot under an overhanging bank. Our prisoner\u2014guest?\u2014began to roll his head and mutter. Floyd and I, and our mascot, sat down to watch and wait. It wasn't long. He muttered something, opened his eyes and saw us. Sat half up and looked very frightened.\n\n\"Fremzhduloji\" he said. \"Amizbko mizb.\"\n\n\"Sounds like really bad Esperanto,\" Floyd said.\n\n\"Just what you would expect if he and his kinfolk have been cut off from any outside contact for hundreds of years. Talk slow and he'll understand us.\"\n\nI turned to him and raised my hands palms out in what I hoped was a universal sign of peace. \"We're strangers, like you said. But what else did you say? Sounded like 'my friends'?\"\n\n\"Friends, yes, friends!\" he said, nodding like crazy, then shied away when Fido began barking.\n\n\"Aida, please. Will you shut your plastic poodle up. He's frightening our guest.\"\n\nThe thing stopped barking and spoke. \"Just want to report that I am in contact with the watchers above. They report that the others who were rendered unconscious by the gas have regained consciousness and have retreated.\"\n\n\"Great. Just file everything and report later.\" I turned back to our guest\u2014who looked very impressed by the talking-dog sequence. \"Well, friend. My name is Jim and this is Floyd. The furry fake is Fido. You have a name.\"\n\n\"I am called Dreadnought, son of Impervious.\"\n\n\"A pleasure to meet you. Now\u2014can you tell us why you were about to be wasted by that firing squad?\"\n\n\"Disobeyment of orders. I was on Watch. Saw your group approaching. I fired the Watchturret at you\u2014but do not yourselves anger! I aimed to miss. To fire demands permission of Watch Commander. That is why I was to be executed. I sought not his permission.\"\n\n\"Accidents happen.\"\n\n\"No accident. Fired because of orders.\"\n\n\"Are you following this?\" Floyd asked.\n\n\"Not too well. Tell us, Dreadnought, who gave the order to fire if it wasn't the Watch Commander?\"\n\n\"We all decided together.\"\n\n\"Who is we?\"\n\n\"I can not tell you.\"\n\n\"Understandable. Loyalty to your friends.\" I clapped him on the back in a friendly manner and felt him shiver. \"Getting cold. I'll get you a shirt.\"\n\nI dug through my pack and took advantage of the opportunity for a muttered conversation with my jawphone.\n\n\"Any ideas? From you\u2014or your indispensable strategic planning computer?\"\n\n\"Yes. If he won't talk to you perhaps the associates he referred to might be more communicative. Try to arrange a meeting.\"\n\n\"Right.\" I went back with the shirt. \"Here, Dreadnought, get out of the cold.\" He stood up and put it on. \"Good. Now I've been thinking. I don't want you to tell me things that you are not supposed to. But maybe your friends, the ones you just told us about, maybe they can let us know what is going down. Can we meet them?\"\n\nHe bit his lip and shook his head.\n\n\"No? Well let's try something else. Can you get back to your friends? Tell them about us. Talk about it. Find out if someone is prepared to tell us just what is happening. Okay?\"\n\nHe looked from me to Floyd, even down at Fido who wagged its tail, before he made his mind up.\n\n\"Come with me.\"\n\nHe was young and strong and trotted along at a mean trot. Floyd and the mechanical mutt kept up fine but my aches and pains were coming back. I trailed behind and was going to call a halt when Dreadnought stopped at the edge of a grove of polpettone trees.\n\n\"Wait this place,\" he said when I had puffed and blown up to them. He twisted away among the trees. He didn't notice that Fido, legs folded, tail and head retracted, had slipped silently after him in the guise of a black floormop. The cessation of physical activity was welcome\u2014as was the instant-heating meal I dug out of my pack. One porcuswine burger with gravy. Floyd popped his mealpak as well and we were licking the last drops of yummy from our fingers when the shadowlike mop reappeared. Legs, tail and head popped out and it barked. I scowled at it.\n\n\"Report first, bark later.\"\n\n\"Your new associate never saw me. Within the wood is a slab of rock that levers up with an opening beneath it. He went that way. Shall I show you where it is?\"\n\n\"Later\u2014if we have to. Right now let us take ten and see if he passes on our message.\"\n\nFatigue sat on me. I closed my eyes and took a lot more than ten. The sun was balancing on the horizon when I surfaced again. My computer obliged me by clicking the red six to a five when I checked the elapsed time. Don't worry, Jim\u2014Admiral Steengo is on your side! This feeble reassurance didn't help and I was sure that I could feel the thirty-day poison beginning to bubble and seethe in my bloodstream.\n\nFloyd was snoring lightly, sound asleep. Yet his eyes were open the instant Fido reappeared, disturbing some stones as it slid down the embankment.\n\n\"And a good-morning bow-wow to you gentlemen. Your new friend has emerged from under the lifting rock, along with an associate, and is coming this way. Remember\u2014you heard it from me first.\"\n\nFido sat and waited, then barked a welcome when the two men appeared. They were nattily dressed in camouflage uniforms and steel helmets, each helmet sporting a shiny spike on top. Bandoliers of bullets were draped over their shoulders, while there was a large and impressive handgun on each hip. But the guns were holstered and held in place by a buttoned strap. I relaxed knowing that with Floyd there the touch of a hand to one of those buttons would bring instant unconsciousness.\n\n\"Welcome back, Dreadnought,\" I said. \"Welcome as well your companion.\"\n\n\"He is named Indefatigable and is the Area Commander. That is Floyd with the beard, the other is Jim.\"\n\nIndefatigable did not shake hands but instead hit his closed right fist against his chest with an echoing thud. We did the same since it never hurts to learn the local customs.\n\n\"Why did you come here?\" Indefatigable asked in a most cold and quizzical manner. I took slight umbrage.\n\n\"You might say we came to save your companion from certain death by the firing squad\u2014your thanks are appreciated.\"\n\n\"If you had not come he would not have fired and have been condemned to death.\"\n\n\"Good point. But I do remember that he fired because of a group decision. Are you part of that group?\"\n\nI saw now that Indefatigable's brusque manner was a cover-up for the fact that he was very nervous. He chewed his lower lip and his eyes flicked from one to the other of us. He even looked down at the fake dog, which barked. Finally, with great reluctance he spoke.\n\n\"I cannot answer that. But I have been instructed to take you to those who may answer your question. Now\u2014you must answer my question. Why did you come here?\"\n\n\"No point in keeping it a secret. We came here to find those who blew up a certain building and stole from it\u2014and from us\u2014an object of great importance.\"\n\nThis news seemed to relax him a bit. He stopped the lip chewing and Dreadnought almost smiled; leaned forward to whisper something in his companion's ear. They both nodded, then remembered where they were and snapped into a military brace.\n\n\"You will come with us,\" Indefatigable said, making it sound like an order.\n\n\"Perhaps,\" I said. I hate orders. \"But you must tell us first\u2014will it be dangerous?\"\n\n\"We are born into danger; we leave it only when we die.\"\n\nIt sounded like a quotation of some kind\u2014particularly since Dreadnought's lips moved along with his.\n\n\"Yes, well, that is a pretty general philosophical statement. But I was speaking specifically about like right now.\"\n\n\"You will be protected,\" he answered, trying to control the sneer at our feeble physiques and his obvious superiority.\n\n\"Oh, thank you,\" Floyd said with eye-popping sincerity. \"With that kind of reassurance of course we will go with you. Isn't that right, Jim?\"\n\n\"Absolutely, Floyd. With their protection we need not feel insecure.\" He could eat them\u2014and a dozen more\u2014for breakfast, but there was no point in bragging.\n\nWe reached for our packs but Indefatigable stopped us. \"You bring nothing. No weapons. You must trust us.\"\n\nFloyd shrugged agreement since he was always armed. \"At least some water first,\" I said. Picking up my canteen and drinking a bit. Palming a number of small bombs as I put it back. \"And of course our companion, our pet dog goes with us.\"\n\nFido played its role by barking, sticking out its tongue and panting. Then overplayed its role by lifting its hind leg on my pack. Though this bit of canine ham acting may have convinced our new militaristic mates, because they nodded agreement.\n\n\"We must cover your eyes,\" Dreadnought said, pulling out two black scarves. \"So you do not discover the secret of the entrance to Shelter.\"\n\n\"If you mean the slab of rock under the polpettone trees that swings open, you can forget the blindfolds.\"\n\n\"How do you know this!\"\n\n\"Just say that we do. Now\u2014do we go with you?\"\n\nThey looked stricken by my revelation, stepped aside and conversed in quick whispers. Returned reluctantly, all scowls again.\n\n\"You will come. Quickly.\"\n\nWe dogtrotted, including the dog, to the grove, then followed Dreadnought down the ladder into the tunnel beneath the slab. Fido barked, and when I looked up launched itself down at me. I caught it, then dropped it. Looked gloomily into the darkness as Indefatigable closed the lid.\n\nI just hoped that we had made the right decision because my days were still running out. Going underground like this was a little too reminiscent of the grave.\n\nAnd it would be my grave if I didn't get the antidote in time.\nChapter 24\n\nOnce my eyes had adjusted to the darkness I saw that a thin line of light ran along at shoulder height on each side of the tunnel. The floor was smooth and hard, as were the walls when I brushed my fingers against them. We walked in silence for some time until we came to a cross tunnel.\n\n\"No talking now! Breathe silently\u2014do not stir,\" one of our guides whispered. \"Back against the wall.\"\n\nWe stayed that way for long minutes. I saw that there were glowing numerals on the walls where the tunnels crossed. I added to my store of useless knowledge the data that we were in tunnel Y-82790 at the place where it crossed NJ-28940. I leaned against the wall, and was thinking seriously about going to sleep, when I heard the thud of marching boots from NJ-28940. I woke up and remained silent and unmoving as a squad of about twenty men exited from the tunnel on our right and marched straight across and into the same numbered tunnel on the left. When the sound of their footsteps had almost died away we moved out to the whispered command.\n\n\"Turn left, after them. Quiet as you can.\"\n\nThis was apparently the only dangerous part of our journey, because once we had left this tunnel for another our companions whispered together again. I wondered if Fido was still with us.\n\n\"Don't bark,\" I said as softly as I could. \"But if you are still there, man's best friend, and hearing this with your super hearing, a tiny growl is permitted.\"\n\nA guttural grrr sounded from somewhere around my ankles.\n\n\"Great. A double growl now if you are reading the tunnel numbers and memorizing same.\"\n\nA quick grrr-grrr reassured me. So I did not have to keep track of our many turnings. After this we marched in silence for a tiresome period; my strength still wasn't what it should be. I was more than grateful when I saw a glow of light ahead; almost ran into our new companions when they stopped.\n\n\"Silence!\" Dreadnought whispered. Floyd and I silenced and listened\u2014then heard the running footsteps as well. They thudded close, then stopped suddenly.\n\n\"The sounds of deadly battle\u2014\" the newcomer said.\n\n\"Echo with the cries of the dying,\" Dreadnought answered. Password and countersign. Pretty depressing though. \"Is that you, Irredeemable?\" Dreadnought asked.\n\n\"It is. I was sent to warn you. A message was passed on from you-know-who that you were detected exiting and reentering the tunnels. Search parties are out and you must avoid them.\"\n\n\"How?\" Indefatigable asked. With just a touch of hysteria to his voice.\n\n\"I do not know. I was sent only to warn. May the God of Battles go with you.\" With this blessing the footsteps thudded again into silence as he ran back the way he had come.\n\n\"What do we do?\" Dreadnought asked unhappily. His companion was just as assertive. \"I don't know...\"\n\nI swear that I could hear their teeth chattering. Whatever else they were, these two young men were not plotters or planners. Time for a pro to step in.\n\n\"I will tell you what we must do.\" Speaking as an unhumble old plotter and planner.\n\n\"What?\" They spoke the word together.\n\n\"If they are searching the tunnels\u2014then we must leave the tunnels.\"\n\n\"Wonderful,\" Floyd muttered. It may have seemed pretty obvious to him but these lads welcomed the idea as they would have orders from the God of Battles himself.\n\n\"Yes! Leave\u2014before they find us!\"\n\n\"Out of the tunnels!\"\n\nGood so far, I thought. When the silence lengthened, and I realized that was the end of their contribution, I asked the vital question.\n\n\"Out of the tunnels, right. But where do we go? Above ground again?\"\n\n\"No\u2014all exits will be watched.\"\n\n\"Only one other way,\" Dreadnought said, with rising enthusiasm. \"Down, we must go down!\"\n\n\"To the Cultivastings!\" his companion added, just as filled with enthusiasm.\n\n\"Let's do it,\" I said wearily, not having the slightest idea of what they were talking about. \"The God of Battles wants it that way.\"\n\nThey double-timed and we followed. Around the bend into the next tunnel, where a glowing outline revealed that there was a metal door inset into the wall. Neither of our hosts tugged at the handle so there was a good chance that it was locked. Indefatigable stepped forward to face the illuminated keypad set into the wall beside it.\n\n\"Avert your eyes,\" he said. \"The access code is top secret.\"\n\n\"Get it, Fido,\" I whispered. Aida reacted instantly, our plastic pet extruded sharp toenails, leaped high then climbed up my clothes, scratching my ear painfully as it jumped onto the top of my head. I resisted the temptation to say ouch and stood steady so it could read the punched-in numbers. The door creaked open and the creature jumped back to the ground.\n\nA gentle breeze blew out through the doorway as we passed through it, smelling fresh and summery. Here underground? We stumbled in the darkness until the door clanged shut and the lights came on. We were in a small chamber facing a spiral staircase. Our hosts instantly started down it and we followed.\n\nI was beginning to get dizzy from the round-and-round when we finally got to the bottom. The open door here glared with light. Blinking my tired eyes, I followed the others. Outdoors into a field of ripening corn. Startled birds flapped away when we emerged, while something small and furry disappeared among the stalks.\n\nI knew that we couldn't possibly be outdoors, not after all the cave crawling that we had been doing. So this had to be a really giant cavern, with some kind of brilliant light sources above. These people really were independent of the surface\u2014no wonder they hadn't been spotted before.\n\nDreadnought led the way between the rows of corn and we followed. It was hot and dusty, my fatigue was still there\u2014and some species of tiny gnat kept trying to fly up my nose. I sneezed and rubbed and walked into Indefatigable's solid back when he stopped.\n\n\"Hail the Home and Joy in Survival!\" he called out.\n\n\"Hail, hail and welcome, brave Defender,\" a voice answered.\n\nA sweet and high-pitched woman's voice.\n\nWe started forward again and I stepped out from behind my guide's massive form, rubbing my nose and sniffling. I had a quick glimpse of a woman and three or four children working with hoes. It was a very quick glimpse\u2014for the instant that she saw me she screamed.\n\n\"Invasion Day!\"\n\nIt all happened incredibly fast. The children dived to the ground and she grabbed at the heavy pistol that hung from a lanyard around her neck. Raised it and began to fire at us.\n\nWe all hit the dust faster than the children had. Dreadnought was shouting, the gun was banging, rounds screamed by and exploded among the crops.\n\n\"Stop! No! No invasion! Enough, enough!\"\n\nI don't think she heard him at all. I tried to crawl down through the topsoil while I saw her squeezing and squeezing on the trigger, her eyes round and terrified, white teeth sunk into her lower lip. The only thing that kept us alive was the fact that the gun kicked hard and the muzzle rode up into the sky, with the last shots vanishing into the zenith.\n\nIt ended just as quickly as it had started. The children had disappeared. Indefatigable had grabbed the gun away from her and was patting her on the back as she sobbed hysterically.\n\n\"Well trained,\" Dreadnought said approvingly. \"Irreproachable is a fine woman, a good mother...\"\n\n\"And thankfully a rotten shot,\" I said. \"Would you like to tell us what all that was about?\"\n\n\"Training. Survival. For lo these many generations. With the galaxy at war we seek only peace. We survive. They will kill themselves, but we will survive!\"\n\nHe was winding himself up into a rallying speech so I broke in before he got into full spate.\n\n\"Stop! One minute\u2014enough. The galaxy's wars and the Breakdown ended centuries ago. There is no more war.\"\n\nHe lowered his clenched fist and sighed, rubbed his knuckle across his nose. \"I know. Some of us know. Most won't face the knowledge\u2014cannot face it. We are too trained for survival and nothing else. Nothing in our programming and our lives has ever prepared us for a time without war. Without the threat of invasion. Some of us assemble, we talk, make decisions. About the future. We have a leader\u2014I dare not tell you more!\"\n\nHe broke off as Indefatigable came running back.\n\n\"The message has arrived\u2014it is time to leave. The search has widened. If we move now we can stay behind the searchers and get to the meeting place. Quickly!\"\n\nWe quicklied\u2014and I was beginning to get very tired of it. The circular staircase had been a lot easier to come down than it was to climb up. Floyd saw my condition and if he hadn't half dragged me I doubt if I would have been able to make it. Once more into the black tunnels. I was only vaguely aware of our two guides, Floyd and the scuttling form of Fido. The next time we stopped I sagged against the wall. Enough was enough yet already.\n\n\"You will both stay here with Dreadnought,\" Indefatigable commanded. \"You will be sent for.\"\n\nNor would our watcher answer any questions in the few minutes that we waited. \"Proceed,\" a voice commanded and we did. Into a dimly lit chamber that appeared glaringly bright to our dark-adapted eyes. A half-dozen young men, garbed like our guides, sat on the other side of a long table.\n\n\"Stand here,\" Indefatigable ordered, then joined Dreadnought and sat down with the others.\n\n\"No chairs for us?\" I asked, but was ignored. Fido felt equally irked, jumped up onto the table and barked. Jumped back to the floor to dodge the swing of a fist.\n\n\"Shut up,\" one of the men suggested. \"We are awaiting orders. We are here, Alphamega.\"\n\nThey all turned to look at a red box on the table. It was made of plastic and was featureless except for louvers on one side.\n\n\"Are the two Outsiders you told me of present as well?\" the box asked. The voice was flat and mechanical and obviously cycled through a speech occulter.\n\n\"They are.\"\n\n\"I speak to you, Outsiders. I have been told that you come here seeking an object taken from you.\"\n\n\"That is correct, speaking-box.\"\n\n\"What is the function of this object?\"\n\n\"You tell me\u2014you stole it from us.\" I was beginning to get teed off at all this cloak-and-dagger stuff.\n\n\"Your attitude is unacceptable. Answer my question or be punished.\"\n\nI took a deep breath\u2014and reined in my temper.\n\n\"I'd like that,\" Floyd said cheerfully, as fed up as I was with all this nonsense.\n\nWhere the discussion would have gone from here would never be known because at that moment running footsteps sounded and a wild-eyed young man burst into the room.\n\n\"Alarm! Watchpatrol coming!\"\n\nThe sound of a number of thudding feet added a note of urgency to his warning. But at least our captors were prepared for the emergency. A door opened in the wall behind them and there was a rush to get through it. The newcomer, who must have known what would happen, was the last one in the crowd to jump to safety.\n\nThe table was in the way. I launched myself across it just in time to have the concealed door slammed in my face. I kicked it but it didn't budge. I looked at the now silent box.\n\n\"Speak up, Alphamega. How do we get out of this?\"\n\nThe red box crackled\u2014then burst into flame. Melted into a pool of plastic. \"Thanks,\" I said.\n\n\"Any other way out?\" Floyd asked.\n\n\"Not that I can see.\"\n\nThe rapid footsteps were just outside. Before I could dig out a gas bomb the scrum of armed men burst into the room.\n\nThings got busy. Floyd dropped the first three who came through the door while I tackled the next two. Then the going got tough because more and more kept pushing in. Some had body armor, all of them had transparent riot masks attached to their spiked helmets. They didn't try to shoot us, but rather enjoyed clubbing us with their guns.\n\nSomething hard got me on the back of the head and I staggered and fell. Before they jumped me the last thing I saw was Fido going up the wall like a spider and vanishing in the darkness there. Then I got thudded and had a nice darkness of my own.\n\n* * *\n\n\"Feeling any better, Jim?\" a distant voice said and I felt something wet and cool on my forehead.\n\n\"Shbsha...\" I said, or something like that. Chomped my dry mouth and opened my eyes. Floyd's face swam blurrily into view. I blinked and saw that he was smiling. He put the cold cloth back onto my forehead, which felt very nice.\n\n\"You got a bad one on the back of your head,\" he said. \"They didn't hit me quite as hard.\"\n\nI started to say Where are we? but figured that was a pretty dim question with an obvious answer. I could see a barred door which was hint enough. It hurt when I sat up on the bunk. Floyd handed me a plastic cup of water which I gurgled down and passed back for a refill. I patted my pockets and the seams of my trousers hopefully\u2014but all my concealed weaponry was gone.\n\n\"Seen any dogs around lately?\"\n\n\"Nope.\"\n\nSo that was that. Hit on the head. Imprisoned. Deserted by man's best friend. Somewhere underground so my jaw radio probably wouldn't work. Just in case I clacked hard and called for attention, but couldn't even get any static.\n\n\"Well\u2014it could be worse,\" Floyd said in a repellently cheery fashion. I was about to curse him out when he got just the answer he deserved.\n\n\"And it will be. You will be dead,\" the man said from the other side of the barred door. \"Instantly. If you attempt to touch me or the Killerbot behind me. Is that clear?\"\n\nHe was gray-haired, stern-faced, dressed in the same combat fatigues and spiked helmet as everyone else whom we had seen here. The only difference was that his spike was gold and had stylized wings on it. He moved aside and pointed at the very deadly looking collection of mobile military hardware behind him. All guns, clubs, wheels, knives and metal teeth. Teeth for tearing out throats?\n\nI had no intention of finding out. \"Follow me,\" our captor said, turning and walking away. The cell door clicked and swung open. Floyd and I shuffled out and followed him at a discreet distance. Clanking and rattling, the Killerbot rumbled along behind us.\n\nThe hallway, while being a depressing and drab tone of gray, was at least well lit. At regular intervals were framed photographs\u2014apparently all of the same individual from what I could see as we walked past. Or of a number of scowling military types differing only in the braid and the medals on their camouflage suits.\n\nOur host turned into a doorway that was flanked by studded steel columns. We followed\u2014all too aware of the clanking apparatus just behind.\n\n\"Impressive,\" I said, looking around the giant chamber. Black marble floor and walls. A large window looking out onto a military camp filled with flapping flags, marching troops, rows of armor-plated vehicles. Since we were deep underground it was obviously a projection\u2014but a very good one. These militaristic themes were also carried through in the interior decorations, light fixtures made of aerial bombs, machine-gun flowerpots, draperies assembled from tattered, ancient banners. I found it horribly depressing.\n\nWithout looking back our captor marched around the gigantic conference table and sat down in the single, high-backed chair there. With a wave of his hand he indicated the two smaller chairs before us.\n\n\"Sit,\" he commanded. Behind us was a clank and rattle, a hiss of escaping steam. We sat.\n\nSomething brushed my ankle and I looked down and saw that padded clamps had swung into position to secure my legs; motors whirred and they tightened.\n\nI threw my arms into the air just as clamps from the chair arms swung out and clicked shut on empty air.\n\n\"Not wise,\" our host said. There was a clank-clank close behind me and what could only have been a gun-muzzle ground into the back of my neck. The wrist clamps snapped open. I sighed and dropped my arms. I didn't have to look to know that Floyd had been imprisoned the same way.\n\n\"Leave.\"\n\nWhen his master commanded, the ambulatory war-machine clanked and rumbled out of the room and I heard the immense doors close.\n\n\"I am The Commander,\" our captor said, leaning back in his chair and lighting a large, green cigar.\n\n\"Is that your title or your name?\" I asked.\n\n\"Both,\" he said, blowing a ring of blue smoke towards the ceiling. \"I have imprisoned you since I do not wish to be attacked\u2014nor do I wish to have anyone or anything present while we talk.\" He touched a button on his desk and looked at pulsing purple light. \"And now we are secure against eavesdropping.\"\n\n\"Going to tell us who all you guys are, what you are doing here and that sort of thing?\" I asked.\n\n\"Assuredly. We are The Survivalists.\"\n\n\"I think I heard a reference to your mob before.\"\n\n\"Undoubtedly. During the years of the Breakdown there were a number of groups with that name. We are the only ones who deserve it since we are the only ones who survive.\"\n\n\"Survivalists,\" Floyd said, and went on as though reading from a book. \"Groups who believed in the inevitability of the coming war, as well as the inability of their own governments to protect them, who then withdrew from society into underground bunkers equipped with food, water, ammunition and supplies adequate to survive any catastrophe. None survive.\"\n\n\"Very good\u2014you are quoting from...?\"\n\n\"Handbook of Historical Nuts, Cults and Saviors.\"\n\n\"Very good\u2014except for the title and the last line. We survived.\"\n\n\"A little too well,\" I said. \"The Breakdown Wars are long gone and the galaxy is at peace now.\"\n\n\"I'm glad to hear that. Just don't tell anyone else here.\"\n\n\"Why not? But let me guess. You want to keep them stupid and in line because you are onto a very good thing. For as long as there is war or the threat of war those in charge tend to stay in charge. Which, of course, is you.\"\n\n\"An excellent summation, Jim. Though there are those who are unhappy with the state of things...\"\n\n\"We've met them. Youngsters who perhaps aren't too happy with the militaristic status quo and war forever. Who perhaps prefer a future in the bosom of their families. That is assuming you do have families?\"\n\n\"Of course, safe and secure in the residential caverns. We guard them and protect them\u2014\"\n\n\"As well as having a generally good time playing soldier and bossing everybody about.\"\n\n\"Your criticism is becoming tiring.\"\n\nHe looked quizzically at his cigar ash, then tapped it into the ashtray before him. Which was made from a shell casing of course. Something black stirred at the very edge of my vision but I made no move to look that way. It was about time Fido made an appearance.\n\n\"So what do you want us for?\" Floyd asked.\n\n\"I thought that was obvious. I want to find out who you are and how much you know about us.\"\n\nThere was a quick movement from under the table to my chair, out of The Commander's line of sight. The thing must have then climbed the back of my chair because Aida's voice whispered in my ear.\n\n\"I have done a voice analysis of a recording I made during the interrupted meeting. I stripped away the interference of the voice occulter and now know who the speaker who called himself Alphamega is...\"\n\n\"I already know,\" I said.\n\n\"Know what?\" The Commander said. \"What are you saying?\"\n\n\"Sorry, just speaking my thoughts aloud. My thoughts being that you are playing some kind of complicated game, aren't you? You called me by name\u2014and we have never been introduced. Of course if you were present at the meeting of the young dissidents you would know who I was. And now I know who you are.\"\n\nI smiled and let the silence stretch before I spoke.\n\n\"The Commander\u2014or Alphamega\u2014which name do you prefer? Since you are both of them rolled into one.\"\nChapter 25\n\n\"I can kill you\u2014quite quickly,\" The Commander said coldly and calmly. But at the same time he was stubbing and crunching his cigar out in a most agitated manner.\n\n\"Temper, temper,\" I said. \"Since you appear to be in charge of both sides in this internal conflict, and you obviously got us here for a reason\u2014why don't you just tell us all about it?\"\n\nHe was scowling now, angry and dangerous. As my mother always said\u2014why was her memory still popping up?\u2014you catch more porcuswine with honey than you do with vinegar. Gently, gently.\n\n\"Please, Commander,\" I pleaded most unctuously, \"we're on your side, even when no one else is. You know exactly what you are doing\u2014while none of your troops has the slightest idea what is happening. Not only are you in charge here, but it looks as though you have managed a mild insurrection on your own terms. You have done an incredible job that no one else was capable of doing. We can help you\u2014if you will let us.\"\n\nThe scowl faded. Floyd followed my lead, smiled and nodded agreement and said nothing; another cigar was produced and lit. The smoke rose up and the smoker nodded beneficently.\n\n\"You are right of course, Jim. The responsibility has been great, the pressure continuous. And I am surrounded by morons\u2014stulteguloj, kretenoj! Centuries of interbreeding and hiding underground has done little to improve their brain capacity. I am amazed that I alone have the intelligence to see this. I'm as different from them as if I had been born on a different planet, the child of superior parents.\"\n\nThis was sounding familiar. There has never been a strongman, dictator, military ruler, who did not believe that he somehow came from superior stock.\n\n\"You are different, sir,\" Floyd said, almost humbly. \"I knew that as soon as you spoke.\"\n\nWe had both obviously read the same textbooks. Though I thought he was spreading it on rather thickly. I was wrong.\n\n\"You could see that? The difference is obvious I suppose, to someone from Outside. It hasn't been easy, I tell you. In the beginning I even tried to talk to the senior officers, explain some of the problems and suggest solutions. I could have had more communication talking to a wall. Not that the younger ones are any better. Though they are restless, I give them that. When you get down to it there isn't much joy in just plain surviving. In the beginning maybe, it must have been a challenge then. But after a couple of centuries the pleasures begin to wear pretty thin.\"\n\n\"Was it the restlessness of the younger ones that gave you the idea to supply a leader for them to follow?\" I asked.\n\n\"Not at first. But I began to see that the young were losing respect for the old. About the only people they looked up to were the scientists. From their point of view the scientists were the only ones who at least appeared to be doing new and important things. That's when I hit on the Alphamega role. They think that I am one of the younger scientists. A rebel who is unable to make any progress against the old ideas, the familiar ways\u2014therefore I have been forced to enlist others of like age and mind.\"\n\n\"My arms are getting stiff,\" Floyd said, smiling. \"You wouldn't mind taking off these clamps for a bit?\"\n\n\"I would. I want you two just where you are.\"\n\nMercurial, our friend. All warmth gone in an instant, he dragged so hard on the cigar that it crackled and sparked. \"We Survivalists watch events pretty closely\u2014all over this planet. With a surveillance network set up before anyone else arrived. Amplified and spread ever since. Not a bird craps, not a polpettone fruit falls that we don't know about. That I don't know about. Because I watch the watchers. I watched and saw that a lot of energy and plenty of high-powered work was going into recovering that artifact. There is something very important about it\u2014and I want to know just what. I had a squad steal it and destroy the building, hide their tracks. It was impossible to follow them. Yet you did. I want to know how you did that too. So talk\u2014and talk fast.\"\n\n\"My pleasure,\" I said. \"My friend here knows nothing about the artifact. But I do. I am the one who found it first, then tracked it and followed it here. I am the only one who can tell you how it operates\u2014and what incredible things it can do. If you can take me to it I will be happy to show you how it works.\"\n\n\"That is more like it. You will come with me. Your associate remains here as a guarantee\u2014don't you agree?\" He stood and buckled on a large and offensive-looking sidearm.\n\n\"Of course. Sorry about that, Floyd,\" I said as I turned my head to face him. Winking with my left eye, the one our captor couldn't see. \"I know that you would come after me and help me if you could. But you can't. So stay here and you will be safe. You have the word of James Fido diGriz on that.\"\n\n\"I'll be okay. Jim. Look after yourself.\"\n\nI only hoped that this mixture of innuendo, hints and suggestions had delivered my message to him. I could only cross mental fingers and hope. The door opened and there was a hiss, rumble and clank behind me as my bonds snapped open. I rubbed my stiff arms and stood up slowly and carefully. The Killerbot blinked baleful little orange eyes at me and waved a smoke-stained flamethrower in the direction of the door. I followed Commander Alphamega out, leaving Floyd prisoner in the chair. Not for long, I hoped, if Fido-Aida had understood my suggestions.\n\nWe walked side by side down the wide hall with its framed portraits of heroes. My companion smiled warmly in my direction. Pulling his gun a bit out of the holster at the same time, then letting it slide back.\n\n\"You do understand that if you breathe one word about our conversation you will be no more than a grease spot on the floor?\"\n\n\"Completely aware, thank you. Absolute silence on that topic, yes, sir. I will look at the artifact and explain its operation. Nothing more.\"\n\nMaybe I was smiling on the outside\u2014but I was pretty gloomy on the inside. Jim, you are getting yourself in deeper than a porcuswine in a mudhole. A depressing thought\u2014and a true one. But I really had no choice.\n\nIt was quite a long walk and I was getting tired again. When all this was over\u2014if it were ever over\u2014I promised myself a nice long holiday. Head-up, Jim! Think positive and get ready to improvise.\n\nA last door opened and we were in what was obviously a laboratory. Complete with control boards, power cables, bubbling retorts and aged scientists in white smocks. There was a lot of loyal fist-smacking on chests when the leader appeared. Salutes that he returned with the merest tap of his own loosely clenched fist. They moved respectfully back to give us access to a lab bench. On it, now sprouting wires and connections to the surrounding test gear, was the alien artifact. I clapped my brow and staggered.\n\n\"What are you cretins doing with the cagleator!\" I shouted. \"We are all dead if you have actuated it!\"\n\n\"No, no\u2014not that!\" an elderly scientist cackled. Then shut up and looked fearfully at the Commander who sneered in return.\n\n\"You are all morons. Now tell this Outsider what you have done,\" he ordered. \"He is the one who knows what the device can do.\"\n\n\"Thank you, thank you! Of course, as you have ordered.\" The wrinkly turned back to me with shaking hands and pointed a quavering finger. \"We have only X-rayed the device and charted the circuitry. Very complex, as you know. There was, however...\" he began to sweat, looking about unhappily, \"a reaction of some kind when we attempted to test the circuitry.\"\n\n\"A reaction? If you have made a mistake the world has just ended! Show me.\"\n\n\"No, not a big reaction. Just that it absorbed electricity from our test circuit. We were not aware of this at first\u2014and we instantly terminated the test when we saw what was happening.\"\n\n\"And just what did you see happening?\" The Commander asked, voice like a file on rough steel.\n\n\"That, sir, we saw that. A cover of some kind fell away disclosing this recess. And the lights. That is all. Just lights...\"\n\nFascinated, we all leaned forward to look. Yes, there was the recess. And inside it there were four little blobs of light. Green, red, orange and white.\n\n\"What is the significance of this?\" my inquisitor asked, fingers strumming on the gunbutt.\n\n\"Nothing important,\" I said, stifling a yawn at the unimportance of it all. \"The test circuitry is simply testing the circuits of your test circuitry.\"\n\nI poked out a casual finger towards the glowing lights and found the barrel of his weapon grinding into my side.\n\n\"That sounds like absolute waffle to me. The truth, now, or you are dead.\"\n\nThere are seconds that sometimes appear to stretch for a length of time bordering on eternity. This was one of those occasions. The Commander glared at me. I tried to look innocent. The scientists, slack-jawed, looked at him. The Killerbot waited in the doorway and clanked to itself, hissing steam and probably wishing that it was killing something. Time stood still and eternity hovered close by.\n\nI had very few options open.\n\nLike none.\n\n\"The truth is...\" I said. And could not go on. What could I possibly say that would impress this maniac in any way? At this moment there was a great explosion and pieces of Killerbot clanked and rattled in through the door.\n\nAs you might imagine this really did draw everyone's attention. As did the voice that rang out an instant later.\n\n\"Jim\u2014drop!\"\n\nAnd there was Floyd at the open door, brandishing an impressive weapon of some kind. Fido had done its job and freed him. He had polished off the Killerbot and was now taking the action from there.\n\nThe Commander swung his weapon around, raised it, ready to fire.\n\nI did not drop as instructed because I was possessed by a hallucinatory moment of madness. I had been pushed around too much of late and suddenly, overwhelmingly, felt like doing a little pushing back.\n\nThe lights in the artifact glowed their welcome and my finger punched out in their direction.\n\nTo do what?\n\nTo touch one of the beckoning colored lights, of course.\n\nWhich one?\n\nWhat color meant what to the ancient aliens who had built this thing?\n\nI had no idea.\n\nBut green had always meant go to me.\n\nCackling hysterically I stabbed down on the green light...\nChapter 26\n\nApparently nothing happened. I pulled my finger back and looked at the lights. Then at The Commander and his drawn gun, wondering why he hadn't used it.\n\nThen looked at him again. And saw that he wasn't moving. I mean just not moving in the slightest. I mean like paralyzed. Petrified. Glassy-eyed and frozen.\n\nAs was everyone else in the room. Floyd stood in the doorway, gun raised and mouth open in an endless shout. Behind him, for the first time, I noticed an unmoving Fido.\n\nThe world was a freeze-frame and I was the only one not trapped in it. I was surrounded by people stopped in the act of speaking, walking, moving. Off-balance, hands raised, mouths gaping. Now stilled, silent\u2014dead?\n\nI started towards The Commander, to relieve him of his gun\u2014saw that his finger was tight on the trigger! But with each step I felt the air resisting my movement, growing firm, then more solid until it was like walking into an unyielding wall. Nor could I breathe\u2014the air was a thick liquid that I could not force into my lungs.\n\nPanic grew and grabbed me\u2014then died away just as quickly when I stepped back. I felt normal again. Air was air and I breathed in and out quite nicely.\n\n\"Put the mind in gear, Jim!\" I shouted at myself, my words loud in the surrounding silence. \"Something is happening\u2014but what? Something happened after you touched the green light. Something to do with the artifact.\"\n\nI stared at it. Tapped it with my knuckles. Groped about for inspiration. Found it.\n\n\"Tachyons! This thing emits them\u2014we know that because that is how Aida tracked it in the first place. Tachyons\u2014the units of time...\"\n\nThe device was now functioning\u2014I had turned it on when I had pressed the light. Green for go. Go where?\n\nStasis or speed. Either I had been speeded up or the world had slowed down. Or how could I tell the difference? From my point of view everything seemed to have slowed and stopped. The artifact had done something, projected a temporal field or stopped the motion of molecules. Or had created an occurrence that froze the surrounding world in a single moment of time. Time had come to a stop everywhere that I could see\u2014except in the close vicinity of the device. I moved even closer and patted it.\n\n\"Good little time machine. Time mover, slower, halter, stopper\u2014whatever you are. Neat trick. But what do I do next?\"\n\nIt chose not to answer me. Nor did I expect it to. This was my problem now and I had to force myself to take the time to think it out. For the moment I had all the time I needed. Though eventually I would have to do something. And that something would probably mean touching another one of the colored buttons. Either that or I could stand looking dumbly at the device while I quietly died of thirst or starvation or whatever.\n\nBut which light?\n\nGreen had been obvious enough\u2014even more obvious by hindsight. And the decision had been made at a moment of life and death. Now I was not so sure. I reached out, then dropped my hand. With plenty of time to decide I had become the master of indecision. Green had meant go, turn on, get started. Did red mean off, stop? Maybe. But what about white and orange?\n\n\"Not an easy one, Jimmy boy?\" I said in what I hoped was a jocular voice\u2014which came out very mournful and doom-laden. I wrung my hands together with indecision. Then stopped and looked at them as though I might see some answer printed on my fingers. All I saw was dirt under the nails.\n\n\"You have got to do it sooner or later\u2014so do it sooner before your nerve fails completely,\" I told myself. Reached out a finger\u2014drew it away. It looked like my nerve had indeed failed me completely.\n\n\"Take yourself in hand, Jim!\" I ordered. Reached back and took a handful of collar and shook myself as violently as I could.\n\nIt was no help at all. Random choice then? Why not, just as good as guessing. I put the finger out again and promised myself that I would push down on whatever color was under the finger when the jingle ended.\n\n\"Eeeny, meeny, miney, shmoe, catch a...\"\n\nI never found out what I was going to catch because at that moment I heard the dragging footsteps coming from the hall.\n\nSound?\n\nOut there where nothing moved!\n\nI jumped about, hands raised in defense. Lowered them and waited as the footsteps grew louder, came closer and closer to the doorway...\n\nSlipped past Floyd's immobile body.\n\n\"Aliens! Monsters!\" I gasped, pulling back. Trying to run although I knew there was no place to go.\n\nTwo hideous metal creatures. Bifurcated limbs, many-angled skulls, glowing eyes, claw-fingered hands. Coming towards me. Stopping. Reaching out\u2014\n\nNo! Reaching up to twist their own heads off. I could hear a gurgling scream, was only dimly aware that it was my own voice.\n\nTwisted and turned and lifted\u2014\n\nLifted off the helmets. Two very human faces looked at me with a good deal of interest. I stared back with the same emotion. Realized that, despite the close-cropped hair, the one on the left was female. She smiled at me and spoke.\n\n\"Wes bal, eltheodige, ac bwa bith thes thin freond?\"\n\nI blinked, didn't understand a word. Shrugged and smiled in what I hoped was a winning way. The second visitor shook his head.\n\n\"Unrihte tide unrihte elde, to earlich eart thu icome!\"\n\n\"Look,\" I said, having enough of this and very much needing a few questions answered. \"Could you please try Esperanto? That good, old, simple intergalactic second language Esperanto.\"\n\n\"Certainly,\" the girl said, smiling a winning and white-toothed smile. \"My name is Vesta Timetinker. My companion is Othred Timetinker.\"\n\n\"Married?\" I asked for some incomprehensible reason.\n\n\"No, stepsiblings. And you\u2014you have a name?\"\n\n\"Yes, of course. James diGriz. But everyone calls me Jim.\"\n\n\"A pleasure to meet you, Jim. Our thanks for activating the temporooter. We'll take it off your hands now.\"\n\nShe started towards the artifact\u2014which I now knew was a temporooter. Though I still knew little else. I stepped in front of it and said:\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"No?\" Her rather attractive forehead furrowed while Othred's face suddenly looked grim. I turned a bit so I could keep an active eye on him.\n\n\"If no is too abrupt,\" I said, \"then I will ameliorate it and say hold on just a moment if you please. Didn't you just thank me for finding this thing?\"\n\n\"I did.\"\n\n\"Finding means that it has been lost. And has now been recovered because of my intervention. In return for this favor I believe you owe me at least an explanation.\"\n\n\"We're dreadfully sorry. But it is strictly forbidden to pass on information to temporal aborigines.\"\n\nNot too flattering, I thought. But I was thick-skinned enough to take it. \"Look,\" I carefully explained. \"This is one aborigine who already knows a good deal about what is happening. I now have in my possession your temporooter, a device that has been constructed for burrowing through time. It seems that you or your associates not only lost control of the device but actually lost it in time and space. This is very worrying because you are forbidden to reveal your operations to people living along the time tracks you explore.\"\n\n\"How\u2014how do you know this?\" she asked. Well done, Jim. They may be long on linguistics but are certainly short on extrapolation and imagination. Keep going.\n\n\"At first, when we aborigines discovered the device, we thought it was an alien construction from the far past, built by long-lost, millennia-dead aliens. Of course the real explanation is much simpler. It was sent from the future and through a malfunction got out of control.\" Now I was just guessing\u2014but their shocked expressions meant I was still doing well.\n\n\"Got so far out of control that it just kept going back in time until it ran out of power. Without power you could not locate it. You thought it might have been destroyed. Which is why there was such consternation when it signaled its presence. And you two were sent to retrieve it.\"\n\n\"You\u2014you read minds?\" She spoke in a hushed voice. I nodded firmly.\n\n\"The science of mental telepathy is well advanced in this era. Though it is obvious that all knowledge of our abilities has been expunged from your records in the future. But I will cease my mind reading now. I know how embarrassing it is to have one's secret thoughts revealed to strangers.\" I turned away, pinched my forehead, turned back. \"I have stopped the function. We now communicate by words.\"\n\nThey looked at each other, still dazed.\n\n\"Speak, please, for now I do not know what you are thinking. Only by speech can we understand each other's thoughts.\"\n\n\"Knowledge of time travel is forbidden,\" Othred said.\n\n\"That's not my fault\u2014you're the ones who lost the thing. You must understand that now I know all about it\u2014as do all of my brothers in telepathekinesis who have been listening to my thoughts. But we are sworn to silence! If you wish your secret to remain a secret it will be secret. But you must aid us in keeping this secret secret. Look about you. See this ugly-looking type in the horned helmet? He is just about to kill me. And when you entered you probably stepped over the wreckage of a very armed and deadly machine\u2014you did?, nod yes\u2014good. That thing was going to kill me and my friend, but he got it first. So just turning off the temporooter and skedaddling is out of the question. You will leave behind a deadly and destructive situation.\"\n\n\"What must we do?\" Vesta asked. Palm of my hand.\n\n\"First, you will help me by permitting myself and my associates to escape before the time stasis has been turned off.\"\n\n\"That should be possible,\" Othred said.\n\n\"Then that's agreed. Second, I will need another temporooter to take back with me...\"\n\n\"Forbidden! Impossible!\"\n\n\"Hear me out, will you please. Another temporooter to take back that does not function. A realistic fake that will disguise the fact that you and your machine have been here. Catch on?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\nThey sure bred them dumb in the future. Or without imagination or whatever. I took a deep breath.\n\n\"Look. I want you to remember that all the scientists here, in this time, know that there is a device of some kind that looks like your temporooter. Only they think that it is an alien artifact from the far past. Let us convince them that their assumption is true. If we do that, why no one will ever know about you and your lost equipment. Just have your technicians get some million-year-old rock and carve out something that looks like this. We'll pass it off as the original, the secret will be kept, honor satisfied, all's well that ends well.\"\n\n\"Excellent idea,\" Vesta said, and pulled a microphone from her armored suit. \"I'll have one constructed now. It will be here in a second or two\u2014\"\n\n\"Wait. I have another small favor to ask. I will need certain functions built into the duplicate to convince our scientists that it is not a dummy. Just a simple device that will destruct after a single operation. This will pose absolutely no difficulties for your techs, I am sure.\"\n\nIt took me a bit longer to convince them of this necessity, but in the end they reluctantly agreed. The duplicate was an exact physical duplicate of the original. It blinked into existence floating in the air before us. Othred reached up and tugged; there was a popping sound as he pulled it down and handed it to me.\n\n\"Wonderful,\" I said, tucking it under my arm. \"Shall we go?\" They nodded agreement and put their helmets back on.\n\nI had my temporal companions first release the stasis field on Floyd's hand so I could disarm him. Like our mutual enemy his finger was also tightening on the trigger. What a world of nascent danger we do live in! I tucked the gun into my belt and nodded to the tempotechs.\n\nGive Floyd that\u2014his reflexes were great. He was twisting and chopping towards Othred's neck the second he moved\u2014stopped when I called a halt.\n\n\"Friends, Floyd. Down boy! Ugly-looking monster friends who are getting us out of here. If you look around you, you will see that all our enemies are paralyzed with indecision\u2014and will stay that way until we are gone. Don't trip over the pieces of the Killerbot on the way out. And, Vesta, if you please. Tap that fake ball of fur with your magic wand so it can join us.\"\n\n\"What the hell is going on?\" Floyd said, blinking in confusion as he tried to understand what was happening.\n\n\"I feel that some explanation is in order,\" Aida said, and Fido barked with exasperation.\n\n\"Second the motion,\" Floyd said.\n\n\"Forthcoming. As soon as we are out of here. Will you be so kind as to lead the way back to the surface.\"\n\nI turned to thank my temporal saviors, but they were already gone. Not only short on imagination but bereft of manners as well. And when they had vanished they had taken the time stasis with them; I could hear our footsteps for the first time. I looked back with a sudden feeling of horror but, right, the stasis was still working for the enemy as the silent form of the gun-toting snarling Commander indicated.\n\n\"Time to leave,\" I said. \"Since I have no idea how long the nasties are going to stand around that way. Go!\"\n\n\"Explain!\" Floyd shouted. Not in the best of moods.\n\n\"In a moment,\" I equivocated\u2014and stopped dead. For I had suddenly been possessed of an even more horrifying idea. All this playing with time\u2014what had it done for my personal poisonous deadline! I groped for my pendant skull-computer but of course it was gone with the rest of my equipment. How much time had passed? Was the poison now taking effect? Was I about to die...?\n\nSweating and trembling I dropped the replacement artifact temporooter and grabbed up the plastic poodle.\n\n\"Aida\u2014is Fido transmitting?\"\n\n\"Of course.\"\n\n\"What time is it\u2014I mean what day? No cancel that command. Get on to the Admiral now. Ask him how much time I have left. When is the deadline? Now\u2014please. Don't ask me any questions. He'll know what you are talking about. Do it! And fast!\"\n\nTime dragged by on very sluggish feet I will tell you. Floyd must have heard the desperation in my voice for he stayed silent. A second, a minute\u2014a subjective century crawled by before I had my answer. Aida must have done it\u2014and made a good connection. Because the next voice Fido spoke with was that of Admiral Steengo.\n\n\"Good to hear from you, Jim...\"\n\n\"Don't talk. Listen. I don't know what day it is. How much time is there to the deadline?\"\n\n\"Well, Jim, I wouldn't worry about that if I were you\u2014\"\n\n\"You are not me and I am worried and answer the question or I will kill you slowly first chance I have. Speaking of killing...\" I found that I couldn't go on.\n\n\"I meant it when I said don't worry. The threat of the thirty-day poison is over.\"\n\n\"You have the antidote?\"\n\n\"No. But the thirty days are past. Two days ago!\"\n\n\"Past!! Then I'm dead!\"\n\nBut I wasn't dead. My brain spluttered and clanked and slipped back into gear. Thirty days past. No antidote. I was alive. I could hear my teeth grating as I spoke.\n\n\"Then the thirty-day poison\u2014the whole thing was a fake from the start, wasn't it?\"\n\n\"I am afraid that it was, and I do apologize. But you must realize that I did not know about it until now. Only one person had that information, the instigator of the operation.\"\n\n\"Admiral Benbow!\"\n\n\"I'm afraid that information is not mine to reveal.\"\n\n\"You don't have to\u2014it reveals itself. That lawyer who gave me the drink was just doing as directed. Lawyers will do anything if you pay them enough. Benbow was in charge and Benbow invented the poison plot to keep me in line.\"\n\n\"Perhaps, Jim, perhaps.\" His voice, even when transmitted through the agency of a plastic dog, reeked of insincerity and equivocation. \"But there is nothing we can do about it now. A thing of the past. Best forgotten. Correct?\"\n\nI nodded and thought\u2014then smiled. \"Correct, Admiral. Why don't we just forget about the whole thing. All's well that ends well and tomorrow is another day. Forget it.\"\n\nFor now, I thought to myself, but did not speak that important little codicil aloud.\n\n\"I'm glad you understand, Jim. No hard feelings then.\"\n\nI dropped the dog, turned and clapped Floyd happily on the shoulder, bent and picked up the replacement artifact.\n\n\"We did it, Floyd, we did it. I will explain everything as we walk. In great detail. But as you can see we are free, in possession of this artifact. Mission accomplished. Now\u2014lead on, faithful Fido, since you have memorized the entrance-and-exit path. But go slowly, for it really has been one of those days.\"\n\nI was hungry and thirsty. But even more thirsty for\u2014what? Revenge? No, revenge was a dead end. If not vengeance\u2014what then?\n\nThe time had come for a little evening up, a little sorting out of the record. I had been taken in completely by the poisonous con job. So before the last i was dotted, before the last alien artifact was laid to rest, I was going to see that a little justice got done.\n\nOn my terms.\nChapter 27\n\n\"Carry this for a bit, will you Floyd,\" I said, passing over the replacement temporooter. We were leaving the last lit tunnel behind and would depend now on Aida to remember the way. \"I'm a little on the tired side.\"\n\n\"I don't wonder. But you have to understand\u2014my patience has just run out. So work hard and see if you can dig up enough energy to tell me just what happened. I am now completely confused. I remember that I wasted the Killerbot with that gun you now have tucked into your belt, the one Fido brought to me. Then I jumped through the door and told you to get down so I could blast the Commander as well as anyone else who was looking for trouble.\"\n\n\"That's just the way I remember it.\"\n\nFido barked and turned a corner from one dark tunnel into another even darker one. Floyd sounded worried.\n\n\"I remember pulling the trigger\u2014then suddenly you are holding the gun, not me, and right next to me there are two creatures, people, robots, something like that. I blink and look into the lab and everyone is standing like they are frozen. Nothing moves\u2014but nothing. Then when I look back I see that the two metal things have vanished. So I am beginning to feel like I am going around the mental bend. Therefore I would appreciate it if you would kindly, and quickly, tell me what happened.\"\n\n\"I wish I knew. I saw the same things you did. I don't know what happened.\"\n\n\"But you must know\u2014you were talking to them!\"\n\n\"Was I? I don't remember. Everything is still kind of fuzzy.\"\n\n\"Jim\u2014don't do this to me. You have to remember! And what were you shouting at the Admiral about? Something about poison and another Admiral.\"\n\n\"That's easy enough to answer. Certain individuals blackmailed me into this operation by telling me I had been poisoned and that I had thirty days to live if I didn't get the antidote. There was no poison\u2014therefore no antidote. So all the time we have been rushing about I have been thinking about the poison and counting the days before I curled up my toes and keeled over.\"\n\nHe was silent a moment, then he spoke.\n\n\"That's pretty heavy. You are sure about that?\"\n\n\"I am. And I am also terminally tired so can we please put this conversation off for a bit. I would just like to concentrate on putting one foot in front of another for awhile.\"\n\nLike it or not Floyd had to settle for that for the moment. Because I needed some time for deep cogitation, to dream up some sort of reasonable story for him\u2014as well as the rest of the troops. Stumbling with fatigue I was grateful that we made our way through the tunnels without meeting any opposition. Though I had the gun ready just in case. When Fido actuated the escape hatch and it opened to reveal the blue sky\u2014I sighed with relief. Gave the gun back to Floyd and used my remaining strength to crawl out onto the ground. Dropped with a groan and leaned back against a polpettone tree.\n\n\"You have the gun, Floyd,\" I said. \"So pass me back that ancient artifact if you please. Aida\u2014is there any transportation on the way?\"\n\n\"There should be. I sent out your position as soon as you were aboveground and I could get a triangulation. Help is on the way.\"\n\nAs indeed it was\u2014for a black spot in the sky grew quickly into the launch from the good old Remorseless. It landed with a shuddering thud, which bit of flying I recognized, so I was not surprised when Captain Tremearne exited through the open door.\n\n\"Congratulations,\" he said, and stuck out his hand. \"You did it, Jim.\"\n\n\"Thanks,\" I said, as he gave my hand a good crushing handshake. \"And don't think that it was easy.\"\n\n\"Never! I was there\u2014remember. Can I relieve you of that thing?\"\n\n\"No!\" I shouted\u2014and was shocked to hear the fine edge of hysteria, or incipient madness, to my voice. Well why not! \"I'll hand it over\u2014along with a detailed explanation of just what it is\u2014at the meeting.\"\n\n\"What meeting?\"\n\n\"The meeting that you are now going to arrange at the Pentagon. I'll want all The Stainless Steel Rats there. A last reunion so to speak. Has Madonette gone back to her imprisoning office yet?\"\n\n\"She was supposed to. But she would not leave the planet until you came back.\"\n\n\"Faithful to the end! So in addition to all the Rats I would like a few other friends present.\"\n\n\"Friends?\" He looked baffled. \"Like who?\"\n\n\"Well that macho fat thug Svinjar for one. King of the Machomen. Then you can invite Iron John and his opposite number, Mata. Ask yourself to come along as well. It will make an interesting gathering.\"\n\n\"Interesting\u2014yes! But impossible. None of the exiles on this prison planet is permitted inside the Pentagon.\"\n\n\"Really? I thought that you were the guy that was going to see that Liokukae was cleaned up and cleaned out?\"\n\n\"Yes\u2014but\u2014\"\n\n\"Now is the time, Captain. For at this meeting I am not only going to turn over the alien artifact and reveal its secret\u2014but I am going to tell everyone just how the situation here is going to end.\"\n\n\"How?\"\n\n\"You're invited to the meeting. You'll hear then.\"\n\n\"This will not be easy to arrange.\"\n\n\"Yes it will.\" I pointed to Floyd. \"Ask him about the strange things that happened when we were back there with the Survivalists. Admiral Steengo will verify his reports. There is a lot more to be cleaned up on this planet than you ever realized. Get your arguments together, consult your superiors, look after this.\" I passed over the artifacted artifact. \"And don't wake me up until it has been all arranged.\"\n\nI climbed wearily into the launch. Pushed up the armrests on the back row of seats. Stretched out and fell instantly to sleep.\n\n* * *\n\nThe next thing I knew Floyd was shaking me gently by the arm. \"We're back in the Pentagon. The meeting is on just like you said. I have breakfast and some clean clothes waiting for you. They'll be ready when you are.\"\n\nThe shower blasted out warm water and heated air and I stayed under it far too long. But it did wonders not only for my disposition but for my sore muscles as well. I did not hurry. They had arranged the meeting\u2014on my terms\u2014only because they had no choice. They would have informed me to get stuffed if they could. But the labtechs would have found nothing when they examined the artifact. Floyd would have told his confused story about what had happened when he had jumped in with his gun ready. Very confusing. In the end they would have been forced to the reluctant conclusion that the only way they could ever find out what had happened in the underground laboratory was by having me tell them. After which, knowing their record for veracity, they probably felt that they could do whatever they wanted with me.\n\n\"Well, Jim,\" I said to my smiling and sleek image in the mirror, as I carefully combed my hair, \"let's give them what they want.\"\n\nFloyd was my guide. Stamping in step with me along the corridors and into the conference room.\n\n\"Hi, guys!\" I said in cheery greeting to the far-from-friendly faces.\n\nOnly Madonette returned my smile, waved a tentative hand. Admiral Steengo was stern, Tremearne uncommunicative\u2014as was Mata. Floyd was grim-faced\u2014but winked when I glanced his way. Iron John and Svinjar were chained to their chairs or they would have killed me instantly. As it was they strained forward, eyes bulging with homicidal rage. I was most pleased to see that my hairy red friend had a bandaged skull and an arm in a sling. The aged artifact lay on the table before them and I went and sat on the edge of the table next to it.\n\n\"Tell us about the device,\" Admiral Steengo said in a reasonable and friendly voice.\n\n\"Not quite yet, Admiral. I assume that your techs could make nothing of it?\"\n\n\"They say it is over a million years old. That's all.\"\n\n\"There's more to it than that. But first a few introductions. The bruised guy with red fur is Iron John. Leader of a cult which you are now going to abolish. You can ship him off for treatment at an establishment for the criminally insane. Along with the fat man next to him. I have them here because I wanted you to see just what your policies of benign neglect had forced on the human beings out there on garbage world.\"\n\nI smiled and waited for the cursing and the spitting to die down, then nodded pleasantly at the unwholesome twosome.\n\n\"Would anyone here like to live in the kind of societies that you are subjecting the helpless people on Liokukae to? A committee must be appointed now. Plans drawn up to free the women and children from their bondage. You will find that Mata will be able to advise you on that. I think the various males on the planet will have to be interviewed separately. I'm sure that a number of them like their world the way it is. They can have it. The others deserve something better. But all that is in the future. First let us look at the past. I'm sure that the others on my team will grieve the passing of The Stainless Steel Rats. We have played our last gig, sung our last song. And we did pretty well for a bunch of amateurs. One juvenile criminal. An admiral, an unarmed combat expert, and a\u2014what are you really, Madonette? And don't embarrass both of us by talking about the imaginary office job again. That's not your style. Everyone else has come clean\u2014so how about you?\"\n\nShe drew herself up, looked grim\u2014then smiled. \"You deserve the truth, Jim. My office really is out there. But it is in the Galaksia Universitato, where I teach in the department of archeology. The university has so much money involved in this operation that they insisted on a representative.\"\n\n\"I'm glad it was you, Professor. Been fun working with you.\" I blew her a kiss, which she snatched out of the air and blew back.\n\n\"I didn't know about this!\" Admiral Steengo said, more than miffed. \"I am beginning to find out that there are levels of secrecy and duplicity in this so-called artifact retrieval operation that no one seems to know anything about. The more I discover about it\u2014the more it stinks. And more and more it appears to bear the stamp of Stinky Benbow.\"\n\n\"That nickname is classified and will be stricken from the records,\" a loathsomely familiar voice grated from the direction of the suddenly opened door. \"Fun and games are over. Sit down diGriz. I am in charge now.\"\n\n\"Well as I live and breathe!\" I turned, filled with great pleasure, to face the ever-scowling countenance of Admiral Benbow. \"This is almost too good to be true. The old poisoner himself\u2014in person.\"\n\n\"You will be silent. That is an order.\"\n\nSteengo was shocked. \"Benbow, you bastard\u2014have you been going over my head with this project? Are there other things about it that even I don't know?\"\n\n\"Plenty. But your need to know is plenty far down the knowing chain of command. So, like this crook\u2014shut up.\"\n\n\"No more orders, Benbow,\" I broke in. Reluctantly since there is nothing I enjoy more than a brace of admirals slanging each other off. But this was a time for work, not fun. \"Now tell the truth, just for a change. It was your idea to give me the fake thirty-day poison, wasn't it?\"\n\n\"Of course. I know how to deal with criminals. No trust, just fear. And complete control.\" The lizard lips bent into a frigid smile. \"I will show you how it works.\"\n\nHe snapped his fingers and an aide hurried in with a familiar package. He held it up and the serpentine smile broadened. \"You didn't really think that I would let you get away with this, did you?\"\n\nIt was the package with the three million credits that I had mailed to Professor Van Diver for safekeeping. My fee for putting my life in danger, money well earned. Now in the hands of the enemy. Not only wasn't I bothered by seeing it\u2014I was overjoyed.\n\n\"How kind of you, dear Admiral,\" I chortled. \"The circle is complete, the ring closed. The play ended. The alien artifact retrieved. The last song sung. Thank you, thank you.\"\n\n\"Don't sound so cheery, diGriz\u2014because you are in the deep cagal. Although you will not be executed for robbing the Mint you will get a well-deserved prison sentence for that crime. This fee, which you extorted from the university, will be returned to them. Along with that artifact...\"\n\n\"Oh\u2014so we have remembered it at last. Don't you want to know what it is, what it does?\"\n\n\"No. Not my problem. Let the university worry about that. I was against this entire operation from the first. Now it is over and life will go on the way it was.\"\n\n\"Including life on this despicable planet?\"\n\n\"Of course. We are not going to let the do-gooders interfere with the sound administration of the law.\"\n\n\"Admiral\u2014I do admire you,\" I said, standing and turning to the intent audience. \"Hear that, Iron John? You can go back to your old job at the bottom of the pond as soon as your bones heal. Svinjar, more killing and general swinery on your part. There will be the return of the rule of law and justice\u2014on Admiral Benbow's terms.\"\n\n\"Arrest this man,\" Benbow ordered, and two armed guards entered and marched towards me.\n\n\"I'll go quietly,\" I said. Turned and touched the alien artifact as I had been instructed to. \"But I'll go alone.\"\n\nIt was so quiet you could heard a pin drop. But, of course, a pin could not drop.\n\nNothing could move, was moving. Would move for quite a while.\n\nExcept me, of course. Strolling over, cheerfully whistling \"Nothing's Too Bad for the Enemy,\" relieving the Admiral of my hard-earned fee. Smiling benignly into his glaring, frozen face. Due to stay that way for quite awhile. I turned and waved at my statuelike audience.\n\n\"The best part was working with The Stainless Steel Rats. Thanks guys. Thanks as well to you, Captain Tremearne. In fact\u2014not only thank you\u2014but could you give me a little help?\"\n\nI walked over and touched his arm as I said this, enclosing him in the stasis-resistant field that enveloped me.\n\n\"Help you do what?\" He looked around at the motionless scene, turned back to me. \"What's going on here?\"\n\n\"What you see is what you get. No one is hurt, but no one is going to move for some time. Temporal stasis. When they come out of it they will never know that they have been in it.\"\n\n\"This is what happened to Floyd?\"\n\n\"Exactly.\"\n\n\"Exactly what?\"\n\n\"Time travelers. The alien artifact is not alien at all\u2014but a human construct from the far future, sent back and lost in time. I promised the time travelers not to tell anybody. I'll make this single exception since I need your help.\"\n\n\"Doing what?\"\n\n\"Getting both of us out of here so we can start the job of cleaning up this putrid planet. Here is what we have to do. Admiral Benbow has just arrived, as you saw, which means there is an interstellar spacer up there now in orbit about this planet. You and I will grab some transportation and get up to it. Once there you will use your rank, guile and forceful manner to see that we get aboard and far away from Liokukae. Then, when we get back to civilization, we will generate plenty of publicity about the evils men do here on this planet. It will be a scandal and heads will roll.\"\n\n\"Mine will be the first. Along with a court-martial, possible flaying and certainly life imprisonment.\"\n\n\"It shouldn't be that bad. If we get the forces of light on our side, why then the forces of darkness won't be able to lay a finger on you.\"\n\n\"It will take time...\"\n\n\"Captain\u2014that's the one thing we got plenty of! A good six months of it. That's how long this stasis will last. They won't know it, will not even realize a single second has passed. But, oh, will there be consternation among them when they discover how things have changed while they have been dozing! When I leave here the stasis will seal itself, impenetrable and impermeable. By the time it lifts the reform campaign will have succeeded and this prison planet will be nothing but a bad memory.\"\n\n\"And I will be cashiered, out of a job, will have lost my pension\u2014the works.\"\n\n\"And many a human being will be alive and happy who would have been miserable or dead. Besides, the military is no place for a grown man. And with a million credits in the bank you can buy lawyers, live the good life, forget your past.\"\n\n\"What million?\"\n\n\"The bribe that I am going to pay into a numbered account for you to make all of this worth your while.\"\n\nHe shook his fist. \"You are a crook, diGriz! Do you think that I would stoop to your criminal, crooked level?\"\n\n\"No. But you might be the administrator of the Save Liokukae Fund, which has been set up by an anonymous benefactor.\"\n\nHe scowled, opened his mouth to protest. Stopped. Burst out laughing.\n\n\"Jim\u2014you are something else again! What the hell\u2014I'll do it. But on my terms, understand?\"\n\n\"Understood. Just tell me where to mail the check.\"\n\n\"All right. Now let's get you a uniform while I forge some shipping orders. I have the feeling that I am going to enjoy being a civilian.\"\n\n\"You will, you will. Shall we go?\"\n\nWe went. Marching in step in a most military manner. Marching into the future, into a better, brighter future.\n\nThe blues had been sung. A page turned, a chapter ended. Tremearne would do a good job of sorting out this repellent world. I would do equally well as I slipped away between the interstices of society.\n\nIn six months I would be far from here, my trail cold, my bank account filled, my life more interesting. Once rested and restored\u2014it would indeed be time for The Stainless Steel Rat to ride again!\nAnd You Will Sing the Blues Too...\n\n... if you don't speak Esperanto. A number of readers, from a number of countries, have written to me asking if there is such a language as Esperanto. There is! Jim diGriz speaks it like a native\u2014as do most of the people he meets while involved in his interstellar trade. Esperanto is doing fine in the future\u2014but does it exist in the present?\n\nIt certainly does. It is a growing, living, simple second language for millions of speakers around the world. It is easy to learn\u2014and fun to use. There are many books, magazines and even newspapers published in Esperanto.\n\nIf you are interested in more information, The Stainless Steel Rat's advice\u2014and mine as well\u2014is to call this number:\n\n(510) 653-0998\n\nemail: elna@esperanto-usa.org\n\nor send a postcard with your name and address to:\n\nESPERANTO\n\nP.O. Box 1129\n\nEl Cerrito, CA 94530\n\nIt will change your life!\n\nHarry Harrison\nTOR BOOKS BY HARRY HARRISON\n\nGalactic Dreams\n\nThe Jupiter Plague\n\nMontezuma's Revenge\n\nOne Step from Earth\n\nPlanet of No Return\n\nPlanet of the Damned\n\nThe QE2 Is Missing\n\nQueen Victoria's Revenge\n\nA Rebel in Time\n\nSkyfall\n\nStainless Steel Visions\n\nThe Stainless Steel Rat Goes to Hell\n\nThe Stainless Steel Rat Joins the Circus\n\nStonehenge\n\nA Transatlantic Tunnel, Hurrah!\n\n50 in 50\n\nA Stainless Steel Trio\n\nTHE HAMMER AND THE CROSS TRILOGY\n\nThe Hammer and the Cross\n\nOne King's Way\n\nKing and Emperor\nThis is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in these novels are either fictitious or are used fictitiously.\n\nA STAINLESS STEEL TRIO\n\nCopyright \u00a9 2002 by Harry Harrison\n\nA Stainless Steel Rat Is Born, copyright \u00a9 1985 by Harry Harrison; The Stainless Steel Rat Gets Drafted, copyright \u00a9 1987 by Harry Harrison; The Stainless Steel Rat Sings the Blues, copyright \u00a9 1994 by Harry Harrison.\n\nAll rights reserved.\n\nEdited by Patrick Nielsen Hayden\n\nA Tor Book\n\nPublished by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC\n\n175 Fifth Avenue\n\nNew York, NY 10010\n\nwww.tor.com\n\nTor\u00ae is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.\n\neISBN 9781429975087\n\nFirst eBook edition: March 2014\n","meta":{"redpajama_set_name":"RedPajamaBook"}}