seconds. It seemed to Svir he was considering whether to chase into the basement for Profirio. That would decide things once and for all, but the other might be planning some special ambush. Since he was trapped, it might be best to leave him there.
Jolle glanced at Tatja, and she said opaquely, “No, that would be—wrong.” She turned back to the Crown’s Men and Celestial Servants. “It is my command that you remove yourselves below. Take two extra oxygen tanks.”
The Servants shuffled toward the dark stairway. Several of the crown’s generals stood their ground, and Minister Wechsler voiced their feelings. “Marget, you overstep yourself. The Crown’s subjects deserve your confidence. Your liaison with this fellow,” he waved at Jolle, “is—”
“Haarm, you’re in a bind you don’t understand. Get below or I’ll cut you to pieces.” She raised her crossbow.
The crown’s officers motioned their men toward the stairs. In three minutes they were all below. Tatja walked to the hole and shut the trap. She rolled one of the supply carts over the door. It might still be possible to open the trap from below, but it could not be done with stealth. She did the same at the other stairway, then walked slowly around the edge of the dome.
Jolle said, “We want you to do two things tonight, Svir. Be prepared to shoot any
The second job occupied Svir’s time for the next four hours. Even though Jolle and Tatja supervised, and even though the astronomers knew their equipment much better than he, there was plenty for him to do. The Doomsday picture-makers required large quantities of mixed reagents. The optical equipment was both bulky and delicate. At times the astronomers seemed to forget they were working under duress. Then Svir would notice eyes straying to the crossbow slung at his shoulder. These priests were revealing secrets they had sworn to guard forever. If they could think of a way to trick the queen’s gunmen below O’rmouth, they wouldn’t hesitate to kill him.
The sun set. Outside, the snow went from yellow to orange to red, and the red became deeper and deeper. Svir remembered seeing that red from many miles away, from far down by the Picchiu River… so many days ago, when there was still a reason, beyond revenge, for living. The thought almost drove him back into the world of what-might-have-been.
Then the stars came out. This side of the world had a sky much clearer and darker than anywhere beneath Seraph; except when in eclipse, the sister planet dimmed the fainter stars to invisibility. But here, thirty thousand feet above the sea and the mists, the stars were still brighter. They were so bright the snows glittered faintly beneath their brilliance. The wind turbine was shut down. Convection currents around the outside pipes would degrade the seeing. Besides—said the Doomsday archobserver—the building’s reservoirs now held enough hot water to support operations through the night. The Eye’s lid was pulled back, and aerators were opened full.
Jolle gave the astronomers an area one degree by twenty and specified a search pattern. He was looking for a new object of sixteenth magnitude. Jolle knew the orbital elements of his craft to several digits, but three quarters after having been marooned, he could know the position only approximately. Fortunately, the search area would be visible through most of the night. They would take dozens of pictures and compare them with the Doo’d’en archives brought from O’rmouth.
The Doomsdaymen moved surely about the dome, a tribute to their fanatic regard for their profession. Strange reddish light came from pillars scattered about the room. Another Doo’d’en secret. Svir reached up, touched one of the pillars. The glowing surface was flat, warm. The Doomsdaymen had something that glowed when differentially heated? That might explain their use of hot water.
Finally, the first picture plate was put in the optics beside the main mirror. The clockwork in the base of the instrument was wound, the Eye was aimed, and the exposure began. It would take half an hour for the plate to collect enough light to reveal objects of the sixteenth magnitude. Here was the prime advantage of the Doomsday technique over the greentint method used on the Tarulle Barge. Time exposures were nearly impossible with greentint.
After the first exposure, plates were changed and the telescope was repositioned. The exposed plate was the object of further chemical ritual; after twenty minutes, a priest announced that the picture might be viewed. He set it beside an archive plate of the same sky region, and positioned a double eyepiece over the pair. Svir recognized the procedure. Each ocular gave a magnified view of a separate plate. In this way, small differences between the pictures could be quickly detected. Svir stepped close to the table. The pictures glowed red where the light from the table showed through them. It took a moment to realize that light and dark were reversed here. Then he felt a stab of envy. The plates showed the Batswing Nebula—as Svir had never dreamed it. The gases extended, twisting, beyond the limits of anything seen in greentints taken with the Krirsarque thirty-incher.
Now the search could begin.
The hours passed. There was the routine of setting plates, aiming the Eye, treating exposed plates, and comparing them with previous pictures. But between events, time stretched empty. Jolle and Tatja took positions at the perimeter of the dome. Any intruder would set himself in silhouette against the high windows, unless he crawled along the floor.
It was nearly midnight when the man on the comparator called to Svir, “New object.” Svir leaned over the binocular eyepiece and looked at the red and black display. It was an undistinguished star field, nothing brighter than sixth magnitude. There was a whirring by his ear as the Doomsdayman turned a crank. The images flickered as first one and then the other lense was blocked. A faint streak was blinking in one corner of the image.
He looked up to call Jolle, and found the other standing beside him. The alien bent over, and studied the scene for several seconds. Then, with the ease of one trained in the use of the instrument, he flipped a reticle into the optics. “That’s it. Just the right drift, just the right orientation.” There was a hint of triumph in his voice. “No more pictures, Observers. We have found what we came for.”
“Then you will leave us now?” came the voice of one of the more recalcitrant priests.
“Not quite yet. We will commit one more small desecration.” He glanced at the micrometer settings on the optics, and thought a moment. “Set the Eye back on the coordinates of plate fourteen.” He turned, walked quickly across the room. “Give me a hand, Svir.”
Above them, the Eye’s frame slewed fractionally, bringing the huge tube to near horizontal.
Jolle was already taking equipment out of a cart when Svir caught up with him. The small wooden cabinet was very familiar. Jolle looked up and continued quietly. “I’m going to use what you thought was a golem to operate my signaler.” He pushed the cabinet into Hedrigs’s hands and pulled an oblong box from the cart. Its smooth sides glittered metallically in the red light. “We’ve got to hustle. My boat is almost at the horizon; it’s already in haze, I think.”
Behind them, Tatja was herding the Doomsdaymen to the far side of the room. Just three people were needed now. Any intruder would be Profirio. For once there would be no trouble in penetrating others’ disguises and ruses. Everything was very simple.
Svir walked back to the scope, gingerly set the hand-carved cabinet on the floor beside the picture-maker. Above his head, the framework of girders and struts moved infinitesimally, tracking the stars beyond. Jolle opened the cabinet. The jewels glowed even brighter than Svir remembered. The shifting glitter sent blue-green ripples around the room. There was a collective gasp from the Doomsday astronomers, then an even more impressive silence. They had thought they were dealing with madmen. Now the world itself had gone mad.
Jolle drew a cable from the shimmering heap, attached it to the oblong box, and clamped the box to a telescope-alignment strut; evidently this was the signaler. Jolle stood, looked through a sighting scope. In the blue light, his face held a new intensity. “Damn. They didn’t leave it tracking properly.” He slung his crossbow, and adjusted the tracking wheels. “I could use my machine to do the aiming, but the scope is ready-made for—”
If Svir had not been looking directly into the maze of struts around the mirror, what followed would have seemed like magic. In one flashing motion, Profirio leaped from the scope to the floor, kicked over the glowing cabinet, and shouted, “Jolle killed her!” Svir’s weapon was pointed directly at Profirio’s middle—killing him was a matter of tightening one finger. But the other’s words held him back for a split second; then Tatja screamed
