From behind the hyperfiber, Gallium said, 'I see an illegal weapon.'
'Good. Since I'm carrying one.'
'If you try to harm me, I will kill you. And I will destroy your mind, and you will be no more.'
'Understood,' Pamir said.
Then he sat-a gesture of submission on almost every world. He sat on the quasi-crystal tiling on the floor of the bright hallway, glancing at the portraits on the nearby walls. Harum-scarums from past ages stood in defiant poses. Ancestors, presumably. Honorable men and women who could look at their cowering descendant with nothing but a fierce contempt.
After a few moments, Pamir said, 'I'm pulling my weapon into plain view.'
'Throw it beside my door.'
The plasma gun earned a respectful silence. It slid across the floor and clattered to a stop, and then a mechanical arm unfolded, slapping a hyperfiber bowl over it, and then covering the bowl an explosive charge set to obliterate the first hand that tried to free the gun within.
The hyperfiber door lifted.
Gallium halfway filled the room beyond. He was standing in the middle of a closet jammed with supplies, staring at Pamir, the armored plates of his body flexing, exposing their sharp edges.
'You must very much need this work,' he observed.
'Except I'm not doing my work,' Pamir replied. 'Frankly, I've sort of lost interest in the project.'
Confused, the harum-scarum stood taller. 'Then why have you gone to such enormous trouble?'
'What you need,' Pamir mentioned, 'is a small, well-charged plasma gun. That makes a superior weapon.'
'They are illegal and hard to come by,' argued Gallium.
'Your rail-guns are criminal, too.' Just like with the front doors, there was a final door made of diamond reinforced with a meshwork of hyperfiber. 'But I bet you appreciate what the shaped plasma can do to a living mind.'
Silence.
'Funny,' Pamir continued. 'Not that long ago, I found a corpse that ran into that exact kind of tool.'
The alien's back couldn't straighten anymore, and the armor plates were flexing as much as possible. With a quiet voice -an almost begging voice -Gallium asked the human, 'Who was the corpse?'
'Sele'ium.'
Again, silence.
'Who else has died that way?' Pamir asked. It was a guess, but not much of one. When no answer was offered, he added, 'You've never been this frightened. In your long, ample life, you have never imagined that fear could eat at you this way. Am I right?'
Now the back began to collapse.
A miserable little voice said, 'It just worsens.'
'Why?'
The harum-scarum dipped his head for a moment.
'Why does the fear get worse and worse?'
'Seven of us now.'
'Seven?'
'Lost.' A human despair rode with that single word. 'Eight, if you are telling the truth about the J'Jal.'
'What eight?' Pamir asked.
Gallium refused to say, 'I know who you are,' he continued. 'Eight of Sorrel's husbands, and you. Is that right?'
'Her past husbands,' the alien corrected.
'What about current lovers -?'
'There are none.'
'No?'
'She is celibate,' the giant said with a deep longing. Then he dropped his gaze, adding, 'When we started to die, she gave us up. Physically, and legally as well.'
Gallium missed his human wife. It showed in his stance and voice and how the great hand trembled, reaching up to touch the cool pane of diamond while he added, 'She is trying to save us. But she doesn't know how-'
A sudden ball of coherent plasma struck the pane just then. No larger than a human heart, it dissolved the diamond and the hand, and the grieving face, and everything that lay beyond those dark lonely eyes.
Pamir saw nothing but the flash, and then came a concussive blast that threw him off his feet. For an instant, he lay motionless. A cloud of atomized carbon and flesh filled the cramped hallway. He listened and heard nothing. At least for the next few moments, he was completely deaf. Keeping low, he rolled until a wall blocked his way. Then he started to breathe, scalding his lungs, and he held his breath, remaining absolutely still, waiting for a second blast to shove past.
Nothing happened.
With his mouth to the floor, Pamir managed a hot but breathable sip of air. The cloud was thinning. His hearing was returning, accompanied by a tireless high-pitched hum. A figure swam into view, tall and menacing-a harum- scarum, presumably one of the dead man's honored ancestors. He remembered that the hallway was littered with the portraits. Pamir saw a second figure, and then a third. He was trying to recall how many images there had been… because he could see a fourth figure now, and that seemed like one too many…
The plasma gun fired again. But it hadn't had time enough to build a killing charge, and the fantastic energies were wasted in a light show and a burst of blistering wind.
Again the air filled with dirt and gore.
Pamir leaped up and retreated.
Gallium was a nearly headless corpse, enormous even when mangled and stretched out on his back. The little room was made tinier with him on the floor. When their owner died, the rail-guns had dropped into their diagnostic mode, and waking them would take minutes, or days. The diamond door was shredded and useless. When the cloud fell away again, in another few moments, Pamir would be exposed and probably killed.
Like Gallium, he first used the J'Jal language.
'Hello,' he called out.
The outer door was open and still intact, but its simple trigger was useless to him. It was sensitive only to pressure from a familiar hand. Staring out into the hallway, he shouted, 'Hello,' once again. In the distance, a shape began to resolve itself.
'I am dead,' he continued. 'You have me trapped here, my friend.'
Nothing.
'Do what you wish, but before you cook me, I would love to know what this is about.'
The shape seemed to drift one way, then back again.
Pamir jerked one of the dead arms off the floor. Then he started to position it, laying the broad palm against the wall, close to the door's trigger. But that was the easy part of this, he realized.
'You're a clever soul,' he offered. 'Allow a human to open the way for you. I outsmart the harum-scarum's defenses, and then you can claim both of us.'
How much time before another recharge?
A few seconds, he guessed.
The corpse suddenly flinched and the arm dropped with a massive thunk.
'Shit,' Pamir muttered.
On a high shelf was a plate, small but dense as metal. He took hold of it, made a few practice flings with his wrist, and then once again called out, 'I wish you would tell me what this is about. Because I haven't got a clue.'
Nothing.
In human, Pamir said, 'Who the hell are you?'
The cloud was clearing again, revealing the outlines of a biped standing down the hallway, maybe ten meters
