remaining matches. Could it really choke off the canyon? He couldn't rely on that alone. Rugard's men were already in the defile, pushing forward cautiously and clumsily by torchlight, the reflections throwing shadows well ahead of the actual pursuit.
'Let's give you something to think about,' Tucker growled. He set down the explosive, picked up the spear he'd been using as a cane, and crouched at a bend of the canyon, waiting.
They came around the curve arrogant and angry, and he charged them like a cornered bear. Surprise was complete. His initial thrust only glanced off the first man, who was twisting desperately out of the way, but the wound was enough to raise a howl and throw the convicts into confusion. Their quarry had turned! The front rank stumbled back, some tripping in their haste to get away from Tucker's whirling staff.
A braver criminal plunged ahead with his own spear and Tucker knocked it aside. The man came at him again. Tucker parried, seized his opponent's shaft, and jerked forward with the glad ferocity of instinctive combat. The convict stumbled, dropped to his knees, and lost his weapon as Tucker wrenched, his own ankle pain forgotten. The man was trying to retreat on his hands and knees when Tucker speared him. The convict screamed, pinioned through the leg, and then was jerked to safety by his friends, the shaft trailing out of his thigh. Rugard's men fell back, relaying the news of danger.
Tucker got up, breathing heavily, his ankle even worse, and looked at the retreating torchlight with satisfaction. 'Yeah, back off, you bastards,' he muttered. Then he studied the cliff wall and boosted himself gingerly a short distance up it, bracing himself precariously.
'You keep away from us, Rugard!' he yelled, his voice echoing. 'Come up here and we'll kill you all!' No one answered him. He dropped back down to the sand and waited, considering the bomb again.
He could hear the pursuers arguing, picking up the thread of Rugard's rasping, impatient voice. Then the convicts fell ominously silent for a while. Finally someone was being pushed forward, scuffling through the sand. 'Get your damn hand off me!' There was a pause and then a familiar voice called out down the canyon. 'Tucker, is that you? Listen, we have to talk!'
It was Ico.
'I don't talk to the morally impaired!' Tucker shouted back.
'Come on man, listen to me. We still need each other. We can still work together! Daniel wouldn't listen, Tucker. I'll bet he didn't even tell you he can't get you back. Not without me!'
He was lying, wasn't he? Daniel said they got the transmitter.
'Listen to me! We can still cut a deal!'
'You made your deal, Ico!'
The little man fell silent for a minute. Then: 'Let me talk to Daniel!'
Tucker didn't reply.
'Let me talk to Raven!'
Again he was quiet. They were trying to determine how many were ahead.
'What did they do, ditch you too? You all alone, Tucker?'
He didn't answer because he did feel suddenly alone, terribly alone. The quiet of the convicts bothered him. What were they up to?
'Tucker, listen, I did it for your own good! That corporate bimbo was bewitching Dyson! You know that! She was going to fly off and leave us all here like a bunch of bumpkins! It was insane to let her escape! This way, we get to go!'
'Your Warden pal promise that?'
'Tucker, think! If we don't get the transmitter back, our party is stuck here! If you don't help us, we're all stuck here for the rest of our lives. Come on, listen to reason!'
'You come up here where I can see you!' Tucker called. 'You come up here where we can talk!'
There was more wrestling, and Ico was shoved lurching ahead. He stopped, straightened, and then walked forward hesitantly.
'All we want is the transmitter, Tucker,' he soothed, his arms spread wide. 'We're not going to hurt you guys. We need each other now. I did it for you, man.'
When Ico was close enough, Tucker hurled the spear. The shorter man squeaked and dodged, but not quite quickly enough. The spear head sliced across one arm and he yelped, scurrying back out of the way. The convicts roared, the sound angry and ominous, and rocks and a couple of other spears fired back. Tucker ducked behind an outcrop as the missiles rattled harmlessly by him. Then he retrieved them and ran back around the corner of the canyon. No one followed. Somewhere to the east, the others were getting away.
Yeah, come on you bastards, Tucker thought. Come and get it.
Several minutes passed. Tucker stayed pressed against the canyon wall, looking for movement. Nothing. He was alone in a dark hole.
It was funny to feel so confined, after the big spaces of Australia.
Then there was a shattering rattle from above and Tucker looked up. Something was falling in amongst the stars. Rock fall! They were up on the rim and trying to get around him! They were throwing things at him from above!
He lurched back to the tunnel entrance and fell on the bomb. Stones banged down. He wiggled into the tunnel backward, pulling Amaya's crude device after him, the rocks bouncing harmlessly outside. Well, that was that: they'd outflanked him just like Daniel's Spartans. This damn bomb had better work.
He unwrapped the matches and put one carefully in a breast pocket.
There were already voices outside the hole. They'd tried to rush him and were baffled at his disappearance until they spied the tunnel. Now someone was scrabbling in. Tucker struck the other match, held it to the fuse, and waited. Nothing. A dud. Oh boy, Amaya. And then there was a flash, a fizz, and the bomb began burning. God be praised, the crazy woman had done it! He dropped the smoking sphere in front of him and began wriggling backward toward the eastern entrance, light from the fuse helping illuminate the way. He heard cries of alarm and a frantic crawling from the convicts.
Then the light went out with a smothering hiss. 'I got it!' Someone had extinguished the thing.
'Damn!' Tucker reversed course and hurriedly crawled back, seeing the dim shape of someone backing up the tunnel. He caught up with the bomb snatcher just as the other man was about to wriggle out, and grabbed.
There was a grunt of pain and a curse. Jago, Rugard's guard! The man stank from the smoke of the burning cabin roof. The convict and Tucker grappled awkwardly in the tight space, the others clustered outside the tunnel entrance. 'He's got me!' Jago shouted. 'Get me the hell out of here!' Tucker was punching, clawing, butting, trying to get the bomb back. It was like a struggle for a football. Hands were reaching in, clutching at them both, and he felt the two of them being inexorably hauled out of the tunnel. Jago was cutting him, he realized- a knife, he supposed- and he chopped at the man's throat, stopping the irritation. The bomb came loose and Tucker clutched it to his own breast. Men were starting to pummel his body as they pulled him out toward the open.
The match. Broken, but he could feel the piece with the head in his pocket.
The mob was howling, yanking them like a cork from a bottle, whooping at the opportunity for revenge. Tucker felt Jago being jerked away from him and then hands dragging, punching, tearing. Their screams of frustration filled his ears, the anger hitting him harder than the pain. He lit his match and pressed it to the fuse. Please, let me succeed at something just once, he prayed.
Just once.
He felt a curious lightness as they beat him. The future had disappeared, and with it the weight of the past. Here in the eroded cluster of sculpted rock, carved by unimaginable eons of time, he was at the cumulative instant he was supposed to be at, he recognized. All his life had come down to this. So when the fuse flared and screams erupted and hands clutched frantically at the bomb, he felt a curious serenity. Tucker had found his why.
Then the bomb went off.
The quartet of fleeing adventurers heard the boom of the explosion as they ran out into the broad desert, the horizon flush with the coming sun. The thudding roar echoed and reechoed among the labyrinth of canyons, sending startled birds flying prematurely up and into the morning air.
They stopped and turned. There was a groan of collapsing rock and a following rumble, as if stones were sliding down to seal the defile more completely. 'It worked,' Amaya said quietly, as if she'd never really been convinced the ancient formula could be quite so simple. 'It exploded.'
