ached with his unshed tears.
“We’re not finished yet,” I said. “Come on back.”
There was a silence in the drift that sounded sudden. Nowhere could we hear Tom. Not a stone grated against another stone. Not a cry nor a mumbled word. Remy and I exchanged troubled looks as we neared the jagged heap of broken reek.
“Do you suppose he had a heart attack?” Remy hurried ahead of me, edging past the rockfall.
“Remy!” I gasped. “Oh, Remy, come back!” I had Sensed ahead of him and gulped danger like a massive swallow of fire. “Remy!” But it was too late. I heard him cry out and the sudden triumphant roar of Tom’s voice. “Gotcha!”
I pressed myself against the far side of the drift away from the narrow passageway and listened.
“Hey, Tom!” Remy’s voice was carefully unworried.
“What you got that cannon for? Looks big enough from this end for me to crawl in.”
“‘Tain’t not a cannon,” said Tom. “It’s a shotgun my son gave me to guard the ship so’st you couldn’t kill him and keep the ship from taking off. Now you’ve killed him anyway, but that’s not going to stop us.”
“I didn’t kill.-“
“Don’t lie to me!” The snarling fury in Tom’s voice scared me limp-legged. “He’s dead. I uncovered his hand-my son’s dead! And you did it! You pushed all that stuff down on him to try to hide your crime, but murder will out. You killed my son!”
“Tom, Tom,” Remy’s voice was coaxing. “I’m Remy, remember? You showed me where your son lay. Remember the little flag-“
“The little flag-” Tom’s voice was triumphant. “Sure, the little flag. He was going to put it on the moon. So you killed him. But now you’re going to put it on the moon-or die in the attempt.” He laughed. It sounded like two stones being rapped together. “Or die in the attempt! Get going!”
“But, Tom-there’s no fuel!” protested Remy.
“You got what was in the tank room, didn’t you?” demanded Tom. “Well, then, get to flying. My son said it would go. It’ll go!”
And I heard their footsteps die off down the drift and Remy’s distress came back to me like a scarlet banner.
“Shadow! Shadow!”
I don’t remember racing back to the ladder or opening the trapdoor or leaving the shack. My first consciousness of where I was came as I streaked over the ridge, headed for home. The stars-when had night come? the treetops, the curves of the hills all lengthened themselves into flat ribbons of speed behind me. I didn’t remember to activate my shield until my eyes were blinded with tears.
I hit the front porch so fast that I stumbled and fell and was brought up sharp with a rolling crash against the front door. Before I could get myself untangled, Mother and Father were there and Mother was checking me to see if I was hurt.
“I’m all right,” I gasped. “But Remy-Remy!”
“Shadow, Shadow-” Father gathered me up, big as I am, and carried me into the house and put me down on the couch. “Shadow, clear yourself before you try to begin. It’ll save time.” And I forced myself to lie back quietly, though my tears ran hotly down into both my ears-and let all the wild urgency and fear and distress drain out of my mind. Then, as we held each others’ hands, our three minds met in the wordless communication of The People.
Thoughts are so much faster than words and I poured out all the details in a wild rush-now and then feeling the guidance of my father leading me back to amplify or make clear some point I’d skidded by too fast.
“And now he’s there with a madman pointing a shotgun at him and he can’t do a thing-or maybe he’s already dead-“
“Can we handle him?” Father had turned to Mother.
“Yes,” she whispered whitely. “If we can get there in time.”
Again the meteoric streaking across the dark hills. And Mother’s reaching out ahead, trying to find Tom- reaching, reaching. After an eternity, we swung around the shoulder of a hill and there was the Selkirk-but different! Oh, different!
A shiny, needlesharp nose was towering above the shack, the broken rock and shale had been shed off on all sides like silt around an ant hole. And the ship! The ship was straining toward the stars! Even as we watched, the nose wavered and circled a wobbly little circle and settled back again, out of sight in the shadows.
“Remy’s trying to lift it!” I cried. “A thing that size! He’ll never make it-And then Tom-“
We watched the feeble struggle as the nose of the ship emerged again from the shaft not so far this time-much more briefly. It settled back with an audible crash and Mother caught her breath. “There!” she breathed, clasping her hands. “There!” Slowly she drifted down toward the shack, holding firmly whatever it was that she had caught. Father and I streaked to the shack and down the ladder. We rushed along the drift, past the huddle of rocks, and into the shaft. It took Father a fumbling eternity to find how to get into the ship. And there we found them both- Tom sprawled across his gun, his closed eyes sunken, his face a death mask of itself. And Remy-Remy was struggling to a sitting position, his hand pushing against the useless box from the tank room. He smiled a wavery smile and said in a dazed voice, “I have a little Shadow That goes in and out with me-And what can be the use of her-I see, I see, I see.-“
Then he was held tight in Father’s arms and I turned my tears away only to be gathered into Mother’s arms. And Tom slept peacefully the quiet sleep Mother had given him as we had a family-type wallow in tears and sobs and murmurs and exasperated shakings and all sorts of excited explanations and regrets.
It was a much more solemn conclave back at the house later on. Tom was still sleeping, but in our back bedroom now. I think Mother was afraid to waken him for fear the shock of opening his eyes on Earth might kill him.
